Church leadership

Review: The Loneliness Epidemic

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The Loneliness Epidemic, Susan Mettes (Foreword by David Kinnaman). Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021.

Summary: A study of the prevalence of loneliness in America, misconceptions about loneliness, and steps leaders and individuals in the church can take to address loneliness.

Loneliness is epidemic in America. Over half the population feel lonely at least once a week and fourteen percent all the time. Forty-five percent describe their feelings of loneliness as somewhere between intense and unbearable. Loneliness is linked to depression and suicide and affects not only mental but physical well-being. It contributes to heart disease, weakened immunity, stress, sleep disorders, and dementia.

Susan Mettes introduces us to this data, much of it drawn from Barna Research. She offers this definition of loneliness: “the distress someone feels when their social connections don’t meet their need for emotional intimacy.” She describes two kinds of loneliness. One is that for a buddy, and almost any buddy whose company we enjoy will do. The other is our longing for intimacy, not just sexually, but with people we can be our truest selves with.

One of the most fascinating parts of her study were the ways in which it punctured our stereotypes. We often think of the old as lonely, but actually, aside from the bereaved or disabled, young adults are the loneliest. The emphasis on deferring marriage to focus on education and career may contribute. We think the solution to loneliness is finding true love. While marriage can help, the quality of our relationships, single or married is most important and cultivating community that includes singles is vital. We need both privacy and belonging. Loneliness and the lack of privacy actually rise together. It is insecurity, which may have to do with status as well as self-talk, rather than poor social skills that contributes to loneliness.

Social media can supplement in-person relationships but can also make people jealous and lonely if it becomes a replacement for those relationships. Contrary to the belief that church makes people less lonely, Christians are generally as lonely as non-Christians (and may under-report due to stigma). Yet the pandemic also revealed a striking finding: that practicing Christians exhibited a resilience against loneliness when it was not possible to meet in person.

The third part of the book looks at what leaders may do to address loneliness. One is to foster belonging. One key idea here is that we often fail to follow up with those we meet to do something of mutual interest together. Another is closeness, which may be nurtured as we practice hospitality, appropriate physical touch, and neighborliness. We can also help by setting real-world norms and expectations including the reality that we all experience loneliness (even Jesus) as well as the steps that help address this, like inviting people over while puncturing unrealistic, social-media fed expectations about “living my best life now.” At several points, Mettes challenges leaders to model a healthy relationship with devices, and ways we keep them from getting in the way of people.

This is an important book for churches thinking about the renewal of community, even as some are walking away from relationships. Authentic hospitality, enjoying shared interests together, even appropriate hugs never go out of style. Some of us may have gotten rusty in our relationship skills and coaching in community may help us get out of our rusty ruts. Creating a culture that includes singles and the bereaved makes sense when marriage is delayed, and the pandemic has taken so many. Perhaps it is time to think about how we may foster a community epidemic in a lonely, hostile, and divided nation.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Discovering Biblical Equality (Third Edition)

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Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural & Practical Perspectives (Third Edition), Editors: Ronald W. Pierce and Cynthia Long Westfall, Associate editor: Christa L. McKirland. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: A compendium of scholarly essays addressing gender differences in marriage and the church supporting an egalitarian perspective.

One of the divides among evangelical churches is over the question of the roles of women and men in the home and the church. One group would contend that the Bible teaches distinctive roles for women and men, teaching the subordination of women to the headship of men in marriage, and that men alone may lead and teach in the church, except in the case of ministry with women or children. This position has been variously termed traditional, hierarchical or most popularly, complementarian. It is represented by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). The other group would maintain that the Bible teaches mutual love and service of husband and wife in marriage and open all roles in ministry to both men and women on the basis of gift rather than gender. This position is most often referred to as biblical equality or egalitarian, and as evangelical feminism by its opponents. This position is most publicly represented by Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) International.

Each has published compendia of scholarly articles serving as resources in support of their respective positions. CBMW’s publication is Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, now in a revised edition. Discovering Biblical Equality represents the scholars who would identify with CBE International, including Mimi Haddad, its president. It is in its third edition, with Cynthia Long Westfall taking the place of Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, co-editor of the first two editions and an essay contributor, who passed away in 2018. Christa L. McKirland also joined the editor team as an associate editor and contributes one of the most thought provoking articles on gender essentialism.

The work is set up in four sections. It is not meant to be read straight through necessarily, as I did, but to serve as a reference work. For the sake of brevity, I will summarize the content of each section, highlighting essays that particularly caught my attention.

