Peter corney

The future of the Church is only as secure as the next generation of leaders it is recruiting and training now.

We do not discover the future and we can’t predict the future with any certainty. We in fact create the future! The future is shaped by us in the present.

We do that by the visions of the future we imagine and the decisions we make now. The most strategic visions and decisions we make now are about the recruiting and training of leaders.

Three key roles of Christian elders are:

1. To pass on the faith faithfully and truly to the next generation.
2. To live the faith with integrity before the next generation
3. To discover, encourage, prepare and make way for the next generation of leaders.

Peter Corney

Image by Denis Collette

I have read a lot of books on leadership both secular and Christian and found useful insights in many of them. (My top ten are listed at the end of this article.) But recently I read a study of major leaders of the 20^th C. “Leading Minds -An Anatomy of Leadership” by Howard Gardner.(1) Many of the leaders he analyses faced the enormous challenges of the Second World War period, the post Colonial era and the dramatic changes of the sixties. Included are people as diverse as General George Marshall who conceived and implemented The Marshal Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after the devastation of the war and Martin Luther King Jnr. who lead the successful civil rights campaigns in the US. In the 60’s

I found Gardner’s analysis and conclusions about the common elements of effective leadership insightful and compelling. They also resonated with my own experience of leaders and leadership.

Here is his own summery of what he describes as the six enduring features of effective leaders.

A leader is likely to achieve success only if he or she can construct and convincingly communicate a clear and persuasive story; appreciate the nature of the audience(s), including its changeable features; invest their own (or channel others) energy in the building and maintenance of an organization; embody in their own life the principle contours of the story; either provide direct leadership or find a way to achieve influence through indirect means; and, finally, find a way to understand and make use of, without being overwhelmed by, increasingly technical expertise. (2)

The six key things identified here (in my order) are:

1. The ability to develop a story and communicate it. This is what is sometimes called the power of a vision. It might be the possibility of curing a disease or creating an organization to eliminate poverty in a community or provide a new education system that will engage marginalized youth or building a business that will be more efficient and profitable and fun to work in or it might be the vision to transform a church into a radically committed and powerful community. The story has to be clear and  understandable by both the tutored and untutored and it must be communicated convincingly and persuasively.

2. The leader must embody the story in their own life. If the vision is to eliminate poverty in a community then the leader must live a life style that is frugal, sacrificial and responsible. They must demonstrate personal commitment to the story.

3. The leader must build an organization and channel others energy into the organization. The story will not be translated into reality without an effective organization. The organization must be maintained for the story to have long term effect. To have wide influence and long term effect the leader can not just be an impractical visionary.

4. Understand and appreciate the ‘audience’ and its changeable features. What is sometimes called the ability to read the culture of the people you want to lead and influence. This is ‘the language of the people’: their idiom, style, music, level of formal or ‘street’ education, their humor, employment, their entertainment, etc. Over time this changes.  This is all crucial to communicating the story and motivating people to participate in developing the organization.

5. Provide direct leadership. Politicians are direct leaders and their ability to speak directly to the ordinary voters is crucial to their success. Providing hands-on direct development of an organization is direct leadership. Influence may also be exercised through indirect leadership, which Gardner sometimes refers to as creative leadership. This can be exercised through the influence of symbolic creative work. Artistic works like the novels of Solzhenitsyn who had no direct political role but contributed significantly to the unraveling of the Soviet Unions moral credibility. Some leaders can combine both. Vaclav Havel who led the Czech Republic out of Soviet control at a critical time was a poet and a direct leader whose poetry was very influential with the Czech people. Academic research can also produce indirect leadership like Sir Mc Farlen Burnett’s scientific research work. Creative academic leadership is often confined to a particular sphere of activity.

6. Understand and make use of new and developing technology without being lost in technical detail and expertise. For example in an earlier period in churches it was sound systems, copying machines, slide and movie film and overhead projectors, later computers, data projectors, DVD, now web based communication systems like email, face book, twitter etc.

OTHER INSIGHTS

The nature of the ‘story’.

An interesting issue that Gardner raises is how inclusive or exclusive the leaders ‘story’ will be. He makes the point that most effective leaders have an inclusive story. They help people to feel part of a broader community or movement. But inclusive leaders will eventually be challenged by some group or faction who feel that their story is the correct one and the leaders story is not pure enough or is compromised. It is also true that for any organization or movement or church to have cohesion and momentum it must have a limit to its inclusiveness, or to put it another way its story must also have an attractive distinctiveness.  Gardner makes the point that the fascist leaders of the WW 2 period were powerful and influential because of their exclusive stories, eg: Hitler’s ideas of the purity and superiority of the German race. Religious cult leaders also tell exclusive stories. While they are powerful they can also be enormously destructive. There is of course a big difference between extreme exclusive stories and those with a healthy and constructive distinctiveness. Every reformer has a distinctive story or moral call that excludes something.

Space for reflection

Gardner’s study also shows the importance of space for reflection for the direct leader. He calls this retreat to the mountain top. Without this the direct leader can loose the big picture or the sense of vision or the moral imperative energizing them and their sense of ‘agency’, that, they are an agent of change and influence. It also enables the regaining of perspective and awareness of change.

Early signs

In an examination of the early lives of effective leaders (or as he expresses it Exemplary leaders), he shows that often while still young and inexperienced they were willing to challenge the leadership above them, often to their disadvantage. Established leaders of organizations should be sensitive to this as they can thwart the potential talent because they challenge the status quo and don’t toe the line. They also show early on skill in speaking, posses a general energy and resourcefulness, they also have a concern for moral issues. (3)

This book is a rich mine of  insights on leadership and will repay the time spent in reading it for anyone involved in the selection and development of leaders.

References: (1) Basic Books 1995  (2) page 302  (3) pages 284-290

My ten top leadership books.

1.‘Leading minds. An anatomy of leadership’ by Howard Gardner, Basic Books, 1995

2.‘Leading at the Edge- Leadership lessons from the extraordinary saga of Shackelton’s  Antarctic Expedition’ by Dennis N.T. Perkins, AMACON, 2000.

