Congregational Life Centre
Our mission is to encourage possibilities
A book review of
William Bridges - The Way of Transition
by Clair Woodbury
This
is a must read for church leadership. Many of us know William Bridges through
his best selling book Transformations. He was the one who identified that
a transformation has three crucial stages-a clear ending, a time of creativity
in the uncomfortable neutral zone, and the new beginning. The follow-up
book Managing Transitions added more insights.
Then a few years ago Mondi, his wife for 35 years, died. It was a change that threw his life into disarray. At first, everything he had written from an academic point of view about a transition seemed no longer to make sense. Then he realized he was living through a transition rather than just theorizing - and the insights began to gather.
The result is this book that describes in a most personal and powerful way what it meant to lose his wife, lose his way in life, and then go through a time of deep transition in which he emerged into a new beginning.
I say it is a must read for church leaders because it provides insights into understanding those in a congregation who have lost a partner or a job that defined who they were.
For those who want to lead their congregation into a transition that will result in a more focused ministry, it reveals the depths of the dynamics that will be involved.
Change and Transition
One helpful insight is the clarity Bridges brings to the difference between change and transition. Change involves a shift in our situation, like receiving a promotion, moving to a different house, having a child, or losing a loved one. We don't resist changes. They happen. What we resist is transition - "the process of letting go of the way things used to be and taking hold of the way they subsequently become." What is most frightening is that in-between zone when "things aren't the old way, but aren't really a new way yet either." The gift of this "neutral zone" is that it can be a very creative time
An insight in this book for me was the importance Bridges gives to "unlearning the realities" we have been taught at earlier points in our lives. He quotes G.K. Chesterton: "The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things." In my '20s I spent 11 years in university eventually earning a Ph.D. in theology. My experience is that I've been unlearning a great deal, if not most of what I once took for granted. in the years that followed.
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Bridges was impressed by Thoreau's Walden and its call to simplify life. He left his university job as a professor of English and moved to a group living situation in the country. Seminars he taught to earn a living grew into the transition workshops for which he is famous. It is glimpses of the journey behind the man that contribute so much to making this book a powerful resource and inspiration.
There is a profound spirituality behind what Bridges has to say. He fits the "spiritual but not religious" category that applies to more and more people today. Spirituality, he feels, "is a natural, but often overlooked, dimension of living itself.
You can download his treatment of Moses, Getting Them Through the Wilderness, from his website www.wmbridges.com. Moses is an outstanding example of how to successfully lead a group through transition.
The Way of Transition is available for $19.50 from Da Capo Press.
"Leadership Ventures" Congregational Life Newsletter. September 2011. Volume 18 No. 1.