Counting

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."   Albert Einstein
 
"Religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building"  Bono
 
Both of the above quotes were attributed to the authors in "A is for Abductive." They verbalize to of my things that have been bothering me lately.

Linear Leadership, Promiscuous Practice

Okay, first, let me say that I use promiscuous in the "pro-mix" sense in the title of this post and do not intend to imply anything that has to do with sexual behavior. Please consult a dictionary if you are confused. It is just hard to come up with a word that starts with "P" that fits.

Leadership is becoming less and less linear. Instead it is much more interactive, chaotic, disjointed, etc. This creates problems because it isn't as easy to clarify or visualize as linear leadership has been. People like the simplicity and focus that comes with linear leadership.

Interestingly, though people like linear thinking, they are often non-linear in practice. That's because life in general is much more chaotic and as long as we don't have to think about it too much we can get more done, be more effective and more efficient if we are non-linear.

I was thinking about this after talking with my wife about how we run errands. The gas prices have turned us into the energy conscious beings we should have been all a long. We discovered that we were quite linear in our thinking as we ran household errands. We would take care of each item as they came up during the week. Now we plan differently. We multi-task as much as possible and I think it is safe to say that a typical run to the city is much more chaotic. I know that this isn't exactly what I mean be being non-linear but it is close.

So how do we get people in our denomination to accept non-linear leadership? I think that most of those who have trouble with this are those who are older or those who have grown up in households with strong lnear leadership. This group has a hard time seeing what non-linear leadership looks like and how it will ever be able to function. They prefer linear leadership even if it is not as comprehensive as non-linear leadership would be.

I have a hard time answering this question. I want to appeal to their practice since I believe that they do often function in non-linear ways but I'm not sure if they would see it that way.

P.S. I'm not going to use the words linear and non-linear for a long time now.

Pound for Pound and Growth

So if a church decides that a certain weight class (size) is optimum for them does that mean that they don't evangelize? No! I believe that evangelism is part of what a church is all about and that will never change. So maybe this is how it works.

A boxer must train hard to be in his best condition. For many that means shedding the fat. In the case of a church it must work hard to constantly build muscle and shed fat. Now the metaphor breaks down here in that to a boxer fat is a bad thing. But in the sense I want to use it fat is something that is very useful but not really needed by the body. It must be sent out to find its place of ministry.

Many rural churches already know about this. The have experienced a large number of people who have been nurtured in their churches and then moved on to greater oportunity. That is why it is often difficutl to determine the health of these churches. They may have maintained the same attendance for the last 100 years but during that time they may have nurtured and sent out thousands.

Developing this metaphor is in process for me right now so it could easily lead to wrong conclusions. I guess the key things from this post is that churches must work hard at evangelism even if they have targeted a certain size. In fact they possible have to work harder because of the added demand of sending people out.

Mission Work Trips as Theological Education

We are getting ready to start looking at another mission trip. We hope to do something a little more challenging this time. Something that will really stretch us.

As I was thinking about this I once again wondered about the value of these short term mission trips. As I thought about it I came to the conclusion that the number one purpose for us is the theological education of the participants. Surprised?

I think one of the most significant things that happens on a mission trip is that the participants are exposed to who they are in the story of the Kingdom. We find out we are not as important as we think we are. We also discover we are not as good at being Christian as we think we are. These are just two of many points of theology that we learn in a way that we just can't match anywhere else.

I wonder if there is any information on how to orient a mission work crew for these theological lessons?

Back to the Pound for Pound Metaphor

One of the key decisions a boxer has to make is what weight division is best for him. It seems to me that he is limited by his frame. Adding too much bulk to a frame that wasn't made for it causes problems.

Determining where a church fits has similar struggles. Factors that would determine a churches ideal size would consider such things as location, personality, abilities, etc. I think this is something that it is important for a church to think through but I don't think they do. The goal seems to be to always become a heavy weight.

Part of the problem is that churches aren't very good at staying in their "weight class". In order to "make weight" churches need to send some of their members out for ministry. This could include starting a new church, helping a struggling church or working in missions. But it is hard. We tend to want to keep everyone even if it is unhealthy for us.

How Will Leadership Function in the Future

I was asked this by a friend the other day and it is a frustrating question because I find difficulty in articulating what I see. I must also say that there are many who will totally disagree with what I say but I'm okay with that.

First, I want to say that I think the level of dysfunction in our current leadership models are drastically under sold. I think that the reality is that leadership has been able to do just enough positive things to make people believe that we actually do have leadership. But vast areas of the organization remain unaffected by leadership.

So what would I like to see in the future? I've been trying to think of this in very basic and practical terms so I'll try to give an example of how I see things now and where I would like to see them go in the future.



Now
Currently we have a leader who either by himself or with a team starts looking at what the purpose is of our organization. They then decide on goals that they believe, if reached, will allow us to fulfill our purpose. Once they have goals they develop strategies that will help the organization reach those goals. Then they try to implement those strategies, hold people accountable in regards to those strategies, evaluate progress, make changes when necessary and generally manage the plan.

This is very much a top down approach which makes sense because we usually try to choose our best and our brightest to be in leadership. It also seems to be very logical. It makes sense and seems workable. And yet we often get frustrated because it only seems to work for a select few within the organization and large numbers remain unaffected by this leadership strategy.

Future
I think leadership needs to look very different in the future. We will probably have a general overall purpose but specific "sub"-purposes will vary. Strategies will develop out of relationship and conversation. Future leaders will take advantage of technology to build relationships and maintain conversation with people across the organization.

Here's how a strategy might develop. While in conversation with people across the organization he shares his passion about what he believes needs to be done. At the same time he listens to the hearts of those across the organization. There is a high degree of "seed planting" going both ways. The leaders then nurtures, encourages, networks, resources, etc. those passions.

For a practical example lets say that the leader is in conversation with a church and the conversation reveals a passion to plant another church. This passion may have originated from a "seed" the leader planted or it may have originated on its own. Because of his position the leader may be aware of another church or churches that have a similar passion so he suggests a partnership. Then perhaps those churches would go on to form an affinity group designed to plant a church in a particular area. The leader may also suggest other organizations that could provide training or other resources. He would also be in regular contact simply to show support and encouragement.



I hope this made some sense in terms of what I would like to see in the future. I still find it a little difficult to articulate and I know that this sounds extremely simplistic. But I think that the future approach needs to affect a much larger portion of the organization. It also needs to have a greater bottom-up or grass-roots feel to it. Two of the keys will be relationship and conversation.