Tod Bolsinger

Hemorrhaging Pastors

Reposting this from a couple of years back. This story, sadly, is becoming far too common.  I will use this to kick off a new discussion about the training pastors need in a post-christendom day.

Three. In one day. 

On Monday, I heard of three of my pastor friends who all resigned this week.  No affairs, no scandal, no one is renouncing faith.  But three, really good, experienced, pastors all turned in resignations and walked away.  Two are leaving church ministry all together.

The details are as different as the pastors themselves, but the common thread is that they finally got worn down by trying to bring change to a church system that was stuck.

I have been hearing from more pastors these days.  Some of it is related to my work with TAG Consulting, a lot of it is because I am, well, one of them.  We chat and email and text and the common thread is always the same: “The church is stuck and we don’t know what to do.”

Stuck and declining. Stuck and clinging to the past. Stuck and lurching to quick fixes, trying to find an easy answer for what is clearly a systemic challenge. (“If only you could preach better, pastor!” “If only you were more ‘pastoral’ and caring, pastor!”  “If only our worship was more dynamic, pastor!” “Please, pastor, DO something…That is what we pay you for isn’t it?”)

In some cases, the leaders of the church had turned on the pastor making him the scapegoat.  In others, there was a sense that the church just wanted to stop any change process.  For some, they are early in their tenures and are trying to get at the core issues early and bravely, looking squarely at what Jim Colllins calls “the brutal facts.”  But most of them are so far into their ministry at the church that it seems like whatever they do is too little too late.  After trying so hard, it seems that the church just gave up and hunkered down.  As one of my friends said, “This church has gone deaf to my voice.”  And soon after the finger-pointing begins, immediately followed by a big severance, a disillusioned pastor and a crippled church.

Most of my pastor friends acknowledge that they contributed in some way to the very circumstances that are forcing them out of the calling they love.  All of us acknowledge that seminary didn’t prepare us for this.  But, trying to rise to the occasion, they find themselves facing a wall of resistance that quickly turns into a voice of rejection.  The underlying, unspoken issue seems to be: “If only the pastor would stop trying to lead us and just pastor us, then we’d be fine.” 

Except we are not fine.  The culture is changing, the world is changing and churches are facing change on an unprecedented scale.  We are heading into uncharted territory and pastors and lay leaders need to learn to lead a mission together where there are real obstacles, real challenges and where the future is nothing like the past.

Until we do, we’ll keep bleeding pastors and we will watch our churches wither away.

Beyond the Pulpit: Kingdom Leadership

My presentation at the Ogilvie Institute's Inside Out Conference.

Beyond the Pulpit (Kingdom Leadership) from Brehm Center on Vimeo.

 

 

 

Walls, Fences and Necessary Things

“So, Charlie, when are we going fix that wall that’s falling down?”

Charlie heard the voice from the yard next door. Frankly, he hadn’t noticed that the wall was falling down.  Charlie is not the kind of guy who notices these things. But, Jim, the next door neighbor most definitely does. 

They’d lived next door to each other for seven years.  But until the wall fell down they didn’t know each other. 

When Charlie saw that indeed the wall was in need of serious repair, he assumed that meant that he and Jim would split the cost to pay someone to fix.  You know, be neighborly and cooperative. Jim had other ideas. 

The next week he was out digging up the foundation of the wall and soon, if nothing else besides guilt, Charlie joined in.  Together they replaced that wall with a fence.   Once that fence was finished, Jim noted that the rest of Charlie’s walls and fences were even worse than the one that had crumbled, and he offered to help him put up a new fence all the way around his property.  Charlie, who as a pastor and musician is not exactly skilled at this particular kind of labor, readily agreed.

So Charlie and Jim built some fences together.  And a friendship was born.  As they worked together to make good fences, they found out all kinds of things about each other.  Jim is a retired park ranger and former Vietnam vet.  He can cook as good a paella as he is handy with tools.  He knows a thing or two about good wine and classical music and great literature.  He grew up near the Mokulmne Wilderness in California and loves to backpack.  Jim and Charlie started going on hiking trips together.   Jim’s not particularly religious at all, but when his wife died, he asked Charlie to conduct the funeral. 