3. ‘Intelligent Leadership’  by Alistair Mant, Allen &Unwin.1997

4. ‘Leaders on Leadership’ by George Barna, Regal, 1997

5. ‘Harvard Business Review on The Mind of the Leader’, edited articles from the H.B.R Harvard Business School Press,2005

6. ‘Spiritual Leadership’ by J Oswald Sanders, Moody Publishers 2003

7. ‘Identifying and Developing Leaders’ by Ian Jagelman, Open Book, 2003

8. ‘Finishing Strong’ by Steve Farrar, Multnomah, 1995

9. ‘On Becoming a leader’ by Warren Bennis, Addison Wesley, 1989.

10. ‘Hiring Strategies for Success’ by Ken Byrne, Wright Books 1990

Peter Corney.

(This was originally delivered as an address to the teaching staff chapel service at Trinity Grammar School Kew in Melbourne in 2010)

During the American civil war and the battle to emancipate the slaves, the then U.S President Abraham Lincoln said he “often felt like a man standing on a burning platform.”

Photo by Michael Holden

Many people in leadership today, whether it is in politics, business, education, health or public administration feel like Lincoln did. The times are so uncertain and the problems so challenging. What does the future hold for us?

Just think of a few of the headline issues we face. Global warming and the environmental crisis, water supply and security, world population growth, the global financial crisis, which is really a crisis of greed and morality that may even herald the twilight of the dominance of Western capitalism. Then there is the clash of civilizations as massive people movements around the world force radically different cultures and world views into uneasy connections. The U.N estimates that there are now approximately 43,000,000 refugees and displaced persons around the world as a result of wars, ethnic conflicts, poverty, hunger and climate change.

In the West we are becoming increasingly disturbed by the fraying of the moral and social fabric in what have been for some time relatively stable societies like Australia and the U.K. Drug and alcohol abuse are at alarming levels, and while we have never been wealthier, the percentage of dependent children being taken in to state care keeps rising steeply each year. These depressing examples could be multiplied.

So, what does the future hold for us?

Can we predict it? More importantly, can we influence it?

We have of course always been fascinated by the future but particularly in times of crisis. Our artists and novelists have often prophesied for us – George Orwell’s ‘1984’, Aldus Huxley’s ‘Brave new world’, the prolific H.G Wells, a pioneer of science fiction, wrote many very prescient novels like ‘The World Set Free’ and ‘The Shape of things to come’.  In our own times when film has become the literature of the people visions of the future appear in films like ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Gattica’, ‘The Matrix’, ‘Akira’, ‘Mad Max’, ‘Brazil’, ‘Existenz’, ‘Twelve Monkeys’, ‘The Children of Men’, ‘District 9’, etc. Then there are the natural disaster films like ‘2012’ where a giant tidal wave submerges the world in a modern flood narrative even with contemporary Arks! Then there is the recent film of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak but very moving novel ‘The Road.’

Interestingly these are mostly dystopian and pessimistic visions. That is probably because we tend to see the future through the lens of the present. In confident times we are optimistic and hopeful, in anxious and troubled times we become pessimistic even apocalyptic.

There are three alternative ways we can face the future:

(1) With Pessimism: Pessimism leads to resignation, loss of hope, the suppression of creativity, distraction and the growth of self interest.

(2) With Nostalgia: Nostalgia is a longing for the way things used to be. There is nothing wrong with a little nostalgia, there are many good things to honor and preserve from the past, the past shapes our identities. But you can not steer your vehicle into the future by looking mainly in the rear view mirror, that’s a good way to miss a vital turn you need to make.

(3) The third way is with Creative Imagination: Creative Imagination is that way of thinking that sees the future in a new way and by its vision creates the future. In spite of the plethora of futurologist’s, we can not predict the future with any accuracy. Nor do we discover the future. In fact we create the future! The future is a decision we make now, an intervention in the present. The present is of course the only field of action we have.

To create the future we must first imagine it. Creative imagination, coupled with passion, sees, feels and dreams new possibilities. But to have the energy to create a positive future you have to have an inspiring and guiding moral vision. Whether it’s the dream to create a new vaccine to deliver millions from a debilitating disease or to free people from hunger or injustice, it requires a moral vision.

Hugh Mackay the Australian social researcher has made this point about the need for such a vision in Australian society. We have yearned for a guiding story that would help us make sense of what is happening to us, and to our society. But no such story has emerged, because no such leadership has emerged. (The Mackay Report 1997)

Nietzsche, that strange prophetic voice from the late 19^th C., made many pertinent observations about the future direction of Western culture. He wrote:

When cultures loose the decisive influence of God and God dies for a culture they become weightless.

Nietzsche had lost his own faith and he observed that as Europe was loosing hers, the culture was hollowing out. What had given it its energy, strength and moral vision was leaking away and it was becoming weightless. We are living in the remains of that movement today. Western culture is like an old neglected masterpiece that is fading, the paint peeling, mould growing on the canvass. What was it that gave our culture its weight?

Psalm 24 concludes with this shout:

Lift up your heads, O you gates;

Lift them up, you ancient doors,

that the King of glory may come in.

Who is he, this king of glory?

The Lord Almighty  -

He is the King of glory.

Glory is one of the most frequently used words in the Bible to describe the character of God. For us it conveys the idea of radiance, brilliance, light, but the Hebrew word Kabod also carries the idea of weight. But weight in the sense of heavy with truth, laden with love, loaded with justice and holiness – gravitas, the epicenter of reality.

It was this idea that was the defining source of Western cultures values, its energizing creative force, the origin of its sense of  meaning and purpose.

I recently read A C Grayling’s book “Towards the Light”. The sub title is The story of the struggles for Liberty and Rights that made the Modern West. Although he is an atheist he makes it quite clear in his book that many of the most important forces in the human rights movement were Christian. People like Anthony Benezet the French Huguenot who became a Quaker and influenced many of the English and American leaders in the anti slavery movement including Thomas Clarkson and Wilberforce, all committed Christians. There is also a direct line out of that movement into children’s and workers rights and the modern labor movement and finally the UN Charter.

