Borderland Churches IV
The fourth chapter in Gary Nelson’s book is entitled, “Landscapes and Tool Kits: The Challenge of Borderland Living.” Every chapter opens with a “Compass Point” paragraph, and this one gives a very solid sense of the chapter. Gary writes, “Leaders of today’s borderland churches are living on a new pastoral landscape and require a new toolkit of strategies comprised of a new understanding of their role, an honest evaluation of themselves, and the ability to create a variety of secure places of relationship. They image their leadership in the frames of apprentice-pastor-theologian-missionary.”
Gary’s first turn is to examine the pastoral landscape. The context of ministry has changed drastically, and thus the pastor’s role in the community has shifted. A sense of irrelevance is common. But this anxiety around identity colors pastoral experience and assessment.
Moreover, ambiguity is now the norm. Expectations have changed and may be amorphous. Congregations are often living in the past, yet pastors are attempting to live in the new world in order to connect. But how to make the shift? The problem is not that information is lacking, the problem is that we are buried in it. We are overwhelmed.. what to prioritize?
Meanwhile, our beliefs about and images of the church are themselves in transition. The interplay of community and institution can be daunting. Are designed structures or emergent structures the starting point? How do we do discipleship in a consumer culture? Is the church a business or a community — we live in a world of mortgages and multiple staff where it seems to be both.
Relationships are critical. Theologically we prefer the communitarian and organic modes — but in practice we seem to operate like typical corporations. Leadership has become an individual and lonely pursuit. We recognize its importance but seem unable to implement the best practices. We know that the ABCs are wrong metrics, but we live under the pressures of an Industrial and number-crunching mindset. (Reg McNeals chapter in Missional Renaissance is helpful here, as is Neil Cole’s Organic Leadership.) Most pastors are aware of the dissonance of business models with the NT mandate, yet have been slow to jettison CEO type frameworks. Gary points out that the CEO modality is seductive because it promises a certain distance in relationships and a specific status. Yet the writing is on the wall — these rationalized models are not sustainable in the new world.
This section closes with the need to jettison the Christendom view of the Church. We need to do the theological work to recover a biblical expression; the alternative is to remain obsessed with data and technique. (And sadly, this is what the sociologists would predict. Ronald Wright’s work on the history of progress has demonstrated that Empires – like ideologies – always collapse inwardly via the dynamics of denial).
Pastors and church leaders lacking a grounded theology of the church live in a panicky obsession with data and technique. Data and technique junkies find themselves caught in an obsession with “managerial missiology” (Engel and Dyrness). This approach enables leaders to focus on the quantitative and cosmetic frameworks of strategy and programs while avoiding the theological, relational, and content-oriented processes that are the places where visions and dreams are realized. (71)
The next section in this chapter examines “the personal tool-kit.” Gary opens this discussion with a call for balance in the internal life of the leader. In particular, he points to the need for personal differentiation. This term comes from systems theory and Jungian psychology. Differentiation describes the ability to maintain a non-anxious presence in an emotionally charged system. Gary writes that, “Healthy and effective leadership requires more than technique. it is a lifelong process of spiritual and emotional discipline that enables leaders to maintain balance.” This requires “the capacity to become oneself.” (72) Gary lists seven qualities that demonstrate differentiation in the life of a leader.
Seven admonitions follow that describe the way to lead. They are to “lead from..”
* your own story
* humility
* sensitivity
* prophetic vision
* influence
* in order to model
* lead into the community
There is a lot of wisdom in these pages, but I will only highlight a couple of things.
“It is obvious to [secure leaders] that vision and possibilities emerge from the community and not just the leaders. Borderland leaders are community builders that draw vision, giftedness, and relationships out of the community while warring against the tendency toward going it on their own. In this cultivated atmosphere, the missional imagination of members emerges in greater clarity. it is a vision that does not come from pre-planned strategies void of dialogue or process, but from the community’s shared experience of God’s moving in its midst.” (77)
“All the literature on leadership points to the idea that leaders shape values and mobilize people through character, not just through technique and efficient management frameworks. Efficiency and technique may create good processes and systems, but they do not build deep communities of faith that effectively move into the borderlands of mission and ministry.” (80)
“Borderland churches need borderland-friendly clergy, comfortable in the worlds they so passionately and purposefully encourage people to engage. Leaders wired only for the Christian sub-cultures find it difficult to encourage borderland living because it is impossible to guide others to places .. where you are not willing to go yourself.” (80)
The final section is to “face the call” of borderland living. In discussion with pastoral leaders moving into the borderlands Gary has noted four repeating themes. These are not held in some kind of synthetic balance, but often in great tension. The call of leadership today is to be apprentice-pastor-theologian-missionary.
Apprentices are formed in the hard disciplines of prayer, study and reflective action with the intention of producing passionate followers of Jesus. Disciples “systematically and progressively arrange their affairs” under the guidance of the Word and Spirit. (83)
Pastors are committed to the formation of a genuine community of faith. Only genuine communities can fling themselves boldly into the world. I recall Jim Wallis: “Community is the place where the healing of our own lives becomes the foundation for the healing of the nations.” (Agenda for Biblical People, 118).
Missionaries intentionally cross borders, learning the language, the rhythms, and the values of those they engage. Missional leaders must understand the times and places where they dwell in order to have genuine encounters.
We must also be theologians. “The role of theology has been suppressed in the last decade because of our love for the pragmatic… deep theological and biblical reflective frame must be formed in the pastor’s life.” (84) Leaders must not only “have” a theology, they must be adept at doing it. The tension of the first themes is informed by the practice of theological reflection. Gary notes that when this is absent, the content required for effective borderland living is also absent. He closes this chapter with a call to courage and the famous paragraph of Peter Senge:
“In the knowledge era, we will finally have to surrender the myth of leaders as isolated heroes commanding their organizations from on high. Top-down directives, even when they are implemented, reinforce an environment of fear, distrust, and internal competitiveness that reduces collaboration and cooperation. They foster compliance instead of commitment, yet only genuine commitment can bring about the courage, imagination, patience, and perseverance necessary in a knowledge-creating organization. For those reasons, leadership in the future will be distributed among diverse individuals and teams who share responsibility for creating the organization’s future.”
This section, like much of Gary’s work here, begs for expansion. I could almost with to see a Volume II built around the framework he works at in pages 82-84.