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lay leadership

Lay Leaders As Middle Managers

wwa_three_expressions.ashxLay Leaders Have An Important Job
…if the Church Will Let Us Do It!

The governance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is murky water. We are proud of our interdependence—our three expressions. Church leaders talk about it a lot.

We are less clear on how this actually works.

The foundation of interdependence is the local congregation. From this foundation comes the talent and resources that support the second interdependent entity (the regional body or synod) and the third interdependent agency (the national church). Entities 2 and 3 cannot exist without Entity 1. Entity 1 can exist without the others, but relationship with 2 and 3 is expected to make the local church stronger and more effective.

Regional clergy often feel a loyalty to the third expression, the National Church. Are they part of the regional expression? Are they a branch of the national expression? Are they beholding to their regional leader? Are they most loyal to the leaders and congregation who issue their call?

There is spillover in the role of the regional leadership—especially the office of bishop. They are elected by and serve the regional churches, but they are close to the national expression. A sort of old boys’ and girls’ club. They know each other and regard each other, but have no clue what they as individuals are doing in their 65 little corners of the United States. Since the highest authority in the ELCA is the regional Synod Assembly, they never find out. At some point the ELCA should review this. It is proving to be a bad idea. Leaders are taking advantage of this weaknesses for their own enrichment.

Lay leaders don’t fit into this structure except on paper. Our constitutions provide the laity considerable control over local ministry—the first of the three expressions and the one that funds the other two!

In practice, regional bodies are taking on powers to unilaterally strip local authority at whim. There is no effective way to check this. Synod Assemblies get their information from the synod office. They don’t have any way of investigating issues independently. In our Region, they haven’t even tried. Their decision in our case was based primarily on gossip—generated by SEPA leaders.

But still, the management of the local congregation is in the hands of the lay people. That’s the way it’s supposed to be in Lutheranland. Lay leaders stand between the people in the pew and the long arms of the clergy which branch from the national expression.

Here’s a quote from management guru Seth Godin.

The work of the middleman is to inspect and recover. If your restaurant gets lousy fish from the boat, you don’t get to serve it and proclaim garbage in garbage out. No, your job is to inspect what you get, and if necessary, change it.

That’s a big responsibilty. When we get lousy guidance from the regional or national office, we have an obligation to say “Wait a minute.”

Lay people must constantly inspect the information passed down to them—double check it, so to speak. We cannot trust that clergy have our interests in mind. It’s been clear in far too many cases that they have their own interests or the regional body’s interests in mind.

Many lay people individually are more than qualified to ask the right questions. Some lay people need to learn these skills. A responsibility of lay people is to make sure their congregations foster these skills among future generations.

Fostering an environment where questions are expected and encouraged is a challenge. Management is always tempted to believe that things run most smoothly when there are no challenges. They are wrong. Challenges, ably and readily met, make a wonderfully creative environment. We have a way to go before we achieve this.

It doesn’t take much for wrong teaching to take hold and change the character of the whole church.

Our Ambassadors occasionally come across such wrong teaching. One pastor preached to the people that they shouldn’t turn to God in prayer for little things that they can do themselves. Save God for the big things, she preached.

That began to resonate but it isn’t scriptural. It sure sounds good. But it is wrong. God is God. He wants us to come to Him in prayer. Our biggest problems are a hangnail to Him. It is somewhat presumptuous to believe that we have ANY power that is not gifted to us through Him. We need to stay in touch with God so that we remember that!

Wrong thinking can spread to wrong acting. We are seeing this today in the mis-interpretation of powers.

Bishops, aided by their synod councils, who together face economically trying times, look for answers. The answers they are finding are often outside their governance. If there is no one to point this out, they can help themselves at severe harm to others and their own mission. Get away with it once, the second, third and fourth times are so much easier—even acceptable for the lack of challenge.

What do we, as part of an interdependent church, do when one interdependent expression becomes predatory against another interdependent expression?

The only thing that can stop this is knowledgeable and independent thinking among both clergy and lay people.

That’s the challenge of today’s church.

We’ve been to Synod Assembly. We’ve seen pastors walk in, register as required, and walk out, leaving the decisions to others to make — right or wrong.

We’ve been to Synod Assembly where no one asks questions. No reason to. The answers have been laid out for the Assembly to rubber stamp.