We are still living on this moral and spiritual capital but it is running down. Like money in the bank, if you only draw it down and don’t replace it eventually it runs out!

My point is a fairly simple one – you can provide an excellent education for the young people who pass through your hands, an education that will equip them with all the tools they need in our society to construct successful careers. But to what end? What will they build? What will guide them in how they build? What kind of society will they construct, with what sort of values? The answer to these questions lies in the spiritual and moral realm, where the real weight of a culture is measured.

We can and should provide our young people with an excellent education but unless we also provide them with a moral and spiritual vision we have not provided them with the most essential thing.

As a school with a long Christian tradition I urge you to keep going back to the well, back to that which gave us the best things we have inherited from our culture and its energizing vision. It is true that our Christian institutions have sometimes failed us and failed the Christian vision, but the vision has never failed. It may fade in our minds but its essential glory does not fade.

The New Testament picks up the Old Testament idea of God’s glory (the kabod) and in II Cor.4:6  Says: “God, who said, ‘let light shine out of darkness’ made his light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

This is the heart of the vision, this is where our attention should be focused.

Image Credit: www.wilpf.org/node/86

There is no effective leadership without power. By power I mean the ability to influence people organizations and structures, the ability to effect change. I will call this ‘real power.’ Such power can be acquired and used legitimately or illegitimately. Formal authority and power are connected but power can be exercised without formal or appointed authority, in such cases it develops its own informal authority. Formal or appointed authority can be without real power and as such is therefore ineffective.

(A) How is power acquired legitimately?

1. By valid and proper election or appointment such as an election by voters or appointment by a legitimate authority. (Where the criteria used is appropriate gift, ability and some of the other factors listed below real power may also accrue to the person)
2. By the recognition by others of a persons good character – their integrity, honesty, humility, consistency, commitment, servant hood.
3. By charisma. Not in the NT sense but in the indefinable attraction that some people posses, the ability to inspire and attract.
4. By giftedness and talent. More related to the NT gifts of ministry. Eg: Teaching, preaching, organising, leadership, wisdom, relational gifts, etc.
5. By developing and communicating powerful ideas that people respond to.
6. By developing vision. This is related to (5)
7. By communication skills, persuasiveness.
8. By the ability to engage and involve others skills, gifts, creativity and energy.
9. By building and earning trust.
10. By constructing effective structures and organizations.

The empowerment of others is one of the most constructive uses of power. Healthy leaders who have real power and use it well empower others. This multiplies both the effect and the extent of the legitimate use of power. (This is related to (8) above.)

In a fallen world power is often acquired illegitimately and frequently misused. There is a “will to power” in fallen human nature that can be traced back to our original rejection of God’s authority – “You will be like God” were the tempters words. In almost every group a struggle for power and control is present at some time, and some would say, in every relationship. In groups the struggle emerges strongly if there is a vacuum of leadership, poor process and structure or weak leadership. Someone will always seek to exercise power in these situations either out of frustration for the group’s purpose or out of personal opportunism and the desire for power. Insecure leaders create a power vacuum or become over controlling as a way of protecting themselves. This in turn leads to negative reactions and challenges to their authority or passivity and withdrawal by members.

(B) Why and how is power misused?

1. Through the desire to dominate and control.
2. Through the fear of others controlling us – control or be controlled.
3. Through insecurity.
4. Through pride and the desire to inflate our own importance.
5. Through the desire to reinforce prejudice and avoid challenge or change,eg: fundamentalism, racism and xenophobia – the fear of the different other.
6. Through intense or unbalanced conviction, leading to the coercion and control of others. The conviction may be true or false. Leaders of extreme political ideologies, sect and cult leaders fall into this category and sometimes also mainstream religious leaders. [“Convictions can be more dangerous enemies of truth than lies” (1)  “Beware of the well lit prison of a single idea.” (2) ]
7. Through leaders putting themselves above or outside critique, accountability or due process.
8. Through the devious manipulation of legitimate processes.
9. By doing the right thing by wrong means.
10. Through bullying and threatening others.
11. By “spiritual blackmail”. This is when the leader claims to have a privileged insight into God’s will and so any resistance to his ideas is resisting God. By controlling others through claiming to have special spiritual insight into a person and using that to control or direct them in a way that effectively removes decision and choice from them. This is also a characteristic of sect and cult leaders.
12. By over controlling the flow of legitimate discussion and disagreement.
13. By manipulating peoples vulnerabilities and fears to achieve an outcome. Political leaders sometimes use this to reinforce prejudice, racism, hatred and xenophobia. Religious leaders can do it by threatening the people with God’s disapproval or judgment unless they follow a certain line espoused by the leader.
14. By playing on the fear of rejection and the desire to belong. There is always a tension between healthy and unhealthy Christian community. Without a sufficiently strong sense of belonging a group has no cohesion or strength. On the other hand if it is too insular or controlling it becomes unhealthy. The key is the creation of a climate where everyone feels free, and is free, to choose and make their own decisions about belonging. A healthy community has permeable and flexible boundaries at the edge but very clear commitments at the center.
15. Through the desire to be served, feted, privileged, given special treatment and favors’ rather than to serve those they lead.

(C) The results of the use and abuse of power

(1) The illegitimate use.

The illegitimate and abusive exercise of power is immensely destructive. We can all easily recall tragic examples in the political field. Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China and numerous African states, the latest being Zimbabwe. We all know a family somewhere with an abusive parent or overbearing and controlling spouse. Most of us at some time or other have experienced a bullying or manipulative boss. We have all experienced peer groups controlled in the cruelest manner by a dominant teenage de facto leader. There is the teacher who uses their power over certain pupils to humiliate and control them, and there are teachers who have received the same treatment from a powerful group of students! Then there are the Church communities that have been destroyed by the abuse of power by leaders.

There is also the failure of power. That is the failure to exercise it when it is ones responsibility. Many organizations and Churches have been hurt, weakened or died because their leaders failed to exercise their legitimate power. Out of fear of failure or conflict, lack of imagination, or laziness or loss of vision they fail to exercise their power. There are as many organizations and churches hurt by this as by the abuse of power.

