Rethink Leadership Plenary

This little light of mine

Everywhere I go

All through the night

This little light of mine

Spirit of the Living God – melt, mold, fill, use

For Renewal of the Church (from south Africa)

Renew your church Lord, your people in this land.  Save us from cheap words and self deception in your service.  In the power of your Spirit transform us, and shape us by your cross.  Amen.

Thank Westlake, staff laity,

Rachel on maternity leave – here’s why

Michelle, Jenny Terry Roberts, Marvin and of course JILL

Young clergy so much to offer us as we rethink church

I don’t know who is here because we don’t make you come

First year in elected leadership position please stand

Lay leaders please stand

SPR committee pray for them

Finance and Trustees Do Not Be Afraid

Council or ad board members

Umm/umw Who else? SIGN OF OUR CONNECTION

You’ve got the schedule – first workshop is this plenary

Rethink leadership 10 plenary

Began to rethink this moment on the night of December 28

That is the night my home church burned.

Not the church where I have my charge conference relationship, not the churches I attend, not any of the churches I’ve served.  I mean my home, home church.  The church I grew up in.  The church where I passed notes in the pews to my friends.  The church where I preached in high school – that is a story for another day – the church where my brothers were married, my nieces and nephews baptized and confirmed, the church where my father was buried.  My HOME church.  Mercedes, Texas.

I am not the only person in this room who has said and/or heard these words – what we need is a good fire.  By that we usually  are being flippant about a sanctuary that has real  problems from ageing or deterioration or bad design or just plain ugliness and we are being flippant about how it is that ‘a good fire’ would make it possible for us to start over,.  To go in a new direction or even fix up what has lost its luster. probably with a little cash on hand.

Well, friends, my home church was not whispering about or wishing for ‘a good fire’ and the fire they got sure feels like bad news.

A structural engineer will soon be telling them if the beams can support the structure into the future.

Oh can’t you imagine the conversations already in Mercedes Texas?  Person A:  “We have to rebuild exactly like it was.  People gave money for those pews, and those windows and that pipe organ and we have a responsibility to honor their memory and their gift.”

Person B: “These last few weeks since the fire, worshipping in the Fellowship Hall we can hear each other sing, it feels full, you can smile at your neighbor and the new folks that are coming find it more inviting.” 

Mind you, the new folks that are coming are younger, Hispanic families now drifting away from generations of Catholicism or, because their parents had already drifted, the new folks have no real experience in church at all.  They too bring gifts – although not a pew to sit in or a pipe organ to play.

A good fire.  Really?

My family asked me what I thought.  I told them the story of another church in our conference. Their church burned down, and they have a bunch of money in the bank.  And their church membership is about the size of a small SS class. Not going to rebuild because they don’t need a building until they figure out who they are going to be and why they would need one.  Jesus said:  The church that seeks to save its life will surely lose it, and the church that loses its life for my sake will surely find it.

Two congregations with a radical requirement to Rethink Church that few of us will get.  And why does it take a fire to teach us – who we are, and how we are is actually more important than where we meet and what we sit on.  As I told one congregation during a very significant and needed building program, building facilities is the easy part, the harder work is building the congregation. 

Rethink Church.  Rethink Leadership. Rethink Church leadership.  Being here today tells me that you are very brave people.  You have said “Here I am Lord” to a call to serve. And I am saying, to lead our churches in these days requires all of us, each of us, every one of us to teach our brains, our lips and our hearts to say 5 words:  deep change or slow death.

Say it with me:  deep change or slow death.  Again.  One more time.  Turn to your neighbor and tell them how saying those words out loud makes you feel.

I imagine many of you feel something like – our church is pretty good as it is, maybe really good.  We already have strong activities and meaningful mission.  We support our budget, pay our apportionments, raise our children and love our older adults.  We can put ‘deep change’ off, we can tinker and tweak and basically redo most of what we did last year…..  Ok.  You can.  Here’s the thing – I know most of our churches ARE pretty good, and some are really good.  AND being pretty good and really good is good enough for us but we are not attracting other people.

How many of you live in a community that is growing, even slightly.  Your zip code, your town, your county?  From 2008 to 2009,   we went up in worship attendance – exactly 7.  7 people – our district average went up from 12,256 to 12,267.  Half our churches went down in worship attendance, and half went up, and the total gain was 7 people.

Let me suggest you do not want a fire to force you into change

One church in our district told me this year.  We don’t change.  That is not really true about them but it is the story they tell about themselves.  We don’t change.

Last year I shocked some of you by saying Deep Change or Slow Death.  I am not being pessimistic; I am just looking at facts and reporting what I see.  Most of our churches do not take in and engage enough new people to balance the loss of members to death and or moving away.  And few of our churches are baptizing as many babies as the number of saints they are burying.  Tweaking is not working.