Looking to Scripture: Essays in this section address questions of exegesis of the relevant passages on gender in marriage and the church. I particularly appreciated Aida Besancon-Spencer’s study of Jesus’s treatment of women in the gospels and his affirmation of women as learners, disciples, and laborers alongside men, while also addressing reasons for the male apostles. Lynn Cohick’s study on Ephesians 5:21-33 and Colossians 3:18-19 addresses historical and exegetical concerns and supports the idea of mutual love and submission within marriage. Linda L. Belleville’s exceptionally thorough essay on 1 Timothy 2:11-15 discusses the translation of authentein and contends that Paul is addressing a particular occasion in which the Ephesian women were trying to gain advantage over men by teaching in a domineering fashion, and thus that Paul is not prohibiting all teaching but only that striving for the upper hand.

Thinking it Through: Theological and Logical Perspectives: Christa L. McKirland argues against the gender essentialism of Piper and Grudem that roots maleness and femaleness with distinctiveness of roles in being created in the image of God. She argues that dominion and reflection of the divine presence are not gender dependent, and that genderedness connects us not with the image of God but other creatures. Hence, personhood is not essentially male nor female. That doesn’t mean there are no differences, but these are not essential differences. There are interesting questions this essay raises about gender identity, particularly in cases of intersexuality or gender dysphoria that I would like to see developed further. Kevin Giles offers a helpful summary of the theologically questionable use of hierarchical arguments about the subordination of the Son to support the subordination of women, noting that other complementarians have refuted this position. Finally, the essay by the late Rebecca Merrill Groothuis on “Equal in Being, Unequal in Role” shows the logical fallacies in this view, often invoked by complementarians and reminds us of the fine scholar we lost in her.

Addressing The Issues: Interpretive and Cultural Perspectives: Jeffrey Miller offers a helpful, data-based essay on the impact of gender-accurate translation and how our contemporary translations differ in this regard. Heidi R. Unruh and Ronald J. Sider offer a highly relevant essay on gender equality and the sanctity of life, written pre-Dobbs. They argue for a compassionate, pro-life feminism. They argue for a whole of life approach to being pro-life, and argue for how pro-life and pro-choice advocates may work together to seek the flourishing of women.

Living It Out: Practical Applications: I appreciated Mimi Haddad’s essay of how at the church level, people might be helped to understand biblical equality through: speaking biblical truths in understandable language, emphasizing how mutuality improves marriages, connect this message to core Christian beliefs, model the message, and allow simple, safe ways for people to try out their Christian freedom with regard to gender. Kylie Maddox Pidgeon’s essay on “Complementarianism and Domestic Abuse” makes a powerful case that intended or not, complementarianism creates systemic discrimination, and “implicit and explicit biases that disadvantage women.” Alice P. Mathews concludes this section with an essay titled “Toward Reconciliation.” She calls for honest discussions between those holding competing paradigms with both biblical rigor and courtesy, the paradigms must be explained at many levels, and we need to work at embracing each other across the chasm, centering our relations in the gospel.

My sense is that the “sides” of this discussion operate as echo chambers, each amplifying its own voice and muting the others. Certainly with regard to this book, egalitarians could use this work as just such an echo chamber. Yet this work is important, especially for women in contexts where they receive little encouragement for their gifts or support for their personhood in their marriages. I pray for the days when scholars on both “sides” of this discussion engage with each other rather than writing about each other in separate tomes like this one or the CBMW counterpart. I look forward to the days when what scholars of color are saying is heeded in what has been a predominantly white discussion. I look forward to the day when there is one less instance of the “pervasive interpretive pluralism” that evangelicalism’s critics have observed of us. And I hope this work will serve to promote understanding rather than unfruitful argument.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Leadership, God’s Agency, & Disruptions

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Leadership, God’s Agency, & Disruptions, Mark Lau Branson and Alan J. Roxburgh. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021.

Summary: Argues that “modernity’s wager” has shaped the leadership practices of church leadership, leading to a reliance on technique-driven strategies rather than responding to God’s agency.

Churches in the West are facing powerful forces of disruption, ranging from the pandemic to abuse scandals to disenchantment with political alignments. Many churches are witnessing declining numbers and financial support. We are in an age of the rise of the “Nones.” Suddenly the vision processes and church growth strategies are being turned on their heads.

Mark Lau Branson and Alan Roxburgh propose that what we are seeing is the failure of “Modernity’s Wager,” the bet that we can live well, and even build churches without God. Sure, we don’t say this, but often we believe we are working for God or even without God rather than trusting in and responding to the initiatives of God. They contend that this secular outlook has had a corrosive influence on church leadership.

They advocate for a different kind of leadership premised on God’s agency–indeed that the very disruptions we face may be invitations to step into and join what God is doing. Leadership is standing in the “space between” where we do not control but discern the ways of the Spirit of God.

