Leadership Paradigms
Todd R. Wallace
Let's start out with some obvious realities we are all familiar with as leaders in the Church at the beginning of the 21st Century.
The way of being and doing church in America must change sooner, not later, before we miss the harvest opportunity of our generation and decline into complete irrelevance.
True transformation-level change will not be experienced in the Body of Christ without the bold and imaginative leadership of transformational leaders.
Because you are reading these words, you are meant to be one of these transformational leaders. It may be difficult or exciting for you to own this designation. It may not be what you thought you were signing up for when you answered God's call. Nevertheless, the Head of the Church knew what would be needed in His Church in this day, and the Spirit called you to it and He will enable it through you.
Bringing change to established churches of any type is risky, challenging, difficult, and upsetting.
With a total reliance on the Holy Spirit, some good resources, the support of a team, and some accurate paradigms, congregations can change and become more impacting for the Kingdom of God.
I want to share some thoughts about the last ingredient for healthy transformational change, and that is the issue of accurate paradigms. It is my observation that pastors and other leaders sometime make the journey toward transformational change much more difficult than it needs to be. It is tough enough under any circumstances, so please don't make it any tougher.
More specifically, I have seen a tendency to get caught in what I call the trap of "either/or" thinking.
For instance, eager to bring change and open up the congregation to fresh winds of the Spirit, a leader may lead the church from being a "traditional" church to a "contemporary" church. Instantly you have created a polarizing choice that will inevitably create winners and losers.
Similarly, zealous to make an impact in the community and see people come to Jesus, a leader may lead the church from catering to churched people to targeting the unchurched and irreligious. In this scenario it is impossible to avoid the feeling among long-time faithful members that they are being marginalized or even voted off the island.
Sensing the anointing of God, a leader may propose transitioning a congregation from being non-Spirit-filled to being Spirit-filled. Using those terms and categories will always offend.
Even in the area of denominational affiliation we can get caught in either/or thinking. Some will say to be faithful to God we must stay in something, while others will say with equal conviction that to be faithful we must get out of something.
All of these real life examples have several things in common. First, they each capture a facet of needed change. Second, they are motivated by an accurate sensitivity to what the Spirit is doing today. And third, they are stuck in a paradigm that will make the needed changed needlessly more difficult and divisive.
Instead of an either/or approach to transformational change, I have used a both/and paradigm. And this is not just a cynical political manipulation that happens to work. The paradigm of both/and is based on one of the deepest theological foundations of our entire faith that we happen to be emphasizing during this Advent/Christmas season. I am referring, of course, to the mystery and reality of the Incarnation.
What must be said to be orthodox when it comes to the nature of our Lord? It must be said that he was both fully God and fully human. The Faithful Church has always pushed back attempts to make it one or the other, or a little more one and a little less another. If the reality of the both/and nature of Jesus is fundamental, this same reality should be seen as fundamental to the paradigm of the Body of Christ today.
For instance, in the congregation I serve we do not use the designations traditional, blended, contemporary, or anything else when it comes to worship. We simply call worship worship and we plan worship around the paradigm of ancient/modern. The Spirit of God has always been received by the truly faithful and the experience of God's reality through the ages is a treasure for us today. Why not use it and enjoy it? At the same time, we are living through a reformation of worship and to miss out on it would be to miss the Spirit's visitation in our day. Why not have both? Worship rituals of ancient form with a new breath of the Spirit, and the hottest form of worship today? Don't get trapped in either/or - start to enjoy both/and.
The same dynamic applies to being a congregation serving established Christians versus being one that reaches out to the unchurched and irreligious. The fact of history tells us that the early Church was effective in doing both simultaneously and it is only our lack of imagination that keeps us either in numbing maintenance or an endless pursuit for the next market-driven novelty.
My friends, if you have been in ministry for more than twenty years like I have, you know that the ministry you started out in bears little resemblance to the ministry that must now be. Modernism is waning and post-modernism is creeping toward being the dominant zeitgeist of our age. The need to be a transformational leader is the critical need of the day.
Take heart, it is not as bad as it seems! None of us needs to simply jettison everything that got us here. The same Holy Spirit that was so precious "back then" is as precious today. But don't make it any more challenging than you need to. Discern where you might replace your either/or thinking with a both/and paradigm.
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