Now when Jim is on vacation, Charlie watches his house.  When Jim mows his lawn he also mows Charlie’s.  For seven years they were just neighbors who didn’t know each other.  Then the wall fell down and they built a fence.  In building the fence, they built a friendship. 

Recently, Jim suggested that they put a gate in the fence.  Which of course, you couldn’t do with a wall.  And they wouldn’t have even considered before they built that fence together.  

Wendell Berry wrote, “Community will start again when people begin to do necessary things for each other again.”

As I think about all that is happening around the Presbyterian Church these days and look through the lens of my position on the Middle Governing Body Commission, I have a hunch that there is something for us in this story of wall, fences, gates and friendship and necessary things.

Where is the Leader's "Dress Rehearsal"?

Where do leaders safely learn to fail? Where do we get a chance to learn how much we still have to learn?  Where do we get the experience of missing our marks, of flubbing the lines and tripping our roles without ruining the whole 'production'?

Darcy Rice is one of the elders in my church and widely respected theater arts teacher at a local high school.  He is really good at what he does.  Here he discusses the good fortune of having a bad dress rehearsal.

"I use every teaching skill and performance trick I have accumulated over many years as an actor, director, writer and teacher. I explain, encourage, cajole, insist, cheerlead, demonstrate and inspire. I do whatever it takes to get the best performance from every member of the cast. But ultimately, they must be allowed to fail.

This is the secret weapon of the first dress rehearsal. By allowing students to fail while still in the protected environment of rehearsal, we are giving them the greatest educational opportunity possible. Through a myriad of mistakes, dropped lines, misplaced props, mangled dances and the inevitable missed entrance, students are forced to take responsibility for their own work. It is through these “mistakes” that the greatest learning happens. The student who misses his entrance, and accepts personal responsibility for doing so, will never miss that entrance again."

Do we who work with younger leaders give them places to fail while protected?  And where do those of us who are often in the spotlight get the opportunity to work on and work out the things we don't yet have 'down'?  For me, being a supervisor to younger staff and a coach to leaders is an opportunity to keep cultivating a culture of rehearsal and learning.  Creating environments for every leader to be a learners is what good leadership is really about.

With thanks to Darcy Rice and you can find the rest of this good article here.

Gus and Hal PLANT a Church: A Vision to Move Churches Forward.

Gus can’t walk, Hal is blind.  Alone they would each be what we sometime call “shut ins”.  Octogenarians both, they don’t get around very easily on their own.  But put them together, as they usually are, and those limitations don’t limit then all that much.  Gus sits in his wheelchair and gives direction, Hal pushes the wheelchair and follows Gus’ lead and together they get to where they want to go.

The first time I thought about Gus and Hal was at the New Church Development Conference that our church hosted for the Presbyterian Church (USA) Church Growth ministry.  The NCD pastors and team members in attendance were given an assignment to practice their observation and analysis skills in our community.  Teams spread out over a twenty mile radius and then came back with reports on what they saw.  As each team reported in, I scribbled notes.  It was as if I had been lent the eyes of a church planter to see my own community. 

But there was another tone to the church planter’s reports.  Sitting in the midst of our recently refurbished church campus, most of them couldn’t help but feel wistful at the abundance of opportunities they could see, and the lack of resources that they had (especially compared to our “established” church).  That is when it dawned on me.  The church planters are Gus: they can see but they don’t have the means to get to the needs.  The established churches, like my own are Hal: they have the energy to push, but can’t always see the need or opportunity.   Alone, we don’t move.  Together--Hal pushing Gus, Gus leading Hal--we travel into the midst of new places to do new things we could never do alone. 

In other posts, I offered Gus and Hal and their collaborative partnership as an opportunity for pastors to ward off burnout by returning to a vision of leadership that is closer to the New Testament model of partnership.  I have also suggested that the key for Gus and Hal (and Lewis and Clark) was to be humbly aware of our limitations, but focused on using our strengths.  In this post, I want to suggest that we consider this model for whole congregations. 

What would happen in our denomination if every church had a partner new church development?  What if for every blind, but energized Hal, there was a visionary, but lame Gus?  What would happen if each church saw the possibilities of this kind of collaborative partnership for both congregations?  Even more, what would happen for the mission of Christ?

