Leadership and the Emerging Church
I got an e-mail from someone today who wondered if I had ever used my professional skills within the church, especially in the filed of leadership development. I haven't actually but leadership and new expressions of church seems a crucial issue to me. The church's leadership models are firmly rooted in the feudal world picture, modified with a strong dose of modernism. This simply will not do today for a number of reasons:
* It is not Biblical and models a false gospel;
* It does not relate to postmodernist people, who will only follow those they trust and relate to;
*It is unable to provide the depth or breadth of leadership currently needed by the church.
It seems to me that leadership in the church must be visionary, servant-focused, relational and facilitative. The tasks of the leader are to hold the vision, both of the gospel and of its local proclamation in word, deed, and presence; to model the kingdom values which Jesus came to initiate (Luke 22:24-26; Phil 2:5ff; etc.); to offer authentic relationship; and to facilitate the development of new leaders.
How to achieve this? Partly through teaching, but mainly through experiment and support. Church leaders seem to me to be ill-informed, ill-equipped and low on self-esteem (though that often manifests itself in a kind of authoritarian arrogance).
The most powerful approaches in leadership development seems to me to focus around coach-mentoring and action learning. The action learning set is like a learning laboratory where leaders can experiment with ideas and concepts without getting their fingers burned. Coach-mentoring offers the opportunity for stimulated reflection, supportive challenge and attentive encouragement. All leaders should have access to coach-mentoring; this is not generally true for many leaders, especially in the church.
I have just completed a three-year course of study in Norwich diocese and am due to be ordained deacon on 2nd October. There was nothing on my course about leadership, yet it is crucial especially as we begin to grasp the fact that we have to be a missionary church in the West. There is already a certain amount of experimentation with leadership forms in the emerging church.
Cell Church, for instance, has a huge requirement for leaders, though these are of a rather traditional nature. Base Ecclesial Communities have a different leadership model; which could be described as distributed and participative. Alt.worship groups tend to operate with a consensual opt-in style of leadership. Each has something to offer the church yet I suspect that most ministers have been completely untouched by these developments.
Changing the syllabus in theological training courses will help but there is an urgent need to do something now. The challenge is great because so many ministers have a vested interest in the present structures and feel threatened if asked to move outside their comfort zones. Yet the risk is even greater since the lack of effective and appropriate leadership is the single greatest factor in holding back the development of the church in the West.
posted by richardseel @ 9:15 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
Ian here no ex-EAMTC. Hmm this is a bit of a hot topic at the moment, and something I am looking at for my MA disertation. I would start by saying that our sense of gathering together appears to matter to God. The idea of God wanting to outwork the missio dei through our collectiveness is a constant theme through the new testament. I actually think that IT technology through blogs and websites provides an opportunity to being friendships and connections, but is not sifficient for the call to be a real encountering body of Christ. The web aind blogs helps to continue some form of relationship once people have met... but it is no replacement.
It is interesting that belonging and community seem to be an aspiration for many people - I think this may be some hard wiring within us, about God's intentions.
So I would say an ecclesiology of the emerging church needs to have some form of real relational connection at a core level, that being very fluid though, with lots of people drifing around it whether that drifting is web, walking in what ever.....
Ian,
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you about community, it's crucial.
>"I would start by saying that our sense of gathering together appears to matter to God...I actually think that IT technology through blogs and websites provides an opportunity to being friendships and connections, but is not sifficient for the call to be a real encountering body of Christ. The web aind blogs helps to continue some form of relationship once people have met... but it is no replacement."
It's a 'moot' point perhaps. I tend to agree that physical contiguity is important, if not essential, for an authentic expression of church. But, a few things make me want to at least take some time to reflect on this.
Firstly, the communion of saints - if there is just one church and all our expressions of it are more or less authentic, then surely the community of saints are part of its catholicity. Yet we have no physical contact with those who have gone before.
Secondly, the younger generation seem to be forging new forms of community. I think that it was Pete Ward who pointed out that the advent of texting has meant that there is a sense in which the text generation are in continual contact with one another. Their face-to-face meetings may be brief and infrequent but they nevertheless forge strong community.
Thirdly, Joe Myers' take on Edwin Hall's work ("The Search to Belong", EmergentYS, 2003)is interesting. He argues that we are operating with a very restricted view of community in the church. Certainly, there were times (Gerasene demoniac, for example) where Jesus did not let people be in physical community wth himself but
bade them stay in their own community.
I do agree, though, with Randy Frazee that the church is infected with individualism even though I find his suggested solutions (agree about authority, common creed, traditions, standards and common mission. In his church they are working this out by agreeing ten core beliefs, ten core practices and ten core virtues) rather prescriptive.
>"So I would say an ecclesiology of the emerging church needs to have some form of real relational connection at a core level, that being very fluid though, with lots of people drifing around it whether that drifting is web, walking in what ever..."
This seems consonant with Frost & Hirsch and their notion that an expression of church should be a centred set rather than a closed set. Like them, I feel that the nature and quality of leadership is crucial. Their insistence on returning to the model of Ephesians 4 (apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, patoral and teaching) is a good one and worth a lot more reflection and exploration.
Richard.
I like reading your blog. I have read a few books on the emerging church, but what would you recomend for me to give as gifts to people on the emerging church? Thanks Kris
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