{"id":10313,"date":"2016-11-16T14:52:35","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T22:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10313"},"modified":"2016-11-16T14:52:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T22:52:35","slug":"the-church-leaders-guide-to-leading-through-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-church-leaders-guide-to-leading-through-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church Leaders&#8217; Guide to Leading Through Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is no secret that our world, our communities, and our churches are facing rapid change.\u00a0 Issues related to technology, globalization, immigration, economic instability, and racial unrest all affect the church. \u00a0The Pew Research Center\u2019s <em>2014 Religious Landscape Study<\/em> pointed out that adults with no religious affiliation grew from 36.6 million Americans in 2007 up to 55.8 million Americans in 2014.\u00a0 This means that almost \u00bc of adults in the U.S. now state that their religion is \u201cnothing in particular.\u201d <sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>The rise of a post-Christian culture in America is causing some church leaders to work harder and see fewer results.\u00a0 It is clear that pastors and other church leaders need to examine new strategies in order to reach a society that is growing to me more and more irreligious every day.<\/p>\n<p>As many church leaders gain a vision of the future for their churches, they often run into a wall.\u00a0 Some churches do not change very easily.\u00a0 For some, the value of church is that it does\u00a0not change.\u00a0 It becomes a sanctuary from the rapid changes in our culture.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, for those church leaders who are determined to lead their church through change, help in sometimes needed in steering a new course.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/church-change-pic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10315 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/church-change-pic-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"church change pic\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Enter an unlikely mentor:\u00a0 Marshall Ganz.\u00a0 Ganz is the son of a rabbi and has had helped to lead social and political movements for decades.\u00a0 His chapter \u201cLeading Change\u201d in Harvard Business School\u2019s <em>Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice\u00a0<sup>2\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>provides some seasoned wisdom on the subject matter.\u00a0 I will outline some of the highlights of this chapter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. The example of Moses.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Moses identified the change he wanted: freeing his people.<\/li>\n<li>Moses identified his unique capacity to make change: being an Egyptian Prince.<\/li>\n<li>Moses failed to solve the problem on his own: killing an Egyptian taskmaster.<\/li>\n<li>Moses learns that he must include God, his family, and his people in the process of change.<\/li>\n<li>Moses developed leaders by selecting one leader out of every 10 men, then one out of each of these leaders, and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Leadership Practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Relationships are essential in leading through change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cCommitment to a shared future and the consequences of a shared past transform an exchange into a relationship\u201d (p. 532).\u00a0 Leading people who feel that they have a relationship with one another (peer-to-peer and member-to-leader) can make leading through change easier.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Effective change requires that your people understand the \u201cnew story.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cA social movement tells a new story\u201d (p. 533).\u00a0 What is the next chapter in the story of your church?\u00a0 Is there an obstacle to overcome or a goal to be met?\u00a0 Leading a church through change means that your vision needs to be easily understood and communicated by everyone.\u00a0 This should not be underestimated.\u00a0 Ganz explains that \u201cWhen we experience the \u2018world as it is\u2019 in deep dissonance with the \u2018world as it should be,\u2019 we experience an emotional dissonance, a tension only resolvable through change\u201d (p.535).\u00a0 He later explains that \u201cFear can paralyze us\u2026hope inspires us\u2026solidarity (love, empathy) can move us to act (p.536).<\/p>\n<p>This chapter goes into detail on how the leader can define the character, the setting, the challenge, the choice, the outcome, and the moral of the story.\u00a0 The value of good communication by the leader is explicit.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Leading through change means devising a strategy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Churches are often under-resourced.\u00a0 They must be creative in developing a strategy to reach their goal.\u00a0 The illustration that Ganz gives is David and Goliath.