the postmodern pop pastor

Its rare to be privledged to hear the voice of a prophet. One who speaks to the real sins and issues of our day with truth and love. This man's voice still speaks loudly and the community he created when he and his wife opened their home to folks from all over the world still thrives today. If you haven't had time to visit L'Abri, sell something to get there.




Here is Francis Schaeffer speaking on Ash Heap Lives. He gave this talk over around 30 years ago and we Christians still live our lives for things that will end up in the city dump.

Labels: leadership, pastor, prophet, sermons

My friend Ken had one of these on his blog, I got a kick out of it. There is actually a whole series. The second one only makes sense after the first. (The Mac guys is the wrong guy in the second, that makes it funny)





When I grow up I want to put on a suit and go to big church.

Labels: church, church planting, evangelism, Jesus

How does liminality in culture and organizational leadership impact the church? In the present transition it seems as if the world of business has taken up the calling to lead the church back to a more biblical form of leadership.

As North American society has lost its center, the church in that society has moved to the margins. The unchurched population in the U.S. grew 10% in 90's, causing some church leaders to despair that the church culture is on life support. [1] Alan Roxburgh calls the Evangelical Church in North America to a conscious awareness that the church’s role in society has been radically changed to the point where it is largely invisible to the greater society.[2] Stan Grenz keeps from losing hope because Christian people maintain faith in a unified center, even if the church does not dwell in the social center.

We believe that there is a unifying center to reality. More specifically, we acknowledge that this center has appeared in Jesus of Nazareth, who is the eternal Word present among us.[3]

There is good news in the church’s banishment from the center. The North American church is becoming missional from the margins. The church in North American has moved from being primarily a sending body to being sent into the real world where they live.[4] The Church is participating in God's victory over evil in regards to social justice concerns and many, many more are learning to live in its particular culture with proper affirmations and critiques.[5] Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger want to put forward that this new missional movement is what the church was supposed to be and do all along. “This movement is the church. It is not an institution, a building, a program, a creed or a doctrinal statement.”[6] A protestant understanding of the church as a priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) has maintained that the church is made of a gospel people first and only. Structures serve the gospel mission, they never precede it.

[1] Reggie McNiel, The Present Future, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 1, 3.
[2] Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality, 24.
[3] Grenz, Primer on Postmodernism, 164.
[4] Guder, Missional Church, 4-5.
[5] Ibid, 113, 114.
[6] Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger, Simple Church, (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2006), 84.

Labels: church, community, leadership, pastor

The kind of leadership that serves those in transition can only flourish amidst relationships. It is both interpersonally social and organizationally social. William H. Bergquist bridges the social worlds of relationship and organization, “One individual cannot have a relationship. Relationships exist between two or more people and are defined jointly by the involved participants.”[1] Pre-modern leadership looked for the great man. Modern leadership authority was expressed through organizational means, i.e. the great system. Postmodern leadership, in contrast, is situational and contingent, it is found in the great collective. He insists, “Effective leadership depends on the use of specific styles of leadership in particular settings and in addressing specific tasks.”[2] He ties this organizational change to new relationship of members of systems brought on by postmodernism. People see themselves as personally connected before they even enter the organizational relationship.

Real relational community also alters the structure of the organization, the Holman’s see clearly that, “When you know and are known by people, it can’t be one size fits all.”[3] Each single living person that participates in an organization shapes and changes the whole.

Ultimately, leadership in the community serves those in transition for their own good. John Maxwell paints a strong picture of an other –centered team leader. True leaders help others grow.[4] They concentrate on team not self and are willing to take the subordinate role at times.[5] Regardless of position in the organizational hierarchy leaders in these liminal times see themselves as followers in addition to being leaders.

