Here at the Congregational
Life Centre, we believe that congregational transformation requires not just
good but excellent leadership. We also believe in teams as a form vastly superior
to the “Lone Ranger” school of leadership. Thomas Savage has an opening paragraph
in an article on “The Changing Landscape of Power and Leadership” that says
it all:
A twenty-five-foot steep hill in the backyard and a gang of six fairly competitive sisters and brothers were all the ingredients necessary to inspire a long series of King of the Mountain contests when I was growing up. . . . One wins by standing gloriously alone on the top of the hill. It was the core message until one day my younger sister suggested to me that two could be stronger than one. And so it was. We shared power at the top.
Many people tell us, “We’ve tried to change and transform, but it hasn’t worked.” Others press on in the struggle to be a “change leader.” I would like to share some insights I’ve picked up from the business community.
Let’s begin with trying to identify what it means to provide leadership today. I feel the new role of leadership is to help people face reality, and to facilitate them working together to make the changes that become apparent. We know that making change is painful. A lot of people summoned to leadership think making change will be easy— that the correctness of their ideas and the power of their personality will quickly win the day. They get a rude awakening when they find themselves with a real leadership opportunity.
Exercising leadership generates resistance—and pain. People are afraid they will lose something that is worthwhile. They are afraid they are going to have to give up something that has become very comfortable. We have certainly seen that demonstrated in the church. Folks can run at full speed to stay away from something that might create a conflict.
For many congregations, the time has come to “take the bull by the horns” and take seriously Jesus’ call to be God’s New Community.
Peter Senge, in his book The Dance of Change, suggests that we need to see our churches, not as machines, but as embodiments of nature. It is not a question of replacing parts, a model many congregations have inherited from the industrial era. We need to explore what it means to cultivate change, the way a gardener works to enhance and develop a living landscape.
What is required is a sense of openness, an attitude of reciprocity, even vulnerability. You have to be willing to be influenced by others along the journey. A whole new attitude emerges when one thinks about “growing something new” rather than “changing the old.” In a garden, when a new plant thrives along side an aging vine, the new gradually takes over, with never a break.
John Kotter in a Harvard Business Review article “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” identifies the eight reasons that are common to most situations. Then he reverses the wording to summarize the steps to successful transformation. Here are his insights, with my comments attached.
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency: People need to sense that change is urgently needed in order to have them move from their comfort zone. Consultants can be really helpful because they can deliver bad news—carry on doing what you are doing and you won’t be here in five years—and then leave town. It can be difficult for a congregational leader to be the one who delivers bad news to the rest of the congregation. No one wants to be the one who says “We are dying!” Particularly if your job is to keep the congregation alive. The test—there is no point in trying to move into a transformation process until you have about 75% of people in agreement about the need to change.
2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Group: Often transformation begins with two or three people, but over time it is important that the number of believers grow dramatically. Major change is only possible when the leadership—both clergy and lay—are active supporters. It will often take just a small team (up to five) to lead the effort in the first year. Congregations that fail in this phase usually underestimate the difficulties of producing change and the importance of a strong group to guide the congregation and process.
3. Creating a Vision: Having a powerful, focussed vision is absolutely essential for transformation to occur. The guiding group has to develop a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and that appeals to others in the congregation. Without a clear and compelling vision, a transformation process can easily dissolve into a muddle of confusing and incompatible projects that don’t seem to lead anywhere. If you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a significant reaction, you are not yet done with this phase of the process.
4. Communicating the Vision: In order to achieve a vision that is held in common by a majority of the members of a congregation, you have to use every possible communication vehicle available. It takes time, prayer, and sharing to communicate a vision, and then time for people to reflect on whether or not they can share in the vision. Vision is about both heart and mind.
5. Empowering Everyone: Now is the time to create a “go until we say stop” kind of environment. If the vision is clear, as people see ways that they can take a step toward achieving that vision they need to have permission to go ahead. Get rid of red-tape approval processes and the need for everyone to know what everyone else is doing. Reward people for taking risks, for making decisions, and yes, for making mistakes, providing they are willing to learn from those mistakes and go at it again.
6. Re-invigorating: A congregation needs to continue to be dynamic. If we simply replace what has been done with new policies, procedures and structures, the organization will slip back into a maintenance mode. Build in times to celebrate the ministries that are ongoing, but also keep searching out new opportunities. Keep in touch with new people, because their needs will be different from people who have come to your congregation even two or three years previously. Review the mission and ministries every year. Explore what to drop in order to create what will be needed tomorrow.
There it is in a nutshell. The church we grew up in is going to change, just as everything around us—medicine, education, technology, travel, to name only a few—have changed. We have to be leaders of that change. It isn’t going to be easy. However, some things are worth the pain, and being a leader in creating a church that is truly faithful to the vision of Jesus is one of them.