Tag Archives: leadership

In a Time of Change and Loss

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I called her “St. Nancy” (now of blessed memory).  She had been a member of the congregation for over 40 years. Maybe a charter member, I don’t know. She had spent her career as a hospital nurse and was steeped in service to others; there was an assertive, yet loving way about her. By the time I began my ministry in that congregation, Nancy had retired, but still active. Over the decades, she had probably taken nearly every job there was at church, from council president to leading the women’s guild. She had a heart as big as the Indian Ocean and a healthy, direct way of speaking. When she disagreed with something, she said so, but it was never mean; she was always a team player. (I’m guessing you can picture your own Nancy.)

When our parish nurse died suddenly, Nancy was heartbroken. Not only had she and Sue been friends, but she was deeply committed to Parish Health ministry. So, when we decided for budgetary reasons not to fill the position, Nancy was upset. And when the leadership wasn’t responsive to her insistence, trouble began. She took it to the streets, in that ugly way that we do.

At a staff meeting we talked about it and knew we had to address it. One of us volunteered to go talk to Nancy one on one. We discovered that replacing the parish nurse was only the cover for something much deeper. Nancy said, “For 40 years, I’ve been taking care of people in this congregation. Now that I’m old, who’s going to take care of me.” It wasn’t about filling a position or not. It was about the fear of losing something that she had been instrumental in nurturing, that we take care of our elders. It was about change and loss.

Leadership guru, Ron Heifitz, writes that it’s not change that people dread. Let someone win the lottery and they’re more than willing to change their lifestyle. It’s loss. That’s what people fear.

In this pandemic disruption, people are experiencing both change and loss. For at least 6 months now, we have experienced the loss of significant ways of being the church that have meant so much to us. We aren’t gathering for worship in the church (at least most of us aren’t; and if we are, it doesn’t look much like what we were used to). We can’t have our coffee hour, we can’t hug people on the way into church, we long to be able to sing together again. The pandemic has messed with so many of our cherished practices and traditions. What’s maybe more troubling is that some of those losses will be permanent.

So, both loss and change. No wonder people are anxious.

I fear that the dynamics of loss and change will be too much for some congregational systems to handle without spiraling down into some pretty serious conflict. The tensions between those who are pushing to get back the building and those who are more risk averse are already showing up. At first there was impatience to get back in the building; now the impatience is turning to frustration, even anger.

Here are a few things that are going to be important in the next few months as we navigate what’s turning into a much longer disruption than we expected.

Creating space for lament. Wise pastoral leadership will create space to give expression to the grief and sadness, the frustration and anxiety that we’re all experiencing. People need an outlet for the grief they are experiencing at the loss of what may never return in the form they were used to. In one of our Sunday morning Zoom conversation, I asked how folks were doing and one of them just blurted out, “This is hard. I’m having a hard time with this. I just feel like nothing is normal anymore.” Not only did they have a chance to give voice to their grief and loss, but it gave the community an opportunity to practice care for each other.

Pay attention to relationships as well as tasks. In the church, we are often so occupied with the tasks that need to be accomplished that we forget that we are fundamentally a relational community. Maybe it’s beginning the meeting with a rounds question that invites people to share something about themselves. Maybe it’s just opening the space for people to talk. We are both rational and emotional beings and while we might not be very good at expressing the emotional part of who we are, it doesn’t mean it’s not important. And we can get better with practice.

Keep your leaders close. Check in with them. Get in the habit of a regular phone call or email just to see how they’re doing.  Focus on the leaders who are calm and courageous; strengthen and support them. And don’t ignore the ones from whom we’re sensing tension. We don’t need to focus on them, but we do need to listen and pay attention.

Keep the mission in mind. Especially in these times, it’s so easy to focus on what needs to be today. I have those days when I’m just trying to get done today what can’t wait until tomorrow. We are having to make so many decisions that it there doesn’t seem to be room for one more. But while circumstances and context have changed dramatically in the past 6 months, the mission hasn’t. For us, that’s to be the sacramental presence of Christ in our community. Keeping that in mind brings clarity to everything else. Remembering the mission can help us dream hopefully about what we’d like the future to look like. It can unleash the creativity and imagination that just might launch us into a new normal that helps people to see that though we might be experiencing loss, what comes next might be better than we could have imagined.

Margaret Wheatley writes, “The primary way to prepare for the unknown, is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another.” In the end, Nancy’s anxiety and reactivity was softened, not because we convinced her that our strategy was the right strategy, but because she felt listened to and cared for. It’s all about the relationship. In times of change and loss, paying attention to relationship will always strengthen the mission.

On Leaders Who Disappoint and How Real Change Happens

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francis.jpgIn his speech before Congress Pope Francis managed to rise above the fray.  With no histrionics, he spoke directly and simply, yet profoundly. The speech surprised me; he managed to address the divisive issues that have become occasions for the two parties to shout across the aisle at each other. He spoke in such a way that all of us in this divided house could listen.

Not forty-eight hours later came the report that Pope Francis met with Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to anyone as a way to make a stand for her opposition to gay marriage. Since the news came out, there have been as many interpretations of that visit as there are positions to take. And regardless of the Pope’s awareness and degree of complicity, that meeting has enormous symbolism. I’m not ready to make a personal judgment; however, for the symbolic impact of that visit, I am disappointed.

It’s disappointing to me because Kim Davis is the icon for a brand of Christianity that is disdainful to me. It’s a brand of Christianity that makes our faith more about the rules than about relationship, and especially rules about sex. I wish we could just get off of that. Every time I turn around, someone else is reinforcing the ridiculous notion that the Christianity is mostly about rules, and we’re concerned about the sex rules more than any others. It’s maddening.

