Braving the Wilderness or Returning to What Is Known?
In John’s Gospel, we are given an interesting story. The disciples are with Jesus in the Garden. They flee in fear, especially when Jesus himself squashes their attempt at a violent uprising. Only one of the 11 is at the foot of the cross, alongside some of the women who follow Jesus. But they hear that Jesus is raised from the dead; they see him appear in the upper room (not once, but twice!); and they receive the Holy Spirit with a commission to spread forgiveness. According to Matthew’s Gospel, they are sent back to Galilee to meet Jesus there.
And what do we find the disciples doing next? They go back to fishing! At least half of them return to what they did before, the job they are most familiar with and where they find the most comfort.
Isn’t that what we tend to do in uncertain times? When we aren’t sure what to do or where to start, we go back to what is familiar, comfortable, “normal.”
Think about what you’ve seen during COVID:
Leadership boards: I’ve spoken with leaders across a number of churches and denominations during the COVID pandemic. What I’ve found is that church leadership tends to lean into what it’s most comfortable doing: asking business questions about the task of ministry. “Where can we tighten up the budget?” “What positions can we cut?” “How can we do less with more?” “How can we create an entirely new model of church – while we have to – by streaming online, but doing it with a barebones budget?”
Ministers: We’ve leaned into the tasks of ministry: learning to preach to a camera, creating online content, trying to pivot with worship, learning how to manage all of the tasks of ministry through online platforms and meeting venues.
When can we all get back to normal? We tend to think that when the virus “goes away,” people will instantly flock back to church and sit in the pews, attend Bible class, and go back to the way things were before, as if the effects of the pandemic never happened.
And most of our churches have been so focused on the tasks that we’ve forgotten our flocks. We’ve leaned into what we can do without leaning into people.
Think about how your churches have responded to ongoing cultural and societal shifts:
Evangelism: Many churches lament their decreasing numbers, but few are willing to ask, “What might we do differently? How can we reach people where they are in ways that matter to them?” Instead, it becomes about door knocking, gospel meetings, getting people “into the word,” and more programs at the church.
Wrong questions: Most of our churches are asking the wrong questions. People wonder what is wrong with the younger generations that they are leaving church in droves, but many of us fail to look at our churches’ policies and polities to see what might be driving them away. Instead of wondering why the world seems to be falling apart, churches need to look at how they can engage their communities and be good news.
Politics: Many of our churches have leaned into political engagement out of fear of losing societal power or cultural influence, not realizing that those moves might be off-putting to the very people they are trying to reach.
We are doing something – and many of those things are good, but they aren’t what is best, needed, or called for. When we reach the territory that seems new, daunting, and dark – at the edge of the map where, beyond, “There be dragons!” – we don’t need to turn back. Instead, we need to lean into our strengths and our trust in God and forge ahead into a new reality.
Tod Bolsinger writes that we live in a VUCA world: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. And this new world will require all leaders to learn new skills for which our colleges, seminaries, and experiences haven’t prepared us. [1] Now, we must seek transformational leadership – a leadership style that changes the way our congregations act and interact with each other, the community, and the world. Bolsinger goes on to argue that we must have 1) technical competence in our mission (helping people come to look and live like Jesus), 2) relational congruence (people know that you care, that you can be trusted, and that you are consistent), and 3) adaptive capacity (the ability to face incoming challenges with vision and not just survive but thrive). [2]
There are some great resources out there to begin this discussion. Here’s a small sampling:
Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains. Downer’s Grove: IVP Books, 2015.
Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve. Revised Edition. Church Publishing: 2017.
Ruth Haley Barton, Pursuing God’s Will Together. Downer’s Grove: IVP Books, 2012.
Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Martin Linsky, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009.
These books are a good start in thinking about leadership in uncertain times. Through the next few months, I will return to some thoughts and interactions with these books, among others, to help myself (and hopefully you) think about the type of leader God is calling us to be.
When God called Peter, he told him he would make him a “fisher of people.” But Peter leaned into the fishing part. So Jesus, in John 21, gives him a new metaphor: Okay, Peter, let’s redirect. Feed my sheep, care for my lambs. Let’s change your paradigm. God might just need to do the same thing to us.
How might church look different post-COVID?
How might ministry look different?
We’ve proven we can be a church outside the walls. How do we creatively continue that trend so we won’t just survive but thrive, and so we’re a blessing to the communities in which we dwell?
May God bless us as we continue to lead off the map.
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[1] Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Unchartered Territory, 27.
[2] Ibid, 43-44.