(2) The legitimate use.

The result of the legitimate use of power is as constructive as its abuse is destructive.  Organizations are created that educate, grow, heal and develop people. People are empowered by the legitimate use of power. Businesses are developed that provide employment and manufacture goods or provide services that we need. Scientific research is carried out that produces new drugs to heal diseases. Churches are planted and grow and people are led to Christ and developed as healthy disciples.  Government exists and at its best provides order and justice to our society and constructs the infrastructure we need of health and transport and education and to redistribute wealth through taxation to the poor and disadvantaged. One could go on! None of this is possible without the legitimate exercise of “real power”.

(D) Power and institutions

Frequently in institutions, particularly those in decline, the power of appointed authority becomes in effect limited to the rules and regulations of the institution because for various reasons it has lost the ability to energize, renew or change the institution. Often it is those who have acquired real power (see (A) 2-10 above) and informal authority, but who are outside the formal authority structure of the institution, who are the only ones able to renew or change a dieing institution. This may be done by those with real power taking over the old authority at the centre. This is usually resisted and difficult! The other alternative is working from the edge of the institution by new initiatives that ignore or bend the rules or move outside the comfort zone of the institution. This is usually disapproved of by the appointed authority. Rarely, but occasionally, the institution comes to recognize these initiatives as positive and embrace them as a means of renewal. This response is usually very delayed and it is often too late for the institution.

The original purpose of the institution may also be renewed and continued in a fresh way by those with real power and informal authority leaving the institution and creating a parallel or competing new work.

Footnotes: (1)   F. Nietzsche  (2)   G. K Chesterton

 If you lead a church with a staff team the following could be a very useful basis for a staff retreat or training day.

 One of the problems that can develop when staff are appointed to develop particular areas of ministry like youth or children’s ministry is that they become so focused on their area of responsibility that they loose the bigger picture of the whole church community. This is why regular staff meetings are critical and that all staff share in the process of setting goals and future directions for the whole congregation.

 The first key idea in this exercise is that all staff are responsible for building the whole church.

 They are responsible for its growth in four ways:

(1)   Numerically – by evangelism, welcoming and following up new people, contacts and visitors and the follow up of people who drop out.

(2)   Prayerfully

(3)   In spiritual maturity

(4)   Financially in terms of peoples giving

 The second key idea is the link between all areas of ministry. No area should become isolated from the others. Everyone should be aware of what is happening in the other areas and how they affect each other. This is especially true if you have separate sites and multiple congregations.

 Exercise and Questions :

First, individually do an evaluation of your area of ministry using the four growth ways listed above. How well are we doing in each area? Where are the strengths  and weaknesses?

Questions

1. How can I exercise my staff role in my area of ministry so the church is built up more effectively in the four ways listed above?
2. How can I build stronger links between my area of ministry responsibility and other areas?
3. How can I build a stronger sense among my leaders and people of being one congregation, one community in Christ?

Then get people to share their findings with the whole group.

 Peter Corney

By Peter Corney

(This is a free chapter from the new book A Passion for Leadership, Insights from Arrow Australia Leadership Team, edited by Peter Corney and Evonne Paddison. Coauthors include: Karl Faase, Stephen Hale, Evonne Paddison, Ian Harper, Sandy Jones, Graham Johnston and Stephen Abbott. It is published here under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, like the rest of this site. If you find this article useful, I encourage to click here to purchase the book online from Arrow Australia.)

‘He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two…’
(Jesus) Mark 6:7

‘I ask you…help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers …’
(Paul)Phil.4:3 [NRSV]

Why teams?

The NT pattern of ministry is teams!  Monoministry is nowhere to be found in the NT.   Jesus called the twelve to follow Him. When he sent the disciples out to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom he sent them out two by two (Mk.6:7). When the need arose to organise the distribution of assistance to the widows among the early church a team of people was appointed. This team freed up the apostles to concentrate on their work (Acts 6:1-7). This is a great example of ministry teams being developed with complementary gifts and tasks (Note verse 7!).   When the early church saw the opportunity to work with the Gentiles at Antioch they appointed Barnabas who in turn recruited Paul who had the skills and background needed. While thoroughly trained in the Jewish Scriptures Paul was a Roman citizen and spoke fluent Greek. (Acts 11: 19-26).

The NT model of the church as a body makes it crystal clear that the gifts and abilities required for ministry are not all going to be located in one person (1Cor.12:1-31, Rom.12:4-8, Ephes. 4:11-13).  In the church at Antioch we see a leadership team at work (Acts 13:1-3). It was out of their prayers, worship and discussion that the mission to the West was born.  When Paul founded churches he appointed teams of leaders (Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5).   He always traveled with co-workers (Acts 16:6, Phil. 4: 2-3).  The NT pattern of ministry from Jesus to Paul seems clear, they worked in teams.

Any one who has worked in a healthy team knows their value. Teams create energy and momentum; you can get more done. They are creative; you can generate multiple ideas, options and solutions to problems and challenges. You’re not alone; the task and the burden are shared. Well led teams are safer and healthier places in which to work than working in isolation. They create community. Teams allow the recruiting of complementary gifts and abilities. They are a great place in which to train people. In the local congregation they also model the shared ministry pattern of the NT, the truth that the gifts of ministry are dispersed throughout the whole body of Christ and need to be released and deployed for effective congregational ministry to take place. They are also more fun!

Recruiting teams

Before you begin to recruit a team certain fundamental structures need to be put in place.
1.   A set of policy statements need to be developed that include a theological statement that sets out your primary theological commitments.  This statement needs to address issues including matters of sexuality and a staff code of conduct.

2.   A standard contract of employment needs to be drawn up by someone with professional expertise in this area. In addition to an initial trial period, make sure the contract enables you to let the person go at the end of the first 12 months. If it is not working out you will generally know by then. A couple of months before the end of the twelve month period a review should take place regarding the future. If you are satisfied then the contract can be extended by two or three year periods.

