Tod Bolsinger

Leading into Uncharted Territory

If leadership experts, missional theologians, pastors, CEOs of Christian organizations, Christian leaders in the marketplace and higher education all converged to hear the adventure story of Lewis and Clark and discuss what it means for leadership today, this is what they'd say...

http://amzn.to/1QA1yvq 

"When Fuller Seminary decided to launch out in our own uncharted terrain, we called on Tod Bolsinger to join our leadership team. When you read Canoeing the Mountains, you'll immediately understand why. Bolsinger's ability to translate the most important organizational leadership material into the day-to-day challenges of the Christian leader is without peer. His vulnerability and authenticity resonates as he shares his own leadership learning journey. This is the leadership book the church needs today." (Mark Labberton, president, Fuller Theological Seminary)

"A superb book on the need for adaptive leadership in the twenty-first-century church. Bolsinger challenges leaders in the Christian community to recognize the unsettling reality of being 'off the map.' Illustrated with vivid metaphors and real-world examples, resulting in a seminal book on how to navigate this new world. A must-read for everyone interested in church leadership." (Uli Chi, former board chair, Regent College Board of Governors)

"Since the missional church discussion began to develop real momentum, the constant question has been how does this theological vision of the church after Christendom translate into the practice of real congregations struggling with enormous challenges?...Bolsinger's book is a major step forward. It is based on solid missional theology, rooted in concrete congregational experience, shaped by provocative research of many diverse voices and communicated energetically and creatively. Most importantly, it is shaped by theologically informed hope, not just optimism, and takes the risks that must be taken for the sake of faithful witness today. I strongly commend this book!" (Darrell L. Guder, Henry Winters Luce Emeritus Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary)

"Ministry in post-Christendom is indeed uncharted territory. In Canoeing the Mountains, Tod Bolsinger cleverly solicits imagery and vocabulary that today's pastors and leaders can cling to as they begin to truly climb the mountain of adaptive change necessary to transform churches to better health. While there are many books about adaptive change, the process takes years to grasp and understand. Tod's retelling of the story of Lewis and Clark provides concrete stepping stones to a fluid journey and repackages these concepts in a way that is digestible, inspiring and thought provoking. I will use this book with my own congregation..." (Theresa Cho, copastor of St. John's Presbyterian Church, San Francisco)

"Canoeing the Mountains is a must-read for pastors and church leaders who want to understand the precarious religious landscape in America today. Seasoned pastor Tod Bolsinger draws on his experience as a church consultant and student of contemporary leadership theory in order to tackle the most pressing ministry leadership issues of our day. Employing Lewis and Clark's experience of exploring the Louisiana Purchase as a driving metaphor for the leadership that is needed in the church, Bolsinger issues a bold challenge to contemporary pastors to learn how to lead all over again..." (Thomas K. Tewell, executive director, Macedonian Ministry)

"In a most winsome and engaging way, Tod Bolsinger weaves together the best of current leadership research―adaptive change, systems theory, organizational transformation―with the real-life challenges of a pastor/practitioner who has spent years trying to put all this together in a congregation ...Like a master storyteller, Tod also weaves in the story of Lewis and Clark as a historical parable of the change and challenge in which we find ourselves today in the church. This is a book that you simply must read!" (Jim Singleton, associate professor of pastoral leadership and evangelism, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)

 

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Intervarsity Press created this video introduction to my book on Christian leadership in uncharted territory.  

 

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Of Collaborators and Winter Coats

Of Collaborators and Winter Coats

By Tod Bolsinger

“No one would live in Boston without owning a winter coat. But countless people think that they can exercise leadership without partners…” -Ronald Heifetz

“I’m going to need new clothes,” my daughter warns me.

“It’s just a weekend trip,” I remind her.

“I mean, if I go to college there. If I do, then I’ll need a whole new winter wardrobe,” she says trying to demonstrate how reasonable she is being.

I have to concede her point. My eighteen-year-old soon-to-be college freshman is looking at two different schools that are in very different climates than the southern California beach city that she grew up in.

