sustain:if:able kiwi

why are mainline churches in decline?

I teach a course here at Uniting College called Reading cultures/Sociology for Ministry. It’s at an introductory level and is compulsory for our candidates. It starts on Thursday. The aim is to equip participants to explore issues at the interface between society and ministry and develop greater social sensitivity about the ministry process. The assessment involves the students, as a group, constructing a field report (based on real life case studies) reviewing a local church’s ministry in the broader community.

So it was interesting to read Tony Jones blog, with data on the continued decline of mainline churches in the United States. The two denominations closest to the Uniting Church of Australia are the Presbyterian Church (USA), down 2.61 percent and the United Methodist Church, down 1.01 percent. Which raises the why question – Why are mainline churches in decline?

To which Jeff, who blogs here offers a response.

As a UCC pastor, I think that a lot of it has to do with local churches being very slow to adapt to the new cultural reality in which we find ourselves. And it’s something way bigger than video screens in worship or whatever…it’s a failure to recognize that we’re not in the same social place that we were in in the ’50s and ’60s, and thus the same social and organizational mentality no longer addresses what the church needs to be about today. Fortunately, some corners of these denominations have recognized it and there is renewal happening, but we’re still going to lose people and churches along the way. The key is that such renewal needs to happen at the local level rather than the national level, which I think my denomination sort of gets, but it also gets in its own way. I imagine there’s a similar thing happening in other mainline churches, too.

Which sounds to me like Reading cultures/Sociology for Ministry – gaining tools to listen to our communities, skills in discerning the systems and powers which enmesh individuals, sensitivity to new media, awareness of themes emerging in poetry, arts, film. And if Jeff is right “such renewal needs to happen at the local level”, then perhaps the class should be compulsory not just for candidates, but for all local Uniting Church leadership teams?

For a more recent post – raising the topic not of culture, but of theology, see here.

Living libraries: a way of thinking about research and learning

Two words that I’m using with our post-graduate programmes that seem to really capture people’s interest and enthusiasm.

It’s based on an idea first developed in Denmark in 2000 in which people are able to borrow a living person rather than borrowing a book. This allows a conversation, in which communities are brought closer together and attitudes are changed. The idea came to Australia in November 2006.

In our post-graduate Master/Doctor of Ministry degree we have topics called Guided Readings. They are basically “boxes” in which a student can pursue some reading on a set topic and in order to be assessed, write a reflective response.

What I am suggesting to our post-grads is that they remain open to borrowing people not books. If you want to reflect on leadership, sure you can read books. But be open to the fact that you can also interview some leaders. If you want to learn about the emerging church, sure you could read. But you could also develop an immersion experience and visit a few communities. Obviously some guidance is needed to ensure as much time goes into reading books as reading “people.”

But it is surely too limited an approach to learning to assume that only books have wisdom. Especially for those interested in the practice of ministry, which, as I have written previously, is about a craft (here and here). As such, I suspect that for some (many?), deepening in this craft can come from interacting with people as well as books.

For more on the origins of the human library idea, see their website here.

the craft of ministry takes practical shape

Ministry is a craft:

• as technique. Not mindless procedure, but the cultures in which we might flourish
• as a unique and individual blend of skill, commitment and judgment
• as the aligning of head and heart, intuition and intelligence, history and innovation

I’ve blogged about this themes last year, interacting with Richard Sennett’s book The Craftsman. And I then made some links to ministry training, ways to help leaders and their churches in their craft of thinking and acting in mission

Over the next few days, ways to grow in this craft begin to take practical shape here at Uniting College. Tonight (Feb 3, 5:!5-6:15 pm) there is an information evening that gives an overview of the Master of ministry. A chance for folk to kick tires.

Over the next weeks I am booked to sit with 13 individuals, existing “crafters” (students). I will be trying to find ways to turn what they see as their growing edges – their questions about their craft – into learning opportunities. Our Master of Ministry has such flexibility in this regard. We are not offering blocks of information taught by overseas experts, but able to flexibly craft unique assignments.

On Monday the Research intensive begins. We are partnering with other local post-graduate providers, which we hope will provide a richer experience. Research methods is a demanding course. But so essential for “crafters” to explore their tools of the research trade.

It looks like we will double our post-graduate numbers in our post-graduate ministry programme this year. This includes a jump in our Doctor of Ministry programme and interest (from around Australia and even New Zealand) in the new missional cohort we want to explore the craft of missional leadership.