3.   Remuneration scales and a salary review process need to be determined.

4.   Job descriptions need to be developed.

5.   A supervision structure and a review process determined.

6.   A professional development plan needs to be considered for further training and skills      development.

7.    An induction process planned to introduce the person to the team, the task, the office and the resources. It’s a good idea to allocate a buddy for new team members to call on in the early stages.  This is helpful when they need to know where things are and how they work.

Recruiting principles

Recruiting people is one of the most important things a leader does. Choosing the wrong people is one of the costliest mistakes you can make. People fail in jobs mainly because of personality traits and values that don’t fit the job or the team and the organisation’s culture. A good friend who has years of experience in the recruitment field tells me that most organisations hire people for what they know and fire them for who they are. Therefore the recruitment and interview process is extremely important.

When building the team choose people who:

• share your theological and missional commitments
• demonstrate a commitment to Christ, have a servant heart and high moral standards
• are culturally relevant and appropriate for both the team and the context of ministry
• fit your ethos
• are spiritually, emotionally and psychologically healthy
• have demonstrated competency in the skills required for the role
• complement the team.

Do not put too much weight on written CVs as they are frequently inflated and sometimes quite misleading. Remember technical or other formal qualifications have little value in predicting whether the person will be an effective member of your team. Always work back and check the references thoroughly.

You should always have an interviewing team of yourself and at least two other people. Work out your interviewing questions carefully beforehand and frame questions that reveal how a person has, or may deal with certain situations and people. Where possible if you can recruit good people from within do so. This has the great advantage of knowing exactly what you are getting, the person already understanding the ethos of the organisation and knowing many of the people. These people begin with a flying start.

Teams can be made up of a variety of combinations:

• paid staff, both full time and part-time
• it can include bivocational workers who also hold down another job part-time which may fund their time given voluntarily to work in ministry. I know of chemists, consultants, tree fellers, lawyers, and builders who work in ministry teams in this way
• full or part time volunteers
• early retirees
• theological college or youth work interns, GAP year students, etc
• combinations of all of the above

A self check for leaders of teams:

1. How well do you know yourself?
Self awareness is critical for becoming a more effective leader. It is vital for leaders to understand their own strengths and weaknesses.  Instruments such as the DISC Leaders profile   are very useful tools to help leaders become aware of their own preferred style and to adapt to the different personalities they will be leading. For example, if you are a big picture person who is impatient with detail you may find your opposite on the team difficult to work with.  The DISC Leaders profile helps you to understand the need for complementary styles and how to adapt your style to work constructively with different people. It is also important to find ways to get honest feedback from someone you trust on your team.

A leader who is insecure or afraid of conflict can cause problems for teams.  Here are some questions to ask your self that may reveal your need to work on these two areas:

• Are you comfortable with people challenging your ideas and decisions?
• Do you respond defensively or aggressively to other strong people or those more gifted than you in certain areas?
• Do you welcome other people participating strongly in the decision making process?
• Are you very uncomfortable or angry when people appear to be challenging your authority or role?
• Do you tend to shut down, back away or want to withdraw when conflict looms?
• Do you take steps to avoid conflict situations?
• Do you always look for a compromise?
• How willing are you to face and work through conflict?

Insecure leaders often respond to challenges and difficult problems in one of two ways; either by becoming authoritarian and overly directive or alternatively being indecisive and prevaricating. Both of which usually create more conflict!

2.   How are your meeting leadership skills?
Remember The Four Ps: Poor Preparation leads to Poor Performance! A leader has to chair a lot of team meetings.  If your skills in this area are poor you will frustrate your team, waste a lot of everyone’s time and not get a much done. The most common complaint in organisations is that meetings are poorly run, indecisive and waste time and energy. Here are some simple clues for being more effective:

• always prepare an agenda
• determine and announce a time frame and then start and finish on time
• manage the discussion so everyone gets a go; draw out the quiet ones by sometimes going around the circle and asking every one who has not spoken for a comment
• bring discussion on topics to a conclusion and make a decision on a specific action
• decide who will action the decision and by when; when there are minutes, record this
• like most things, preparation is a key to effectiveness.

3.   Can you change your role?
As a team leader your role will change. You will have more responsibility, more people to manage and more decisions to make. The team has probably grown because the ministry is growing. Complexity increases and the time to make decisions decreases! You will work less directly with people and more through the team and other people. To achieve the organisation’s goals, you must spend more time in planning and strategy, and creating and managing a structure for others to work in.  Unless you learn to manage and prioritise your time, structure your week and organise your diary in more detail you will not cope and you will frustrate and hold back the team.

The chart below illustrates how an increase in staff and size of organization requires a major role change by the team leader. A plumber who starts out running a business with one apprentice can no longer run it the same way when there is a team of 15 plumbers working for the business. He or she now rarely touches a pipe or an S bend! The plumber must now organise the work of others and has a whole new set of responsibilities and tasks that if left undone will lead to the business becoming chaotic and eventually folding.

As the team grows the leader needs to spend more time working on ministry rather than in ministry. Working in ministry in a local church setting includes:

• preparing for worship services
• pastoral care
• visiting the sick
• personal counseling
• preparing sermons
• chairing committees.

Working on ministry means supervising, managing and organising the staff team.  It includes:

• vision casting
• strategising
• planning
• creating structures that enable other people to exercise their gifts and become involved in ministry
• recruiting and training leaders
• motivating and communicating with key lay leaders and those through whom the ministry is actually being done and expanded.

What team members want from their team leader and the team experience

1.   Someone who clearly leads and involves the team
Team members want to be involved in the process of planning, problem solving, creative thinking and decision making in a consultative way so everyone can participate. They need to feel they can contribute their ideas and opinions to the team process. Contemporary leaders need to be authoritative but not authoritarian. If team members can not contribute they will become passive, and creative energy, one of the great advantages of a team, is lost.

2.   Someone who knows how to get a team working synergistically
A good leader can enable team members to combine their individual talents and different strengths in a complementary, rather than competitive way.  Once again the DISC leadership profile is a very helpful instrument for understanding how to do this. Edward De Bono’s Six Hats exercise is also a fun way to teach this insight to a team.

