Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices - Blogs - Leadership From the Side: Patience

September 19, 2014

Leadership From the Side: Patience

Part 3 of 4. (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 4)

You may wish that change would happen like a thunderstorm, arriving quickly, without warning; that it would clang like thunder and awaken everyone to action. You may wish that vibrant lightning would alert the congregation to the spirit's leadings, that massive drops of excitement for change would soak everyone equally and fully in the new way. You may wish the coming changes were obvious and that like a heavy rain, they would, cleanse us of everything blocking the way. And surely we all wish that change would be gone as fast as it came, leaving a cool, clean feeling of newness, of freshness, of life giving beginnings.

This is a rare occurrence.

Sometimes in fact, change happens more like a hurricane, with the force of the spinning vortex scattering people apart from each other, and into destruction, violence and pain. You will start with a cleared space afterwards, but with a greatly reduced congregation, and with years of recovery, clean-up, and healing ahead of you.

The majority of change, in fact, happens like the slow, dreary and monotonous rain of New England. I remember the summer I moved to Vermont: it rained a little bit every day, for forty days, the sun never peeping out, the clouds never releasing a torrent, just one grey day after another. As long as that summer felt, change in church usually takes even longer.

I won uncountable games of solitaire, rummy, and hearts that summer. The tediousness of most change makes it easy to move from vision and direction to the mindless energy of congregants playing one game after another. Indeed much of church dissatisfaction grows out of an environment like a dreary rainy season: in the overwhelming tediousness of lack of success, what else is there to do with your time? Congregations with lackluster growth, dwindling attendance, bedraggled Sunday Schools, declining energy, and waning leadership become either anxious with the nervous energy of kids who can't go out because of the rain, or apathetic with the dullness of adults who decide to do nothing because of the forecast.

Congregational anxiety and apathy have the same result: interminable time together playing irrelevant games that lead to discontent, discord, and dismay. We begin to play games, some of them harmful, some just repetitive and boring, that do not lead to action focused on the future.

The leader from the side ends the games by refusing to takes sides, refusing to blame individuals, refusing to gossip. Work to help individuals to hear each other, encourage the congregation to focus on a few agreed upon values. Try to get away from identifying people as problems and look for what are the values in question. Ask people to stop inappropriate behaviors. Name any secret keeping and open closed topics for discussion. And, whatever you do, love everyone regardless of their role in the congregation. Leaders on the side recognize the routine games as distractions from boredom or pain.

The leader from the side steps into that lifeless rainy day routine and asks "why are we here in this place, what is our call at this time?" The leader from the side asks "what is one thing we can do together?” The leader from the side asks "can we put aside the games and talk about our vision, about our calling, about our frustrations and our hopes, about our anxieties and our fears, about our dreams for when the sun comes out?"

The leader from the side recognizes that we can't know when the rain will stop but we can lift ourselves up with the hope of keeping dry together.

This post first appeared on The Mission Institute website and is reprinted with permission. The Mission Institute is a collaborative venture of Episcopal Divinity School, Episcopal City Mission, and the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. It offers congregations and communities innovative learning opportunities that nurture leaders, strengthen communities, support spiritual growth, and advance positive transformation in our societies. Learn more about The Mission Institute here or visit their Facebook page.