Leading

Terri Martinson Elton

About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." The voice said to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

New Revised Standard

Acts 10:9-16

How do you view change?

Change is a normal part of our world. CHANGE HAPPENS!

Change takes place IN THE CHURCH!Leadership always involves change.

Yet there are different types of change!

Why study change?

|let’s get personal|

There is a personal dimension to change that can never be taken away.Share with a partner one time you dealt very well with leading a

change process and one time you did not deal very well with a change process.

|personal|

What about those around you?• Do they have experience?• Have skills?• What’s their change temperament?

|personal|

Some Resources:What is your Change Style?

Discovery Learning’s ChangeStyle Indicator

What is your conflict management style? Speed Leas

Family-systems view The Leader’s Journey by Herrinton, Creech,

and TaylorHow are you gifted?

LifeKeys by Stark, Kise, and Krebs Strengths Finder by Tom Rath

|personal|

Cultivating a culture

“Change rarely happens in a straight line!”

(The Missional Leader,79)

• Target is not always where we think• We will make a lot of mistakes• The target keeps moving

awareness

understand

evaluationtrial

commit

based on Everett Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation (The Missional Leader, 83)

Sailing the Winds of Change

The Missional Change Model

awareness

understanding

evaluate

experiment

commitment

The Missional Change Model

• Awareness - spending time, listening, discerning. Framed within Scripture/theology. Comes from opening and finding language. As words are given to feelings and experiences…understanding emerges.

• Understanding – using dialogue to integrate thinking and feelings. Practice using the new language. With this new understanding, new questions are asked. Begin to test a framework.

The Missional Change Model

• Evaluate – applying awareness and understanding. Examine current actions and practices in light of new understandings.

• Experiment – Risk some change - This leads to experimenting of new actions/behaviors. Experimenting around the edges. Adaptive type of change as the goal.

• Commitment – signing on to a new way of life. Confidence grows. Internalized the change and the understanding.

The Missional Leader, 84-102

The Missional LeaderGetting Ready to Lead Missional Change• Take stock of what you know• Know yourself as a Leader• Listen• Focus on key areas and issues• Develop an action place• Commit

(105-108)

Leadership on the Line

“When you tackle a touch issue in any group, rest assured

there will be conflict, either palpable or

latent.” (101)“Conflicts can generate

casualties. But deep conflicts, at their root, consist of

differences in fervently held beliefs, and differences in

perspectives are the engine of human progress.” (101)

Leadership on the line

Four ideas to help orchestrate conflict• Create a holding environment

o To contain and adjust the heato A space formed by a network of relationships within

which people can tackle hard issues without falling apart.

• Control the temperatureo If you stimulate change – you have to control the heat –

raise the heat to pay attention and lower it when it’s too tense (102-116)

Leadership on the line

Raise the Heat – Draw attention to tough questionsGive people more responsibility than comfortableBring conflicts to the surfaceProtest gadflies and oddballs

Lower the Heat – Address tech aspects firstEstablish a structure for problem-solvingTemporarily reclaim responsibilityEmploy work avoidanceSlow down process of challenging norms (111)

Leadership on the line

Four ideas to help orchestrate conflict• Set the pace

o Leadership addresses emotional, as well as conceptual work.o How you pace the work depends on the difficulty of the issue, the

tolerance of the community and the strength of your authority relationships and the holding environment. (120)

• Show them the future o Remind people of the orienting value that makes angst worthwhile…

and make the vision more tangible, remind people of the values and how them how the future might look. (121-122)

Four views of theology:o Descriptive – WHERE is God in what is?o Historical – WHAT do normative text say?o Systematic – Coherent, congruent, and ethicalo Strategic – What languages, relationship, strategies,

and practices best accomplish the mission and ministry?

Browning, A Fundamental Practical Theology

Developing a Hermeneutic of Leading in the Midst of Change

Where is God in what is?

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.”

Anatole France, French writer

God’s people are simultaneously saint and

sinner.

God is active and present in the midst of

change.

•Where is God in the midst of rituals, traditions and contextual realities?•What meaning do these hold for that particular community?•How can you unearth what gives meaning to a community of faith? What is shared and what had different meanings?

Where do normative text say?

• Old Testament Themes:o Genesiso Exoduso Kingso Prophets

• New Testamento Gospelso Actso Letterso Revelation

The Grand Story and Change

Some things are constant… God wants to be in relationship with God’s people and the world.

Some things do change… God and God’s creation are dynamic, living entities.

Christian Community is dynamic.

Leaders of communities of faith live in a tension.

The role of leadership is to bring God’s people back into the biblical story – the living word of God.

The biblical story centers a community of faith, giving it its identity, and holds a community, giving it space to wrestle with what it means to be God’s people in the here and now.

• Theology Help with change:o Word and Sacramento Living Wordo Theology of the Crosso Law and Gospel

• Traditiono Protestant/Reforming churcho Educated Leadershipo Immigrant church in US

The Lutheran Story and Change

Is this theology coherent, congruent, and ethical?

Systematic Theology is “the fusion of horizons between the vision implicit in contemporary practices and the vision implied in the practices of the normative Christian texts.” (Browning)

Questions:• How is meaning discovered when questions from the present are brought into dialogue with our understanding of God?

• What reasons can be advanced to support the validity claims of this new fusion of meaning?

•What reasons can be stated to support existing validity claims?

Key elements to consider View of God – Trinity – father, son and spirit View of Anthropology - Humanity View of the World/culture – view of sin View of the Church – ecclesiology – what it the understanding of the

role or nature of church? View of Salvation – soteriology – how does the divine purpose come

to be in the world and for humanity? View of Eschatology – view of the end – what is the ultimate divine

purpose for the world? View of Revelation – how does God reveal God’s self to us?

• Reformation theologies• Liberation theologians• Feminist view of theology• Missiological• Trinitarian theologies• ???

Who could be your conversation partners?

What languages, relationships, strategies,

and practices best accomplish the ministry

and mission?

What establishes the norms and strategies of concrete practices in light of the analysis of

the concrete situation?

• Conflict• Transition• Growth• Adaptive• Technical• Individual• Systemic• Paradigm shifts

All change is not the same!

Change is personal and communal, individual and organizational.

Change is continuous and discontinuous.

• Change is both natural and normative, and abnormal and disruptive.

It’s a God-Thing

Terri Martinson Elton, PhD

Ephesians 2: 1-2, 4-5, 8-10

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. … But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. … For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

How’s your theology?

• Intuitive theology – reflection about the divine-human relationship that often bypasses language and rational discourse. This “feels” right.

• Embedded theology – comes from the story inherited from a faith community. Know the story, but not critical of it.

Deliberate theology – an understanding of faith that arises from carefully examining one’s assumptions and practices. Faith seeking understanding.

Thinking Theologically about Youth Ministry - Starting Right

theology of leadership

GOD

church

leadership

ministry

View of God matters. View of the Church

matters. View of Ministry

matters. View of Leadership

matters.…and these four influence and intersect with each other!