While I’m disappointed that the meeting happened, I’m not losing much sleep over it. While I was impressed with the pope’s speech before Congress, I never went over the moon about it. He represents a change of tone from the Vatican, but perhaps not much else. A friend, who is a good Roman Catholic and an astute observer of all things Catholic, often reminds me that nothing of substance has changed.

Leaders inspire us. Leaders disappoint us. Sometimes leaders just downright make us mad. Just ask the members of my congregation.

The whole back and forth saga of the pope’s visit to America — and I have to imagine that it feels the same for both conservatives and progressives — is a reminder that while leaders have influence, real change is not going to happen from the top down. Bernie Sanders (another leader who inspires me and who I’m sure will disappoint me and enrage me) reminded students at the University of Chicago this week that real change, deep change never happens from the top down. It always happens from the bottom up, beginning at the margins and moving towards the center.

Earlier this week, I facilitated a bible study with a group of about 20 women. Part of our study was about the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday (Mark 10:2-16, if you want to read it), a difficult text where Jesus pits scripture against scripture. On the one hand he holds up the inviolability of the marriage covenant; on the other, he cites the Mosaic law which allows for divorce in certain occasions, a legal move which was only available to the man.

The study led us into conversation about marriage, about the difficulty and hard work of relationships, especially relationships like marriage. And it led us into the tall grass of a conversation about same sex marriage.

I fully celebrate that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters can now be legally married. The sealing of their covenantal love is just as holy and just as wonderful a relationship and covenant as heterosexual marriage. I also know that not everyone in the congregation I serve shares that opinion.

The conversation we had yesterday would not have happened a dozen years ago in this place. Partially, it’s a sign of the rapid change that has happened in the larger society.

But I’d like to think that the priority we’ve placed on having deep and meaningful conversation in our congregation has contributed to the change. Over the past dozen years, we have created space for lots of conversations about lots of things. Forty or fifty people meet every week for bible study. We host conversations about the intersection of faith and life. We talk a lot these days about the rapid changes in our society and their impact on the church. Every council and team meeting includes time for conversation and prayer. At any given moment in time several groups, including our staff, are reading and discussing a book together. We have hosted authors to lead us in conversation about things that matter. When space is created for people to listen to one another, space is also created for the Spirit to soften our hearts.

It’s not the kind of change that happens rapidly; it’s not always even visible. But it’s the kind of work that forms and shapes us as the body of Christ, forming us as individuals, and more importantly, forming us as a corporate body, so that our thoughts, words, and deeds are in greater alignment with the work God is doing in the world, so that we are participating with God in bringing about the kingdom.

Save It for Monday

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As I sat in a sticky booth at IHOP, talking with a pastoral colleague over pancakes and scrambled eggs, I heard a familiar story. A Sunday morning service just finished. Pastors standing at the door greeting parishioners. Some folks always have comments about the service, usually good, mostly generic. And then comes the occasional verbal hand grenade, set to detonate right there in the line out of church, just after the service.  In this case, my colleague had done the prayers of the church and had prayed for peace, for an end to the war in Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine, Syria, and other places around the world. And one of the congregants assailed him in what my colleague characterized as harsh language and a harsh tone of voice, “Why aren’t you praying for our troops? We’re working trying to bring democracy in places that have only known tyranny, and you’re praying for peace. Why don’t you try praying for. . .”

For now, I’m not interested in the substance of the comments. But I do have something to say about that kind of harsh criticism immediately after a service, even when the message has a modicum of truth.

Years ago, I heard a seasoned and highly respected pastor say at a workshop about building a cohesive church staff, “On Sunday everything is perfect. Not until Monday do you even think about addressing what went wrong or what could be improved.”

The truth that stands behind his sound bite is this: every professional church leader and every lay volunteer who is involved in Sunday morning worship pours his heart and soul into what he does. There is no professional detachment. It’s personal. What she does and what she says comes from a deep place of her own calling, her picture of God and how God has called her, and her best efforts at using her gifts and talents in God’s service. Because it comes from such a deep place and is expressive of something so closely tied to our very identity, and because we’ve worked hard and are just now taking a relaxing breath, any criticism, even if constructive, will likely be heard as a personal attack in the few minutes after a service. Those few moments are moments of vulnerability.

I have tried to follow my wise colleague’s principle in my own ministry with both staff and volunteers. In those moments immediately after the service, I try be effusive in sharing my gratitude for those who have contributed to Sunday morning. I try every week to thank my professional colleagues, trying to mention something specific they have done that I have appreciated. I have attempted to thank all the volunteers, from ushers to altar guild to lectors to assisting ministers to acolytes. “Thank you for your service” or “Thanks for sharing your gifts” or “I really appreciated the way you read that second lesson this morning.”

Because worship always involves human beings and always is messy and always includes mistakes and other distractions, it’s never perfect. So, there are always things to address that could be improved. And I always, I mean ALWAYS, refuse to even mention them on Sunday, but address them during the week that follows. When both staff and volunteers have had a chance to sleep on it and are a little more detached, they are much more able to hear criticism as constructive and not personal. We can acknowledge the good things they did. And we can talk much more calmly about what went wrong or what was a little weak and how to make it better next time.

So, if you are a person sitting in the pew Sunday after Sunday, and you have some thoughts about what went wrong or what could be improved, file it away. Don’t lose track of it. Make sure you make time to offer your feedback. Just don’t do it on Sunday. On the way out of the service, you have no idea what a world of good you will do even if all you can say is “Thank you for sharing your gifts today. I’m grateful for you.”