Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part Six)

The previous posts in this series constructed an argument for vision informed by theology (values) in church leadership. My last post listed certain pre-conditions and the first three steps to take in the envisioning process.

Here are the steps:

1. Pray. Obvious, but so often neglected in the process.
2. Identify the gap between theology and behavior. A pastor is responsible for focusing people’s attention on the gaps between values (theology) and behavior. For example, suppose a church uses 80% of its resources to minister to itself and 20% to minister outside the church. This inward focus might indicate a gap between: the mission of the church (“go into the world and make disciples”), and a consumerist tendency centered on comfort and preference. The gap between theology and behavior is always the place of vision.
3. Teach about the gap by addressing values, attitudes and behavior. Do NOT offer specific solutions at this point in the “envisioning process.” For example, the answer to an inward focused ministry is NOT a mandate that all ministries will contain “an outreach component.” Instead, church leaders should treat members as responsible adults. This means people are responsible for attitudinal change. They process what  new behavior is necessary, resulting in new vision.

Step four is vital.

A leader needs to create a “safe holding environment.” This is a space where people can speak freely about the values they hold and the frustrations they feel. The best description of this holding environment I have seen from a Christian perspective was written by Roxburgh and Romanuk: “…an environment in which the people of God imagine together a new future rather than one already determined by a leader” (p. 42).

Discussion about vision is always about the values people hold. These discussions generate heat as people talk about things that matter most to them. Leaders allow that heat to rise, even encourage it. Throughout the discussions the gap between values and behavior will eventually emerge. That gap is the place of vision.

A good leader makes sure that the discussion environment is “safe.” That means certain behaviors are prohibited: blame-shifting, ad hominem attacks, power plays, defeatism, etc. Ron Heifetz calls these “work avoidance behaviors.” A good leader also refuses the seduction of providing an “easy answer.” A short cut at this stage of the process may result in a “vision” rolled out more quickly, but it will encounter significant resistance resulting in delayed implementation or even failure unless people have fully worked through the process beforehand.

 ”Getting vision” is so much more than finding out what to do next. Done right, the process aligns people with the core values of the church. The church as a whole is re-vitalized as once again it consciously embraces those values (theology) and wrestles with how best to put them into action.

Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part Five)

Are there steps church leaders should follow to “get vision and lead the church?”

Yes but a pastor/church leader must first satisfy these pre-conditions. 

• Knowledge of theology. Not simply an understanding of Systematics (although such knowledge is important) but a real concern for how people live out their values (theology) in the community. 
• Knowledge of current events. Too many pastors/church leaders are satisfied with “sprinkling” current events into sermons. Assuming that the mission of the church is to make known the way of Jesus to the world, is there a place in the surrounding community where His love might be demonstrated? A specific church’s vision will combine theology with practical application in pursuing the mission of the church.
• Relational Leadership. The pastor/ church leader must know what is going on with the people in the group. “Getting vision” is not an academic exercise to be done in the office with pen and paper. As argued in a previous post it requires knowledge of the patterns of behavior in the church, knowledge gained from relationships with the people.
• Steadfastness. Vision is not a quick fix. The work of “getting vision” requires input from the people in the congregation. God works through this process to change the attitudes and behavior of His people.

With these necessary conditions met, here are the first steps to be taken by the pastor/ church leader:

1. Pray. Obvious, but so often neglected in the process.
2. Identify the gap between theology and behavior. A pastor is responsible for focusing people’s attention on the gaps between values (theology) and behavior. For example, suppose a church uses 80% of its resources to minister to itself and 20% to minister outside the church. This inward focus might indicate a gap between: the mission of the church (“go into the world and make disciples”), and a consumerist tendency centered on comfort and preference. The gap between theology and behavior is always the place of vision.
3. Teach about the gap by addressing values, attitudes and behavior. Do NOT offer specific solutions at this point in the “envisioning process.” For example, the answer to an inward focused ministry is NOT a mandate that all ministries will contain “an outreach component.” Instead, church leaders should treat members as responsible adults. This means people are responsible for attitudinal change. They process what  new behavior is necessary, resulting new vision. How?

The next steps are addressed in a following post.

Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part Four)

When it comes to vision, theology and church leadership, many leaders adopt a non-theological consensus approach to leading, equating “consensus” with ”relational.”

Yet relational leadership is not consensus leadership.

Typically consensus leaders call a small group of people together and facilitate a meeting to hammer out a vision for the congregation. The result is then handed down to the rest of the church. So what’s wrong with this?

1. Pastors and leaders spend much time “vision-casting” and trying to get “buy-in” from the people by “marketing” the vision, thus delaying implementation (and possibly losing time, momentum and opportunity) until some arbitrary “critical mass” is achieved.
2. As a corollary to point one, valuable (and limited) time, energy and resources are spent on marketing rather than on vision implementation.
3. The consensus approach to ”getting vision” produces a compromise vision constructed to get the vote of the majority of people in the original meeting.
4. The process is quite vulnerable to being overly influenced by very vocal members of the original team. 
5. Often the unstated goal of consensus leadership is conflict avoidance and thus the desire for peace and harmony can cut short tough vision discussions.
6. Since the purpose of vision is to set the direction of the organization, this means saying “no” to certain other directions. Consensus leadership does not lend itself to saying no.

Relational leaders differ in several ways.

