Church Leadership: Vision, Team, Culture, Integrity, Revised Edition

By Lovett H. Weems JR.

Much has changed since the first edition of Lovett Weems’s seminal work Church Leadership appeared in 1993. In that time a substantial literature about leading the congregation has appeared, written from a broad variety of perspectives. But in some ways, little has changed in that time. The need for leadership in the church—defined as discovering the faithful future into which God is calling the congregation, and walking with the congregation into that future—is just as pressing as it ever was. And for that reason, the need for clear, insightful thinking about leadership is just as great as it ever was.

In this revised edition, Weems draws on the best new ideas and research in organizational leadership, yet always with his trademark theological grounding foremost in mind. Anyone who guides the life of a congregation, be they clergy or laity, will find Church Leadership the indispensable tool with which to follow their calling to be a church leader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426732010

Lovett H. Weems JR.

Lovett H. Weems Jr. is distinguished professor of church leadership and director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at WesleyTheological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He came to this position in 2003 after 18 years as president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. A native of Mississippi, Dr. Weems is a graduate of Millsaps College; Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; and Wesley Theological Seminary. The author of several books published by Abingdon Press, his most recent includes Bearing Fruit: Ministry with Real Results (with Tom Berlin) and a revised edition of his classic, Church Leadership: Vision, Team, Culture, and Integrity. He co-edits the online newsletter Leading Ideas, available free at ChurchLeadership.com.

Book preview

CHURCH LEADERSHIP

CHURCH

LEADERSHIP

REVISED EDITION

Vision, Team, Culture,

and Integrity

LOVETT H. WEEMS, JR.

ABINGDON PRESS

Nashville

CHURCH LEADERSHIP

VISION, TEAM, CULTURE, AND INTEGRITY

Copyright © 1993, 2010 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to permissions@abingdon press.com.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weems, Lovett H. (Lovett Hayes)

Church leadership : vision, team, culture, and integrity / Lovett H. Weems. — Rev. ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-1-4267-0302-7 (binding: pbk. / trade pbk., adhesive perfect : alk. paper) 1. Christian leadership. I. Title.

BV652.1.W44 2010

262.1—dc22

2009036667

Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James or Authorized Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are from The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked JB are from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by Permission.

Scripture quotations from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To those who have dedicated their lives to serve God

through the church and who are seeking always to learn

more about being faithful and fruitful leaders

CONTENTS

Foreword Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Preface to Revised Edition: Evolving Thinking about Leadership in the Church

Introduction: Leadership as a Channel of God's Grace

Vision: Discern and Articulate a Shared Vision

Team: Build the Team Without Whom the Vision Cannot Become a Reality

Culture: Embody the Vision Throughout the Church's Culture

Integrity: Ensure the Leader and Church Are Aligned with the Vision

Conclusion: Leadership as a Gift of God

Notes

FOREWORD

Is there a single institution today that is not preoccupied with revitalization and renewal? Is there an organization that does not need leaders who can cope with and produce change?

Throughout the world, institutions of all kinds face almost unprecedented pressures for change—whether governments, businesses, hospitals, schools, or churches. Their citizens or customers or clients or congregations are less automatically loyal, less willing to accept what is offered or do what they are told without question, and more demanding of a voice in decisions. Indeed, because institutions have sometimes promised more than they can deliver, their very credibility is at stake.

Thus, institutions in every sector are worrying about their futures, rethinking their ways of working, and seeking leaders who can make a difference.

The task of leadership is change. Leaders inspire others to their best efforts in order to do better, to attain higher purposes. Leaders are not satisfied with the status quo. They are not satisfied with maintaining things as they are. They are idealists who believe that things can be better, utopians who dream of perfection. Leaders, therefore, must be change masters. They must understand how to create and guide innovation.

