Pastor as Catalyst: Four Transformational Postures for Pastoral Leadership

The Problem

It was a cool autumn day in my senior level pastoral leadership class. We had begun a segment on pastoral case studies and our professor had handed us a new scenario just that morning. In the scenario a parishioner’s friend is hospitalized and miscarries at twenty-six weeks. The friend is in her twenties, is single, and a USAmerican, secular Muslim. The assumption was that we as pastors had responded to the call and were at her bedside, ostensibly welcome. The question: what would you do and say?

I had a visceral response to the scenario and a sort of instinctive vector for presence. I wanted to begin by listening, feeling the currents of the space. But then I wanted to tell the young woman stories of the God that does his best work in the midst of crosses, stories of healing, transformation, and the end of death. I wanted to read to her Isaiah 25:6-9 and talk with her about the God who promises to wipe tears from all faces, to take away shame and sorrow, and to swallow up death forever. I wanted to tell her about the God who raises the dead, about the God who has a word of life for her little one even in the midst of that tragic day. I wanted to stand with her at the foot of the cross and offer her the tension of our faithful hindsight; all of our crosses have a shadow…the shadow of the empty tomb.

What I learned that morning was that I was not a good chaplain. Perhaps this is a good thing to know, but after all I was sitting in a class called “Pastoral Leadership” and not “Chaplaincy 101.” Certainly these two realities are not always severely distinct, and I do not even want to suggest that they need be. However, what happened that morning was this: this class full of senior seminarians with thoughts of hospital hallways and ten weeks of summer Clinical Pastoral Education and Internships dusted off their best understandings of “pastoral leadership” which were in fact attitudes and practices that better reflected “chaplaincy 101.” So the discussion immediately moved to concepts such as “unconditional positive regard,” “the ministry of presence,” and things that are significantly similar to attitudes and practices that my wife has learned as a therapist. These things are not in and of themselves a bad thing. Both “unconditional positive regard” and a “ministry of presence” can be healing and transformative things. To be in the shadow of a cross is incredibly lonely. Human community and the basic communication, “You are not alone!” can mean the difference between getting through the day and abject despair.

But something was missing. I was taught in my own unit of CPE not to have a witness. The rationale for this had to do with the reality that patients and families in a hospital can be Buddhist, Sikh, atheist, Baptist, agnostic, or Roman Catholic, and I was taught that a posture of non-interference is best.

This attitude is of course what is at issue: it is the issue of posture. It is the supposition that I can be a Christian minister, ordained into the body of Christ and somehow not have a witness. It is the assumption that in these dire stations of life, the only story that counts is one of presence that is not grounded in the story that we tell, the story of Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen.

The Old Paradigm

The reality is that we live in a culture that is confused about the identity and calling of the Church. In a culture that is confused about the Church’s very purpose, and confusion that permeates the Church itself, it stands to reason that those who are raised up to lead in the Church would be confused as well, not only because the confusion permeates our cultural air and water, but also because the confusion permeates our pastoral training. So to further expand on the classroom illustration above, no doubt we were all convinced that in some way we could help the young Muslim woman. But the reality was that there were at least two paradigms operative in that room in the midst of the discussion. One understood itself to be a dispenser of “spiritual presence,” something that in the end is functionally indistinguishable from something that could be provided by a social worker, doctor, or nurse. The other paradigm was interested in catalyzing perception, or if you will, a transposition of story. The story that was operative in the case study in that hospital room was the story of death, loss, grief, sorrow, and sadness. The story of the faith that we serve affirms that story because all of these things are very real. But the second story says in the midst of that death and sorrow, “Yes. But see that shadow that surrounds this death and sorrow? There’s a story, a more powerful story that frames this moment and this life.”

Pastor Rick Barger explains that from the earliest moments of the church, the church understood itself to be a contrast society.[1] To be sure the manifestation of this sense was not monolithic, and the reality is that there were many groups who sought to remove themselves from the world altogether. But most early Christians lived as citizens of the empire in lives and vocations that called them to engage the larger culture around them.[2] Early on this relationship in and among was as a religious minority. When you are a minority, it is easy to live in contrast to the world around you. There is simply a great deal to help you differentiate yourself. This all changed however in 313 CE with the (assumed) Christian conversion of Emperor Constantine. The Roman Empire effectively became Christian overnight and the church’s position moved from that of a minority contrast society to that of the state-sanctioned religion of empire. Monumental shifts in Christian identity ensued.[3] Barger writes,

