A Travel Free Learning Article
By Gary Straub, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 502.320.4336, E-mail: GStraub@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org
Download Straub, Tough Times Leadership, 6.7.11 Edition
So far the 21st century has presented perplexing and often exasperating challenges to church leadership. In the economic crunch, many churches have poured precious resources into need-meeting ministries, even as the general budget slips into deficit. While this faithful sacrifice is admirable; it’s not just the operating budget panting for relief! Leaders are stretched to the point that some suffer from a situation I call the “But, This Is NOT What I Signed Up For!” syndrome. It shows up as the invisible eye-roll in meetings where we rehash the same solution that didn’t work last time; or in the classic burnout talk that plagues us in the parking lot meetings. We may not carry a laundry list of all the symptoms of this syndrome, but most of us know it when we see it; and we are all seeing it all too often.
A scenario from Scripture illumines the intensity of this tough times dilemma. Acts 14:19-23 depicts Barnabas finding Paul at the bottom of a rock pile. Stoning and crucifixion are the ultimate biblical expressions of leadership rejection. That’s about as tough as it gets! Barnabas and the disciples surround their bruised, used-up leader. Wouldn’t you just love to know what they said to Paul that got him back up on his feet? Whatever their word, he arose and continued his circuit riding mission tour. Tough times did not short-circuit this leader! His witness resounds: “anyone who signs up for the Kingdom of God will endure tough times!” (v.23)
The lines between the official minutes of our church meetings record too many opportunities and incidents of leader stoning. Having a leader’s carefully researched recommendations ignored and then second-guessed, with projections of ulterior motives definitely demotivates even our best up-front leaders. Being on stress overload and feeling under the gun in terms of the decision-making process squeezes even seasoned leaders to cry out: “this is SO not what I signed up for!”
The advice to develop a thicker skin only carries us so far. So how do we start ministering to our leaders who feel bewildered and maybe even betrayed by the animosity and anxiety aimed at them? Maybe we could begin by trying to identify the kinds of things that bless leaders amidst this stress.
Getting Grounded
Tough times test our spiritual reserve, and here our soul habits sustain us. We need to teach and model the spiritual practices that keep us self-differentiated and centered in Christ. Strengthening our hearts in these habits provide the big picture perspective that otherwise melts in the heat of the moment. There is simply no substitute for the anchoring effect of daily personal devotions. This Spirit energy is a leader’s last refuge and often the first to go under time pressure.
Sharpening Focus
Maintaining clarity about the main thing helps keep it main! Stephen Covey calls this beginning with the end in mind. Using mental imagery to imagine the needed outcome helps call us back from rabbit trails and keep us on message when the meeting strays from its heartbeat and we start beating dead horses. Dead-on focus with the mission in mind is critical to effective actions and overcoming inefficient reactions.
Alignment Adjustment
Sometimes our scattered energies can be effectively honed by engaging in a spiritual practice I call “YESx3.” We begin by intentionally asking in prayer: are we saying yes to God? (That’s #1, our surrender and allegiance to Christ.) Second, are we seeking ways of affirming our yes to each other. (That’s relational harmony, peaceable-ness, and reconciliation.) Third, are we offering our yes to the project. (Clarity around core mission.) When these 3 Yeses are aligned, a spirit of agreement emerges which confirms decisions and clarifies direction.
Gaining Momentum
We seem to gain the most effective traction for ministry initiatives when they arise out of intercession and expressed spiritual agreement. In the leadership context of shared prayer, we finally awaken to the urgency of our circumstances. Not only are we in a danger zone, but we awaken to the possibility that this particular crisis would be a terrible thing to waste! Seeking the positive potential shifts our leader focus from strategy back to vision, as we ask: “where is the victory amidst this mess?”
Offering Encouragement
When our best leaders are under pressure, they are often not even conscious of the powerful influence evoked by words and deeds of encouragement. We are called to play a Holy Spirit role in each other’s lives, coming alongside in a ministry of presence. As we deeply identify with the leader and fully empathize with the dilemma, energy begins to shift. Being together in solidarity can provide the occasion for next steps to unfold. This begins to unlock the deadlock and create a ripple that widens into waves of energy, enthusiasm, influence and impact. I must confess that I don’t know exactly how or why the encouragement dynamic functions; I only know that it does.
Learning Communities
Nothing motivates us to go out and get what we need to know and get good at explaining/understanding it quite like a painful predicament that grieves us, then grabs us, and gives us the grit and grace to humbly learn its lessons well. There is collective wisdom at work when the leadership circle begins to ask: what do we need to know that we don’t know? However humbling, there is still illumination power in teachable moments. Heated lessons learned in crisis can also forge a cutting edge!
Systemic Reading
Pressures that escalate to create conflict can also produce powerful insight into the characteristic ways a particular church system operates (or fails to operate). Emerging patterns offer a read into the situation we would never have access to otherwise. Crisis draws opinion-makers out of the woodwork who would otherwise much prefer to remain hidden and their influence unobserved. If our leaders can secure an internally peaceable vantage point within and then be still long enough to observe the proceedings with some emotional distance; the opportunity often arises to see just how very little the current crisis is about them. This vista offers just enough operating room to plan the moves that will facilitate the congregation toward effective win-win solutions.
Laugh Leading
This may sound slightly absurd, but sometimes laughing is leading. Leaders who can regain their sense of humor help correct the irony deficiency in congregational life. Sometimes prickly problems that can’t be resolved by reason can be dissolved by laughter. From a theological perspective, laughter is sometimes about as close as we humans can come to the grace of God and Barth was right when he opined that laughter is the straightest point of connection between two souls. It breaks the cycle of egocentricity while honoring our essential frailty. Leading with gentle, non-accusatory, even self-deprecating laughter offers light for our collective foibles and loosens the choke-hold of control so we can breathe the Breath of God. Laughing is how we all loosen up enough to allow our better angels to teach us all a thing or two.
Effective leadership has never been easy and tough times magnify the pressure but also expand the potential. In attempting to lead transformation amidst the trials and tribulations of typical congregational life, I am totally sympathetic with all the reasons why key leaders might cry: “this is not what I signed up for!”
What amazes me even more is that just when I think our leaders are done for, undone and done in by the conflict and crisis of tough times, they get up out of the rock pile; dust off, and pick up their mission once again. Perhaps this is what Kentucky’s Poet Laureate Wendell Berry had in mind when he advised: “practice resurrection!”
Important Things to Know
Gary Straub is a Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership. He is part of the Transforming Congregations Team. The Columbia Partnership is a non-profit Christian ministry organization focused on transforming the capacity of the North American Church to pursue and sustain Christ-centered ministry. Travel Free Learning is a knowledge sharing emphasis. For more information about products and services check out the web site at www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org, send an e-mail to Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, or call 803.622.0923.
