We have all had THAT experience.\u00a0 Seeing power used in a ministry setting in a negative way.\u00a0 I have a good friend who had his first pastoral assignment, the head pastor made him preach his sermons in private just to the head pastor for feedback and approval, and to make sure they would be adequate for the few times he preached on Sunday morning.\u00a0 The message was obvious, \u201cI am in control.\u201d\u00a0 My friend is now the head pastor of a fairly large church, and his former boss was eventually removed in disgrace from his role.\u00a0 Off the top of my head I can think of many similar stories where pastors used power to cajole, control, and manipulate.\u00a0 I am blessed to work in a great organization where leadership development is prized, where everyone is encouraged to be a leader, and where the ultimate goal of leadership is to empower fellow staff, as well as volunteers and students to unlock the power of the Holy Spirit in themselves and help fulfill the Great Commission.\u00a0 Still, even in a democratic movement such as ours, you can occasionally come across people who abuse power.\u00a0 I once sat in a meeting with a high level leader where he lied, manipulated, and intimidated everyone else in the room, ever so subtly.\u00a0 Everyone knew what he was doing, but he held all the power.\u00a0 I serve alongside my wife as a co-director and it has been here that I have also seen how systems and patterns can often work to exclude women from power.<\/p>\n
Mary Kate Morse\u2019s Making Room for Leadership<\/em>: Power, Space and Influence <\/em>delves into the intricacies of power.\u00a0 Morse explains that power is embodied, it is carried within us, and the way we present ourselves, dress, move, and talk carries with it the amazing power to influence.\u00a0 In essence, \u201cour bodies tell others whether we have power (or not) and whether we will share it or not (loc 77).\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, power is always played out in a social and communal dimension, where the very unconscious sensitivities and emotions of a group and culture decide who will have power and who will not.\u00a0 Thus, leadership is \u201ca physical and a social process. (loc 164).\u201d\u00a0 In this sense, Morse is quick to point out that leadership is rarely appointed or confined by structure or labels, instead leadership is always happening, and some who don\u2019t even know they are leaders are actually leading.\u00a0 Morse then dichotomizes the use of power into that which either functions to \u201cconsume or invite (loc 115).\u201d<\/p>\n As leaders, we all have influence, and we all have power.\u00a0 Our choice is to use that power either to empower others towards positive changes in their lives and in the organization, or to use the power to exclude, control, manipulate, protect our interests, or even to abuse.\u00a0 In a sense, true leadership is more about character and how one handles one\u2019s power.\u00a0 As such, Morse gives an excellent definition of leadership as: \u201cAuthentic leadership- leadership that catalyzes a group toward deep change and moves its members in a positive, energizing direction-involves the group acting together (loc 256).\u201d\u00a0 Leaders use their power to build consensus, encourage others to participate, be a part of the team, and be change agents themselves.\u00a0 In fact, true leadership empowers.\u00a0 It gives all a sense of their own ability to make change happen.<\/p>\n Morse\u2019s book reminded me very much of Henri Nouwen\u2019s wonderful little meditation on leadership In the Name of Jesus.\u00a0 <\/em>Nouwen a professor at Harvard left that world of power and influence to work with the mentally handicapped at the L\u2019Arche community.\u00a0 One of the things Nouwen writes about is his relationship with a mentally handicapped man named Bill, who Nouwen had tasked with accompanying him on some of his speaking engagements.\u00a0 For Nouwen he very much wanted to empower Bill, and for him to know that \u201cwhat we did, we did together in Jesus name (Nouwen, 101).\u201d<\/p>\n Power that empowers is of course part and parcel of the ministry of Jesus and the New Testament church.\u00a0 It was built into the Trinitarian love for humanity, that humanity would participate in the life and mission of God.\u00a0 God sends into all the world all people, regardless of sex, race, or station in life in order to bring about the Kingdome of healing, justice, and peace.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the church we have inherited is often one beset by struggles with power and how to use it. \u00a0It is an institution desiring to protect its institutionalness. \u00a0The best leaders understand that power must be given away, and be used for the benefit of the powerlessness.\u00a0 Perhaps in our postmodern, post-Christendom setting we are seeing the rending of the uneasy relationship of power in the church.\u00a0 The missional movement (and \u00a0other movements) instinctively understand that to expand and grow, one must use power to empower. That is the genius of the Jesus who empowered women, crooks, and all kinds of riff raff to change the world. Power must be gripped loosely, but not rejected.\u00a0 Power is not the problem, it is how it is used.<\/p>\n I firmly believe that the early church, and many Christian movements that have changed the world understood that power must be used to empower, and to unleash all the people of God to influence the world for Christ.\u00a0 As I sit here in Spain in 2014 watching the continual decline of faith and the institutional church, I can\u2019t help but wonder if churches and organization could reverse this course by changing their understanding of leadership and power.\u00a0 Perhaps Pope Francisco is a breath of fresh air who will do just that, against the cronyism and corruption that for so many generations has used its power to protect and insulate itself.<\/p>\n If you are leading a missional team, or any organization that seeks to empower the body of Christ, then I highly recommend this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have all had THAT experience.\u00a0 Seeing power used in a ministry setting in a negative way.\u00a0 I have a good friend who had his first pastoral assignment, the head pastor made him preach his sermons in private just to the head pastor for feedback and approval, and to make sure they would be adequate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"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":[2,8,95],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-morse","tag-power","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}