Gus and Hal Get out into the World: Living Beyond Limitations

Last post I introduced you to two widowers at my church, Gus and Hal.  Gus can’t walk, Hal is blind.  Either one of those disabilities is enough to discourage most of us, let alone a couple of 80 year old widowers who are feeling the effects of age and loss.  You wouldn’t begrudge either one if they decided to stay home and watch SportsCenter (well, Gus anyway) or listen to books on tape.  Oftentimes losses lead to a lesser experience of life.  We become more aware of our limitations and we, well, limit ourselves.  And indeed, in time that will be the case with all of us.

But Gus and Hal together don’t let limitations limit them quite so much.  And the key word is “together”.  When they come to church, they come together.  Gus sits in his wheelchair and guides Hal, who pushes the wheelchair and lets Gus give direction.  Gus can see, Hal can move and together they get out into the world.

The secret to their partnership is both simple and profound. 

1. They are keenly aware of their limitations, but they focus on their strengths. 
2. They have partnered together around their strengths. 

And you don’t have to have a degenerative eye disease or be an amputee to know that what is true of Gus and Hal is true for all of us.  We all have limitations and we all have strengths.  The accepted wisdom is that in order to be successful in life, one needs to continually focus on improving one’s weaknesses.  The assumption being that a truly good life is a life of self-contained, self-reliant independence. 

Gus and Hal challenge that assumption and demonstrate the difference of what partnership can do.  If Gus tried to get around on his own, he wouldn’t get very far.  He could likely push his own wheelchair for a while but when his arms gave out he’d be done.  If Hal wanted to get out and about into the world, he’d be limited also, but by focusing on Gus’ good eyes and Hal’s strong legs and back, together they go further than they ever could alone.

Recently, in my work with TAG Consulting, I was trained in CoreClarity.  CoreClarity is a tool that builds upon Strengthfinders to help people know and maximize their innate talents.  It’s an interesting and helpful tool that is being used by corporations, non-profits, international ministries and churches (like I am doing with my staff) to help people focus more on their strengths and less on trying to improve on their weaknesses.

The studies done on focusing on turning talents into strengths are pretty clear.  If people can honestly accept the truth about their strengths and weaknesses, those who put most of their energy into using and developing their strengths (instead of overcoming their weaknesses) are far more successful, energized and passionate about life.  Partnerships that build around a diversity of strengths create more successful teams AND allow each person to function in the areas where they are most talented, animated and have the most to contribute. 

They key to living beyond limitations:  Awareness of limitations, developing strengths and collaborating with others.

So, where do you put most of your energy?  Overcoming your own weaknesses in search of an elusive (and lonely) self-sufficiency?  Or enjoying and developing your talents into strengths in partnership with others? 

“Let’s Put on a Show.”

“Leading is convening.”          Peter Block

My kids have grown up with a few other families that are closer than kin, no matter where our lives have taken us, we have gone out of our way to stay connected to each other, to spend a couple of holidays together each year and on a occasion to vacation together.  The parents are all best friends; the kids are all like cousins to each other. 

And whenever we can get the whole crowd together it’s like all of our small nuclear families take on a “big family”, clan-like feel.  Armed with numbers, they start doing things together that they could never do alone.  Big touch football games on the beach, “Capture the Flag” games in a big grass field, and even more often than not, some kind of production for the parents.

When the kids were much younger (they are all teenagers today), whenever they would get together, someone (usually Kara!) would inevitably come up with the idea of putting on a play for the parents.  After playing in the pool, or frolicking on the beach, the kids would disappear for hours on end to get their “script”, “roles” and “lines” down, only to reappear for the big moment. 

Now, to be sure, the play was never very long…or involved.  Indeed, there was far more going on behind the scenes than in the play itself.  We parents could hear the kids in the other room, arguing over who was in charge, who gets to play what role, who gets to wear what costume and why the boys weren’t “playing along” with the girls.  The debate, discussion, arguments and (yes, a few tears) in the planning process was most of the “drama”.  But inevitably, “the Show (as it were) would go on”.  The tradition continued through the years and last summer, as the kids grew older, “the play” gave way to making a “music video” (and that one was really good.) 