In a flattened organizational flow chart, followers influence leaders as well as vice versa. Robert Greenleaf wants all leaders to understand that, “Everyone in an institution is part leader, part follower.”[6] Ira Chaleff sees that reality as a laboratory opportunity to seek personal growth. In an organization, the follower is first a steward of the organization. The responsibility is to mission.[7]

For those whose formal leadership role takes place in the second chair, one must learn to learn to participate in unequal formal powers. “Some believe that influence is the leader/ follower relationship is largely one way. This is far from true. Followers have great capacity to influence that relationship.”[8]

These ideas are strongly affirmed by John Maxwell in his 2005 work, The 360˚ Leader. The 360˚ leader is one who has learned to exist within the older paradigm of a hierarchical organization by maintaining an innumerable list of techniques for relating to those above, equal and below in the structure. These are those who “have certain qualities that enable them to lead in every direction, and that is what makes them valuable to an organization.”[9]

Maxwell brings in the common understanding that it is lonely at the top.[10] On the other hand, Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson, the authors of Leading from the Second Chair, another top study on followership speak to the loneliness of the second chair.[11] Perhaps the organizational chart provides the answer. The older structure that placed an individual at the top of organization caused both first and second leaders to experience their own version of loneliness. The flattening of organization based on the rising value of community intentionally decreases the distance between players and encourages the development of human relationships over the independent success of the organization.

In the church this is especially difficult because the senior pastor is the more public and because associates are by necessity careful with talking about the things that trouble them most, the church and their lead pastor. Bonem and Patterson suggest that “The organization chart of your church may offer one answer to the ‘why’ question.”[12]

According to the literature, the value of community impacts leadership style. A manner of leadership that respects community as the highest value will be necessary for leading in the church of the 21st century. A leader will only have, or keep, that role because of true relations within the community.

[1] William H. Bergquist, The Postmodern organization: mastering the art of irreversible change, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993), 121.
[2] Ibid, 93-94.
[3] Holman, Lessons in Leadership from your Neighborhood, 83.
[4] Maxwell, Be a People Person, 27.
[5] Maxwell, The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player, 131-132.
[6] Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 253.
[7] Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower: standing up to and for our leaders, (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2003), 15, 218). In social organizations performance is based on mission. Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, 5.
[8] Chaleff, Courageous Follower, 14, 18.
[9] John Maxwell, The 360˚ Leader: Developing Your Influence from anywhere in the Organization, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 285.
[10] Ibid, 307.
[11] Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson, “Lonely in the Second Chair? The Surprising Reality for High Capacity Leaders,” Secondchairleaders.com, http://www.secondchairleaders.com/articles/Lonely_in_the_Second_Chair.pdf (accessed September 5, 2007).
[12] Bonem and Patterson, “Lonely in the Second Chair?”

Labels: community, leadership, pastor

I didn't write a reading list for 2008. I've been preparing a reading list every year for as long as I can remember. I don't always read all of it, but it guides me to be broad in reading when I would tend to be narrow. This year I didn't do it. I am attempting to say "enough" more often. I am so used to seeing a book mentioned and just buying it on Amazon, one click and its here in two days. Every time I feel the lure to purchase, I am saying "enough."

There is another side to this. I am reading the things on my shelf that have not been read. So, the year will be more ecclectic, but I have already seen God use the books I've read to continue to fight my idols.

Here's to 2008. A year in which we see Jesus as our all satisfying savior...and he is enough.

Labels: books, enough, Jesus, pastor, spiritual disciples

Max Depree sets a high standard for how new culture leaders use their authority. “We expect leaders to treat everyone the same way. Somebody else can deal with control. Leaders are guardians of equal access.”[1] The aim of declining the free exercise of power is, again, a more healthy communal relationship.

We don’t need more people willing to blindly follow orders or do rote repetitive work. We need people of courage and initiative with ethical and ecological wisdom to put it all together for the long term.[2]

Hierarchy is seen to be about power in the 21st century serving organization. Ross Moxley makes this connection:

It wasn’t long ago that most business organizations existed as pure hierarchies. There were considered the best way of organizing to get work done efficiently and productively. Usually they worked. In times when goals and objectives could be set and followed because there was stability in the external and internal environment, hierarchies worked. When clear lines of authority and
accountability were more important than collaboration and commitment, hierarchies worked.[3]

Hierarchical leadership models are tied to the value of productivity. Different models will be needed when community serves as the highest value.