One in the Pacific Northwest, one in the upper Northeast. Both mean winters with lots of snow. Her stylish t-shirts and hoodie sweatshirts aren’t going to cut it, I know, and she is already planning the shopping spree. It is a reasonable, even necessary reality. She is going to need a winter coat, at least. And even tightwad Dad knows that.

But my daughter is also looking only at universities that support women in Christian leadership. And somewhere amidst the discussion of coats is a more important one about collaboration and the time of leadership needed in these harsher conditions of a rapidly changing, post-Christendom world.

Boston Public Garden Snowfall, by Bill Ilott. Flickr Commons.

Harvard Leadership guru Ronald Heifetz compares a winter coat with the need for partners in trying to survive the “harsh elements” of leadership. For Heifetz, leading alone is as foolish as my daughter trying to make it through a Boston winter wearing beach apparel.

But we do it all the time, don’t we?

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fuller/2015/02/of-collaborators-and-winter-coats/#ixzz3RJaswV2P

 

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Living and leading in the light of a Christmas surrender.

“What we are all searching for is Someone to surrender to, something we can prefer to life itself. Well here is the wonderful surprise: God is the only one we can surrender to without losing ourselves. The irony is that we find ourselves , and now in a whole new field of meaning. This happens on a lesser level in every great love in our lifetime, but it is always a leap of faith ahead of time. We are never sure it will be true beforehand. It is surely counter-intuitive, but it is the promise that came into the world on this Christmas Day , “full of grace and of truth.”
(Richard Rohr)

Google and Jesus Agree on At Least One Thing

Google might be on to something. But then again, Jesus had it long before Google did.

Earlier this year in a New York Times article, a top Google executive said the company’s hiring had moved from typical resume highlights toward something more abstract. “Intellectual humility,” they called it. Without humility, you are unable to learn,” Google’s head of people operations, Laszlo Bock said.

This reminded me of Chris Agyris, a Harvard business professor who wrote about teaching smart people to learn. I imagine he has plenty of experience teaching at Harvard. So take note of Agyris’ comments about a powerful dilemma faced by all leaders:

“Success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning, yet most people don’t know how to learn. What’s more, those members of the organization that many assume to be the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it. I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation.”

Agyris points to a certain hubris that highly successful people develop. Stated simply, they aren’t humble enough to learn from those that can teach them.

Jesus, by all rights a pretty smart guy, hit on this theme in the Bible like a one-hit wonder playing the same song twenty years later. Jesus had many greatest hits to choose from, so to speak, but routinely returned to the unpopular call to humility.  He said the first shall be last in his Kingdom, and he said those who are humble like a child will become great. Why a child? Perhaps, because they love to learn? 

Nowadays Google may have more clout in some circles than Jesus, but the point remains. Humility keeps us soft, pliable – like a new wineskin, Jesus said – ready to expand, grow and learn. It remains, as it always has been, a central key to successful and meaningful life. 

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

My good friend, 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.”

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 “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him…”  Ephesians 4:15

In my new role at Fuller Seminary, I have been trying to follow the example of our faculty.  Academic Dean and Leadership Professor, Scott Cormode teaches his students, “Leadership begins in listening.”  And Scott and the faculty, led by Dr. Love Sechrest, walked their talk with an in-depth study of alumni and graduates that led to a complete revision of the curriculum that will be rolled out in the fall of 2014.

So, in the brief time I have been at Fuller, I have been trying to follow suit—but this time with students. For the first three months, I didn’t have an office, so I mostly met at the school coffee shop.  My admin assistant was “Siri,” so I just let anyone who wanted to meet with me schedule an appointment on my calendar.  And I was only at the school two-days a week, so when on-campus I tried to see as many people as I could.  And as soon as the word got out, students began to fill my calendar, eager to talk about “vocation and formation.”

There has been a palpable excitement in the air around campus.  President Labberton’s deeply pastoral, prayerful and visionary leadership has brought a fresh wind of excitement.  The students LOVE Fuller. But laced in that love has been disappointment and fear that the school they love has not given them what they need for a changing world. 