<\/p>\n<p>The starting point of David\u2019s success was his courage (p.547) but more is needed.\u00a0 \u201cDavid committed to fighting Goliath before he knew how he would do it (p.548).\u00a0 David\u2019s motivation caused him to seek creative ways to reach his goal. \u00a0\u00a0He knew why he had to do it before he knew how he could do it.\u201d (p. 548).<\/p>\n<p>David defined his problem.\u00a0 He was a shepherd boy, untrained in warfare, matched up against a giant warrior who was trained and experienced in killing men.\u00a0 His solution was creative.\u00a0 \u201cDavid did not know how to use King Saul\u2019s weapons, but he did know how to use stones as weapons\u201d (p. 549).\u00a0 David reimagined the battlefield.\u00a0 Instead of a place where men fought with swords,\u00a0he imagined\u00a0a field where a lion or a bear threatened his sheep.\u00a0 Church leaders need to work within their strengths.\u00a0 They also need to identify the strengths of their people.\u00a0 Creative thinking can sometimes cause a solution to be identified.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Leading through change involves catalyzing action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cAction refers to the work of mobilizing and deploying resources to achieve outcomes\u201d (p.553).\u00a0 \u00a0The key to this action involved getting people to make commitments.\u00a0 The phrase that Ganz uses over and over is \u201cCan we count on you?\u201d (p. 554).\u00a0 This may be uncomfortable for church leaders.\u00a0 Yet, how many times have church leaders complained that a leader forgot to show up, or canceled at the last minute?\u00a0 Ganz is crystal clear on his point \u201cSecuring commitment is thus the primary means by which social movements can get resources that they need to do their work\u201d (p.554).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Structuring Change in the Church<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I especially appreciated Ganz\u2019s identification (via Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould) that time can be seen as a cycle (a daily, monthly, annual routine), but can also be seen as an arrow (which has a launch, a trajectory, and an end) (p. 556-557).<\/p>\n<p>Leading a church through change can involve a \u201ccampaign.\u201d\u00a0 A campaign involves 5 steps: a foundation, a kickoff, peaks (sub-goals), THE peak (final goal), and resolution (celebration and evaluation).\u00a0 Whether a church needs to raise funds for something (i.e. new building or additional staff) or has another goal in mind (relocation, becoming multi-lingual, or evangelizing the community) a campaign can be an effective strategy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Leadership Development<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Much has been written in the business world about shared leadership. In the church world, autocratic leadership structures are often the norm.\u00a0 Ganz state that \u201ccommand and control structures alienate participation\u201d (p. 559).\u00a0 He lifts up teamwork and collaboration in leadership.\u00a0 He encouraged teams to solve problems together by confronting conflict by proposing a process that involved these steps:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Defining the problem<\/li>\n<li>Establishing outcome criteria<\/li>\n<li>Generating alternatives<\/li>\n<li>Evaluating alternatives<\/li>\n<li>Making a decision<\/li>\n<li>Learning from the decision (p.560)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Leading Change&#8221; is just one chapter that might be of value to a church leader.\u00a0 The chapters on \u201cA Clinical Approach to the Dynamics of Leadership,\u201d \u201cLeadership in a Globalizing World,\u201d as well as several chapters on leadership development are valuable as well.\u00a0 While church leaders might not initially flock to a Harvard Business School publication, I can see great value in this collection of leadership wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Calibri\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Calibri\">1.<\/span><span style=\"font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';margin: 0px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Calibri\">http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/religious-landscape-study\/<\/span><\/p>\n<p>2. \u00a0 Nohria, Nitin, and Rakesh Khurana.\u00a0<em>Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: An HBS Centennial Colloquium on Advancing Leadership<\/em>. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is no secret that our world, our communities, and our churches are facing rapid change.\u00a0 Issues related to technology, globalization, immigration, economic instability, and racial unrest all affect the church. \u00a0The Pew Research Center\u2019s 2014 Religious Landscape Study pointed out that adults with no religious affiliation grew from 36.6 million Americans in 2007 up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[346,766,747,767],"class_list":["post-10313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-change","tag-church-leadrship","tag-cocanougher","tag-ganz","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}