We’ve been to Synod Assembly where serious and costly mistakes have been made because delegates follow when they should be leading.

The work of the middleman (lay leadership) is to inspect and recover. It’s a big job but somebody’s got to do it.

It’s actually the laity’s constitutional role. It’s supposed to be shared with clergy, but that hasn’t been effective. They need their jobs!

Let’s start doing a better job. It may be tough at first. It certainly hasn’t been easy here in East Falls, where the dangers and pitfalls are on display for all churches to see. (You’re welcome!)

If we don’t do our job under the grand scheme of Lutheran interdependence, it will all fall apart. Laity are Lutheran inspectors—the best safeguard to—

“Garbage in. Garbage out.”

22 Sep 2013

If Religious Education Was In Crisis Would Anyone Notice?

Are Seminaries In Touch with Today’s Church?

I read a blog post today about the alarming state of education in the field of marketing. Keep in mind that marketing and evangelism are very much alike.

It seems that the field of marketing is changing so fast that academia has not kept up. Tenured professors are teaching marketing the way it was ten and twenty years ago to students who no longer live in that world. Scratch that. They NEVER lived in that world.

Businesses are interviewing the top students and finding them wholly unprepared for real business challenges.

How did this happen?

The world of marketing began to change at a very fast pace within the last 15 years—too fast for the accrediting process to keep up.

It is quite possible that the Church faces the same problem. But it may take even longer to identify and fix it.

The Church is, after all, 2000 years old. We know what we are doing. Thank you very much.

But perhaps we face the same problems.

Keeping in Touch with the Neighborhood Church

Seminary faculties may be filled with professors who haven’t served a congregation during the most recent decades of change. The Church is ill-prepared to cope with the technological and economic challenges. They spend lots of time and resources analyzing but they use old measures. The outcomes predictably favor managerial thinking and not creative thinking.

Consequently, we may be teaching evangelism and pastoral methods that will not reach today’s communities, today’s Christians, or today’s unchurched.

If a congregation can’t find a pastor with the skills they need, what’s the usual advice? Change or close. There are few leadership candidates prepared to lead change. They, like most students, get where they are by complying with the institutions in which they are enrolled.

The type of change administrators are looking for may be impossible given the state of leadership. Managing churches (an expensive undertaking) usually means closing churches.

The people who are in closest touch with the changes in neighborhood churches are the people who serve on church councils and know what skills their churches need and how hard they are to find. They face modern challenges alone. Inadequate leadership drains resources and morale.

Lay leaders are not paid so their only horse in the race is their faith and passion. If they don’t accept the leadership presented to them by their regional body, they may be labeled as “difficult” or “resistant.” Neither are bad words but that is how they are perceived. More positive words might be “persevering,” “resourceful,” or “faithful.” They may simply be insisting on leadership skills that they need—but don’t exist.

Lay leaders struggle to keep up economically. The offering plate is the only recommended solution—and lots of people these days want a piece of that pie (including seminaries and regional bodies). Many lay leaders have developed  skills that those teaching in seminaries may not know exist.

The Marketing Answer

The marketing blogger applauded one university program that opened their marketing classes to business people. They make it easy for seasoned business people to return to school. They schedule classes so that business people can attend. They create a forum with young students and professionals that is resulting in what he claimed was the only program he could recommend as truly preparing students for the real world of marketing. He actually invited his readers to enroll in some classes at a discount!

Hmm!

What if seminaries made an effort to put students side by side with the lay leaders of the churches they will one day be serving.

This would differ from the usual field experience, which is under the tutelage of clergy.

Finding a more direct way to connect lay people with tomorrow’s leaders might help pastoral candidates learn before they have relationships to protect.

They might begin to see that many parishes are not dying from the most frequently cited reason—demographics. We just haven’t found ways to deal with changing demographics. (Isn’t this our mission?)

Congregations might, in reality, be dying from leadership that is not prepared for the work that needs to be done.

What If?

Putting seminarians and lay people together in this way is not a big “what if?” It wouldn’t be that hard to try.

  • Evening or weekend forums could have seminary students sitting next to lay church leaders and discussing the issues of local churches.
  • You want the congregational leaders from the trenches—not the accredited lay leaders who routinely serve on church boards and are part of the approved way of doing things.
  • You want small churches to be well represented. Most churches are small.
  • Some of the forums might actually be held in the small churches!

