07/30/2014

Trinity's Midweek Blast for July 30, 2014

Leadership and Courage

Greetings from Traverse City, Michigan. We are in the midst of the 2014 Great Lakes Theological Academy, which includes some 50 participants. Trinity's own Steve Smith from our "A Team" has been the event registrar and organizer. Bethlehem Lutheran Church with Pastor Paul Busekist and his staff have been our hosts for this annual event. I am pleased to have Sarai Rice as my partner in leading the academy's sessions. Sarai is a church consultant, CEO of a non-profit, and a former pastor. The theme for this year's event is Change that Gives Life - for the Sake of the World.

From my perspective, other than the gospel itself, nothing is more important for a congregation's identity and calling than authentic servant-leadership that is rooted in and informed by the gospel. Other than the gospel itself, nothing is more important to the formation of vital congregations and new life for the sake of the world than authentic servant-leadership.

This is my definition of such leadership: Authentic servant-leadership is the capacity to influence others through visionary self-definition. Visionary self-definition inherently inspires because of its passion. The authentic servant-leader is able to articulate an alternative future wrought by the moors of the kingdom of God and call people into it. It means that the leader brings about true change - change that gives life for the sake of the world - because people are grasped by the vision and can see what the leader is able to show that God is already doing.

At the same time, authentic servant-leadership causes stress among those she serves because the leader has healthy self-definition. The leader knows where she ends and others begin. The leader is immune from all the pathologies associated with people-pleasing, approval-winning, and making people happy. The leader is aware that visionary self-definition does indeed stress people because gospel-inspired vision challenges their own understanding of self and the comfortable ways that they have been "church." To actually call people to die in order to be rebirthed causes stress!

To be an authentic servant-leader requires some competencies. An authentic leader embodies a life of devotion to Jesus and the following of his ways. The leader therefore inspires not just by her words, but by how she lives her life and leads others. She leads not by manipulation, but by inspiration. She invests in people rather than managing them. She deploys them for mission rather than employing them. She seeks to unleash people rather than control them.

The authentic, adaptive servant-leader has a vision that stresses, because to say "Yes!" to the leader's vision means abandoning many deep-seated loyalties and embracing change. Adaptive leadership is thus a perilous kind of leadership. People resist change and people resist re-ordering their lives around the gospel. A sign that an adaptive servant-leader is on the right path is that she will have some people in her congregation upset with her. That's biblical. Ask Jesus.

The most frequently asked questions I get while presenting on adaptive servant-leadership have to do with fear. What if a huge percentage of my congregation leaves? What if I am asked to resign? What if... ? (You can name the questions.)

We need leaders today who so believe in the gospel promises that they exhibit the kind of fearless courage that Jesus embodied. Leaders who have worked to bring about needful change in the church and in the world have always been fearless. They heard and paid attention to the most frequent imperative in scripture, "Do not be afraid." They know that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is a God who can be trusted, and who brings new life out of the reality of rejection and the ashes of human failure. This is the God we are all called to follow.

In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,

Rick Barger, '89
President
Trinity Lutheran Seminary