It Takes A Church...

Leading the Change Process

Priming the pump to jump back into my Pastors as "Chief Learning Officer" conversation...a help article from the Alban Institute The Alban Institute - 2009-06-22 How Will We Know?

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Why Learning is Harder in the Google Age.

Right when I am beginning a new series of posts on Church Leaders as “Chief Learning Officers” of Learning Communities, I read something that may stimulate more “Blogger’s Block.” Yesterday, I read an article on the internet, that I found on a comment somebody made on Facebook.  According to the article, just reading it may have made me stupider. 

In an Atlantic Monthly article from the summer of 2008 titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that while the power and convenience of the internet for research (including finding year-old articles like this one) is truly a world-altering technological advance, it doesn’t come without a cost.  Technology changes the way our brains work.  After awhile of reading online, we start to read differently.  We “skim” constantly; we “bounce” regularly.  We can’t follow complex arguments as deeply.  We “decode” instead of “interpret”. We prefer the pithy over the complex, the novel over the meaningful (and this article didn’t have anything to say about “Twitter”, which even a year ago wasn’t all that big and is, at least momentarily, the next huge thing: “Oprah Tweets!”…or is it?).

While there is much to consider, discuss and ponder here, according to Carr, if we read this online (even at this blog) we likely won’t.  We may bookmark, but we rarely come back to it.  We may comment on it, but we won’t contemplate it.  Let me pull just one thought out of the article and ask you to try to stay with this one a bit…

"In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed."

In my last post, I wrote of the “blessing of blogger’s block”, of spending the better part of three months without putting up a post, because I was well, locked in the “fuzziness of contemplation.” For me, that fuzziness was exactly what I needed, that ambiguity was exactly where I needed to stay and both are what I want to encourage more leaders to embrace as they think of themselves as Chief Learning Officers of a Learning Community.

As I think about my leadership contexts, it is becoming increasingly clear that most of the challenges that we face today in the church are not matters of finding “best practices.”  (A topic I’ll take up in another post.) 

We face issues and opportunities, threats and prospects that require us to move beyond what we know, produce, and program, find quickly, skim briefly, and launch rapidly to the kinds of “adaptive shifts” that require us to think deeply, consider complexity, converse repeatedly, and implement wisely.  In other words, most of what we need to learn to face the challenges of a rapidly changing world, will require us to think slowly and learn differently. (Which, usually means, slowly.  As one person told me, “You only learn as fast as you learn.) 

And it seems that our technology is beginning to train this crucial learning skill out of us. 

Those who know me well, know that I am not a Luddite.  I truly appreciate technology. I spent an hour with my mother trying to teach her Facebook so she could keep up with her grandkids. 

But one of the ironies of even this post, is that it may be contributing the very thing that keeps us from becoming the leaders our increasingly complex world needs.

The Blessing of Blogger's Block

A quick glance back at the date of my last post will let the reader know that I have been suffering a bit from “blogger’s block” for a while now.  Not that I haven’t had any thing to write.  Since I last blogged I have written a dozen sermons, hundreds of emails, the prep work for a Leadership Open Space Gathering, and several revisions of our Presbytery’s proposed Vision for Mission Design.  It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, it’s just that I found myself stuck about what to say next in this series that has captured my blogging attention since early in the fall.  And attending to, instead of resisting that “stuckness” finally led me to understand something about myself and my role as a pastor and leader that I had been silently resisting.

So, with apologies to anyone who actually missed this blog while I was working it out, I think I may be on to something.  To recap, back to where I was….

A year ago I read a book by Rod Beckstrom and Ori Brafman called “The Starfish and the Spider” that challenged me to start thinking about the way in which organizational design can limit organizational effectiveness.  I was challenged and fascinated by their insights.  Further, while they never mentioned the early church as an example, it was clear to me that if they had looked at the New Testament, there would have been ample reason to include the first century church as evidence of the success of an organization of circles and shared values. 

At the same time, I was working with a team of people from Los Ranchos Presbytery on a reworking of our Vision for Mission Design.  The Odyssey Group, as it was called, was working out a shift in our presbytery from being primarily a “regulatory body” to a “missional learning community.”