Peter Senge sees almost universal agreement that the command-and-control corporate model will not carry us into the twenty-first century. In a world of increasing interdependence and rapid change, it is no longer possible to figure it out from the top.[4] This has led to a flattening of the organizational chart, though with some caution. Highly flexible, smaller and flatter organizational structures allow a leader to move from control to cultivation.[5] After speaking against the abuse of power, business leader Robert Sutton maintains that there should be a pecking order, but leaders should do everything they can to downplay and reduce status and power differences. He continues to encourage a strengthening of the follower to be one who fights when necessary and even practices deliberate indifference and intentional emotional protection.[6]

Jim Collins offers the Girl Scouts as an example of a more legislative model of leadership.[7] Frances Hesselbein is certainly on top of the organizational flow chart but power and influence arises in many divergent places and people. Japanese high-tech firms use one third the managers per unit of production as their competitors. Pinchot notes, “They are moving toward a different structure of power.” She continues, “In transitional organizations, decisions are first made cross-functionally in both formal and informal teams and then ratified by function chiefs.”[8]

In a world that values community, getting to the top of organizational hierarchy makes one relationally dependent because it’s obvious you don’t know it all and can’t do it all.[9] Relational, trusted leaders in community with their followers will have more diffuse and less clear executive power.[10] The authority they will bear in the future will be as part of a team of gifted leaders rather than an individual endowed with rank and title. “Ultimate authority should be placed in a balanced team of equals under a true servant who serves a primus inter pares.”[11] The primer inter pares is the first among equals. This leader leads a team of leaders who share authority. He or she curbs the potential abuse of power because. “No one should be powerless.”[12]

Pinchot sees great hope in this form of leadership. While dominating, hierarchical leaders kill creativity and effectiveness.

When power is balanced and influence spread laterally, intelligence and responsibility are awakened, widened and strengthened by one's fellows… The best leaders create and serve cooperative environments where people do it themselves.[13]

The same thoughts find expression in the words of Peter Senge:

Poised at the millennium, we confront two critical challenges: how to address deep problems for which hierarchical leadership alone is insufficient and how to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of an organization to continually build and share knowledge. Our responses may lead us, ironically,to a future based on more ancient — and more natural — ways of organizing: communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand.[14]

Leaders serve people for mission from the middle. No one is on high simply because of position in the liminal transition. Authority, place and power are earned by the hard tasks of human relationships and exercised in trust, vulnerability and in the context of the mission held in common by all.

[1] Depree, Leading without Power, 63.
[2] Pinchot, “Balance the Power.”
[3] Ross S. Moxley, Leadership and Spirit: Breathing New Vitality and Energy Into Individuals and Organizations, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 181.
[4] Peter M. Senge, "Communities of Leaders and Learners," Harvard Business Review (September/October, 1997): 30-32.
[5] Gibbs, LeadershipNext, 62-63.
[6] Robert Sutton, The No Asshole Rule, (New York: Warner Business Books, 2007), 78, 80-81, 136f.
[7] Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, 9.
[8] Pinchot, “Balance the Power.”
[9] Depree, Leading without Power, 99.
[10] Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, 32.
[11] Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 253.
[12] Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 98.
[13] Pinchot, “Balance the Power.”
[14] Senge, "Communities of Leaders and Learners," 30-32.

Labels: community, leadership, pastor

Several of the most prominent leadership writers are seeing volunteer or service organizations as the future of business leadership. Max Depree, in his volume entitled Leading without Power explains that the system in a volunteer organization works on trust because leaders actually belong to their followers.[1] Jim Collins amends his best selling Good to Great with an additional version for the social sector. He lauds the leadership models of the non-profit organization where these leaders show a healthy blend of executive and legislative skills.[2]

Leaders serving in the transition are showing primary dedication to the mission, rather than rank or moving up the corporate ladder. Leaders without rank busy themselves with the business of mission and course, not power and conceit.[3] This is the only way to achieve the goals of an organization that is more concerned about the community than the bottom line, which was discussed above as a characteristic of present culture. Greenleaf again insists that, “Human service that requires love cannot be satisfactorily dispensed by specialized institutions that exist apart from community.” The focus on relationship over rank and mission over success has caused these new leaders to being to relate in less coercive ways.[4]

[1] Depree, Leading without Power, 45, 71.
[2] Jim Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, (London: Collins, 2005), 12.
[3] Bell, “Vulnerable Leader,” 21.
[4] Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 52, 23.