This isn’t unique to Fuller.  Frankly, it’s much worse in a number of other places.  But when asked what we could change to make seminary education better to form them for their vocations, what we hear is a list that sounds like a troubling report card….

 All Ds.

 Students told me that more often than not the result of a seminary education is…

• Deconstructed theology 
• Disconnected from community
• Discouraged in faith
• Depressingly in debt

Now, these are good students.  They quickly added that they understand that all of these are understandable, and the first one, at least, is to some degree a requirement for good academic work.  But, if the purpose of a seminary education is to equip students for Christian leadership in every segment of society, than we need to offer students far more than deconstruction and disconnection (let alone discouragement and debt!). 

Faith must lead to formation. 

To trust in Jesus is to set out on the path to become like Jesus. So, at Fuller, it’s not enough for our students to think clearly and trust deeply, we must become people who are formed entirely. The new vision of vocation and formation is based on countering the four Ds with a commitment to whole life formation. 

Personal Formation. Spiritual Formation. Academic Formation. Global Formation.

These four “strands” come right out of Fuller’s “DNA”. They have long been part of our history.  We are building on the foundation of strong academic formation that has been the hallmark of Fuller since its inception and weaving together the best work of our three schools to refashion the seminary of a whole cloth. 

From the School of Psychology we will incorporate all we know about personal formation, that is, what makes for whole, healthy, thriving, relationally-able human beings who have been made in God’s image.  

From the School of Intercultural Studies we will prepare students for an increasingly “glocal” world where global formation is necessary right out our front doors.  Every student will be trained to think and act like a “missionary, bringing the wisdom and developing the agility share the love of Christ in a world that is rapidly becoming even more diverse and interconnected.

From the School of Theology, we will continue to explore, deepen and build upon the intersection of spiritual formation and academic formation by insisting that every student who comes to Fuller, regardless of degree program, concentration or school; regardless of whether they are at one or our eight campuses or online will be instructed in the formational foundation of biblical interpretation, history, theology and ministry skills. 

Over the next week I’ll write follow up posts that explain this new vision in depth, specifically how we are confronting the Four Ds, with a focus on four Cs: 

Calling, Community, Capacity-Building, and Commitment. 

 Without question the most powerful part of listening to our student was to realize, even amidst their disappointment, how deeply appreciative they are of their seminary experience.  One student after another spoke of a beloved, respected professor; a kindly mentor; a fellow student who offered a personal touch, an encouraging word, or a warm invitation into a group of friends that became critical to surviving and thriving.  What was needed they said, isn’t so much to add something, as much as to enhance something—to make what is informal intentional. 

But, perhaps the most important lesson I learned from listening to our students is “speaking the truth in love”—and listening— is really how both a Christian and—a seminary—is formed. 

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A Cure for Denominational Depression

I’m a pastor in a denomination that is in the middle of (yet another) divide. I sat through another discussion about exiting churches at our Presbytery meeting a couple of weeks ago. It was like being part of a divorce negotiation with a couple that still loves each other yet one spouse can’t fathom being married any longer.

The parties involved are trying really hard to be civil, to be respectful, to be fair.  All in all, they are doing a good job.  This is a Presbytery with a lot of mutual goodwill. If anything, it’s the kind of place where a “good” divorce could happen.

And still it was so depressing. It would be easy to lose heart.  It would be tempting to let this swirl of inside-baseball continually be confused with where the real “game” is being played.  I know I have in the past.

But thankfully, I am now looking at this moment with a different set of lenses; a distinctively ecumenical and evangelical perspective.  Like two lenses that are bringing an otherwise blurry moment into focus, I feel as if I have been given a gift of seeing today from the vantage point of the future.

Recently I accepted a position at Fuller Theological Seminary—yes, a distinctively evangelical school. But it is also a school that is dramatically ecumenical.  Fuller has students from over 100 countries and over 60 denominations (and many of those fall in the “non-denominational” category).

Perhaps it’s because of that exhilarating, multi-denominational, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual pool that I swim in each day that I find myself moving more quickly through the depression to the hopeful moment before us. 