This dialog would occur on neutral ground. No one would be protecting sacred turf or answering to hierarchical authority. There would be no paycheck or career trajectory to consider.  Students and lay leaders would be discussing the real problems of today’s congregations.

And they might—together—find some solutions.

We might grow some new leadership all around—both clergy and lay!

What the Church needs (and needs desperately) is some new thinking. New thinking comes from new understanding.

Worth a try?

04 Sep 2013

Can the Church Be Fixed?

Are our church doors truly open?

Are our church doors truly open?

The Alban Institute’s Roundtable is unusually active this week. The weekly topic laid out all the failings of the mainline church. The resulting dialog was a mild outrage.

“Why are we going over what’s wrong? We know what’s wrong? How can we fix it?” Among the most desperate and honest questions is, “Can it be fixed?”

There is still a disconnect between church leadership and church members which may be at the heart of a general disillusionment with the Church.

Why do people become involved in church?

  • Some are born into church-respecting families.
  • Some seek answers to life’s problems.
  • Some are looking for peace and comfort
  • Some are seeking validation or acceptance.
  • Some are seeking God.

One way or another, many people find something in the church worth making it part of their lives. Something attracted them. It was probably someone humbly modeling the teachings of Christ.

That opens the door. Then what?

Church always asks more of us. It asks us to learn and to grow. It encourages us to take stands on issues. We are asked to influence others.

And then the rules begin. Rules are prompted by leaders who want order and power. This lessens the potential of the Church.

The laity hit a glass ceiling. Take a stand—but follow us.

Laity have a choice. We choose to become involved when our initial needs are met and we can make a difference. We don’t join churches to take on more financial woes. We don’t join to have more authority figures. We want to feel loved. We want to know God.

Part of the gift of the Reformation — a cause for which many gave their lives — was the empowerment of the laity. Grace is freely given. No middle man is needed. That message is clouded today in a Church where any “stand” is accepted only if it is politically correct.

The Church is at its strongest when it fosters courage by example.

There is an old Sunday School hymn, probably long forgotten by most:

Dare to be brave. Dare to be true.
Fight for the right for the Lord is with you.
He knows your trials, when your heart quails.
Call Him to rescue His grace never fails.

The Church often speaks out of both sides of its mouth. Be brave. Do as we say.

One commenter in the Roundtable discussion wrote an impassioned essay on his frustrations on spreading the Gospel. He concluded with his own battle cry—that he would remain faithful in knowing God.

He is correct. That is the foundation of all that is good and can be better in the Church. It is fundamental. Work at knowing God and the message we send will ring loud and clear. Then we will know when to follow and when to lead. We will be empowered to do both.

photo credit: Autumnsonata via photopin cc
05 Apr 2012

Lay Leaders May Save the Mainline Church

Today’s post in the Alban Institute’s Roundtable is a fascinating study on a topic important to today’s Church—the role of lay leadership.

The article is an excerpt from a book, Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality, by Stephen Chapin Garner (a pastor) with Jerry Thornell (a lay member).

The post begins with their New England congregation’s realization that professional leadership is an endangered commodity. Fewer young people are entering seminary. The number of second career pastors cannot keep up with the demand that is looming with coming retirements.

They answered the challenge by intentionally developing stronger lay leadership. The church grew. An unexpected result—their congregation sent seven members to seminary.

The authors talk about how the familiar visioning process never could have led them in the direction that ended up increasing their membership and helping to solve a denominational problem as well.

It all sounds familiar to 2×2. We found ourselves forced by a number of factors to rely on lay leadership. Had we relied solely on the recommended process of visioning and drafting a mission statement, we would probably still be holding special meetings to change a comma here or there.

Instead, we went to work. We addressed immediate needs and challenges. We prayed — a lot! We returned to the basics — making sure there was a quality worship experience, good preaching and hospitality. We took a few chances.

We relied on the talents of our members. When we were doing the work, we were more inclined to be invitational.

We gave ourselves room to grow. We cultivated a nonjudgmental atmosphere, allowing mistakes so that we could all learn together. We stretched. We maintained good relationships with supply pastors but were soon able to get by with minimal clergy.

The answer to congregational growth in challenging economic times may be in nurturing the laity — not in expensive hierarchical fixes.

30 Jan 2012