For a while, I'm going to post some of my dissertation findings.

Leadership in the 21st century is not about persona or leadership action. It cannot be discussed in a “how to” book. Leading in liminality seeks to bring the actions of organizational leadership in line with the real person of the leader in community. Authenticity and relationship bridge the span between action and authenticity.

Liminal leaders serve those in the transition for the good of the common mission. The concept of servant leadership did not begin with Generation X. It is as old as the Bible and found a substantial foothold in the business community as far back as 1970 when Robert Greenleaf first started lecturing to institutional trustees. Greenleaf begins his work on servant leadership by telling the story of a servant in an expedition who became the leader of the expedition. Servant leaders are servants first, that is they serve from who they are.[1] This theme resonates around both business and church world. Pastor Erwin Mcmanus comments that, “Leaders of integrity don’t simply lead by example; they lead by essence.”[2] Educator Kevin Mannoia teaches that behavior (leadership actions) flow from nature because true leadership is your identity expressing itself in activity.[3]

Leaders serve those in the transition because they have real relationships. Management speaker and author Gifford Pinchot insists on the relational quality of leadership: “Leadership keeps in front of everyone the overarching values and goals, the mission immutables, included the subtle details of how people treat each other...Leadership facilitates quality relationships and balances power.”[4]

Robert Greenleaf insists that the one who states the goal must illicit trust from the followers to whom they belong.[5] Leaders too often associate their mantle of authority with a requirement for detachment.[6] However leadership relationships in a community culture require sensitivity, vulnerability and risk.[7] When leaders are vulnerable—real, genuine, open, and authentic—they foster an atmosphere of trust. Leader vulnerability is expressed through valuing reality over rank, purpose over power. Real leaders know they need to be role models. But it is not a “be perfect like me” model that is valued; it is the public struggle that invites followers to enlist.[8]

[1] Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, (New York: Paulist Press, 2002), 22.
[2] Erwin McManus, Uprising: a Revolution of the Soul, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2003), 82.
[3] Kevin W. Mannoia, The Integrity Factor, (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2006), 51, 130.
[4] Elizabeth Pinchot, “Balance the Power,” Pinchot & Company, http://www.pinchot.com/MainPages/BooksArticles/OtherArticles/BalancethePower.html (accessed September 24, 2007).
[5] Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 30.
[6] Chip R. Bell, “The Vulnerable Leader,” Leader to Leader (Fall 2005): 19.
[7] Max Depree, Leading without Power, (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 64.
[8] Bell, “The Vulnerable Leader,” 20.

Labels: community, future, leadership, pastor

It was a warm, dry winter morning. The kind you only find in the Southern California Desert. Oversized cars sqeeze onto undersized suburban roads, created to facilitate the rituals of auto worship. Drivers squint against the early golden sun and raise the hand as if to ward off the evils of the long, encroaching shadows. Today, the world itself is in a bad mood.

Labels: morning, writing

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. #20 on the American Book Review list of top 100 first lines.

Labels: books, first lines, writing

The first line of a novel or the first line of a sermon are often the most important...and usually the most beautiful. I often think in times of reflection, "What would be the first line of my story?" And, "How would God's gospel story be promoted by my story?"

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.

G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill. #65 on the American Book Review list of top 100 first lines.

Labels: books, first lines

My friend Len had a link to a new series of inpirational posters based on missional values rather than the old boomer productivity is success idolatry. I like it. Here are a few, be sure to check out the rest.

Labels: art, community, leadership, parody, social action

Every once in a while I come across a book that I just can't read. I love Dostoevsky, but always get stuck part way into brothers. This year two books got the better of me, both because of the harshness of the content. The despair that came over me while reading was just too strong.

Silence, Shushaku Endo and The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

Labels: books