Indeed, they are an imaginative, smart bunch of kids.  They also have relationships built over years that lead them to enjoy doing big projects together.  But the other ingredient is that within the group there a number of leaders who are willing to take a risk at the one thing necessary to bring about new creative endeavors: Convening collaborators. 

And I want to suggest that this ability to pull people together, mobilize them into a working group and pull off a creative project is a critical component of leadership in a changing world.

In this brief series of posts on the To-Do List of the Leader of the Future, I have sought to set out the difference between the mental model of leadership that is often at work in our congregations and organizational contexts today and that which is necessary as we move into the future. 

Leadership of the past was about “action”.  It was about doing something. It was about some expert leader seizing the reigns of the chariot and single-mindedly driving the horses toward finish line.  Leaders were expected to KNOW what to do and then do it.  They were EXPERTS and they were ACTORS.  The leaders were the “Best Practitioners”: the fast-drawing, gun-slinging marshal cleaning up the town, the visionary CEO turning around a company with a new plan, an inspiring President giving simple, clear messages, a Pastor who brings a new exciting program.  Leaders of the past were the “best and brightest” and they accomplished goals through charisma, great ideas, or sheer will. 

But as the world changes, the problems we face are far more complex.  The issues that face our communities and companies and congregations are rooted in deeply entrenched, highly-cherished competing values.  The challenges are far more systemic and the old answers aren’t working any longer.  And one of the key skills of leaders of the future is to bring people together to “co-labor” through the mess and drama of all the various ideas, values, perspectives and agendas to come up with new creative ways of getting things done. 

For community organizer and leadership guru, Peter Block, this act of “convening” is THE act of leadership.  Bringing people together to enter the drama, share the work, listen and hang in with each other, build trust and come up with a new creative approach to an old stuck problem is what leadership is all about.  For Peter Block, this means that the leader of the future is not some charismatic wonder, not some all-knowing expert, and not some official authority, but anyone…ANYONE… who is willing to get people together and say, “Let’s put on a show.” 

Leadership is the capacity to initiate a future distinct from the past, a quality that distinguishes it from management…One way to encapsulate the leadership required to create an alternative future is to consider the leader as primarily a convener-not leader as special person, but leader as a citizen, sometimes with legitimate power, willing to do those things that can initiate something new in the world. In this way, "leader" belongs right up there with cook, carpenter, artist, and landscape designer. All of us can develop this ability with a small amount of teaching, and an agreement to practice-the ultimate do-it-yourself movement.

So if the “Past Leaders To-Do List” looked something like this:
1.    Act.
2.    Act Expertly.
3.    Act Expertly and Quickly (even by yourself, if necessary).

The Future Leader’s To-Do List looks like this:
1.    Say “I don’t know” (about the problem in front of you). 
2.    Resign as the Resident Expert (and become the “Chief Learning Officer”)
3.    Convene Collaborators.

In the next post, I’ll interrupt this list with a personal testimony about how hard it’s been for me to make the transition from the past to the future in my own leadership style and the friends who have been teaching me along the way. 

The Future Leader’s To Do List

 

“Leaders are always answering the call: Act, Act, Act!”  Jim Osterhaus

The Expert Consultant interrupted me, “Tod, that’s all very interesting, but I want to know what you are going to DO.”  If we give you this job, what PROGRAMS will you DO to strengthen the Christian Education of our church?”

Admittedly, I was a bit stunned, and I am not sure I handled it well at all.  I had been in the middle of what I thought was a thoughtful reflection about the context and challenges that our church was facing at that moment in our history.  I was trying to demonstrate that I had a deep understanding of the long legacy, the great potential and, yes, the challenges we faced in a rapidly changing urban culture.  But she cut me off.

That wasn’t what the Expert Consultant was looking for.  Not then, and certainly not from me, the then- 28-year-old College Ministry Director who was interviewing to be the head of the Christian Education Department that Henrietta Mears had once made the envy of the nation.  

