"The Truth is That You Can't Do it Alone."
Kouzes and Posner (The Truth About Leadership) summarize their fourth practice of exemplary leadership this way: "Enable Others to Act."
Perhaps you would prefer the word "empower" rather than "enable" and you might have a point. What I enjoy about Kouzes and Posner is their ability to write for audiences that range from business to education to religious. Their experience, research and resultant conclusions apply across the board. So, while particular terms like "enable" may run counter to some of our preferences, the bottom line of "enable others to act," for church leaders, is about sharing leadership. It's about the ministry of the laity. They summarize their "truth" this way:
"Leaders alone don't make anything great. Leadership is a shared responsibility. You need others, and they need you. You're all in this together. To build and sustain that sense of oneness, exemplary leaders are sensitive to the needs of others. They ask questions. They listen. They provide support. They develop skills. They ask for help. They align people in a common cause. They make people feel like anything is possible. They connect people to their need to be in charge of their own lives. They enable others to be even better than they already are." (
The Truth About Leadership, Kouzes and Posner, Jossey-Bass, pp. 73-74).
I believe the tide is beginning to turn in the church. With the influence of an emerging generation of leaders, most of whom are found in that still-undefined but exhaustively described population called "millennials," churches are finding that this refreshing batch of Americans is slowly but surely changing the DNA of local congregations. With hope and patience, the change will be reflected in a move into positions of authority as well as leadership at influential levels.
I say their influence is refreshing. The vast majority of established churches clinging to old ways that no longer work while maintaining that they
"really do want young people to join them," are the places where there is great potential for new wind to be blowing.
The bedrock in these congregations are people who love God and neighbor; they are spirited people with open minds and hearts. They are also holding onto dearly beloved traditions, sometimes at all costs. Yet they are folks who want to see a future but don't quite know how to see it through the eyes of the 20 - 34 year-old in their midst. Give the veterans empathy, for it is hard to release what has worked. That goes for any age. Empathy can unlock the potential for bridge-building between generations. Here's the key: It is up to the seasoned veterans to take the first step. I don't mean that millennials need hand-holding, like kindergartners being led across a busy street. They are quick to see through paternalistic acts. What they need is license to be released to try their own wings, just as their parents and grandparents did in different ways, in different cultural circumstances. In my opinion, they aren't waiting for permission.
In days gone by, we used to say that Christianity is one generation from extinction. It still may be true, but I think we may have assumed "Christianity" meant The Church; maybe as narrowly defined as our congregation. In any event, Christianity was simply the way we understood it to be. Christian book sellers loaded up on titles that named the illness and prescribed one or another antidote. Denominational and regional leaders designed one program after another to reverse the downturn, transform local congregations, and launch new organizational structures better suited to the times. Well, here we are. The prognosticators may have missed it by a generation or two, but the institution responsible for transmitting the faith, I mean the institution that understood Christianity through the lens of a 500-year-old Protestant Reformation, is all but gone. What lives today is not the Church of the Reformation era, nor the Church of the American hay-day years of the last century; not the church of our parents, even. There are local church exceptions, vital downtown or suburban congregations that have found it possible to change their ways and remain relevant. Some congregations are preserved by lots of money, endowed or tied to one or ten wealthy benefactors. This begs the question: Do they merely desire that Old First Church will be there to accommodate their family and friends when they
"slip the surly bonds of earth?" The healthiest and more vital congregations exist because they've found the way to extend the life of their local franchise, sometimes with a polite but persistent ignoring of denominational guidelines (note the disappearance of denominational names from church signs). What's missed in these settings is that they, too, are mere decades from oblivion. One thing is predictable: Their current vitality is limited and death will come as it does to every individual and institution. That is, it will come if their ways don't remain elastic too. In a matter of years, what works now will not work in the decades ahead. Nobody knows how long; what we should know is that churches are not merely organizations; they are living organisms.
All this means is that the Church, and every local church, must learn to practice elasticity. This is not a new idea. This is a tried-and-true fact of church life. Without a flexible style, and an adjoining practice of quick, responsible, long-term change, there is no long term future church or Church. Enter the Millennial Generation. They are nothing if not elastic. To them, the tried-and-true methods of
churchianity are no longer valid. Yet, without the local congregations of their parents and grandparents, from whence shall they inherit the deep and abiding faith?
Millennials will be the first to tell you they value spirituality. But the spiritual lives they do have may seem foreign to those who've gone before. They are deeply interested in matters of religion, ethically committed to the well-being of neighbors near and far. However, their approaches do not fit neatly into the established institution as they see it. I believe our forebears had it right when they said,
"the Church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time...." Yet
I think even the best of us failed to realize that it wasn't
our Church that would be preserved. The vehicle that is "of God" is not that Body made in our image, organized with our latest models, and constructed with our resources, human and otherwise. God's instrument is that Word-made-flesh Body that is home to piety, worship, mercy, social justice, and above all compassionate grace. What's more, they see that God's instrument in it's richest and true form, doesn't even exist for itself. Even the ancestors saw that which
will be preserved to the end of time....was for
"the salvation of the world." (emphasis mine). And here is where these thoughts have all been leading...
Kouzes and Posner in their landmark book,
The Truth About Leadership, spell out ten truths that coalesce around their
"Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership". These practices, honed from nearly 40 years of research, are easily adapted to the needs of congregations, I believe. The fourth one, in particular, strikes at the heart at what some have called "the New Reformation" - delivering the once clergy-oriented ministry of the Church, into the hands of the membership, the laity who make up the congregations.
During the same 40 years that Kouzes and Posner have been discovering exemplary leaders, congregations have been learning to reform the ministry of Jesus Christ by taking on a greater role of leadership. In the same way that the Bible was given to the Church 500 years ago, ministry is being given to the Church today. Simply put, if clergy don't release ministry with empowering grace, we can kiss our congregations good-bye. Some clergy get this; some don't.
Millennials are not interplanetary visitors bringing salvation to the present disorder. They are humble, inquisitive, bold and sometimes uncompromising. But they are learners like their predecessors. Those who are darkening the doors of local churches today, in all their varieties I might add, have come with open hearts and minds. They want a communal relationship with Christ-followers, but here's the thing: they don't necessarily want the the faith of the people they meet, once inside. They would like to discover the wonders of a faith that will be their own, thank you very much.
Is that so hard to accept? Public education is not the same as it was 40 years ago. The business world of 2015 has gone through several transformations since 1970. The health field has moved wonderfully and rapidly into the 21st century with astounding developments in treatment and prevention. To be a governmental servant today is far different than the post-Vietnam years.
How is it that many churches can't invite change in the same way? How is it that congregations, even more than other institutions, can't accommodate the movement of Spirit and Wisdom in our midst? Why can't clergy and congregations grasp the concept of releasing ministry to the people, and especially the people who are the future?
I am among those who believe with all my heart that the future is unwritten. I trust in the power of God's resilient Spirit to raise up leadership in every generation. But if those in leadership (read "power") don't learn the practice of enabling others to act, local churches and the authorities that govern them will continue to gasp for breath on life support, and eventually succumb to our fear of letting go. I'm not advocating anarchy. I am on the lookout for new leadership, frankly younger, who are waiting for a chance to act. But just as important, I'm praying for God to raise up current leaders who
"connect people to their need to be in charge of their own lives. [who] enable others to be even better than they already are."
How willing are we to be better?