3.   Regular well run meetings that start and finish at the designated time

Teams want their leader to manage the discussion so everyone is able to participate, decisions are arrived at and tasks delegated to people for action. In every team meeting there is a tension between the tasks to be done and the individual needs of the members. These vary all the way from a team member’s health or family concerns to a strong desire to get a pet project up. It could be a need to be acknowledged or heard on a particular point. It could be that a particular team member’s area of work is regularly overlooked or taken for granted. The leader has to balance these with the group’s tasks where individual needs cannot dominate and deflect the group from achieving their tasks. On the other hand the leader needs to be aware of people’s needs and not drive the process so hard that the tasks are achieved but at the cost of people feeling ignored or steamrolled. The leader must exercise creative balance between the tasks and individual needs when leading a meeting.

4.   Forward planning
Members of a team not only need to know the big picture of the forward vision but also the more detailed plan for the year ahead. Team members will have different areas of responsibility and it is crucial that key dates and events for each area of ministry are coordinated. This is best done around October for the coming year at an annual planning day.  This avoids unnecessary clashes and competition over people and physical resources. It also reinforces the sense of intentionality and direction for the team and encourages everyone to plan ahead.

5.   Good communication
Many tensions arise in teams through poor communication.  Poor communication is almost always unintentional but nevertheless annoying and sometimes very damaging. As the leader, you need to set the climate by regularly communicating your ideas, hopes and future plans as well as your feelings about how things are going. Remember though that whenever you communicate your feelings they will affect the emotional tone and morale of the team, so be careful how you communicate negative or anxious feelings. The team leader is like a thermometer who sets the emotional temperature! If anyone in charge of an area of ministry is planning a major change of direction or use of space or resources these need to be flagged at the regular staff meeting for discussion as this usually affects others.

6.  Access to the leader
Team members need to feel that you are accessible but you need to set up a realistic expectation of accessibility. One approach is the open or closed door policy. If your door is open you are able to be interrupted, if it’s closed you are not. You also need to communicate that if team members have a serious problem they can talk to you without an appointment. Otherwise meetings should be by appointment. In addition, every team member should have a regular supervision meeting with their supervisor. This should be at least monthly and more often for new staff or inexperienced people. The team leader should not supervise more than four people. Supervision should involve an element of pastoral care.

7.  Evaluation.
All team members should have a formal evaluation twice a year, one at the beginning and the other towards the end of the year. This will involve a review of the job description, goals, hours, remuneration, in-service training and general performance.

8.  Community.
People want to enjoy working and being together. Effective and happy teams build a sense of community. The experience has got to be fun as well as being challenging and stimulating. There should be a time for sharing personally at regular team meetings. The length needs to be specified and controlled so it does not absorb too much of the meeting time.  Occasional retreats away together which include fun and recreation as well as work are important. Affirming and celebrating team member’s achievements such as a successful children’s holiday program just completed as well as birthdays and other special events are very valuable in building community and a culture of encouragement. Remember eating together is a great community builder. Attending a training course or conference together and then debriefing on learning can be very effective.

9.  Team meeting evaluation.
Occasionally the leader should give some time for the group to evaluate the way the team is working together and the team meetings. It is important for the leader to listen to this feedback.

Good and bad leaders.

My wife, who is a Christian Religious Education teacher in a state primary school, was doing a lesson on leaders in the Bible and she asked her class of 7 and 8 year olds what they thought was a good leader and a bad leader. Their contributions were very insightful.

A bad leader is someone who:

• shouts at others
• thinks they are better or cleverer than others
• orders you about
• whispers about other people
• makes fun of you or gets angry when you can’t do something
• tells you to do bad things
• always goes first because they are the leader.

On the other hand, a good leader is someone who:

• always asks you to do things
• says please and thank you and is respectful
• cares for everyone on the team
• lets everyone take a turn at leading
• encourages you
• treats everyone the same
• can be trusted.

Out of the mouth of babes!

Conclusion

When people are asked what the most important quality they want in their leaders is, the most frequent answer is integrity. Integrity is the consistency of word and life, profession and practice. Above all team members want their leaders to act with integrity, to be consistent, and to be someone they can trust.

References:
1. Disc Classic 2.0, (Inscape Publishing, 2004).DISC Classic 2.0 Inscape Publishing Inc. 2004
2. E de Bono, Six Thinking Hats (Boston Little, Brown, 1985).

Image: "Power to the people" by Steffan Hacker_USA01

The church is a voluntary society, a ‘community of volunteers’, if you like.  Without volunteers almost everything we do would grind to a halt.  All those rosters and committees and leadership of groups and ministries would cease.  Most parachurch organisations live or die on the strength of their volunteer base.

But we live in times when the pressure on the time and energy of volunteers has never been greater.  In most families both parents are working outside the home and most people are working longer hours.  The pace of modern life seems to have quickened and many people complain of ‘time compression’. One of the ways this is showing up is in the church attendance patterns of committed people.  Ministers everywhere are reporting less regular attendance and a reluctance to commit to long-term tasks.

So the recruitment, motivation and sustaining of volunteers is of critical importance for Christian leaders. We need to understand better and care more thoughtfully for our volunteers.

Volunteers and volunteerism are important because volunteers don’t just spread the load or act as ‘labourers’ for paid staff – they multiply ministry.  The key to multiplying ministry is to multiply ‘the ministers’ and the most economic way of doing that is to multiply volunteers.  When people use their gifts and abilities, three things happen – the ministry grows, they grow and the Kingdom grows.

Volunteers give their time and energy out of choice.  In a real sense it ‘costs them’ to be involved.  Why do they do it?  What motivates them?  Why do people choose to volunteer? The answer to these questions gives us clues in how to develop and encourage volunteers.

1. The call or claim of something higher – the vision of a cause or an important task.  A ‘calling’ to minister to others, the desire to make a difference and change things for the better, a desire to give something back, an inspiring leader with an inspiring cause.
2. Relationships, belonging, community – the rewards of friendship, being part of a team or group.
3. Personal needs – a meaning for my life, a sense of significance and identity, a way to develop or use my gifts and abilities, to fulfil a sense of duty.  There are, of course, less noble desires in all of us: the need to assuage guilt, to feed self-importance and the desire for power and influence.