…the Christianization of the Empire under Constantine meant a reinvention of the church’s identity and calling. This reinvention would ultimately prove to be disastrous for the integrity and spiritual power of Christianity. The hostile boundary between the church and the culture disappeared. The church became a partner in the culture. This new partnership meant that the sacred narrative of the church merged with the narrative of Empire. There was no longer “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5-6) that defined a church in tension with the culture. There was now one empire and one story. The stories were so intertwined with one another that emperors and political leaders would take a full role in the development of the church, and church leaders could often engage in political and military leadership.[4]

This merging of stories has shaped the nature and expression of the church for nearly two millennia. At the time of Martin Luther, almost 1200 years after the Constantinianization of the church, to be a citizen of the empire was to be synonymously a baptized member of the church.

As many of our USAmerican forebears fled their native homelands and the theocratically-enmeshed governments that held them, they brought their own, albeit new, versions of theocratic governments across the Atlantic. In fact, many of the earliest colonies played with these governmental forms. Though the United States government that followed provided for separation of church and state, the reality is that Constantine’s grip still held sway and even today “In God We Trust” is inscribed on our currency, the United States Congress still funds a full time chaplain who begins their opening sessions with prayer, and the church still enjoys fiscal privileges and some level of deference in our society.

Today in our hyper-consumeristic culture people “church shop,” seeking communities to meet their spiritual needs. This of course goes to the point. The culture believes that the church exists to dispense spiritual goods and services. The point: the old paradigm of Christian ministry and the pastor’s role in it locate the pastor’s vocation as that of spiritual cultural prop. Houston, we have a problem!

Towards an OLDER Paradigm

You can hear a great deal of discussion about the ancient/future church these days. Loren Mead wrote The Once and Future Church over a decade and a half ago and it is still a fixture on the bookshelves of many pastors.[5] Many assert that our current USAmerican cultural conditions more closely approximate a pre-Christian cultural milieu than at any other point in history.[6] They go on to assert that in the church’s 2000-year history there has never been a time more filled with opportunity for the spread of the gospel. I do not know how you can ascertain the veracity of this statement. What I do know is this: the Constantinianization of the Church appears to be eroding. Our secular culture is increasingly hostile to the Church and her witness and story, and often shockingly ignorant of it. Cultural wars over prayer in schools and the display of the Ten Commandments in state courthouses demonstrate the cultural/religious differentiation that is spreading across our land. So while there are those who are decrying the slow erosion of the Church’s privileged status in the culture, the reality is that the Church is reclaiming its ability to be a contrast society once again. This is not a bad thing. For the Church, this is a differentiation that brings life.

There is danger and opportunity in this differentiation. On the one hand, we have the opportunity to apprehend and own the good news once again in such a way that the message and saving story of our faith are no longer subverted for the purposes and aims of the state. However, we might have also so sold our soul to a position of power and preference that as the culture’s need for the cultural chaplaincy services of the Church erodes, so will the very institutional body of the Church.

The News

The reality of this differentiation between the Church and culture might be the best gift it has received in 1700 years. Remember that the good news of Jesus Christ is not a theological or philosophical proposition on the justifying nature of God. No, the event of the news of Jesus Christ is that his tomb was empty. On the third day, there was simply no dead body. We can assume that most in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas knew of Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion. Had there been a “Jerusalem Times” in those days it would have certainly made the front page. The saving message has never been that Jesus died on a cross. Not only did people know that Jesus was crucified, the Roman use of crosses was simply common in Jesus’ day and was not in and of itself cause for special notice. The event of Jesus’ crucifixion in and of itself would not have been enough to distinguish Jesus, even with Messianic claims. Remember, however, that Messiahs are not supposed to be crucified. The Jewish Messiah was supposed to come and conquer.

The news that spread by word of mouth was that the tomb was empty. Acts 2:23-24 reads, “…this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”[7]

A God who can raise the dead is a God to contend with. This is a God who holds the future in her very hands. The witness and power of this proclamation in the real world is that it deconstructs so many of the fears and challenges our world throws our way. It is important to say that this witness is not triumphalistic. It takes very seriously the pain, suffering, sorrow, and real death in the world. But more importantly it names where it is that we can find God in the midst of these things. When the bullets fly in an Omaha mall, God takes the bullets. When the bombs explode in Palestine, it is God who is killed. When the space shuttle burns up upon re-entry, we as Christians know that Jesus was there, on that shuttle, with those astronauts.

