If I could open up a window into our church\u2019s leadership meetings you would find that much of what we discuss, wrestle with, and act upon is about who we are, where we\u2019re going, and how we get there. Without diving too deeply into our weeds, we\u2019ve found ourselves continually having to rediscover our identity, clarify our mission, and unpack our willingness to act upon it.<\/p>\n
I compare the status of our church to an anonymous quote: \u201cThe safest place for ships is in the harbor but that\u2019s not why ships were built.\u201d[1]<\/a> As leaders we\u2019ve found that we were at the helm of a ship that had spent much of its time in the proverbial harbor\u2014an occasional jaunt along the coastline of \u201cmission,\u201d but nothing too risky. It\u2019s as though we had become stuck in the harbor (perhaps too strongly stated); we\u2019re a risk-averse community. Edwin Friedman may be speaking to one of the fundamental reasons we\u2019re often stuck when he writes: \u201cConceptually stuck systems cannot become unstuck simply by trying harder. For a fundamental reorientation to occur, that spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new perceptions beyond the control of our thinking process must happen first.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cStuck,\u201d \u201cRisk-averse,\u201d \u201cimaginatively grid-locked,\u201d\u2014some of the words Friedman uses describe well where our church and the majority of evangelical churches find themselves. \u201cPlateaued\u201d is a word often used for such churches, and crude because its focus is on numeric growth. But in reality, it\u2019s a holistic issue, an issue that must include numeric growth but also emotional processes, spiritual health, and especially leadership. The problem with leadership (and yes I\u2019m pointing at myself) is that we\u2019re in the thick of it. Friedman rightly argues, \u201cIn order to imagine the unimaginable, people must be able to separate themselves from surrounding emotional processes before they can even begin to see (or hear) things differently.<\/em>\u201d[3]<\/a> So to lead our church we have to \u201cseparate ourselves from the emotional processes\u201d\u2014easier said than done. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. When the church is hurting, I\u2019m hurting; I feel the ups and downs deeply which negatively impacts my leadership. Thankfully, I don\u2019t lead alone.<\/p>\n For example, inspired by our recent read of \u201cGood to great,<\/u>\u201d I decided to ask some brutally honest questions of my fellow Elders.[4]<\/a> In the last couple years we\u2019d seen the loss of several community groups but a corresponding rise of \u201cequipping\u201d classes. I wanted to know why the community groups died off. \u00a0Why are equipping opportunities more popular? Some reasons were obvious: popular equipping classes met felt needs, didn\u2019t require long term commitments (from the participants or the leaders), provided an easy measure of fellowship, and were generally flexible in venue and timing. As we went deeper into the issue, I began to feel unsettled. I recognized my part in emphasizing various spiritual formation classes\/seminars corresponded with the decline of community groups\u2014community is something I had always been passionate about\u2014so what happened? Some of this may be related to our passions and gifts as leaders!<\/p>\n During this past year or so we\u2019ve also been wrestling with our approach to outreach; at my encouragement we\u2019re preparing to offer Alpha groups as a program of the church. As I was asking \u201cwhy have the community groups died off?\u201d one of our Elders said the question needed to be reframed. He intuitively knew what Friedman points out: \u201cIn the search for the solution to any problem, questions are always more important than answers because the way one frames the question, or the problem, already predetermines the range of answers one can conceive in response.<\/em>\u201d[5]<\/a> As the Elder kindly probed further, I recognized the issue wasn\u2019t the relative strength and\/or weakness of our community groups or equipping classes\u2014a better question would have been \u201cWhy have my passions and vision shifted from traditional shepherding and teaching in favor of evangelism and movement of our people as ministers of the gospel?\u201d<\/p>\n Friedman says \u201cInnovations are new answers to old questions; paradigm shifts reframe the question.\u201d[6]<\/a> I appreciate my Elders who helped me reframe the question. It\u2019s not about community groups vs. equipping classes. It\u2019s about having the courage and taking the risk to sail this ship out of the harbor. It\u2019s not the either\/or thinking of \u201ccommunity\u201d vs. \u201cequipping\u201d vs. \u201coutreach.\u201d It\u2019s about the either\/and thinking: it\u2019s the faith that allows me to admit my personal limitations and simultaneously trust God who can transcend our limitations. He can show us how we do all three.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman,\u00a0A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>\u00a0(New York: SEABURY BOOKS, 2007), 29.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 32.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 31.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Jim Collins,\u00a0Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap–and Others Don’t<\/em>\u00a0(New York, NY: Harper Business, 2001), 80-87.<\/p>\n