Leaders should acknowledge the sacrifices volunteers make and seek to strengthen the best areas of motivation – vision, making a difference, being part of a team, doing something significant.

Volunteers need to be supported and sustained – motivation leaks!  Here are 14 clues for sustaining volunteers:

1. Create teams and build communities among volunteers, have fun together, eat together.
2. Keep the vision behind the task bright.
3. Affirm, encourage, praise, recognise the cost.
4. Keep them informed.
5. Show personal interest and support.
6. Where appropriate, commission them publicly.
7. See they have the resources they need.
8. Give them a clear, simple, written job description.
9. Give them training, equip them.
10. Empower them, give them real responsibility and participation in decision-making.
11. Meet with them regularly to encourage and supervise them and to evaluate the task, but don’t overburden them with meetings.
12. Sign them up for specific time lengths.
13. Relieve them before burnout.
14. Resolve conflict when it arises.

Volunteers drop out or burn out because of the opposites of the fourteen clues above!

Volunteers can be the basis for building staff teams.

When churches are constrained by financial resources, they should explore other ways to develop staff teams – here are three:

1. Ask early retirees to join the staff team on an expenses-only basis
2. Invite people to join the staff as ‘tentmakers’ or bi-vocational workers.  These are people who choose to work part-time in another job and give their time free to the church.
3. Young adults between school and work or university, or post-university, who have minimal financial responsibilities can be encouraged to give two or three days a week as unpaid staff persons in return for some training and work experience.  This can also be an excellent way to explore suitability for future full-time ministry.  Care should be taken to first talk through all the implications of this with young people and then to monitor their progress carefully.

During the Sydney Olympics approximately 45,000 people volunteered for a huge range of tasks.  The experience for the overwhelming majority was very rewarding, positive and exciting. These people felt they were doing something really worthwhile, they felt caught up in a cause bigger than themselves, they were also proud to be Australians and to give a warm welcome to the thousands of visitors.  It is now widely acknowledged that their contribution was a key element in the Games’ success.

We are part of a cause that is so much more important and so much bigger than the Olympics (Hebrews 12:1-2).  If Christian leaders can convey a Kingdom vision to their members, people will respond and their lives will be deeply enriched.

There is sometimes a real tension between Biblical theology and some of the pragmatics promoted by proponents of Church growth. But there can also be a false dichotomy created between them, particularly by those who do not understand the difference between ministry and leadership.(1) It is now well established that to plant a new church successfully requires not only ministry by a Godly and Biblically grounded person but also ministry by a leader with a certain set of gifts and abilities. It is also true that to renew and grow a small church in serious decline requires not only ministry by a Godly and Biblically grounded person but also ministry by a transformational leader; someone who has acquired or will learn particular skills and is able to initiate a particular process.

What follows is not a list of the skills of a transformational leader that would be another paper! Below is a list of some of the key principles a minister who wants to be a transformational leader will follow.

If a leader wants their church to grow what do they do? Where do they start? Well there are no simple pre packaged solutions but here is a set of principles to follow:

1. The leader has to accept responsibility and be accountable for growth or decline.
2. The ministry must be grounded in the Word of God and prayer. Preaching and teaching needs to be based in systematic teaching from the Bible that is life related.
3. The leader needs to set a plan of preaching that covers the key theological and ministry ideas that will underpin the new values and directions in which they want the congregation to head. Prior teaching should underpin all significant changes.
4. The leader must have a passion for and conviction about mission and evangelism and it must be a top priority.
5. If the leader has inherited a culture of decline, complacency, inwardness and lack of spiritual depth then they will need to initiate change. To grow requires change and change requires intervention. The leader will have to take initiative to change the culture, the shape and the practice of ministry in the congregation.
6. The leader needs to develop a vision and a practical and realistic plan of how to achieve the goals.
7. The leader must follow a constructive change process and carry the majority of people with them. This will take time. (2)
8. As well as understanding the culture and dynamics of the congregation the leader must recognize that every context is unique and so they will need to study and understand the culture of the region in which the congregation is set.
9. Work out who your target group/s will be. Unless you shape your style and approach to the target group’s culture you will not connect with new people.
10. If the congregation is small and inward looking the leader will be the one who at first links and adds most new people to the congregation.
11. The leader must be focused on assimilating and incorporating visitors and new people. This will be among their highest priorities in the first few years of congregational renewal; they will expend a lot of relational energy on this task.
12. If the committed core of the congregation is very small, elderly, spiritually immature or Biblically illiterate an early goal for the leader will be intentionally building a new core of lay leaders.
13. Build small groups or home groups. If there are no small groups the leader will have to start and run the first group. They will then train an apprentice leader to take over the first group while they start up another group. The leader will repeat this pattern for some time till a significant number of groups have been established.
14. If the congregation wants to attract and hold young families the leader will need to quickly develop children’s and junior high youth ministry. This may be the area for the first part time paid or unpaid staff person they appoint.
15. In declining congregations the quality of the Sunday service will usually need to improve. The music, the teaching / preaching and the general preparation will need to go up several levels. The leader needs to ask themselves “what are the cringe factors here for new people and how can I eliminate them?” Post service welcoming will also need to become well organized.
16. The leader will need to create new bridge or interface groups between the church and non churched people like Play Groups, 12 Step programs, Alpha or Introducing God courses, etc.
17. Work on gradually building a ministry team. At first this may be mostly if not all volunteers.
18. Create events and programs that build a sense of community.

Notes:

(1) See “The Empowered Church” by Ian Jagelman (Open Book)

(2) See “Change and the Church” by Peter Corney (Aquila press)

Read on for Part 2 of this article …

In part one of these two articles I made the point that while we are in a difficult environment for growing Churches there are healthy growing congregations out there. It is only common sense that Christian leaders should be studying them to identify what makes them effective.

The following are the principles and practices adopted by healthy growing churches and their leaders. I have observed these across a range of denominations. This is not an exhaustive list and of course leadership, congregational health and growth are more complex than a list of principles and practices can fully explain. Nevertheless this is a very useful guide for action and reflection and for further research.