God the crafter
enliven the craft of all who wish to craft with you,
Amen.

pioneer stories, learning with those who’ve gone before

I’m privileged to be serving among a denomination making some really interesting missional moves. This includes the desire to make intentional the training of pioneer leaders. To that end, I have been asked to facilitate a retreat in February with a focus on the implications of training pioneer leaders.

In starting to prepare, I really wanted the voice of pioneers to be heard, to let their experience shape our thinking going forward.

So today was V-day – video day. I asked four pioneer leaders to reflect, on video, on their formation and growth. A set of similar questions was used to kick-start the conversations:

• The word “pioneer” is often used to describe someone with a track-record of starting things, sees possibilities, takes risks, willing to live with high degree of ambiguity. In what ways do those words make sense of your life and ministry?
• Do pioneers take just one shape, or are their diverse models?
• What’s the most important thing someone supervising you? forming/mentoring you? should know?
• What’s the most important thing the various denominational structures (selection, formation, placement) need to know about you as a pioneer?

One person is beginning the “formal” part of their training (wanting to explore mission and innovation by enrolling in our new B.Min), a second has just completing their formal training (having spent the last few years pioneering a new community as part of their College Fieldwork), a third is well into their first pioneer church-plant, a fourth is into their 3rd major pioneering project. Some fascinating discussion has ensued.

As we all know, discussion is the easy bit! Now we have to cut the 75 minute video into something more manageable. But a fascinating exercise, to sit with pioneer leaders and hear them reflect on how God has formed them. To hear the differences. To sense the commonalities
– the shared passion for possibilities
– the need for flexibility and space to experiment
– the uncertainty of the journey, both becoming internally self-aware in the midst of trying to work that out in existing paradigms
– the desire for an relational accountability

And to begin to wonder about what it means for colleges and denominations to partner with what God is doing in the hearts and lives of people.

the art and craft of missional leadership: masters year one

Further to my post on the art and craft of missional leadership, in which I suggest that leadership is a craft. By craft I mean that leadership is not a bunch of techniques. Rather it is a craft in that it is concerned about the cultures in which we flourish. Nor is it a program. Rather it is a craft in that it is a unique and individual blend of skill, commitment and judgment. Nor is it head knowledge. Rather it is a craft in the aligning of head and heart, intuition and intelligence, history and innovation.

So the application becomes: How do you develop leaders in their craft?

Which is what I’ve been working on through recent months – first a Masters in Missional Leadership.

And then more specifically, the shape of Year One

It’s for current ministers who want to grow in their leadership. Mention Masters ie post-graduate education and people tend to think of an individual pursuit in a library which involves lots of footnotes and even more words. Which seems opposite to this notion of the “craft of leadership”. Glancing back over the one page information blurb about Year One, using the lens of “craft” I note

1. It’s part-time, because leaders get better at their craft by practising their craft
2. The major thesis project expects participants to focus their craft in their own culture. It’s not a theoretical thesis, but a documenting over 4 years of an ongoing process of action/reflection (practising your craft). (This then raises a whole lot of theoretical and ethical questions, answered by the field of action research.
3. Program Seminars provides ways to embrace the strength and critique that comes from a community of crafters.
4. Leadership 360 creates a space space for people to gain a snapshot, shine on mirror on the practise of their craft and how they might improve.
5. Reading is assessed on integration, the implications for one’s own context.

the art and craft of missional leadership

I sat with a group of church leaders during the week. They were concerned about their local mission. Could a lecturer with the title “missiologist” help them? During the week I continued to read Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.

The book argues that the notion of craftsmanship, the desire to do a job well, for it’s own sake, should be the way we approach not just work, but life. In Chapter One, Sennett explores the arrival of Computer Aided Design. He notes how architects used to draw by hand, yet how with the advent of CAD, it posed new problems for thinking about buildings. A loss became possible, a detachment from the actual local site, a removal from the materials by which buildings are made. Sennett notes

“architectural sketches are often pictures of possibility; the the process of crystallising and refining them by hand, the designer proceeds just as a tennis player or musician does, gets deeply involved in it, matures thinking about it.” (40)

I would replace “tennis player and musician” with writer, worship curator, preacher, leader. There is “a kind of circularity between drawing and making and then back again” (40). Week by week worship is crafted, ideas are pondered, project are imagined, people are engaged, groups are formed.