She wanted my “To-Do List”. She wanted to evaluate my knowledge and expertise at getting things done.  She wanted to know what was in my bag of tricks, what programs would I implement, what new initiatives would I launch.   So I changed mid-sentence and launched into a long list of programs and ideas that I had.  But mostly I tried to say that we didn’t need to do a bunch of new stuff, we just needed to do what we do better, more consistently and with greater awareness to how the world is changing around us.  I think the famous consultant stopped listening as soon as it was clear that I didn’t have anything “new to-do”.  They didn’t give me the job—at least not after that interview.  But even then I didn’t realize that I was on the leading edge of a sea change in understanding the role of leadership in a changing world.

That was in 1992.  I was applying to take my old boss’ position of Pastor of Christian Education.  The search committee had been looking for a long time with not much luck.  When I heard that the search had stalled, I asked my executive pastor and senior pastor if I could interview for the position.  I was just brash enough to believe that five years of being on the staff gave me insight to actually understand the culture, context and challenges facing us. 

But when the Expert Consultant interrupted me, it was clear she was not looking for someone from the inside who understood the culture, but someone from the outside who would bring in a new “To Do List”, a new bag of tricks.  The Expert Consultant wanted an Expert Pastor.  

They found their Expert Outsider who came highly recommended by the other Experts in the field.  He brought a long “To Do List” and immediately started sending memos, calling meetings, issuing orders, writing new policies and launching new programs.  He was smart (with both an Ivy League pedigree and a degree from a well-known seminary), he was hard working and certainly had a good track record of getting things done at a large mid-western church.  He lasted one year. 

As the Expert Outsider was cleaning out his office, the Expert Consultant came to me with a kindly smile, “Well, that didn’t work out the way we hoped, but we were wondering if you would be interested in the taking the position now.”  And without even knowing it, I was beginning to “unlearn” some lessons about what it meant to be a leader that I am just now figuring out almost twenty years later.

All of my life, I have been told consciously or unconsciously that leaders are experts who “know what they are doing.”  Leaders act and they act expertly.  Leaders have game plans, programs, agendas, a “vision”.  Whether you are running a government or interviewing for an associate pastor position you are expected to know what to do and especially to have a Master Plan of Action.  And this is all represented in the “To-Do List”.  Now, to be clear, I have no problems with a To Do List.  The probably is not Doing, but what we do.  And our biggest problem is that we start doing before we do any deep reflecting.  We do what we do best before we even really know what we should do (or if anything we do will make any difference at all.)

In this series of posts, I want to offer a different kind of “To-Do List”:  A To-Do List for a leader who faces an uncertain future and a changing world.  A To-Do List for those who are leading organizations or communities into uncharted territory.  It is based on the concept of “praxis” (or “reflective action”) and begins with the notion that if we really knew what needed to be done (understood as “technical” competence), it would already be done.  But leadership in the face of a changing world, uncharted territory or an uncertain future requires a different kind of “To-Do List” that is not based in being an expert but being a learner. 

Eric Hoffer wrote:  "In times of great change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." 

This To Do List is a Learners List.  It is a list for leaders who know that there are no simple solutions.  It is a list for leaders who well understand that if the problems facing them could be fixed with a program, it already would have been fixed. So here is the first item on the “To Do List” leadership in a changing world. 

#1: Say clearly, confidently and boldly:  “I don’t know.”

Future Leaders need to be “adaptive persons” who take on "adaptive challenges."  To do so means that they must have the courage to look at the brutal facts of the challenge in front of them and when asked what they are going to do, boldly declare the blunt truth: “I don’t know.” 

 Saying, “I don’t know” takes confidence and courage.  It takes honesty and humility.  It requires that  people trust you and that you trust the people that you are working with.  It is a really hard first thing “To Do” (indeed, most leaders NEVER do it), but it is absolutely necessary if you are going to lead into an uncertain future, uncharted territory and a changing world.  Because when you say those words out loud and when they are truly believed by those who you lead, two things happen:

1)    The challenge ahead is seen with clear-eyed sobriety for what it REALLY is. 
2)    YOU, as the Leader, are then seen with clear-eyed sobriety for who you REALLY are. 

Which leads to #2 on the “The Future Leader’s To-Do List”:  Resign.

Which is where we will pick up the next post.

The Problem with “Going Pro”

What do Wayne Gretzky, Bart Starr, Isaiah Thomas, Ted Williams and many, many pastors have in common?  They were once great players who became woeful coaches. 

I know, it’s an interesting tidbit about the superstar athletes, but what does this have to do with being a pastor? 