Tweaking is deciding what we want to offer next in the way of program or worship and putting it out there.  Deep change is learning what our neighbors need to connect their lives with God, and finding a way to do that.

That is our Wesleyan DNA, it is in here in our strangely warmed hearts.  When did ‘the world is my parish’ become ‘my parish is my world.’ When did ‘love the lord with all your heart, mind and strength’ become ‘I just want my church to stay open long enough so I can be ____________ there?’  More than one person has said that to me since we were at this event last year.

Rethink church.  Rethink church leadership. Rethink your leadership. 

What are the challenges you face?  What are the skills you need?

I know two for sure.

We need both Management and leadership:

Management takes care of stability, makes everything go smoothly

change without stability is chaos, but Stability without change is death,

we need both management and leadership.

Management and management questions relieve system of complaints, provide satisfaction. Are we doing things right?  Getting audits.  Keeping facilities maintained, improved and updated.  Paying our pastor’s pension on time.  Making sure cribs for babies are up to code.  Are we doing things right?  Good question.

Leadership asks:  are we doing the right things?  This question, I find, how about you? I find this question does NOT relieve the system of complaints.  This question, I find, often dissatisfies people.  Makes them Uncomfortable.

In somewhat of a break from decades past, I am being trained that MY ROLE IS TO MOVE AWAY FROM MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS, spend less time asking if you are doing things right, and more time asking if you are doing the right things.  And THIS is where it all gets very interesting……

If there is a difference of opinion at your church on whether organ or piano or band is the right music for worship, please raise your hand.  If there is a difference of opinion at your church on whether repairs should be handled by church members or contracted outto professionals, raise your hand.  If there is a difference of opinion about whether or not it is better to spend time reactivating former members or going house to house in your neighborhood inviting new folks, raise your hand.  If there is a difference of opinion about whether or not the pastor should spend more time visiting the sick and elderly or more time attending community meetings, raise your hand.  Doing things right?  Doing right things?

Your church has asked you for leadership, but may be more likely to reward you for management.  We are more likely to agree on best practices than we are to agree on bold vision.  This is a true statement:  delivering Satisfaction, comfortableness has to go off the list, for leadership – you can’t measure how you’re doing by number of complaints…or by the number of compliments.

Not keep people happy.  We are no longer in that moment.  Decisions we make now may determine whether or not our churches are alive even into the next generation. 9 million young adults who were confirmed in mainstream churches across America in the last decade are no longer attending anywhere.  We are one generation away.

Will the church be here for our children’s children?  For jack?  You can imagine who will NOT be in your church 30 years from now, when Jack is his mother’s age.  For most of our churches, that’s a lot of folks.  Can you imagine as clearly who will be in your church, or what deep change it will take to cross from here to there?  I have been told that 20% of clergy and congregations will NOT allow change – recalcitrant and proud of it – and that’s fine….I can let that go

It is what it is and it is not most of you.  last summer when we were all expected to rethink the fall and make room for imagine no malaria –

You rebooted, and We have already pledged or given over $350,000, with several of our largest churches having their campaigns this spring.  We will almost certainly commit ½ million dollars. That took management and leadership. Was that the right thing to do?  To lead our denomination toward its goal of  putting out the fire of malaria in Africa.

And now Haiti.  The very geology of the planet has shaken this tragedy open in our back yard, on our TV’s, into our hearts.  We are paying attention now to a place that was – economically, politically, socially, structurally on fire already.  Are we doing the right things?  It was that question of doing the right things that led Clint Rabb and the other Methodist mission folks to be there.

Two weeks ago, we had just learned Sam Dixon had died, and were so grateful Clint was still alive.  Clint, and many others, gave their lives in leading our church ever forward in doing the right things.  In seeing our true connection.  Our connection with Christian communities all over the world.  Building relationships with Africans, Cambodians, Russians, Colombians, …..Changing deeply our identity as the people of God, seeing ourselves as only one bright ornament on the beautiful tree of God’s delight.

….I have been told that 20% of clergy and congregations will NOT allow change – recalcitrant and proud of it.  I hope none of you are in that 20% - but some in your church will be.  We’re too old. I’ve been told.  We can’t learn new ways.  Well maybe.  I believe that is a choice and here is my poster child for this belief.

Behold I am making all things new, we read in our sacred book.

A structural engineer will soon be telling my home church if the beams can support the structure into the future.  We are the pillars, and the beams God needs to build the church that will be here for Jack.  The only fire i ask for anymore, is a burning desire to share God’s love with people in such a powerful way that they will want to join in, and add their light to ours – let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Your year will be filled with opportunities to make things new, to co-create the church with the living God.  I pray for you, I need you. I give thanks for you.