This article is an edit of something I recently wrote about that. What do you think? What would you add or subtract?
The church is being pushed more and more to the margins of society. It no longer assumes a role as the arbitrator of societal values and regulator of cultural norms. Though many lament the loss of close relationships with cultural structures, a return to the past is not possible.
Just as the children of Israel had the options to search for the old paths during its Babylonian exile or to look forward to a new and different future, so the church is confronted with the same options. It is this massive cultural shift and unstable social realities that demand a new role for the God’s people. They have huge implications for our ministry.
Walter Brueggemann describes our time as one in which an old imagined world is lost, although still powerfully cherished. It is a time of bewilderment and fear because there’s no clear understanding of how to order our common imagination differently or better. He says:
I believe we are in a season of transition, when we are watching the collapse of the world as we have known it . . . the value systems and the shapes of knowledge through which we have controlled life are now in great jeopardy. One can paint the picture in very large scope, but the issues do not present themselves to pastors as global issues. They appear as local, even personal, issues, but they are nonetheless pieces of a very large picture. When the fear and anger are immediate and acute, we do not stop to notice how much of our own crisis is a part of the larger one, but it is. [Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 45-46.]
Brueggemann describes this transition as a troubling place to dwell, but it is exactly where we must dwell. There is no other time or place to which God has called us to live but this one.
Mary Jo Leddy describes it as a period when the great tapestry of religious life woven in Western Culture over several hundred years has unravelled and lies in tatters on the floor of our culture. She explains:
We are living through one of those historical in-between times when a former model of religious life (either traditional or liberal) is fading away and a future model has not yet become clear. One could be tempted to flee from the dilemmas of this moment to some more secure past, to the surface of the present, or to some arbitrary resolution of the future. These are real temptations and they can be met only with the faith that this is our hour, our kairos [Greek for “season” or “time”]. This is the only time and place we are called to become followers of Jesus Christ; there is no better time or place for us to live out the mysteries of creation, incarnation, and redemption. These are our times and, in the end, God’s time. [Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving the Religious Life (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990), 3.]
This is our time. It is not a place for simplistic, dualistic, us-versus-them thinking. We have not left modernity behind, but we are in a place that seems so unlike the ethos, experiences, values, and attitudes of the last half of the twentieth century. The generations that led in that era are passing, but there are still many “emerging-age” leaders who work with all the skills, frameworks, and success of that passing time. The generations that might cultivate a new kind of future church are probably not even born yet. How will we respond as leaders to this challenge?
When we are planning a vacation, constructing a building, designing a program, organizing a sermon series, or planning a field trip to another country, then the framework of the past is a good way to proceed.
But when facing discontinuous change, it fails to address what is happening and, therefore, fails to innovate the emergent actions required. It is a process that assumes we are still in a stable environment that allows for rational control and prediction. It is based on the belief that we can, as we did for most of the twentieth century, define, determine, and design the preferred future we want and then align all the elements of our world—congregations, resources, money, people—to get where we want to go.
The problem is that it leaves leadership imagination unaltered. The environment is still treated as if it were a static, manageable plain rather than the turbulent, unchartable waters it is. A turbulent environment is not a knowable environment—we lose control and predictability in the midst of discontinuity and transition. This future is not predictable; it can only be discovered along the way. Therefore, leaders who want to cultivate church communities in transition must set aside goal-setting and strategic planning as their primary model.
Brueggemann describes this transition as a troubling place to dwell, but it is exactly where we must dwell. There is no other time or place to which God has called us to live but this one.
Mary Jo Leddy describes it as a period when the great tapestry of religious life woven in Western Culture over several hundred years has unravelled and lies in tatters on the floor of our culture. She explains:
We are living through one of those historical in-between times when a former model of religious life (either traditional or liberal) is fading away and a future model has not yet become clear. One could be tempted to flee from the dilemmas of this moment to some more secure past, to the surface of the present, or to some arbitrary resolution of the future. These are real temptations and they can be met only with the faith that this is our hour, our kairos [Greek for “season” or “time”]. This is the only time and place we are called to become followers of Jesus Christ; there is no better time or place for us to live out the mysteries of creation, incarnation, and redemption. These are our times and, in the end, God’s time. [Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving the Religious Life (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990), 3.]
This is our time. It is not a place for simplistic, dualistic, us-versus-them thinking. We have not left modernity behind, but we are in a place that seems so unlike the ethos, experiences, values, and attitudes of the last half of the twentieth century. The generations that led in that era are passing, but there are still many “emerging-age” leaders who work with all the skills, frameworks, and success of that passing time. The generations that might cultivate a new kind of future church are probably not even born yet. How will we respond as leaders to this challenge?
When we are planning a vacation, constructing a building, designing a program, organizing a sermon series, or planning a field trip to another country, then the framework of the past is a good way to proceed.
But when facing discontinuous change, it fails to address what is happening and, therefore, fails to innovate the emergent actions required. It is a process that assumes we are still in a stable environment that allows for rational control and prediction. It is based on the belief that we can, as we did for most of the twentieth century, define, determine, and design the preferred future we want and then align all the elements of our world—congregations, resources, money, people—to get where we want to go.
The problem is that it leaves leadership imagination unaltered. The environment is still treated as if it were a static, manageable plain rather than the turbulent, unchartable waters it is. A turbulent environment is not a knowable environment—we lose control and predictability in the midst of discontinuity and transition. This future is not predictable; it can only be discovered along the way. Therefore, leaders who want to cultivate church communities in transition must set aside goal-setting and strategic planning as their primary model.
Leadership in this context is not about forecasting, but about the formation of networks of discourse among people. It’s about the capacity to engage the realities of people’s lives and contexts in dialogue with Scripture. It is about building new connections. The Spirit of God will be in the midst of such dialogues, forming new patterns of communication, relationship, and action as God’s people. But it can’t be predicted and controlled from this side; the future emerges as people live in the ambiguities of transition.
The shift in frameworks, skills, capacities, and habits required of leaders isn’t easy, nor will the road be smooth. People are complicated and organizations are complex. People’s emotional, inner, non-rational responses play a large role in the transition process. One can’t apply change strategies like programs or templates laid over a congregation.
Leadership in transition requires adaptive skills that innovate participative dialogue. Such leadership understands change as primarily an emerging process rather than carefully planned movements towards a predefined, preferable future.
Leadership in transition requires adaptive skills that innovate participative dialogue. Such leadership understands change as primarily an emerging process rather than carefully planned movements towards a predefined, preferable future.
Emergence cannot be imposed from above; it is cultivated through participation. Leaders must let go of the belief that more information, or more data, or some new program can re-establish control and result in a desired future. It’s a new world requiring new skills and capabilities.