They consider four biblical sources as case studies in this “space between” leadership in disruption. Jeremiah considers the disruption of exile and the focus on the local rather than the wished for return.. Matthew, writing to a Syrian community after the fall of the temple, sets forward action-learning communities with the teaching of Jesus. Acts models improvisational leadership. Ephesians confronts the disruption of Artemis worship and to live under kingdom authority amid empire.

This kind of leadership is the kind of making the path as one walks. It means finding and enlisting partners to work with, perhaps with limit scope experiments in one’s neighborhood. Such leaders start with where and who people are.

This is a book on leadership perspective rather than methods. In fact, it is an indictment of methods divorced from reliance upon the agency of God in our situations. So the book does not offer a program so much as a paradigm shift for leaders. Readers might feel this work is long on theory and short on practice. That is because the authors are seeking to shift the “social imaginary” that shapes contemporary church leadership. They want to encourage new habits and practices and a different way of conceiving of leadership.

This feels like the message Eugene Peterson tried to convey through his books. What Branson and Roxburgh are trying to do is call people back to the real work of pastors. The question is whether our church leaders are willing to give up on modernity’s wager for God’s agency. Or more simply, they are pressing us with the question, “do we really believe in God?”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Wisdom From Babylon

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Wisdom From Babylon: Leadership for the Church in a Secular Age, Gordon T. Smith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: Considers what it means to live in a secular age, different ways of responding as churches, what may learned from sources ancient and modern, and the competencies of church leadership we need.

I grew up thinking that secular was the opposite of Christian and therefore must be bad. Gordon T. Smith, in this work offers a much more nuanced view. He begins by looking at the secular through historic, sociological and philosophical lenses. What he traces is a transition from Christianity as a “public square” faith to a public square that does not privilege any faith, where religious expression is privately allowed but must publicly tolerate all other ideas, and where in fact, we are all have become secular to some greater or lesser extent. How then is a vibrant Christianity which constructively engages its culture to survive? And what kind of leadership is needed within our churches in such a context. It is to this that Smith addresses himself in this work.

He begins with four responses that might be observed:

  1. The “go along to get along” response.
  2. The monastic response.
  3. The culture wars response.
  4. The response of “faithful presence.”

There are things to be said and critiques to be made for each and Smith will argue that each, for its problems, also has elements which might be drawn upon in living in a secular age as a disestablished churched. But first, he considers several sources from which the church may draw wisdom.

The first is the scriptures of exile, from which the book draws its title. Babylon teaches us to remember God’s glory, our identity as his people, and to hope amid lament. He invites us to learn from Ambrose and Augustine, two church fathers writing amid Rome’s decline. These teach us how to engage in the public square, how to form distinctive communities of Christians, and to embrace a trinitarian spirituality. Smith then turns to historic minority churches: how they related to other religions, affirming the uniqueness of Christianity in ways that speak to cultural aspirations. We learn about political witness without privilege, and the ever present reality of suffering for that witness. Then Smith turns to three recent European Christians who engaged European secularity: Bonhoeffer with religionless Christianity, Ellul, who was keenly aware of the discontinuities between the secular order and the kingdom, and Newbigin, who affirmed the church as a powerful sign of the kingdom. We may bemoan the loss of Christendom, but Smith sees fresh opportunity for the gospel in its true and powerful nature to be revealed through the church.

He contends that for this to take place, the church needs to be a liturgical, a catechetical, and missional body and considers what kind of leadership this requires. Liturgical leadership is marked by theological integrity; real encounter with the risen Christ through word, song, and sacrament; hope amid lament; and valuing liturgical art and space. Catechetical leadership embraces the importance of careful instruction of believers in the faith. Missional leadership calls for preaching that speaks to Monday mornings, to political and civic engagement, and peacemaking and conflict resolution. Smith addresses three further tasks of such leadership in the concluding chapters. They must be ecumenical in character, affirming the unity of the whole church rather than fostering divisions. They must be people who cultivate spiritual practices of interiority, leading from within, able to be present to others without distraction. And they must wrap all this in hospitality.

In a time where many seem to be trying to hang on to what they once securely held that seems to be slipping from their grasp, Smith invites us to accept our status as exiles in a secular age. He reminds us of the rich heritage from biblical forebears to recent contemporaries who have recognized the opportunities of exiles. His summaries of their teaching invite us to delve more deeply and listen at their feet and he offers an essential reading list. His prescriptions for leadership have an ancient-future character, mixing liturgy and catechesis with preaching for Monday and for civic engagement–very different from the strategist-celebrity model that has dominated church leadership discussions. What I most appreciated here was the combination of urgency and hope calling upon us both to glimpse the dangers, and to see the possibilities of our secular age.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Canoeing the Mountains

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Canoeing the Mountains.jpg

Canoeing the Mountains, Tod Bolsinger. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press – Praxis, 2015.