God shows up in the crosses of life. But this is only half of the gospel. As Peter put it so eloquently in Acts 2:24, “But God…” God’s “but” changes everything. It changes the coercive posture of power of the world powers that use the threat of death and powerful weaponry as fear induced motivators. It moves us from postures of self-protection, self-preservation, and stinginess to postures of service and sacrifice and generosity. It motivates us through its very message to serve the God who has the last word rather than the powers and forces of this world whose word can only ever be penultimate. I believe that it is in this witness that a life-bleeding world is deconstructed, and the life-giving reign of the Messiah is discerned. In the context of the church this witness gives us a new/ancient identity and calling. In this new identity and calling the role of the pastor in Christian community is recast and reshaped into something entirely new, and this new thing has entirely nothing to do with being a dispenser of religious goods and service.

Catalysts, Enzymes, and Postures

I took Biochemistry my senior year of college to round out my pre-medicine second major. A synthetic course that was built on inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and physics, it took physical and chemical principles and looked at them through the multi-faceted lenses of living organisms. Fundamentally, biochemistry is the study of the living chemical processes of life and the energy transforming systems that sustain them. In short, it comes down to a study of two basic things: catalysts and enzymes. In chemistry, a catalyst is, “a substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.”[8] In the biochemical world, catalysts are called enzymes. Enzymes are

…extraordinarily efficient and selective biological catalysts—agents that accelerate the approach of a reaction toward equilibrium without changing the position of that equilibrium. Most reactions catalyzed by enzymes would not proceed in their absence in a reasonable time without extremes of temperature, pressure, or pH. Enzymatic reactions are 10³ to 10¹⁷ times faster than the corresponding uncatalyzed reactions.[9]

An enzyme is a protein whose shape and chemistry is nearly 100% efficient in achieving the transformation of a substrate, the substance it is designed to act upon. Biologically what makes enzymes so powerful is that they require almost no energy and have little or no waste as a by-product for the organism to dispense with. They are God’s perfect tool for physiological transformation. Again, this feat is achieved through their very shape and how that shape interacts chemically with the substrate around it.

People can act like catalysts and do so all the time. In conversation and action we change the thinking and actions of others through the expression of our thoughts and the illustration of our actions. This is what is called differentiation in family systems theory. Peter Steinke defines differentiation as “a process in which a person moves toward a more intentional and thoughtful way of life (and less automatic way of functioning).”[10] He goes on to say that

Differentiation is the relative ability of people to guide their own functioning by

· Thinking clearly

· Acting on principle

· Defining self by taking action

· Coming to know more about their own instinctive reactions to others

· Learning to regulate those reactions

· Staying in contact with others

· Choosing a responsible course of action

Differentiation is a process that takes place in relationships. It is about balancing two life forces—individuality and togetherness—when interacting with others.[11]

I do not want to overemphasize the catalytic power of pastors in Christian community. However, I am highlighting it here because I believe that it has heretofore been underemphasized. What I want to point out in this discussion is that their systemic position in Christian community gives them a powerful presence for transformational, enzymatic action. As relational beings, our very presence in community (as human beings) impacts others around us. This presence in the pastoral office is augmented because of the deferential posture Christian communities often take with regards to their pastors. To dismiss this reality is to be remiss. To understand this position as only that of feeding the spiritual egos, wants and needs of others is a travesty. To place this presence and its functioning in the service of the crucified and risen One and the future he points to is the essence of pastoral leadership. In fact, it is Jesus and the news of his death and resurrection and the future they disclose that provides for the shape or “posture” of all pastoral leadership. This cannot be underemphasized: family systems theory is not functionally Christian or Christ-centered. It brings to light how groups of individuals function and influence one another. In this conversation, what must be discerned is that our differentiation in Christian community is not grounded in our own selves or egos. Rather, it finds its life and motivating energy in the very work of God in creation through the power of the cross and resurrection.

At a recent church conference, author and speaker Len Sweet spoke about what he believes are the operating system and the connective interface of a 21^st century church.[12] He stated that the mnemonic device he uses for the church’s operating system is M.R.I., which translates as a 21^st century church that is missional, relational, and incarnational. The church’s interface with a postmodern culture is what Len calls E.P.I.C., or experiential, relational, image-rich, and connective. In other words, for the church’s operating system to communicate with our present world it must have a user interface that is E.P.I.C.

Using the same information technology metaphor, I want to suggest that the operating system for pastors ought to be what I illustrated in “The News” above: a resurrection witness, grounded in the resurrected Jesus pointing to the future reign he discloses. Furthermore, I want to suggest that if the enzymatic, transformational action of this leadership is this resurrection witness, that this expresses itself through at least four “postures” or faces. These postures are the posture of discipleship, the posture of perspective, the posture of birth, and the posture of engagement.