As I read, I thought back to those church leaders. How much of the missional conversation might actually be CAD? When we look at other churches, when we seek consultants, when we read books, we are in danger of becoming detached from our own local site, our own local context? The reality is that the person who knows the most about the church are likely to be its leaders and the people who know most about their community are likely to be those who attend church and live local.

So the mission challenge becomes the passing on of a craft. It is to help these leaders and this church become better – more focused, more insightful, more reflective, more strategic, more deeply involved in – their thinking and acting in mission. The key to mission are these leaders, not the imported missiology expert or those books. Or to quote Alan Roxburgh, the future of God might really be among the people of God!

I will probably return to these leaders. I want to offer them some tools that could help them become more skilled mission crafters-in-mission. I’m wondering also how all this applies to the launch of the Missional masters next year. And how The Craftsman might actually be an important text for the first reading course. It might provide a way to understand leadership – as craft – that will encourage leaders in their growth and development.

taking some ordination theology for a spin

So on Sunday I’m preaching at the ordination of five Uniting church ministers – all bright and brand, shiny, new like. It will bring to 20 the number of ministers ordained here in South Australia this year. Which is exciting and has left us all wondering what God is up to among us.

Anyhow, my privilege is to preach and the Lectionary text is Matthew 3:1-12, which is about John the Baptist’s – the wildman “pioneer leader” – and his call for repentance and baptism. How to apply the narrative of John the Baptist to ordination?

So after much pondering, and some reading, I wonder if the text offers us a way of viewing ordination as

an invitation to share in the processes of baptism
of ourselves,
and others,
as a life long journey shaped by Christian practices
that remind us of
God’s absence (how unlike God we are) – eyes open to the world – how we allocate our resources
and presence (how much God likes us) – hands open to God – forgive our sins.

I’m drawing here from Augustine’s concept of double almsgiving – forgive and it will be forgiven and how we allocate our resources), as outlined in Inquiring After God: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology) and Rowan Williams understanding of church in Ponder These Things: Praying With Icons of the Virgin.

Those are my current thoughts. Feedback welcome.

Shifts: Doing action research in your own organization

One of the very significant shifts in recent decades has been the willingness to embrace experience in knowing. In contrast to “I think therefore I am,” has been the pursuit of “We experience, therefore we grow.”

This has huge implications for being human, for being Christian, for education. This serves to introduce a new book I will be blog reviewing: Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization. It is the type of book that frames and names much about the new missional masters we’re piloting in 2011.

Action research is defined as “an approach to research which aims at both taking action and creating knowledge or theory about that action.” (ix) It is interested not only in individual head knowledge, but in actions and knowledge.

It assumes a spiral approach to life and learning, in which planning leads to action which leads to reflection which leads to planning … and so on. It assumes collaboration, in that what is being studied are themselves active in the study process. It assumes we are all insiders of many systems. This brings us knowledge and the invitation to action.

The desire to be involved in or to lead radical change involves high hassle and high vulnerability, realistic expectations, tolerance, humility, self-giving, self-containment and an ability to learn. Insider action research is an exciting, demanding and invigorating prospect that contributes considerably to researchers’ own learning and contributes to the development of the systems in which we work and live and with which we have affiliations. (xi)

Which surely is what much Christian research and education should be about? (Hence the missional masters, in which leaders use their own context as a place for learning and growth. And this is deemed a place which deserves post-graduate “action-research”.) It should invite us to change, it should expect our churches and our communities to grow and change!

This of course raises a complex range of issues, which the book seeks to explore and about which I will blog in coming weeks.

I would place Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization as a key text alongside Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development which I have been summarising on this blog throughout the year. Put them both together and you have a framework for growing and developing your leadership within your own context and communities, in a way that can advance academic rigour.

spirituality of change leaders

A fascinating list of suggestions, almost a spirituality, for change leaders (“Rules of thumb for change agents”, a chapter by Shepard in Organization Development Classics, Jossey-Bass, 1997.)

• Stay alive – care for yourself and keep a life
• Start where the system is – empathy for the group and the people
• Look for green zones – places of promise
• Innovation is as simple as a good idea, initiative and a few friends – work with the willing
• Celebrate well – build in lots of success milestones
• Light many fires – utilise the complexity of any group by seeking movement in as many places as possible
• Keep optimistic – with a focus on the better future

I note the list after sitting with a number of groups in the last few days who are considering mission and are faced with change.