Meanwhile, at the church where I serve as Senior Pastor, we have been in the middle of a reconfiguration of our church leadership culture from a “pastor-centric” to “collaborative” model.  This process had started in earnest in June 2007 when I had invited in Kevin Ford of TAG to consult with us based on the concepts of his book, The Transforming Church.

At the center of all of this discussion was an ongoing to and fro around roles and responsibilities.  Especially leadership roles and responsibilities.  Most specifically the Pastoral roles and responsibilities.  (And notice the plural in roles.)

I was using my blog to reflect upon the insights of Beckstrom and Brafman and had written a dozen or so posts on a roughly once a week basis when I got stuck trying to work out the last piece on the roles of a pastor. 

In my last post I had written about pastors as catalysts, but even more than that, pastors had to be champions.  Something that I truly believe.  Indeed I need to finish this thought because I believe that it is as a “champion” to a community filled with catalysts and connected people that a pastor finds the kind of fulfillment and energy that makes a .  (And I will get to this shortly…)

But…this is where I got blocked.  Other thoughts kept running around in my head.  Thoughts about staffing a church team, about the roles of pastors and lay leaders together, about who gets paid in a church system and why, and how in an organization of “circles and shared values” there is a crucial “adaptive shift” that must take place that is so difficult for most communities of faith to do that they never make it.  Thoughts that led to questions that I couldn't answer and even worse, questions that led to more questions.

Every time I wanted to hold up the role of Champion as the main role for a pastor in a “catalytic and connected community”, I kept feeling this, “yeah, but…” sticking like a sliver in my mind. And after just sticking with the unanswered questions and continually raising them in different circles, I stumbled on an insight that has been staring me in the face all along.  Even more than being a Champion of Christian catalysts and their ideas, Pastors especially had an even more important function in a community that is so wedded to who they are as pastors and leaders that it has been overlooked.

The primary role of pastors in a church community, the role that we are most equipped for, most eager to do...
the role that probably got us into this in the first place and the role that we probably left behind somewhere along the way as we became more experienced and successful...
the role that if we could recapture it and if our church’s would let us live it out would keep us pastoring longer...
The role that many, many churches are just to fearful to let their pastors pursue is that of…

Learner.

This is what I needed to figure out how to say.  Pastors are not primarily Chaplains or CEOs, and only secondarily Catalysts and Champions.  We are, are at least we once were, Learners, students, disciples.  And as we reconnect to and live out that primary calling as learners we best serve our churches. 

Further, if we are recast as the CLO of an organization (the Chief LEARNING Officer) we guide our churches into the organizational shift that is most necessary if our churches are going to remain vital in a changing world.  This shift has been at the heart of the redesign of our Presbytery, the restructuring of our church and the renaissance of my calling as a pastor. 

It’s the shift from an “Expert-Centered Organization” to a “Learning Community”.  (Which will be my next series of posts after I put up the "Champion" piece.)

For me, the blessing of blogger’s block was reconnecting to the part of me that was resisting becoming the “Starfish and the Spider” expert.  Even blogging has a tone of “I know this and need to share it”.  I was struggling with writing about something that wasn’t fully formed in my mind.  About writing about what I was learning, what was changing, and how I was shifting.  And that led to me being “blocked”.

When people asked me when I was going to post again, I went from feeling irresponsible to finally feeling free.  And all it took was for me to honestly answer, “I don’t know.”  I didn’t know when I was going to post again, because I didn’t know when I was going to figure out what I needed to figure out.  And once I embraced that ‘ignorance’, ‘insight’ followed.

Because I am at my best when I admit what I don't know.  Being a learner is what eventually led me to be a pastor. Being a committed passionate learner is what led me, paradoxically, to become a leader.  When I am leading from my ignorance, (instead of my expertise), I am ironically leading best.

In the upcoming posts, I’ll explore this notion of being the CLO of a Learning Community as the heart of leadership for a changing world (and especially at the heart of pastoral leadership in a changing world.)

But for today, I just want to give thanks for a blessed and fruitful blogger’s block.

