Transforming Leaders
In part of my work in contributing to the design of new leadership trainig for the ELCA, one of my colleagues from the transformingchurch.com network -- Ron Lee -- posed a question to direct our visioning: "we can't speak of transforming leaders until we answer the question, "transformed to be and do what"?"
Here's my response:
To "transform" leaders, I think, can be thought of by the two parts of the word 'transform'. The base root is 'form': to build, to mold, to shape. This process is personal, spiritual, theological, relational, and vocational. At the same time, the prefix 'trans' indicates that there is a border to cross in this formation. Transforming leaders isn't just a grafting on of new information and skills to a form already there. It is a birthing of a new form.
May I suggest that transformation is a dying and rising process?
We die to ourselves, to our false sense of limitations, to a lathargic spiritual discipline, to our cancer of thinking church can exist w/o its mission in the world or the cancer of equating it's mission w/ social justice causes or the cancer of equating it's mission with an urge to build tribal huts; we die to seeing people in our congregations as means to an end for keeping an institution on life support, to the vocational discernment of care-giver or social worker.
We rise to a new form, to God's possibilities beyond false limitations and God's opportunities within our true limitedness, to a joyfully disciplined spirituality, to a clear vision and passion for the mission of the church to participate in Jesus' work of reconciling all things to God, to seeing people in our congregations as the church in the world, to the vocational discernment of community architecture that builds disciples who make disciples.
So we're transforming leaders to BE what exactly? To be people who recognize the gifts and limitations Holy Spirit has placed upon them to be this kind of border-crossing trail blazers.
We're transforming leaders to DO what exactly? To build bridges along our blazed trails for the church to cross the great divide between the death of a dying institution and the new life of the people movement sparked by Jesus' empty tomb.
The question, then, becomes what kind of bridges do we need to build along our blazed trails?
- A bridge from the world's story to the story of God's reconciling work in the the living Jesus.
- A bridge from a member who seeks "to meet my spiritual needs" to a disciple who yearns to witness the resurrection in my daily life and to make disciples of Jesus.
- A bridge from a congregational culture of myopic naval gazing to a culture of vision to be the church in the world.
- A bridge from a pastor as hand-holder to a pastor as equipper of disciples to make disciples.
- A bridge from committee door stops to an empowering organizational structure.
- A bridge from passionless worship to Spirit-ful worship.
- A bridge from paying our dues to generosity from abundance.
- A bridge from asking God to bless us to asking to get involved in what God is blessing.
- A bridge from evangelisim as invitation and welcome to evangelism as serving our neighbor and telling them the good news of Jesus.
- A bridge from technology as entertainment to technology as communication.
- A bridge from disciples feeling isolated in the midst of church members to disciples feeling nurtured and networked in the midst of fellow disciples.
The offer we're extending to leaders is to become trail blazing bridge builders for a future church in a rapidly changing wilderness beyond our current borders. We're blazing new trails not so we can go off on our own where we see Jesus going, but always and only for the purpose of leading our fellow pilgrims down the same path.
What other bridges do you see that leaders need to build?
2 comments:
Hey Kevan, it's Tim.
Granted, I have very little exposure to the transformational leadership movement, and so my response may seem a little abstract or irrelevant, but my concern is this: Is it really the job of church leaders to transform? Am I spliting hairs here, or does the focus need to shift from what we can do to "transform" people from non-disciples into disciples, to seeking in our own inmost heart to know and love the One who transforms, the epicenter of creation's transformation, Jesus the Messiah? When we are doing that--when we are seeking Christ--won't it be Christ Himself who is contagious, and not our tactics?
I hear your concern, and share it. We're actually talking about very similar things. I don't see it as an either/or but as a both/and. Your concern and emphasis is of course the main point, the center of what Christ transforming us is all about. Once we ourselves are committed to constant challenges and growth in grace, then we are called to make disciples. This too, is Jesus' work through us. What I'm getting at is this second step of making disciples in a context of deconstructing the church of Constantine in which ppl pay their membership dues into the ppl movement sparked by Jesus' resurrection (which the church at its best always has been and will be) -- people who are excited and committed to grow in discipleship because, as you say, Jesus is contagious. It's not about our tactics at all, it's about sharing our relationship with the messiah.
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