It certainly resonated with my Opawa experience, particularly the look for green zones (for more on leadership and green zones you could try here), simplicity of innovation and light many fires. (And in hindsight, at Opawa we could have celebrated more).

And it sits well alongside Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development, which I have been slowly reading and summarising this year. (For the chapter summaries to date: Chapter one here. Chapter two is here. Chapter three is here. Chapter four is here. Chapter five is here. Chapter six is here. Chapter seven is here)

pioneer leaders as attending to birth narratives (thanks Rowan Williams)

A few days later, I wrote a post reflecting on the need for pioneer training not as technique and structure, but as a way of deepening spiritual and emotional intelligence. I read the following quote this morning:

“And the sense Christ makes is not in his masterly reorganization of the world, his provision of explanations and programmes, but in his comprehensive loving, forgiving attention to the world that has somehow brought him to birth.” (Rowan Williams in the brilliant Ponder These Things: Praying With Icons of the Virgin).

This fits with my presentation at the Evaluating Fresh Expressions Research Consultation, including the image that I used during the presentation, of fresh expressions emerging from the Orans icon.

Christ is wanting to be made real in the world. As Mary says yes, so to we are invited to say yes, to be part of bringing to birth fresh expressions of the body of Christ.

This is not steady as she Sunday goes leadership. This is why I major on listening and discerning in my leadership courses. In the 21st century, new forms of church are being brought to birth and we are invited to pay attention to what is being brought to birth, to recognise the contours of Christ. This is leadership that seeks to be both spiritually and emotionally intelligent.

developing change leaders book review – Ch 7 Developmental approaches

I’m speaking to a group of church leaders on Thursday on the topic of mission as innovation, and again in a few weeks to another group on change, so it’s back to a book review of Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development. (For the review to date: Chapter one here. Chapter two is here. Chapter three is here. Chapter four is here. Chapter five is here. Chapter six is here)

First, great (amazing really) to see an opening quote (from Dance of Leadership, The: The Call for Soul in 21st Century Leadership, by Kiwi author, Peter Cammock.

Leadership is a dance, in which leaders and followers jointly respond to the rhythm and call of a particular social context, within which leaders draw from deep wells of collective experience and energy, to engage followers around transforming visions of change and lead them in the collective creation of compelling futures.

This suggests a focus away from leader-centric models of leadership, to the relational aspects of collective change leadership. Collins is cited, that great leaders have two essential dimensions – humilty and persistence.

Then comes a fascinating section (165-173) naming ways leaders can develop. Things like move to a foreign culture, shadow an arbitrator, become a volunteer.

This is followed by a number of case studies of leadership development within organisations. Let me take one, that of developing emerging leaders in the New Zealand public sector. This involved a development centre and a leadership program. The focus was based around a set of leadership competencies. The focus was an experiential learning through peer challenge, self-revelation and team learning in a safe environment.

Each person developed a portfolio, to document their learning over 9 months through the following stages.

• Stage 1 involved identifying prior leadership experience
• Stage 2 involved some input (a 1 week course) combined with personal goal setting around “lever” activity (self-awareness, learning as a leader, values and beliefs, interpersonal intelligence, communication skills, behaviour modeling)
• Stage 3 involved leading a strategic change project

I can’t help putting all this alongside the leadership training I experienced, which was mainly lectures on the importance of vision and how it worked in a large church.

I begin to reflect that some of the “lever” activities are to some extent embedded in some dimensions of ministerial training, but need to be made more explicit and clear. I see the challenge of the modernist mindset that equates teaching with content rather than learning.  I see echoes between what we hope to do with our new Innovation stream in the new Bachelor of Ministry, especially Stage 1, the Introduction to Formation topic and Stage 3, the invitation into a practical project over the course of the training. I wonder what it would look like for a denomination to do this with their existing ministers and to think about the Missional Church Leadership course I offer, and did offer to ministers in New Zealand. What was the fruit and what changes could be made?

a new semester postgraduate focus

A new semester starts here at Uniting College today. The focus for me this Semester is the post-graduate area and it’s so nice to be building on foundations, rather than heading into unknown and uncharted terrain.

First is the continuation of Program seminars. I’ve blogged about these before, noting with excitement how these build collegiality and are constantly developing people’s ability to reflect theologically on current ministry practice. We’ve got new students and a really rich denominational environment – Salvation Army, Anglican, Lutheran, Churches of Christ, Catholic, Uniting – at play.