Starfish and the Spider #11: Chaplain? CEO? Or Something else? Hybrid-Starfish Leadership

For many years, the ideal of a pastoral leader was a “Chaplain”. A pastoral care-giver, who prayed, taught the scriptures and administered rites of passages.  Churches built sanctuary’s and chapels in the middle of town.  In a Christendom world where the purpose of the church was to be “religious service providers”, being a chaplain was an important and necessary role.

As culture began to change, the church took on the role of meeting the felt needs of people who had left behind or looked beyond the church and faith.  The church became “life services providers” offering healthy recreational opportunities for kids, marriage enrichment classes, groups for support and social needs.  Downtown churches sold their chapels and sanctuaries, moved to the suburbs and built “campuses” with gymnasiums and coffee shops and bookstores.  This rich amalgam of services needed leaders who were not only preachers and pastors, but administrators and fundraisers.  The Chaplain gave way to the CEO.

But if the world is shifting again and the decentralized network is once again (See The Acts of the Apostles for an early version of this model!) the most effective means for being a witness for fulfilling a mission statement, than a new type of leader is necessary. 

And this, of course, is where the subtitle of Brafman and Beckstrom’s The Starfish and the Spider is terribly misleading.  No matter what the cover says, a hybrid-starfish network is certainly not a “Leaderless Organization”.  And even the authors admit as much:

“Managing a decentralized network requires someone who can be a cross between an architect, a cheerleader, and an awestruck observer…At their best catalysts connect people and maintain the drumbeat of the ideology.” (p. 207)

In the last post, I discussed the importance of “shared values”, what Brafman and Beckstrom call here the “drumbeat of the ideology.”  This responsibility cannot be overstated in a decentralized organization.  If Leaders do nothing else, they must protect, preserve and promote the shared values of the organization.  If this “intelligence” is lost, the organization dies. 

However, there is more to decentralized leadership than being a “custodian of values.”  And in a healthy “hybrid-starfish” it actually takes two types of leaders.   Sometimes they are found in the same person, often they are not.  But the partnership between “Catalysts” and “Champions” is the key to an effective “hybrid-starfish organization.”

In the words of the authors, “Catalysts Rule.”   Catalysts are those who inspire new ideas,  (“A catalyst develops an idea, shares it with others and leads by example.” p. 94) connect people, form circles, (“Circles don’t form on their own.” p. 93) and then usually fade into the background.  (Mary Poppins is a catalyst.)  She changes the family that enters and then flies away.  Catalysts are restless, contagious, curious souls who see possibilities within possibilities  generates ideas, leads by example, gives away the ministry and fades into the background eventually. 

But as important as a Catalyst is, even they need a “Champion.”  While Catalysts are visionaries, Champions are implementers. Champions take the ideas and vision of the Catalysts and make it stick, they “sell” the vision, they insure its survival and they usually stick around (Think Maria Von Trapp instead of Mary Poppins). While Catalysts are natural connectors, Champions are natural promoters. (“A champion is relentless in promoting a new idea.  Catalysts are charismatic, but champions take it to the next level.” p. 99.)

Together they create the leadership center for the ultimate goal in a decentralized system: Networks of healthy, engaging, growing, mutating circles of shared values.

Now here is the most important thing: neither Catalysts nor Champions are CEOs.  They don’t fill the roles they fill because of position, power, prestige, but because of personality, passion, and purpose. They are not necessarily the people at the top, in fact, they’d prefer if there wasn’t a top.  But make no mistake, if there is a healthy network, it is usually the work of a catalyst and champion. 

So what is pastor to be?
Chaplain?  Yes, at times.  We add value to the network with our particular skills and training.  When people need us to be a preacher, teacher, care-giver or convener of rituals and services, we offer them.  CEO?   Yes, At least in a few of the roles. But less than we used to be.  In a truly HYBRID-starfish organization, that is both strong and healthy there will always be some need for fiduciary responsibility,  administrative savvy strategic initiative, generative thinking and a public face for the organization.   Catalyst?  Again, yes.  Serving as “architects,” “cheerleaders”
 and “awestruck observers” connecting people and maintaining the drumbeat of ideology.”  But I believe that the very best Catalysts in a healthy organization are visionary lay leadership that arises from the ground up. 