Fundamentals.

The leader is committed to the following fundamentals:

(a) A commitment to and a confidence in the Gospel; that if it is communicated truthfully, clearly and relevantly people will respond.

(b) A dependence on God expressed in prayer that under girds the work.

(c) A commitment to the authority of the Bible and teaching it in a relevant and applied way.

(d) A commitment to mission and outreach – evangelism and service.

(e) A commitment to the congregation by the leader that is expressed in a willingness to hang in for the long hall. Turning around congregations that have been in decline for some years is a long process, there is no quick fix.

(f) The leader is able to gather a core of voluntary leaders around them who are also committed to these fundamentals.

Leadership.

Leadership is required – the minister has to be a leader as well as a pastor and a preacher. The kind of leadership exercised must be “transformational leadership.”

Transformational leaders come in all sizes and shapes but they are all intentional and have a clearly worked out philosophy of ministry. They also possess or are prepared to acquire the following skills: how to cast a vision and inspire people and how to put legs on a vision by creating practical plans, achievable staged goals and the basic organizational structures to make it happen. They are able to empower and involve others through these means. Transformational leaders want to see people and organizations transformed. They have a strong desire to bring renewal and growth.

They understand the change process and know how to initiate change constructively. Putting legs on a vision inevitably means change. How much? How fast and in what areas first? These are critical questions. They know how to bring people with them, to consult and to involve others in negotiating the change rather than imposing it.

They know how to motivate, recruit and enthuse volunteers, how to involve others on committees and teams and projects, how to release their gifts and abilities. The local congregation is a voluntary organization, when it has been in decline and its resources of people and structures are depleted or have become irrelevant a key task is recruiting and envisioning a new generation of volunteers and leaders.

This is a people task and so people skills are paramount! Effective leaders have EQ or “emotional intelligence” as well as IQ. They know how their emotional responses to people affect their willingness to help, their involvement and their reaction to ideas and tasks. They have learnt how to positively manage their emotional responses to people and people’s responses to them. This is one of the keys to being able to form and lead teams effectively.

They have practical experience in starting new projects in a voluntary organization, creating committees or working groups and leading and chairing meetings towards effective decisions. These skills may have been learnt in previous voluntary work; youth or children’s ministry, in local community work or even in business. Such prior experience is invaluable but these skills can be learnt.

They have a good ability to communicate verbally.

The leader who is short on any of these skills needs to put themselves on a steep training and learning curve if they want to become a transformational leader.

The practices of healthy growing churches:

(a) They are committed to mission, outreach and evangelism. They have a holistic approach to mission. They contextualize their methods, which means they will vary from place to place, but all are outwardly focused. They develop groups and programs to interface with and serve their surrounding community. They have a commitment to mission beyond the parish and this is significantly reflected in their budget.

(b) They develop small groups and build community. They get smaller as they get bigger. In the early stages the minister may have to be the “group starter”. Using their skills and experience they begin a new group every six months and then as they are established move on and start another. Other forms of community building include parish camps or weekend residential conferences, family festivals, family working Bee’s, parish dinners, etc.

(c) They are intentional and plan well ahead for all activities.

(d) They have an “every member” approach to ministry and actively discover, encourage and release people’s gifts and abilities. They also regularly train and equip people through special courses and events. They actively develop new leaders. They have a “discipleship pathway” for new Christians and develop a strong view of membership.

(e) Their worship services are relevant and contextualized for the people they are trying to reach. They create regular special services that are aimed at and culturally accessible to their unchurched target group. (Where a group of existing members want to continue a traditional service without major change then provision can be made for that at another time. This avoids alienating people and the evidence indicates that adding services usually increases attendance.)

(f) Early additional staff appointments are usually made for potential growth areas, e.g.: Children’s or Youth ministry or an evangelist to run and follow up programs like Alpha.

(g) Their music is contemporary and the standard as high as possible, given the resources available, with the constant aim of developing the standard. Music is a key factor for contemporary people.

(h) The preaching is given a high priority, prepared well, is biblical and practically applied to every day life. The preaching program and teaching topics are planned at least six months ahead.

(i) There is a well developed and organized welcoming and incorporating system for newcomers and visitors. People are carefully followed up. Growth will not be sustained without this.

(j) There is effective children’s and youth ministry. If you want to attract young families you have to provide these. If there is no youth ministry then it is probably best to start at the junior high level first and establish a committed core group of young people before you tackle the harder senior high level.

(k) Pastoral care is organized using lay people in a pastoral care team. The leader meets weekly with the minister where contacts are allotted. This is for the basic care with the minister following up the more difficult or sensitive cases.

(l) An administration center is developed with basic office facilities, copiers, phones etc. A computer and data base with names and addresses needs to be developed early. Begin with volunteer staff at first then later part time people, gradually developing a more sophisticated operation as growth takes place.

(m) A team is developed to work with the minister. Initially this will be some key volunteers, e.g.: the leader of the pastoral care team, the volunteer office person, maybe a key lay leader who is a retired person, and later additional staff. This is a great support to the minister and sends a message to the congregation that ministry is a team thing.

(n) They constantly evaluate what they are doing to see if it continues to be relevant, is achieving their goals and that the standard of ministry and worship is rising.

(o) They regularly teach about the stewardship of time, abilities and money and have a variety of ways people can serve and a variety of giving mechanisms, e.g., Envelopes, cheques, cash, periodic payment, credit card.

(p) They ask the question: “Is there a new immigrant group in our area for whom we could start a new congregation?”

For growing congregations the mission is more primary than the denominational traditions and so they are willing to expand their thinking and push the boundaries of traditional denominational models and styles of church. This does not mean abandoning all denominational distinctives and traditions but it will mean adaptation and change and challenging traditions that are irrelevant, don’t work or are culturally inappropriate. Most people under 50 yrs today, and certainly all newcomers to church, are post denominational. The denominational tag is not the most important thing to them rather it is the quality, substance and relevance of the ministry.

These are the most common principles and practices of healthy growing Protestant churches in Australia today.