The Posture of Discipleship

There has been so much ink spilled on the topic of leadership, both in the culture and the church. Strangely, I have read nothing that grounds our church’s capacity for leadership in what Len Sweet likes to call “followership.” Perhaps this is because it lacks the overt sexiness of the leadership terminology. Followership, in a room full of narcissistic personalities, takes too much of the emphasis off of the self. Nevertheless, it is where we have to begin.

In his comprehensive work, Pastor, Will Willimon looks at the pastoral office and work through a multiplicity of lenses.[13] Interestingly, he does not explicitly come to the topic of pastor as disciple until the last chapter of his book entitled, “The Pastor as Disciplined Christian: Constancy in Ministry.”[14] Even so, it grounds the notion of discipleship through a pastoral lens only. I want to suggest however that discipleship as followership begins not with a follower’s identity as a leader, but simply in the baptismal calling of a follower of Jesus the Messiah. To be a disciple is to call someone other than oneself Lord, and to call Jesus Lord is ultimately to be subject to him. I believe that a “subjected leader” is the starting point or “enzymatic posture” for all leadership in the church. The daily source of strength for the Christian vocation of the baptized comes not from an office of leadership in the church but through a daily relationship with and following of Jesus. What we are talking about here is the differentiated expression of a life that is being formed and transformed by the movement of the disciple’s life from the story of the world to the story of God’s resurrected future. A life that takes on this shape has Jesus at the head, and is filled with his grace, power, and his Spirit of abundance.

I wonder as I write this if this does not evoke an “of course!” It should be obvious should it not? And yet in my experience, albeit anecdotal, and in the many and varied books on leadership I have encountered related to leadership in the church, the pastoral leader as first and foremost a follower who is subject to Jesus seems to be anathema. Let me state this clearly: followership of Jesus is not only the ground of being for the discipleship of the baptized, but for the Christian leader as well.

The Posture of Perspective

Much can be said for what is called a leader’s vision. Author and researcher George Barna defines vision as “a clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to His servants and is based upon an accurate understanding of God, self, and circumstances.”[15] One of the key features for Barna is that vision is imparted to leaders specifically and not to groups. Contrast this with author Jim Collins, whose seminal, decade-long research, collated into his book Good to Great, has rocked the business and social sectors and leadership paradigms everywhere. Collins maintains that vision is something that is discerned when you get the right passionate people, in the right seats, doing what they can do together better than anyone else.[16] So vision gets defined and gains clarity as the organization moves daily towards doing better what it is uniquely passionate about. Len Sweet, adding his own unique perspective, maintains that vision is not something seen, but rather heard.[17] Vision in his articulation is “seen” through “hearing.”

I think that the Christian vision is a fixed vision disclosed by Jesus in his resurrection. The Lutheran systematic theologian Walter Bouman used to tell his students that he was a mystery novel buff. What was surprising however was the way in which he read his novels. He would read the first two chapters to learn the characters and discover the tension that had to be resolved and then would flip to the last chapter to read how it all turned out. He pointed out that inevitably, this changed how he participated with the middle of the novel. In other words, it did not hold the same level of tension for him. He used this personal peculiarity to make a point. “This is the Christian life,” he would say. “Because we know how it all comes out in the end through the resurrection of Jesus, we have the joy of participating in our present without the same fears and anxiety. God has our future in hand.”[18]

As a posture of leadership, the posture of perspective is grounded in a future held by God. It is leadership that is able to frame in conversation and action the challenges of the present in light of the God who holds the last word, a word of life, in our tomorrow. This posture discerns the work of God in our midst. In light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ it expects transformation in Christian life and community to be the rule rather than the exception. This sort of leadership dreams big for the kingdom because it understands the work of the church to be grounded in the God who is today on the move and who ultimately raises the dead.

The Posture of Birth

To anticipate God’s future and to frame our present in light of God’s work is to know existentially in our present the reality expressed in Revelation 21:5: “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see, I am making all things new.’”[19] The posture of birth is the posture of a midwife; it sees its never ending work in the Christian assembly as that of delivering healthy and well the new things God is birthing through his body the church. This sort of posture anticipates pain and discomfort and the messiness of delivery and coaches through it. As midwifes do in homes and delivery rooms, it reminds the body that giving birth is a healthy, normal and natural thing to do…and that the pain that comes in the midst of it is of the sort that does not last.