In my last post, I reflected on the complexity of being a pastor and the toll it often takes on leaders.  In this post, I want to offer another piece of Pastoral Complexity:  We are mostly confused about our calling.  That is to say, we often become pastors without realizing what the job really is. 

Most of us who end in the pastorate do so because someone experienced our ministry skills and encouraged us to consider it as a vocation.  In short, most of us were about the best lay leaders in our churches, organizations or missions and somewhere along the way someone heard us teach, heard us pray, saw us at a bedside or were part of a successful ministry program that we headed up and they told us that we were so good, that we should “go pro.”  (And most often, was mostly about “preaching”.  If you could preach or teach the Bible better than most, then it was assumed that you were called to be a pastor.)

And so what did we do?  We headed off to “professional ministry school” (i.e. “seminary”) or took a job on a church staff with the assumption that now the only thing that was going to change was that we were going to be PAID to do what we used to do as a VOLUNTEER.  (And, really, what’s not to like about that?)  On top of that, once we got our “professional association card” (i.e. “ordination”) we then became the resident “pro” for all kinds of wonderful and meaningful family and community “religious events” (like weddings, baptisms, funerals, invocations and such).  For most of us, this seemed like it would be the best possible world.  Our friends and family were proud of us, our home churches affirmed us and we now got to be paid (ok, not much pay, really, but the “ego perks” were nice) and “freed” to “do ministry full-time.”  We were now expected to be the resident “pro”, the “star player”, the “free agent” who brought the “home team” great results.

But… there is one really big problem.  Being pastor really isn’t about being the star player.  It’s really about being a COACH.  When you get ordained, you don’t get on the playing field, you go to the bench.  You are not the “resident professional Christian” but the leader of a community of mission. 

And that leadership calling is very, very different than most of us expected.

When you become a pastor, your domain is away from the stadium lights and cheering fans and off to the “practice field” where you, in the words of Paul, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). And let’s face it, many of us who are quite gifted at teaching, preaching, counseling and care are just not all that good at “equipping the saints” for teaching, preaching, care and mission. Like Bart Starr or Isaiah Thomas, we are much better at taking the ball into our own hands than we are at leading a team of players. 

For many star athletes, however, perhaps the hardest parts about the adjustment from “player” to “coach” however are the things “away from the field.”  Deciding who “plays” and who doesn’t, managing conflicts, developing strategy, motivating players (who are sometimes pretty unmotivated) and making personnel decisions for the overall health of the team.  Many famous athletes who were great in the game wither under the criticism of the press and the second-guessing of the fans, and grow weary of the “drama” of the locker room and front office. 

In the same way, when most pastors are interviewed about the hardest parts of their job, they talk about how seminary didn’t prepare them for strategic planning, conflict resolution, organizational leadership and staff supervision, (let alone personnel issues, building projects, and administering preschools and the like.)

Even more, this “equipping” and “coaching” ministry is often much more about conflict, change management, and attending to a relational “system” than it is about teaching the Bible or training eager lay people to “share their faith” or serve others.  Again, most pastoring (at least in congregations) is far more about LEADERSHIP than anything else.  And that is pretty different than what we signed up for.

If that wasn’t enough (and this is where it gets really complex….) The REAL players…the laity, would mostly rather that we DIDN’T coach or lead them either.  Most lay people, truth be told, don’t want to be players, they want to be “Fans.”  They want the “Pros” to do the ministry. (That’s why they sent us to seminary, isn’t it?).  They don’t want to suit up and take the field any more than we want to go to the bench and coach them. 

And so…soon, we all fail.  Before long the “coaches” start just asking to play (like pastors who only want to preach and teach and do visitation, you know “real ministry”) and the “players” become spectators.  And the mission of a community of God’s people who are seeking to live out the Kingdom of God is really what gets benched. 

Of course, there are some “players” who become great coaches.  And that “adaptation” is what I want to write about next time.

The Book I Wish Every Ministry Leader Would Read

The book I wish every ministry leader would read. Every one. Pastor, lay leader. Everyone. http://tinyurl.com/yzbc5co Here's a quote: "Conflict is never about the other person. It's always about me. Dealing with conflict teaches me about me."