I contend that for the health of the organization, a pastor has to function most often as a Champion.  When the pastor functions as a champion, the catalysts emerge.  The organization becomes “catalytic”, the whole environment nurtures creativity and innovation, while resolutely reinforcing the SHARED vision and values.

Being a Champion Leader is where I will pick up this series next post.

Starfish and the Spider #10: Really, Really Important Rule #8

Recently, the Emergent Network accepted the resignation from their National Director and announced that they would not be filling the position.  In a thoughtful, interesting move that has inspired considerable conversation about the future of the whole “emergent” concept, Brian McClaren makes this interesting comment that gets to the heart of the “organizational” conversation: "We know how to run traditional organizations. We don't know how to run networks. [But we know] there's a place for leadership in networks."

So, what is the place of leadership in networks?  

I believe that this is the single question that must be answered in order for organizations, especially organizations like churches that have had a long history of centralized leadership, to become more decentralized and “starfish-like”. 

In Brafman and Beckstrom’s book, The Starfish and the Spider, they highlight what they call “Rule #8”.  Or what I have called “Really, Really Important Rule #8”: 

“Shared values ARE the organization.” 

In a Starfish organization, the shared values or “ideology” is the “fuel” of the organization.  When the shared values change, the organization changes.  In fact, the only way to change a Starfish organization (for better or worse) is to instill new values.  And that “ideology-instillation” work cannot be underestimated.  (Indeed Brafman and Beckstrom see this as the primary missing ingredient on the war on terror and they have even been asked to consult with the US military on it.)

Instilling and protecting the shared values, “ideology,” “DNA,” or “intelligence” in every cell is the primary work of leadership in a network.  And nowhere is this more crucial than in the work of the mission of Christ in an increasingly diverse, de-centralized, “flat” world.  (Indeed “Rule #10” is “flatten or be flattened”. In other words, this just may be a matter of organizational survival for the church as we know it.)

If churches are going to become “hybrid-combo” organizations that effectively carry out the mission of the Kingdom of heaven, then the primary work of leadership is shared values-work. 

While this certainly includes lots of communication (what Brafman and Beckstrom call "maintaining the drumbeat of the ideology"),
it is also about education, (teaching the values)
inspiring mutual discipline and accountability (keeping the values) and
wise collaborative discernment (determining when missional effectiveness requires change. As Collins and Porras have written in Built to Last, the first task of leadership is determining “what will NEVER change” and then being willing to change EVERYTHING else.)

Now, in an institutional model with a highly centralized leadership, one can argue that shared values can be “enforced” through power, position or other incentives.  But a decentralized network requires VOLUNTARY submission to shared values.  Indeed, the values must truly be “shared.” And the work of leadership in a network is about cultivating the healthy environment for those shared values to guide all creative, energetic, decentralized endeavors.

In the scriptures, we see this “Rule #8” concept put forth by Paul in some of the strongest language of the New Testament. 

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

What we are calling “shared values”, Paul terms as the “same mind”.  And that “same mind” is more than thinking the same way, but also about common cause, common care and a shared commitment to look out for the others.  Paul continues:

 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:1-2, NRSV)

Creating a network that fulfills these verses is certainly leadership challenge enough.  Keeping decentralized cells working in collaboration for a greater mission and keeping one cell from “eating” another and destroying the body cancer-like is a huge task in any organization. 

But that is not all that “Starfish leaders” must do.  Which is where we will pick this up next post.

The Answer to Consumeristic Christianity? You'll be surprised.

"The problem with implicitly salesy evangelism is bad theology, not bad technique, and it requires more than a simple change in method. If you feel like a used-car salesman talking about Jesus, the solution to the perceived lack of authenticity isn't a smoother pitch—it's a renewal of the church. The potency of personal evangelism is, as it has always been, the simple and earnest retelling of what God has done in the lives of his people. Of course, this requires a community to back up our claims."

See the whole article "Jesus is Not a Brand" by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson

When Jim Buys Pam His Parents' House

In a recent episode of The Office, Jim, recently engaged to Pam, took a leap and bought his parents’ house.  He doesn’t ask Pam’s opinion, doesn’t even tell her about it.  He just buys it for her as a wedding gift.

