There are many factors that influence Christian education programming in congregations. Two of those factors are staff leadership and congregational size. While we may desire otherwise the fact is that congregations are highly dependent on program staff for leadership, development, and effectiveness for educational programs. And often, educational program leaders are the last staff hired (the typical order of staff hires are: pastor, musician, part-time youth/children staff, full-time youth/children staff, then, educator). Which means that any educator who is the first full-time program staff person in a congregation likely has to deal with years of neglect in the area of church-wide educational programming.

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A reader on Margaret Marcuson’s blog, The Leadership Circle blog, asked a good question that comes up every now and again. He asked about the difference between having a will and willfulness. It’s a point of misunderstanding I hear now and again, namely, that having a will is equivalent to willfulness, or, that because “willfulness is bad” then “will,” or exhibiting that one has a will, is bad.

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I was gratified to read a fine article by Margaret “Meg” Hess in the current issue of the Christian Century magazine. Meg is a participant in the Leadership in Ministry Workshops (LIM) and has written a couple of articles for our LIM newsletter.

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A colleague is making a change in his church staff position. He’s struggling with coming up with a new ministry job title. He says, “While I realize the main thing is how one functions, job titles are suggestive and important.”

He’s moving from a generalist position as Minister of Christian Formation, to a more focused ministry with adults. Here are some titles he’s considering.

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Over the past several months I’ve talked with various church staff about some money issues. One interesting aspect of these conversations is how they parallel. All of them involved a variation on: (1) a church member wanting to give money to, or fund, the staff person’s ministry area, (2) the offer of a personal gift of money to the staff member in appreciation, and (3) observations or questions about how different staff persons in the same church handle these situations.

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I recently read a post at Learnings at Leadership Network, by Warren Bird, Ph.D., Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation. This was posted on May 16, 2008 in Church Visits.

Warren wrote, “Unfortunately, too many churches exist where the senior pastor is a tremendous leader but an even bigger bottleneck. In such churches nothing of importance can happen unless the senior pastor is at the hub of it. Neither long-term volunteers, nor senior staff, feel empowered to take initiative on anything major. They feel underutilized – and they are.

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I’ve been working with a couple of organizations that are “stuck” but motivated enough to get moving toward becoming “healthier.” As I witness the process of working with the leaders and employees of both organizations I’m reminded of some fundamental truths about systems. First, while motivation is a necessary component for bringing about change, it’s not sufficient. For example, if the motivation is to simply ease acute anxiety or pain a system will settle on pragmatic “instant” solutions that will ease the symptoms.

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Roy Phillip’s Letting Go (Herndon, Virginia: The Alban Institute, 1999) starts with the assertion that ministers need to “let go” of their need to control every aspect of their congregation, and to let the members take charge. Phillips talks about how bringing people into congregations can be seen as a five-step process: inviting people, welcoming them, orienting them, helping them join, and then assimilating them into the congregation. He says that this last step is where most congregations fail. In order for congregations to become transformed for ministry, Phillips proposes four major changes, each to which he dedicates a chapter.

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Opening this “seed catalog,” as author Bob Dale calls his book on organic church leadership (Seeds for the Future: Growing Organic Leaders for Living Churches. St. Louis, MO: Lake Hickory Resources, 2005), you are struck almost immediately by central themes of growth, cultivation, and numerous agricultural metaphors integral to this work. Dale takes the challenges of congregational leadership and lays out a path that pushes readers to evaluate themselves as church leaders and their church as faith communities.

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Elections can provide endless entertainment, if you’re into that sort of thing. But there’s enough drama at all levels to provide a source of amusement for most people, not the least of which is to watch ideologues in action. Liberals and conservatives (political and religious) tend to provide the steadiest source of amusement and irk, if only because both camps seem to take themselves so seriously. Despite the content of their messages, they become two sides of the same coin.

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