In my own ministry I state openly and regularly that God expects to give birth to new mission through us, to deeper discipleship and followership, to new disciples brought into our community, and to great hopefulness and trust. What I find anecdotally is that the stated expectation, the assertion of the posture, shifts the Christian community into a synergistic posture of expectation, watching and discernment. Though there may be anxiety over changes and new things occurring in our congregational life, the simple conversation of “expecting” changes and modifies the nature of the anxiety from that of negative murmuring to that of positive excitement. These small communal shifts do something remarkable in community over time as well. In the end, the community of Christ is able to conceive and birth greater and greater amounts of mission and engagement with the world. In other words, the posture of birth in fact gives birth to a missional church.

The Posture of Engagement

In the Church shaped by Constantine ministry was outsourced to professionals. In Europe today where this model of ministry has run its course cathedrals are effectively empty at Mass except for priests and a handful of devoted people. For whatever reason, the Church and what it points to has lost its relevance and meaning. In contrast, a Church that connects meaning to people’s lives engenders engagement and passion. It adds value to life and gives purpose…and purpose more than anything else motivates people to commit and to engage.

Albert Winseman writes about a man named Mike, a family man, and engaged disciple of Jesus who meets in a men’s Bible study over his lunch hours and in the evening heads to church with his family for a family evening of discipleship. He also provides leadership for his church’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity. He is an engaged Christian. Winseman writes, “For Mike, his faith is the organizing principle of his life. ‘I wouldn’t consider myself a fanatic or anything like that, and I certainly don’t press my beliefs on others,’ he says. ‘It’s just that without my faith, my life wouldn’t be as meaningful.’”[20]

The posture of engagement in the church is a leadership posture that believes to its core that ministry in the church should never be done by the pastor. This is not an ethic of laziness. It is simply the insight that what St. Paul maintained is true. The church is alive and empowered by God with gifts for the edification of the body and the world (1 Corinthians 12). Pastor Lou Forney[21] says that one of the most significant and powerful questions pastors can ask themselves in the church is, “What am I doing in ministry that someone else in this body can do as well or better?” Part of the difficult shift that pastors who try and apprehend this posture have to make is that their success is not measured by how much ministry they get done in a given week or by how much their parishioners need them. Instead, the measuring stick is how much ministry can be given away to the priesthood of all believers so that they can find purpose and meaning in the body through their unique gifts and design.

At a deeper level, the posture of engagement understands that the goal of all of our work as servant leaders in Jesus’ church is the creation of people who live with a vision of Jesus and his resurrection ever before them, and who speak and enact that vision with the material of their lives. They create ecclesial environments where people grow naturally in faith and life and in expression of their God-given baptismal identities. They create environments where leaders beget leaders and the circle of participation grows and grows because there is always room for another to share who they are within the purpose and hope of the community.

Conclusion

Pastoral leadership has been mired in a model that asks it to surrender the story of the Church, that of Jesus crucified and risen, to the wills, whims and needs of the state. As we come into the 21^st century and as the Church/state relationship begins to unravel, the Church has a unique opportunity to reconnect itself and its priorities with the story of the resurrecting God that formed it so long ago. With this reclamation of identity and calling comes the opportunity for pastoral leaders in the Church to reconnect with the deep identity and calling of the Church and to utilize their systemic presence as a catalyst for the transformation of Christian communities.

Pastoral leaders can do this work of catalyzing transformation through how they function, dream and self-define in Christian community. In this work there are at least four intentional postures of transformation. The first posture is that of discipleship where the pastoral leader understands that his first work as a Christian and as a leader in Christ’s church is that of a follower of the risen Jesus. The second posture is that of perspective where the pastoral leader works to create the communal capacity to frame and see the work and challenges of the Church in the present in light of the future reign of God disclosed in the Lordship of Jesus’ resurrection. The third posture is that of birth which asserts that pastors function with an attitude of expectation in Christian community, fostering the capacity to give birth to new ideas and mission and to frame the anxiety and pain related to these changes as temporary signposts that God is up to new life in their midst. The fourth posture is that of engagement which functions to create as much systemic space for people to find meaning, purpose and life in the body of Christ as possible so that the Christian community naturally engenders engagement and community in all who come into relationship with it.

These catalytic postures are not exhaustive, nor has the purpose of this essay been to create another list of “must do’s” for the work of leadership in the church. Rather, this essay has been an attempt to frame the work of pastoral leadership as it was, and as I believe it has the potential to be, in Christian community, not for its own purposes and gain, but for the purposes of the God who in fact, does make all things new.

