Overcoming Fear

I see churches paralyzed with fear because their numbers have been dwindling for years and they don’t know what to do about it. I see pastors and lay people frustrated because they have tried many of the quick-fix programs which don’t work. Quick fixes don’t work, but appropriate education and training for clergy and laity do.

We in the Pohly Center for Supervision and Leadership Formation, www.united.edu/pohlycenter are trying break the cycle of fear by coming along side congregations in consultation and in providing meaningful training to enable both clergy and laity to work together more effectively. See especially our Principles and Practices of Supervision July 21-25 http://www.united.edu/institute/rwsupervision0708.shtml and our Equipping Leader program July 28-Aug 1 http://www.united.edu/institute/rwequippingleaders1p0708.shtml

Fear cripples people & congregations

My experience is that fear cripples both people and congregations.

Leonard Sweet wrote in The Gospel According to Starbucks (not the best book he has written, but there were a few quotable lines)
“The greatest gift my mentor gave me was helping me learn to move through my fear and to embrace creativity and spontaneity. When I learned to trust God and act on the ideas, dreams, and passions he placed in my heart, that’s when my life and ministry took a new energizing and fruit-bearing direction. What would your life look like if you were no longer controlled by your fears of what others might think?”

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

If only we would claim the power that is from God.

The Nature of Church

I have always felt that the purpose of church was much more than I had experienced in most congregations. There are several authors whose writings have helped me articulate this vision. Rick Barger is one of them.

“The church was born out of the Spirit of God. Its purpose was to witness to the saving activity of God, not as proffering a deal, cause, or spiritual assistance but to be a transparent sign in which and through which Jesus is encountered, experienced, known, and lives. The church’s relationship to Jesus is not simply to be identified with a historical person. The church’s identification with Jesus is its DNA. Jesus not only gives the church its DNA. Jesus also is the church’s DNA. Jesus abides or lives in the church (John 15:4 and others). Thus, Jesus can speak about his being “the vine” and the church being “the branches” (John 15:5). Vine and branch are of the same DNA. The church as the Body of Christ is more than just a metaphor. It is reality.”
--Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit

The church I grew up in had as it's theological framework Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. "Experience" wasn't even in the mix. I grew up not understanding what "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" was all about. I have come to understand/experience that while the relationship is personal it is much more than just "you and me, Jesus." The longer I am on this journey, the more challenging it becomes.

Am I becoming who God calls me to be?

I think Straub and Turner point us in the right direction.

The most important question is not, “Have I found the ‘thing’ God wants me to do with my life?” The most important question is, “Am I becoming who God calls me to be in Christ?” Some indicators help us affirm that we are fulfilling our primary calling from God. We know this when we can say: I am...
• sensing and enjoying God’s presence more than I did yesterday
• trusting God more today than I did yesterday
• expressing more compassion and concern for the people around me than I did yesterday
• realizing I am more trustworthy today than I was yesterday
• caring less about what our culture values than I did yesterday
• caring more about Christ’s values today than I did yesterday
• devoting more of my resources to God’s work than I did yesterday
--Gary Straub & Judy Turner, Your Calling as a Leader

God's Dreams

I believe God has dreams for us. I have a personal problem with the “God has a plan for our life” language, because it suggests to me that God has planned out every second and every detail of our life. I don’t believe that is true. I do believe that God has dreams for our lives in a way similar to the dreams our parents had for us when we were born except that (with few exceptions) God dreams less about what our job will be and more about what our character will be and what our relationship with God/Jesus will be.

Jim Collins in Good to Great said:
"Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of (congregations) never become (vital), precisely because the vast majority become quite (complacent with the status quo) — and that is their main problem"

One of our problems is that we dream too small for ourselves and for our churches and God is dreaming the Kingdom of Heaven come on earth. Our task is to discern God's dream and move in that direction.

More on the leadership XY graph

Below is a chart that is a little more developed than yesterday’s.



The reason I like the XY graph is that it makes it easy to see the importance of these two qualities, (leadership ability and spiritual maturity). A person who is spiritually mature, but who is at the “Individual Contributor” or “Group Contributor” level is not ready to be an effective leader. Likewise someone who may be a high functioning leader in the marketplace, but spiritually immature, will not make a good church leader, if for no other reason than that the church operates by a different set of values and from a different world view than the marketplace. The church gets itself in trouble when it offers leadership positions to anyone who’ll take the job. Don’t give me the “We don’t have anyone else to take the job” argument. I have been a pastor in small churches. My experience that it is better to leave a position unfilled than fill it with an unqualified person.

Reflections on Church Leadership

As you can see from my bio I am a United Methodist pastor (retired). I spent 22 years in active service and another 10 hanging around doing good things. Before coming to UTS I spent 4 years co-teaching a series of 3-year leadership courses at Bethany UMC in Austin Texas. The program was developed by John Robertson (LeadershipID.com and PrepareGodsPeople.com) and also co-taught by our senior associate pastor, Rev. David Minnich. Because we are Methodists our program is Christian leadership grounded in the Wesleyan tradition. As a result of that work, in 2007 I was asked to head up the “leadership formation” portion of the work at The Pohly Center for Supervision and Leadership Formation which is part of The Center for Applied Theology which is part of United Theological Seminary in Dayton Ohio. (It’s not quite as impressive as it sounds.) After almost 30 years in Texas, this was an opportunity to return to my home town and the seminary from which I graduated in 1975.

I bring a varied background to my work in leadership. In this blog I will share my unique reflections on the subject including books I am reading and have found helpful and quotes from various authors. My particular focus is the vital connection between good leadership and spiritual maturity. My friend Alan Goldsberry, (ServantLeaderFramework.com) developed a simple XY graph to illustrate the relationship of these two factors.



I have suggested to pastors that they use this as a tool to begin the conversation with a member or staff person about personal growth. Simply ask the person where they see themselves on this graph and then ask them in what area they want to grow next.

Enough for now.