1. Relational leaders help people focus on their values. These leaders have a sense of the nonnegotiables of the congregation which are concretized in the theology of the church.
2. Their goal is behavior-congruence to values, not agreement or compromise between members.
3. Through their relationships with people, they have a “balcony view” of the whole organization (see Heifetz, R., & Laurie, D.) making a distinction between what individuals want to do and what God is doing with the congregation.
4. Like consensus leaders they facilitate meetings to hammer out vision. However, they remind people repeatedly of those things to which the church must say “no.”
5. Relational leaders resist the temptation to offer quick solutions, believing it is the responsibility of the people to grasp vision.
6. They construct a “safe holding environment” where people are held accountable for what and how things are said.

Part Five will outline specific steps pastors and church leaders should take to “get vision and lead the church.”



Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part Three)

Our theology should shape how we lead the church.

Christian theology emphasizes the giftedness of an individual and the importance of crafting a place in the organization accordingly. Put simply, the theological assumption is that churches are constructed according to the leading of the Spirit (1 cor 12.7). Each person bears a unique responsibility for a piece of the whole vision enterprise (which is the point of Ephesians 2.10).

Building on the arguments in Part One and Part Two, the practice of this theology results in what secular leadership academics call “distributed leadership.” You may lead in one thing and I may lead in something else, just as I may follow in one thing and you may follow in something else. Giftedness and competency are more important than position in the organization. The leader’s role is less about giving answers than focusing people on what God is doing in their midst.

How does this differ from governing by consensus?

Consensus leadership attempts to build agreement between followers. Consensus leaders bring people together to figure out what the direction of the organization should look like. The insistence on a unanimous vote is often one indication of this type of leadership.

There are several disadvantages to this:

• It takes time to build consensus and opportunities can be lost.
• People are often at different stages of understanding regarding the mission/purpose of the organization, requiring answers to the same questions over and over, while the frustration of others grows.
• Some people are informed and some are not. “Pooled-ignorance” helps no-one yet those not informed have equal say with those who are.
• Recalcitrant and difficult people (all churches have some) are given veto power over the mission of God (see Numbers 13.26-31).

In contrast, theologically informed leadership works on discerning what the Spirit is doing with His congregation. Therefore to “get vision and lead,” the pastor must look at the different patterns of Spiritual work in the lives of the people in the congregation. This in turn requires a pastor’s ministry (patterned on that of Jesus and the Spirit) to be highly relational.

So how does that work specifically? What are the general steps a church leader should follow and how are the difficulties of consensus leadership avoided? That is discussed in Part Four.

Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part Two)

How does a church leader/pastor lead people and “get vision” in a church whose theology states God lives with them?

Too many pastors leave their theological training at the door of the board-room. They assume that theology is irrelevant to practical, modern stuff like running boards and committees. Ironically the top-down leadership style they adopt is not only theologically incorrect, but from a leadership point of view, it is also ineffective.

We discuss theology first, then leadership.

Look at just two theological implications of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the lives of church members.

1. People have equal access to God. This was not true of the ancient Israelites who had to go to the temple/tabernacle to seek God. Nowadays any of God’s people can go to Him and ask (and receive) answers and guidance regarding any matter on their heart. The reformers refered to this as the Priesthood of all believers.

2. God desires to communicate with each individual. The Joel quotation in Acts  means that there is no intermediary necessary for God’s people. The days of God communicating to his people through the leader alone are gone. Forget waiting on Moses to go to the mountain to receive the tablets. Now vision and guidance are available to all of God’s children.

Therefore, vision and leadership are no longer the sole purview of the pastor, nor even a select group of “mature” people.

The practical result of this is what secular leadership academics call “distributed leadership.” Each person bears a unique responsibility for a piece of the whole vision (which is the point of Ephesians 2.10).

How does that work, how is it different from consensus leadership, and what is the role of the leader/pastor in such a church? See Part Three.

Vision and Theology in Church Leadership (Part One)

How should a pastor/church leader determine vision for the church?

Obvious answers include go to God and/or go to the Scriptures, right?

Well…yes and no. Certainly Christians believe God answers prayer. So consulting Him about the direction of the church seems like a good idea (to say the least). And the Scriptures teach that the mission of the church is disciple-making (Matthew 28. 16-20).  

So who needs more vision than that? Just do it (insert Nike swish here).

But hold on. Isn’t each local church supposed to have a unique vision/understanding of the mission for their particular organization in their specific location? Isn’t that the implication of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 12. 14-27? So who determines what the vision is and how does someone get it?

Some pastors believe that only they are “mature” enough to handle the heady business of “getting vision from God.” God just communicates what He wants done to the pastor who then passes it along to the peons, I mean, church members. Moses going to the mountain is their model for getting vision.

Others don’t worry about such things. They have an idea that if pastors just put their head down and do what needs to be done (preaching, visitation and worship) everything else will take care of itself,  if the people are obedient to the Scriptures and God’s guidance (as revealed through the Pastor’s sermons, of course).

Both approaches are appallingly theologically ignorant, not to mention unjust, hierarchical, and paternalistic. They neglect the single most important God-event since the Resurrection.

The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in the lives of His people.

What are the implications of His new dwelling place for church leadership? What does that mean about how to determine vision/guidance? How should pastors lead people who all have equal access to God? 

See Part Two for some suggested answers.