Special to United Methodist Insight
To say that our faith community is under stress is an understatement. From COVID to schism to shrinking membership and back again, the pressure is enormous, and falls upon us all. I think it especially lands on our faith leaders of whom much is asked in these days. So it is that I would like to share a few things in an attempt to communicate, not a “via negativa,” as Christian apologists have done in the past, but rather a “Via Positiva,” highlighting a hoped-for vision of the kind of leadership that is possible and perhaps even desired as we step into a new day.
First, leadership is relational. This is true generally speaking, but it is particularly true in the context of Christian community. The quality and efficacy of our relationships must be the priority for a leader at all times. If relationships are broken, out of balance or otherwise damaged, authentic, even faithful leadership becomes impossible. If authority is drawn, not from these relationships, but from institutional power, the ministry of the Church suffers. One leads in, through and in the midst of relationships. Our focus as Christian community is, or ought to be, building and strengthening our relationship with God and one another. For indeed the two are inseparable.
Second, leadership is multi-dimensional and adaptive. This cannot be stressed enough. We in the church have fallen victim to the Church Leadership Industry which mainly pitches out-of-date business models that are predicated on profit-making and creating successful businesses, not on building faithful, authentic Christian communities. In this mix, we are too enamored of the notion of “leadership style.” Usually this means that we are encouraged to lead through our personality type. And there is an unending parade of tests, evaluations and methodologies that promise to deliver on what our “style” of leadership looks like.
Yet the truth is that authentic leaders must have the vision and the sensitivity to discern the complexities and realities of the context and apply the kind of leadership needed in any given moment. Sometimes that may be directive. Others may require a quiet, listening stance. Still others may require a deep sense of solidarity and accompaniment. The list here is long, but the point is that authentic leaders must not be too wedded to their own opinion, point of view, or personal foibles. Instead, the leader must be open beyond one’s own sense of what is right, wrong or appropriate and reach into the lives of others with a loving, guiding sense of vision. Above all, leadership must not be inhabited by anger. For we know, as Scripture points out, that “Human anger cannot work the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).
Seemingly opposite to the forgoing is the notion of consistency and even-handedness. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously noted: “A consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." ("Divines" refers to clergy and theologians) Yet even while living into multi-dimensional and adaptive leadership, the sometimes competing notion of calm, even-handed consistency is a critical component of leadership. In Christian community, the emotional and spiritual health of the body often reflects how the people are being led. Maintaining a clear, intentional balance in this is critical. And again, falls into the category of relational leadership.
Another essential element of leadership is the intentional and disciplined modeling of Christian joy and enthusiasm that infects and lifts up the body. Few things are as important as this for a Christian leader. This does not imply that a leader should keep people happy. Sometimes people will be unhappy because of things leadership needs to do and choices they must make. That’s life. But happiness and joy are two very different things. Happiness is the fleeting attainment of what we want. Joy results from what Dorothee Soelle would have called “revolutionary persistence.” That is, the stubborn pursuit of wholeness and healing within the fabric of community. Communication of and sharing in this joy of faith is deeply important, in this or any age. The low morale of our clergy community illustrates that this joy is lacking in the present reality.
Finally, the old song comes to mind from Church camp. “We will guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride. And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.” A leader certainly needs, from time to time, to hold people accountable. This is clear. But accountability should never involve public shaming or criticism. It should, instead, be a careful, communal and discreet application of shared values, calling the individual or group to return to the folds and values of Christian community.
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The Rev. Schuyler Rhodes
The Rev. Schuyler Rhodes, a retired elder in the California-Nevada Conference of The United Methodist Church, offers his insights about leadership from four decades of service in three different annual conferences, on general agencies, campus ministries, hospitality Ministry, parish ministry and cabinet.