Transforming Church

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.1

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.

This is the concluding part of this article. We began in Part One with a look at leading in the new age. Part Two considered the first two transformational postures in leading. Part Three looked at the other two postures in leading, and the fourth part here, the conclusion and outcomes. Included as a bonus is also Nathan's full bibliography.
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1 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

And as a bonus: The 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: Harper San Francisco, 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
Materials specified: Table of Contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip055/2004030681.html.
Boyatzis, Richard E. Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion, ed. Annie McKee. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
Brueggemann, Walter. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living in a Three-Storied Universe. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.
Collins, James C. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. 1st ed. New York, NY: Harper Business, 2001.
________. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer : A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't, ed. James C. Good to great Collins. [Boulder, CO: J. Collins], 2005.
Dawn, Marva J. The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call, ed. Eugene H. Peterson and Peter Santucci. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Vancouver: W.B. Eerdmans; Regent College Pub., 2000.
Friedman, Edwin H. Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue. New York :: Guilford Press, 1985.
________. Friedman's Fables: Guilford Press, 1990. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html
Materials specified: Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/guilford051/90047336.html.
Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 1st Anchor Books ed. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.
Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Goleman, Daniel. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, ed. Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
Heifetz, Ronald A. Linsky Martin. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
Horton, H. Robert, Laurence A. Moran, Raymond S. Ochs, J. David Rawn, and K. Gray Scrimgeour, Principles of Biochemistry, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996) 119.
Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Lull, Timothy F. On Being Lutheran: Reflections on Church, Theology, and Faith Lutheran voices series; Variation: Lutheran voices: Augsburg Fortress, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html
Materials specified: Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0519/2005027514.html.
Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier. Herndon, VA: Alban, 2001.
New Revised Standard Version Bible. Nashville: World Publishing, 1989.
Senge, Peter M., and Society for Organizational Learning. Presence : Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: SoL, 2004.
Steinke, Peter L. Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times : Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What: Alban Institute, 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html
Materials specified: Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip074/2006036119.html.
Stevens, R. Paul. The Equipping Pastor: A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership, ed. Phil Dr Collins. [Washington, DC]: Alban Institute, 1993.
Sweet, Leonard I. Summoned to Lead. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.
Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952.
Willimon, William H. Calling & Character: Virtues of the Ordained Life Calling and Character. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000.
________. Pastor: A Reader for Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
________. Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Winseman, Albert L. Growing and Engaged Church: How to Stop “Doing Church” and Start BEING the Church. New York: Gallup Press, 2007.
Zumdahl, Steven S. Chemistry, 3rd ed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993.