Yes, my denomination is in the midst of a painful divorce.  As the adult child of divorced parents I can tell you that this type of pain won’t be solved by having long talks about having long talks about how we should have long talks so that we can really hear each other.  (Oh, we all wish that it would…)  

Those who are “going” really left a long time ago. (So far, not one church in our presbytery that has entered “discernment” discerned that they should stay…)

Those of us who are staying are spending enormous amounts of energy and effort into trying to either convince them to stay or to give us more “alimony.”

And meanwhile… the mission is still there.  The world outside our door is still waiting for witness.   

Oh, we—who are so caught up in months of meetings about millions of dollars—say that this is about mission.

Those who are leaving for another denomination say that the mission of Jesus Christ is hindered because of deeply held theological differences that demand realignment. 

Those who are staying say that the mission of Jesus Christ is being hindered because those who are leaving are taking their property and purses with them. 

 Really?

So, you think that making a new denomination is the key to renewing the church?  How 19^th century of you.

And we think that more money is the key to more mission?  How 20^th century of us.  

The 21^st century is upon us. And it is beginning to look really, really different.   

That is what I see everyday.  The global church is growing with little organizational structure and few resources while we westerners who are so focused on maintaining our share of the Christendom-dream are in free-fall.   

Every week this past quarter, I worshipped in a chapel service that is representative of a wide swath of traditions and languages (recently someone prayed in Icelandic!).  Our school teaches in English, Spanish, Korean and will soon feature Mandarin Chinese.  At commencement, the gathered crowd went wild when a graduate unzipped his regalia to reveal his native country’s national team World Cup jersey.

Every day, I have conversations with bi-vocational church planters, filmmakers, NGO interns, artists, scientists, psychologists, missionaries, entrepreneurs, theologians, historians, anthropologists and yes, a whole pile of would-be pastors, who don’t really focus all that much on which initials are on their business cards. 

While the unity of the church is never served and the witness of the church is only hindered by division, the discussions around dividing have now become at least as detrimental as the issues that divide us.  

To my denominational friends, caught in this depressing discussing, let me urge you to consider: 

It’s time to hug and weep and pray and bless and say goodbye to those who are leaving (at least for now…who knows what will happen)

 …and get back to work.  

 Join hands with those who will work alongside you, build bridges with all the baptized.  Strengthen fellowship with anyone who will break the bread and share the cup.  The world is just outside our door.  The future is calling us, the global church is way ahead of us and the Great Commission beckons us all.   

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We sat together at a coffee shop in Pasadena.  Me, a bit nervous.  He, warm and kind. 

He had committed to fund the spiritual formation work I will be doing at Fuller Theological Seminary for the next three years. I wanted to buy him a cup of coffee as a tiny gesture of thanks.

 And then he said something that has become as important to me as his financial support. In fact, it was really the moment when I knew for sure that God was in this huge vision to transform theological education. 

 “Tod, I believe that our Plan A is never God’s Plan A and we only get to God’s Plan A when our Plans A, B, and C fail.  So, you need to fail as soon as you can, so we can learn as quickly as possible.” 

 It wasn’t the first time he had said this line, but this was when it sunk in.  

Here I was having coffee with a man who was making a significant contribution to an ambitious new ministry venture and he was telling me, “I’m funding this. Fail fast.”

My new mentor is an extremely capable, successful man.  His business spans the globe and his philanthropy is as widely reaching.  He loves Jesus and he wants to see the church flourish for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  His passion is discipleship.  He feels called to personally invest his life and resources in the spiritual formation of Christian leaders who can then disciple and spiritually form others.

The minutes flew by as we talked and strategized.  I found myself taking mental notes, learning about how to lead a new venture from a man who spent a lifetime leading new ventures.   When our President and Provost dropped in to greet him, he was polite and kind—but he really wanted to get back to the subject of discipleship. When a call came in from a very important public figure, he sent the call to voice mail.  He was more interested in talking about the nuts-and-bolts of how a seminary really creates a culture of leadership spiritual formation than he was anything else.  

 That’s when I realized. 