Summary: Using the story of Lewis and Clark, Bolsinger explores the kind of leadership needed in the uncharted territory of our rapidly changing cultural landscape.

“Seminary didn’t train me for this.” “Our church is dying and I have no clue what to do.” Over and over, Tod Bolsinger encountered these statements in his consulting work. Pastors are trained in teaching, liturgics, and pastoral care, and often, those tools just don’t seem enough in our changing world. Bolsinger likens this to the moment Lewis and Clark climbed the Lemhi Pass, having canoed up the Missouri River, and instead of expecting to find a river on the other side of the mountain that would carry them to the Pacific, they found…mountains. The needed to exchange canoes for horses, and adapt to an “off the map” situation. In this book, Bolsinger considers the adaptive leadership of Lewis and Clark, and applies it to Christian leaders often tempted to try to “canoe the mountains,” because they don’t know any other way to lead. Often, they may be the greatest obstacle to transformative change in their churches or organizations. The choice they face is between adventure and organizational death.  All of this is part of understanding the “uncharted territory” that calls for a new kind of leadership.

Part Two makes the contention that there are critical “on the map” skills that leaders must demonstrate in order for people to follow them “off the map.” These include competence and credibility in stewarding Scripture and tradition, souls and communities, and teams and tasks. It means leadership that develops “relational congruence” in which one builds trust by showing the ability to be the same person with the same values in every relationship. And it means clarity and embodiment of the core values one hopes to see manifest in the church.

“Leading off the Map” is the focus of Part Three and critical to this is the adaptive capacity of the leader. Leaders must be able to look at systems rather than react to symptoms, to calmly face loss and the challenge of the unknown, leading a learning process expressed in asking questions rather than giving answers. Sometimes rather than doing something, it first means standing still…and then doing something through a process of observation, interpretation, and intervention. In the process, understanding the DNA of the church and not violating that is critical. Interventions should start out modesty and playfully–lots of experiments, and resistance can be expected. In facing resistance, leaders must be absolutely clear and convicted about the mission, which for Bolsinger, “trumps all” and ready to press into mission even when no one else is.

Part Four goes deeper into the issue of “Relationships and Resistance.” Leaders cultivate relationships with six groups of people:

  1. Allies, aligned and in agreement with the mission.
  2. Confidants, who are outside the organization and can give honest feedback.
  3. Opponents who are not enemies but have a different perspective that must be heard and engaged.
  4. Senior authorities, those above one with whom connection and relationship are critical to support one through a change process. Think of Jefferson’s role with Lewis and Clark.
  5. Casualties, those who stand to lose in a change process for whom leaders assume responsibility.
  6. Dissenters who ask the tough questions that need to be asked and responded to without defensiveness because it is not about the leader but the mission.

The real challenge though is recognizing and persisting through sabotage, which Bolsinger believes can be expected when leading in uncharted territory. That was an eye-opener.

Finally, in Part Five, Bolsinger writes about the “transformation” that occurs with adaptive leadership. He observes the leadership transformation in the Lewis and Clark party, where the two share equally in command, where a woman, Sacajawea, leads, where both she and a slave vote, and a soldier is released from regular duty for discovery–long before such practices would be widely accepted in the culture. Bolsinger proposes that just as the most significant blockage may be the leader, so also, the most important transformation to occur in an adaptive leadership process is in the leader.

This seems to me to be a critically important book for leadership teams and pastors. So often our approach when things are not working is simply to double down and try harder, which, as someone has pointed out, is a definition of insanity. The willingness to leave the canoes behind, and learn new skills, to get up on the balcony, and then try new interventions rooted in careful observation and interpretation and not reaction, and to stay relentlessly focused on mission separated Lewis and Clark from other explorers.

I would have liked to see this leadership model rooted in scripture. Lewis and Clark certainly were singular leaders, and the book invokes good leadership theory. I can’t help but wonder what one might draw from the leadership of Moses, of David, of Jesus, and of Paul, each who in some sense led in uncharted territory. The conflict situation of Acts 6 strikes me as a marvelous example of a system that wasn’t working, and of leadership that exhibited relational, and spiritual competence linked to clear missional focus while adapting to problems associated with expansion, resulting in a transformed, rapidly growing church and an enlarged and diversified leadership nucleus.

Nevertheless, there is much of profit here. If leaders can simply stop and realize they are trying to “canoe the mountains” that is probably worth the price of admission. To move from a speaking to a collaborating ministry that leads, not with answers, but is open to questions and learning is an important leadership transformation. It could make all the difference between catalyzing the giftedness within our organizations and churches, and losing it.