Tag Archive - congregation

Pastoral Leadership: Why It May Be More About Your Family of Origin Than About Technique and Data Collecting

February 16, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 7 Comments

Family problems can often be resolved by having the parents or partners focus on and work at unresolved issues in their families of origin. By the same token, leaders must not only develop vision, persistence, and stamina, but also understand that the problems they encounter may stem from their own unsolved family issues, their organization’s past, sabotage in response to their effective leadership, or a combination of these factors. (pp. 27-28)
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman

Let me begin by saying that Friedman’s book in my opinion is an absolute must read for not only those in any leadership position, but I especially think it’s a crucial read for those in pastoral leadership. The more and more I work with families in therapy, and the more and more I work with pastors in the church…the more and more I see the similarities of issues that are involved. I’m obviously not the first to see this correlation, and in fact, in Friedman’s seminal work, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, he explores at length this very idea.

There is so much valuable insight in this book, but one aspect that I have been thinking about a lot is something that Friedman says in regards to data collecting and technique by leaders. Friedman says:

It was at this point that I began to realize that before any technique or data could be effective, leaders had to be willing to face their own selves. Otherwise the effect of technique was like trying to build up energy in a spring where the initial twists store up more potential and then suddenly, with one twist too many, the entire spring unwinds. If this sounds similar to the recover problems of alcoholics, there may be more to the association than we would care to admit….the chronic anxiety in American society has made the imbibing of data and technique addictive precisely because it enables leaders not to have to face their selves. (pp. 21)

There is so, so much in that statement by Friedman that needs unpacking, and I will do so at more length in the near future. But let me leave you with a few thoughts.

Is it possible that our hunger as pastors to attend more conferences, read more books, acquire more skills, learn more techniques, and use more technology…is really a means by which we avoid doing the difficult task of looking at ourselves?

As pastors, do we lead with a non-anxious presence (self-differentiated), or does our own anxiety model to our congregation some of the same self-avoiding behaviors that they see in us?

If it is true that leadership is more of an emotional process than a cognitive one (pp. 11), then much of our ability to lead lies in our discovery and awareness of who we are in our families of origin, than in our ability to just know and do more.

Why Twitter? Shaping Our Narrative One Tweet at a Time

April 14, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 4 Comments

why-twitter-imageI had the privilege to write an article for Collide Magazine for their March/April 2009 issue, and of course I wrote it on the topic of Twitter. But more specifically, my view on how Twitter is a shaping/sharing/telling of our narrative, one tweet at a time, to those we are in connection with. I began by saying:

“working on my blog,” was the first tweet (Twitter slang for an update) I typed out on the mircoblogging tool Twitter on December 9, 2007. In fact, I remember clearly where I sat in our home at that moment and what thoughts of curiosity, hesitancy, and narcissism ran through my head as I posted those simple little words. It doesn’t seem like much does it? In fact, I used only 18 of the allotted 140 characters, unsure if anything I had to say was worthwhile at all. I had two questions for myself: Who is going to read this? Who cares? In and of itself, one tweet is just that: one tweet. But in the context of all the tweets that compose my growing Twitter profile, a more complex portrait of my life began to emerge, forming a narrative that is the beginning to a relational connectivity with others online, (and most likely in person) that is easier to achieve than it was before.

I also list at the end of the article six reasons why I think pastors should Twitter (relationships, communication, frequency, sharing, mobilization, support).

My title for the magazine edition was “Why Twitter? Shaping Our Narrative One Tweet at a Time,” but you can read the entire article online, “Why Tweet?”

Unrealistic Expectations?

May 12, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 2 Comments

My co-worker RO Smith and I have been talking a lot recently about expectations in the Church.

RO has been concerned with what are some unrealistic expectations placed upon pastors which he wrote about in the post, We Are All Pastors.

After reading the post and talking with him more about the topic I have become concerned with what I think are sometimes unrealistic expectations of those employed in the Church (i.e. pastors, directors, etc.), upon the rest of the congregation.

As a pastor, director, church employee or whatever, it is basically our job to do things in service of Church (really in service of Jesus Christ, but we know how that can become clouded). Without diving into debates over what that “service” means, and what a vocational position in the Church entails, or whether or not we should even be called “professionals” (John Piper deals with this topic extensively in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry).

The reality is this: In ministry we have very flexible schedules, and can cater our schedule however we want to make meetings, meet with people, plan events, make time for events, etc, etc. But I’m starting to wonder about whether or not we take the average church attender into consideration when we plan things or expect them to serve with the same passion, effort and time that we do on an event.

Example: My full-time job is as college director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. My vocation revolves around thinking about that ministry. But a college student in the ministry for example (and this may be a bad example since college students tend to have the most leisure time of any when you compare them amongst other demographics) has school, work, homework, family, friends, etc. Their schedule does not revolve around the college ministry, and yet sometimes I have expectations of them that it should. We as pastors and directors don’t fully think about the family with two income parents, driving across town in traffic running errands, shuttling kids, and all the demands that revolve around that family. And yet we have expectations of how much time they should volunteer, and how many events they should be at.

So the expectations head in both directions–clergy to congregation, and congregation to clergy–and it seems to create a vicious cycle of stress, burnout and an overprogrammed church and ministries.

So please read RO’s post Stress and the Unrealistic Expectations of the Church at our collaborative youth ministry site (though I have not collaborated to the site very much lately).

After reading RO’s post, I’m looking even more forward to Anne Jackson’s upcoming book, Mad Church Disease: The Church-Wide Burnout Epidemic.