 He doesn’t just want to financially support Fuller Seminary's Vocation and Formation division, he wants to personally be part of what God is doing in the world.  He is fulfilling his calling as much as I am mine. (A pretty important realization for the Vice President of Vocation and Formation!) 

He wants in—really in—on the experiments, in on the learning, in even on the failure of our best laid plans that will be necessary to find “God’s Plan A” for discipleship and spiritual formation of the Christian leaders of the future. 

My new mentor not only gave us the funds for this experiment in leadership and discipleship, he gave us personal partnership in failing; he signed on to be a partner in the learning that will lead us beyond our best intentions to what God really wants us to discover. 

That’s when I knew--really knew—that God is in this venture and that even our failures will be a success. 

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The Whisper that Made Me Leave My Church

The Whisper that Made Me Leave My Church

It was the whisper that made me leave my church. 

 It was the one line that I heard over and over again in the five years that I traveled across the country first in leading a commission for my denomination and then as a consultant in organizational change. 

 “Why didn’t seminary prepare me for this?”

 I would hear that line echoed in my mind long after each conversation was over.  I had a sense that it was going to be shaping my future call.  I even wrote a blog post about it in December 2012.  

 And then a year after I wrote the blog post, I was invited to do something about it.   I had already discerned that my next step in ministry was to invest in leadership development for the mission of Christ.  I had already announced to my congregation that I would be leaving in the near future to respond to this voice.  I had used my sabbatical to work on a book on leadership in “uncharted territory.” I didn’t know where this would lead, but this much was clear:

The world is changing.  Rapidly. 

Businesses, universities, and organizations are being forced to adapt as the old rules and expectations are being cast aside.  And now the Church realizes the same.  For generations, would-be pastors and Christian leaders were all prepared for ministry in the same way, with the same set of expectations.  Seminaries gave you the "tools" and you would quickly find a "calling" in which to use them.  And for decades there were more positions to fill than qualified people to fill them. 

 Not today.  Today churches are closing, ministries are down-sizing, Christian organizations and denominations are looking to the seminary to produce leaders that can integrate their academic learning with wisdom, resilience and deep spiritual maturity.  The Christian leaders of today and tomorrow must be more than theologically educated, but personally, spiritually, academically and globally formed with the leadership creativity and missional savvy to develop ministry in arenas that are increasingly resistant to the Gospel.  Often bi-vocational, increasingly working in churches that are in need of a "turn around," the pastor of today is more like a missionary than a chaplain, more like an entrepreneur than a shopkeeper.  And the mission of God needs equipped leaders that go far beyond pulpits and pastor’s studies into a myriad of places and settings. 

Unfortunately most seminaries are still equipping students for the church of a generation ago. 

But while sitting in the Newark Airport last fall, newly appointed Fuller Theological Seminary President Mark Labberton told me of a significant change taking place at his school.  It’s the kind of change that most people say never happens.

 The Fuller Faculty changed the curriculum. 

Mark told me how the faculty commissioned a team to do an in-depth study, including listening to their students and alumni.  And they heard them loud and clear.  The students told them that they loved the Seminary but feared the future.  The Alumni told the study team that for the church to be relevant in the world, the seminaries must be willing to change the way they prepare Christian leaders for that world. 

This team listened and got to work.  And when their report came back.  The Faculty—that tenured group of highly regarded experts who have everything to lose and little to gain—set aside their well-earned privilege and security to re-tool the entire project of theological education.

In the fall of 2014, Fuller Seminary will inaugurate a new day in theological education. After listening deeply, doing extensive research and conducting their own experiments in the integration of theological education and Christian spiritual formation, they concluded that for the unchanging grace and love of God to be made manifest in this rapidly changing world, then the Church needs leaders capable of serving with wisdom, deep spirituality, and creative, agile leadership. 

 To do that the study team revised the entire curriculum to be—from start to finish—as formational as educational; as committed to the vocational development and spiritual formation of their students as they are to their academic and theological education.  And today, Fuller Seminary is in the midst of a whole-scale reorganization that puts the formation of Kingdom vocations at the center of the entire institutional life. 

And this is where my life got interrupted.  This is where the whisper of my pastor friends and clients became the call of God on my life.