By the time he is taking her through the house, the look on his face reveals that he thinks he may have made a mistake.  The ugly reg shag carpeting, the picture of a clown that is superglued to the wall, even the thought of his parents’ bedroom (“I’m not allowed to go in there,” the new “homeowner” says), are all kind of sad, even creepy. 

You can almost see it playing out in his mind, “Why would she like this old house?  She probably wants a new one.  She wants HER OWN house…”  But finally, when Pam sees that Jim has already begun to organize the garage into an art studio for her, she bursts out into a smile.  “You bought me a house!” she exclaims and they hug each other and it is wonderful. 

Pam sees the gift as an expression of love and the sense of humor they share.  They see the potential and enjoy thought of making it their own.

It’s old, out of date and filled with memories that are a bit too much to even consider actually… But it is theirs.   And it also a bit sweet and a symbol of love, history and yes, a family.  So Jim and Pam will make this old house their home through lots of love, hard work and plenty of funny, awkward moments.  (What will they do with that clown picture?)

In many ways, this is the way that I see my life work.  Renovating an old, out of date house into a home for a new generation.  That is why I work in a denominational church and that is why, while I am so interested in the things that are “emerging” and “organic” and “post-whatever”, I am still firmly situated in a mainline church.

I am a renovator more than I am a builder.  I love the old bones, the memories and even the awkward clown pictures on the wall.  I love the old stories that cause you to laugh out loud even when they are sooo awkward and I love the sense of history in a “place” and the way that often, below the red shag carpet and under the layers of silver wallpaper are hardwood floors that just need some elbow grease to be beautiful again and carpentry that speaks of a craftsmanship from another time.

This is also why for the past several weeks, I have been offering a series of posts inspired by the book, The Starfish and the Spider.  In it, I see the possibilities of an organizational structure that could help old, out of date churches return to the “bones” and “hardwood floor” of an earlier era.  I see a way of being the church that can create a new “home” out of an old house.

When I read the book, I was immediately taken by the similarities between the early church and the “hybrid-combo” organizational structure that the authors commend.  What has been interesting to me has been that, aside from Alan Hirsch's recommendation, there have been otherwise so little conversation about this book in church circles   (Though there have been some good ones that I have highlighted along the way).  Indeed, in an increasingly “flat” and “decentralized” world it is probably a matter of organizational survival (whether we should even care about that, is, of course, a whole other topic to consider!).

Most creative types would rather start from scratch.  Renovating an old house with red shag carpet and a clown picture on the wall is not nearly as fun as a brand new house or a plot of land and your dreams in your head. 

But it is how old houses become the homes for the next generation.

In the year ahead, I will increasingly use “It Takes a Church” to discuss leadership and church life.  Less theory and more practices.  Less visioning and more deliberate action steps.  Less dreaming and arguing and more elbow grease.   What are the things that actually transform the lives of people, and the life of the church that is Christ's body?

And I’ll do so by returning to my series on the Starfish and the Spider and getting to perhaps the most important points, starting with this one: What does a “head” of a starfish actually do?

A Child is Born

And the rafters of toil are still gilded
With the dawn of the stars of the heart,
And the wise men draw near in the twilight,
Who are weary of learning their art,
And the face of the tyrant is darkened,
His Spirit is torn,
For a new king is enthroned; yea the sternest
A child is born.

And the mother still joys for the whispered
First stir of unspeakable things,
Still feels that high moment unfurling
Red glory of Gabriel's wings.
Still the babe of an hour is a master
Whom angels adorn
Emmanuel, prophet, anointed,
A child is born.

G. K. Chesterton

Homeless and at Home

A child in a foul stable,
where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where he was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost--how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wive's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder or our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden,
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

G.K. Chesterton   

Christmas Eve

O How Great that Manger was

O how great that manger was
To confine all of infinity
O how great that baby’s skin
to encompass all divinity

O how clean that soiled wood!
O how pure that human flesh!
For there we find the Trinity
(Omnipotence brought near for thee.)

Tod Bolsinger