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.
“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.
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 wantsto 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.
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.
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, agileleadership.
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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