Second is the continuation of Missional Church Leadership. Students are at the half-way stage of the course. That means that today we are gathering around presentations of their listening in their unique contexts. As they present, I am working with the class developing their capacities to engage in processes of discernment. This is not theory, but requires stepping into real, living mission contexts and together exploring what God might be up to.

Third, the icing on the cake, is the post-graduate distance course I’m co-teaching for Otago University. It’s a “foreigner”, on my own time as it were. The topic is contemporary preaching and I am looking forward to co-teaching with Lynne Baab. The students have set up their own blogs and with the wonders of modern technology, I in Adelaide, will be engaging with Kiwi students throughout Aotearoa. It’s nice to realise that I might have left New Zealand, but in the grace of God, I can continue to be involved in my home!

Formation panels as a process in leadership formation

If you arrived at Uniting College today, you would have seen a carpark full of cars and a steady stream of students coming and going.  Today is Formation panel day, when teams of 3-5 people gather around each   candidates processes for ordination. Practically the panel is carefully chosen to bring missional leaders, faculty academic advice and skills in adult education. The same panel meet with the same candidates three times over a year, in a process that might take up to five years and involve academic study, fieldwork and readiness to transition into first placements.

Formation panels, and the carpark full of cars, are a recent development for training here in South Australia and have been shaped by a number of theological beliefs that are worth naming.

First, that training for ministry is not intellectual, but deals with formation for discipleship, inviting the whole person into processes of integration. Thus a panel is a way of making intentional this belief and will be exploring with candidates anything from life to balance, relationships to academic study to fieldwork.

Second, that candidates are engaged in ministry with and among the church. Hence the church, and not solely the academy, should be involved in their formation. I love seeing that carpark full of cars, some people driving up to two hours, all people living in and among the demands and pressures of congregational life. This is the church at work, giving time and focus toward leadership formation.

Third, that each candidate has a unique calling. This is not about producing cookie cutter ministers, all following the same template. Rather time in Formation Panel is given to listen, listen, listen, and then seek to shape a unique programme around each student –  mixing study, fieldwork, supervision. Every programme is unique and is revisited in each and every Formation panel, wanting to be flexible to student growth and development.

It’s an exhausting, time-consuming, complex process. It is demanding for the panel and for the candidates. But it makes some important theological points about the formation of leaders for the church of tomorrow.

developing change leaders book review – Ch 6 The evolution of a change leader

A book review of Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs, Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development. Chapter one here. Chapter two is here. Chapter three is here. Chapter four is here. Chapter five is here.

Becoming an effective change leader takes time and requires change in the leader themselves. It begins with reflective practise. While authoritarian command type leaders are most appealing in a crisis (page 121), the most appropriate skills are those of questioning and reflection.

Research on change leaders show they hardly ever grow by formal development. Rather, they grow through things like watching leaders, affirmation of their own ability in the midst of conflict, first-hand experiences of the mis/use of power, leadership opportunities and facilitated reflection on their lived experience. This comes best through coaching. This should also include coaching others, due to the giving of compassion becoming a personal healing agency.

The book then summarises 10 dynamic capabilities for change leaders as follows:

1 – Develop decision making – specifically the ability to wait and see, keep an open mind and be comfortable with contradictions. Central to this is the ability to inquire, to accept that you are not the expert and that someone in your team may have a better insight.

2 – Access capability from across the team

3 – Become a co-creator of a learning culture

4 – Combine future-sensemaking with strategic thinking – digging deeper, reading widely, in a desire to appreciate the system and not just the events.

5 – Develop ‘total’ leadership – including authenticity, integrity and experimentation, at all levels of a person’s life

6 – Develop competency to work in diverse cultures

7 – Develop 1-1 coaching skills – eg micro-skills of building rapport, active listening, attention, sensitivity.

8 – Develop 1-many skills – eg micro-skills of dialogue, facilitation, process consulting, because leadership is about responding to real lived relationships.

9 – Emotional intelligence including self-awareness, emotional resilience, sensitivity, influence, intuition and conscientiousness.

10- Dialogue on performance.

The next 2 chapters set out to explore how to develop these capabilities. In the meantime, take some time to reflect on a change leader you admire. In what ways were these capacities in evidence?