 To support the new curriculum to accomplish all that they envision, President Labberton and the Board of Trustees established a new division within Fuller Theological Seminary, led by a Vice-President for Vocation and Formation.  This division will have the charge for creating one seamlessly integrated organizational culture that forms Kingdom vocations in a changing world.  They are declaring to everyone who is looking to be equipped for this world:  “From the moment you visit our website to the moment you go to glory, you will always be part of learning community forming you to live out your calling for God’s mission in the world. “

 In January, I was appointed to this new position.  Since March I have been working part-time at Fuller while I finish up at my beloved congregation.  In the days ahead I will be learning and writing and collaborating with a team of people to reshape the entire process of theological formation. 

Our goal is nothing less than turning that plaintive whisper into a grateful word of confidence. Someday soon, we want to hear Christian leaders in a changing world declare:

"Yes, the world is changing.  But by God’s grace, I was prepared for such a time as this.” 

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When Size Really Doesn’t Matter…. OR… Why a discussion of either “Wee Kirks” or “Tall Steeples” completely misses the moment.

Two meals, two conversations, the same topic. (Over and over again.) 

One was the pastor of a declining church, the other a growing one.  One was in an urban setting, the other rural.  One of their churches was well -known, even iconic, the other was church that is not really known outside its community. Both pastors are in their late thirties. Both gifted preachers, caring people, have a strong presence and have good track records. They also share a common theological tradition. One of them pastors a church whose membership is in the thousands, the other (the growing church no less!) has a membership of about 150.

And both of them made the same comment to me: “I don’t know what to do next.”

For years, the wise assumption was that there is a significant difference between large and small churches. While both require strong preaching, teaching, Session moderating, and pastoral care skills, the management complexity between the large church and the small one called for different skills and experience. Indeed, for a long time size has been considered the biggest difference in different calls.  It’s one of the reasons why most ‘first calls’ that are not associate pastor positions are in smaller congregations.  It is assumed that as pastors gain experience they can ‘handle’ a bigger job.

But as my two conversation partners reminded me, (and I have now had this conversation with dozens of pastors) there is one critical arena of ministry where size doesn’t really matter: leading change.

When the topic turns from being a good steward of what a church is and has been to leading a congregation to what they are called to be and become, the leadership skills are the same regardless of size: Instilling urgency, capturing the opportunity, stirring hope, raising competing values, working through resistance, dealing with loss, maintaining conviction in the face of resistance, even calmly addressing sabotage.

For the church leaders of the future, the demarcation lines will not be between ‘Mega’ and ‘Wee’ churches (and all those in-between) but between those who are in “management mode” and those who are going through organizational and missional transformation.  Regardless of setting, regardless of size, regardless if the church is in 'redevelopment' or is even a "new church developlent."  More and more, there will be two sets of pastors, both needed, both invaluable--both will require strong pastoral skills, a love for people and a devotion to Christ.--but more and more there will be two two different sets of tasks with two different callings, requiring a different set of pastoral skills: Stewardship or Leadership. 

Because I believe this, I also believe that the key questions for most congregations looking for a new pastor are question of honest congregational self reflection:

1. “What moment are we in?”  
2. "What do we really want to be?" 

Is this a season of settling down or setting off for a new horizon? Are we looking for someone to be a steward of our legacy or to equip us for a changing world?  Do we really want someone to care for the shareholder saints or are we really ready to reach beyond the walls? Is it a season for managing what we have been entrusted with or leading us in the painful work of being transformed for the unknown in front of us? 

If the key issue is about management, then size of the congregation (and the staff, the budget, the debt, the facilities, etc.) and the experience of the pastoral candidates is significant to consider.

But  whether it is a larger church that is addressing decline, or a smaller church that is losing its cozy family feel as they welcome new people; whether it be a dying church looking for a new day or a healthy church looking to bring the gospel to the unreached, disaffected or disinterested, the common pastoral skill set for a changing world is the capacity to lead change amidst the emotional complexity that is part of every church.  

And when leading change-- size really doesn't matter. 

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