Appendix: Practical Outcomes Report

In the book Presence, the authors write,

We’ve come to believe that the core capacity needed to access the field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and as Salk said, making choices to serve the evolution of life.[22]

I think that ministry has the opportunity to move in some fundamentally new ways. This vocational movement will be directed by an awareness of where we have come from, the God we are called to serve, and the future he calls us into. The notion of catalyst that I used to shape imagery for the possibilities of a new sort of expectation for pastoral ministry is not some sort of new paint-by-numbers technical schemata. Nor should it be downloaded into congregational life as such. It has to do with an adaptation in how I as a pastoral leader think and function in and with God’s people. All I have asserted is that the systemic pastoral role privileges it to work well as a fulcrum for the systemic transformation of God’s people. I have been finding that these postures form powerful lenses that help me shape my questions for maximum impact and help prioritize my work.

In seminary I was taught not to take risks, not to push or articulate change, and not to expect too much from God’s people. I believe this is because the model of pastoral ministry I was trained in operates from the premise that pastors are there to shepherd and herd disengaged sheep rather than equip, train, and challenge what Bill Hybels calls God’s fulcrum for the transformation of the world: the local congregation.

The practical application of these four catalytic postures is a new sort of functional awareness for me. It shapes how I am handling preparation for the new budget year. I am asking questions like these: Do we build the budget based upon what we believe God is birthing in and through us this next year, or do we base it upon what we spent categorically last year? Do we risk the financial strain of new buildings trusting that the God who raises the dead can provide for and through us? Or do we duck the opportunity because we believe we simply do not have the capacity to engage the future God calls us into?

I think that the practical application of these four postures is a new sort of awareness that engenders new sorts of questions that challenge us to step consciously into engaged lives of faith for God’s sake and the sake of the kingdom. They are adaptive mental frames of reference through which new realities and possibilities are communicated. The communication event, in verbiage and action and the differentiation that comes through it cause a conscious systemic differentiation in response. The localized articulation of a new awareness and way of seeing in the pastoral leader facilitates a new sort of consciousness in the community at large. In this new awareness, its capacity to see and dream anew and to reframe its life together expands and grows. The reality is these sorts of consciousness actually transform people and community and cause wholesale new sorts of functioning. What I am trying to articulate is not some program that can be rolled out into a congregation. Programs are technical and do not demand that people see who they are and what they do in a new sort of light. But a differentiated leader who functions from the perspective of the doorway of the empty tomb does.

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[1] Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating and Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2005), 7.

[2] Ibid., 7.

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Ibid., 9.

[5] Loren B. Mead, The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (Alban, 2001).

[6] Such assertions are made by thinkers and authors such as Rick Barger, Len Sweet, Bill Easum, Loren Mead, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Diana Butler Bass. There are certainly others as well.

[7] New Revised Standard Version Bible (Nashville: World Publishing, 1989).

[8] Steven S. Zumdahl, Chemistry, 3^rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993), A30.

[9] H. Robert Horton, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), 119.

[10] Peter L. Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What (Herndon, VA: Alban, 2007) 19.

[11] Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, 19.

[12] Beyond Survival: Thriving through Spiritual Leadership, Sheridan Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, November 1-3, 2007.

[13] William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002).

[14] Willimon, Pastor, 315-36.

[15] George Barna, The Power of Vision: Discover and Apply God’s Vision for Your Ministry (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2003), 24.

[16] Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 13.

[17] Leonard Sweet, Summoned to Lead (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 56.

[18] Walter Bouman, Ph. D. died as professor emeritus of systematic theology, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of 2005. He died with courage and without anxiety as his body gave in to cancer. He said in his last months with regards to the gospel, “I have lived my life trusting in it, and now I bet my death on it.”

[19] New Revised Standard Version Bible.

[20] Albert L. Winseman, Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church (New York: Gallup Press, 2007), 66.

[21] Rev. Dr. Lou Forney is the Senior Pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Millard, Nebraska.

[22] Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers, Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society (Boston: Nicholas Brealey, 2007), 13.

Bibliography

Barger, Rick. A New and Right Spirit : Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2005.

Barna, George . The Power of Vision: Discover and Apply God’s Vision for Your Ministry. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2003.

Bass, Diana Butler. The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2004.

________. Christianity for the Rest of Us : How the Neighborhood Church Is Revitalizing the Faith. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.

Bliese, Richard H., and Craig Van Gelder. The Evangelizing Church : A Lutheran Contribution: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2005. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html

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