Thursday, May 13, 2010

Strategy #1 "It All Starts with the Pastor"

The Strategy Themes discussed below were presented by Bob Farr, Director of Congregational Excellence, Missouri Conference UMC, as part of a presentation “Renovate or Die: How to Become an Outwardly Focused Church.” The following discusses Strategy #1 of 10.

Strategy #1 “It all starts with the pastor.”

The pastor is the congregation’s visionary, whether his or her own or derived from the congregation. The leader’s role, sorely needed in the church today, is to be a CHANGE agent. (Maybe we ought to respell it “chng” because it is certainly thought of as a four letter word!) The leader, the pastor, is causes change. Unfortunately, it often takes conflict and chaos to get change started and perseverance to push through the resistance.

I like Thomas Hawkins’ model for overcoming resistance. We’ve talked about it in past years at School of Lay Ministry:

D*M*P>R.

• Where “D” is Dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction drives urgency and motivation that are essential to change.

• “M” stands for Model. Without a vision, without a clear picture of a new state of being, the church cannot move. Last year we talked about the “Missional Church,” an Acts 2 church steeped in the Commandment (Matthew 22), Compassion (Matthew 25), and Commission (Matthew 28) of Jesus Christ, undergirded by the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, a Congregation with a purpose of making new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!

• “P” stands for Process. The congregation needs to see a way to get there or frustrations will remain. Here’s why the Healthy Church Initiative is so important. It is a visible process that gives hope that the church can really move to a new place. Change can happen!

Now note that the left side of the equation is a product of the three parts. As any one goes to zero, so does the whole left hand side!

• And the “R” is Resistance. The product of “D*M*P” must be greater than “R,” the resistance, or you and the pastor will never push through!

Yes, it starts with the pastor, but without a supportive laity, the vision will be lost. That’s why I think the Laity Leadership Development (LLD) program that our Conference Lay Leader, Brian Hammonds, has championed is so important. Laity need to be equipped to work side by side with our pastors in moving congregations to make new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Ask your pastor what his or her vision for the congregation is. Be ready to help make it happen, to push through conflict, to move forward.

PS. Bob’s “Farrism” is “If you are going to lead, you are going to bleed.”

4 comments:

Carole said...

I've been thinking about this a lot since I heard Bob Farr speak at CMU last week.

BTW, it was good to see you there, Rick. :)

Here's what I keep mulling: Where is God in all this? Is it just implicit that the Pastor's vision will follow God's? Why not say so? I think that when we get off track, most of the time it's because we try to make our churches all about us, instead of all about Him.

Discerning God's will for our lives and the church isn't easy, and doesn't come automatically. Yet starting this list with the Pastor (instead of God) seems to assume that part will just happen.

What do you think?

Deb said...

Well, in a perfect world, one's Pastor would be listening to God, reading His Word, and want to see God move in his congergation.

You can have a strong laity but people still look to the Pastor for leadership. If he/she has no vision and the church is dying , I say you are on a sinking ship.

I guess most of the sheep just asume that all Pastors "are in touch" with the Lord as they are sinking and gasping for air.

I have to agree "It all starts with the Pastor" for better or for worst.

Carole said...

Exactly Deb.

But to paraphrase those old EF Hutton commercials--when Bob Farr speaks, many of our UMC pastors listen.

So if there's anyone who can encourage them to be diligent about spending time in prayer and the Word, and really work on discerning God's will, it is probably Bob Farr. And that's why I'd love to see him focus on that a bit more in his remarks. Maybe even start there for emphasis.

Because none of us wants to be on that a sinking ship you mentioned.

Rick said...

Carole, Deb,

You bring up good points. We need to be intentional in our leadership process. At the SOLM last year we talked of the "missional" church wrapped in the commandment, compassion and commission of Jesus Christ and undergirded with the Five Practices. I would hope that the Spirit would be deeply involved at each step. But, not always I'm afraid. We need to be intentionally "missional." Thank you for your wisdom!