Change masters journey through three stages. First, they formulate a vision that gives direction to people's hopes and desires. Imagination and courage are essential. To inspire people to seek a new destination requires a picture of what is possible, and creating that picture is an act of imagination. Leaders have to challenge conventional wisdom and stretch their own thinking to go beyond the limits of what already is to imagine what could be.

But finding a better way can seem impossible to people who have never thought of themselves as capable of doing things differently. All innovations, however wonderful in retrospect, sound like impossible dreams at first. The visions that leaders create must also give people the faith and confidence that the dream is attainable—by them. Leaders, therefore, are cheerleaders who applaud people's capabilities, who show people that they are competent.

Next, change masters need the power to advance their idea by selling people, involving people, influencing people to invest their own time, energy, and resources in realizing the vision. What makes leaders effective is their ability to mobilize a set of backers and supporters who also believe in the vision. Coalitions like this are especially important for the work of change. Change requires resources and expertise above and beyond what is necessary for the status quo. It meets with inevitable resistance, requiring champions who can advocate the vision and satisfy critics.

Coalition building not only attracts needed power to a new effort, but it also helps guarantee success. Once others are brought in and contribute their money or support to a project, they also have a stake in making it work. Their egos and reputations are now on the line. And, of course, very few ideas are implemented by one person alone. The efforts of many people are necessary to carry out the specific tasks that must be done if a vision is to be realized.

Finally, change masters must maintain the momentum, keeping faith and hope alive during the hard and sometimes frustrating work of execution and implementation. Many things inevitably go wrong in the course of making changes or leading people in a new direction. Or the journey toward the destination simply takes longer than imagined, and people get weary from the work. In my research on innovation, I discovered a basic truth of leadership, if not of life: Everything looks like a failure in the middle.

If leaders give up when they hit the first obstacle to the dream, then by definition all the effort they have put in has brought nothing. But if they persist and persevere—learning from mistakes, redirecting effort where necessary, urging people onward, celebrating minor victories along the way—then they are likely to succeed. Leadership is an act of commitment. Leaders should not start things that they are not willing to complete. And they must stay personally involved—while turning over more and more of the power to act to the larger group of people they have involved.

Lovett Weems's interactive approach to leadership recognizes the importance of the relationship between leaders and followers. Leadership does not exist within a person; it resides in the relationship between persons. Leaders are defined by the power their followers lend them. Followers, in turn, are empowered by leaders to do more than they ever imagined.

Dr. Weems has provided an invaluable guide to leadership in the church, one well suited to produce more change masters. But do churches need change masters, some wonder? Some people do not want religious institutions to change. They equate the religious mission of promulgating values rooted in long historical traditions with the concrete buildings, organization charts, and practices invented by previous generations.

Dr. Weems thinks the distinction between continuity and change is a false one. He writes,

The only way to preserve values over time is to be involved continuously in renewal and change, thus finding ever fresh expressions for those values. When any organization decides it will seek to save its life by building walls against change, that organization is destined to lose its life, its vitality.

This is a powerful message. The best way for institutions to endure and prosper is to encourage leaders who will build on the past by envisioning an even better future.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where she specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. Professor Kanter was named one of the 50 most powerful women in the world (Times of London), and her book The Change Masters was named one of the most influential business books of the twentieth century (Financial Times).

PREFACE

EVOLVING THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP

IN THE CHURCH

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

1 Peter 4:10

From its beginning, the church has recognized its need for leadership. The definition of that leadership, however, has often been a source of confusion if not conflict. Witness the writings that have become our scriptures—with their differing images of leaders and their roles. In the centuries that have followed, theologians and biblical scholars, pastors and teachers, have carried on the task of defining church leadership. And the challenge continues.

The first edition of Church Leadership: Vision, Team, Culture, and Integrity was published in 1993. Since that time, much about church leadership has changed, and the focus on leadership as a field of study has expanded widely. But, unfortunately, some things have not changed.

The Leadership Dilemma

Part of the dilemma in the church continues to come from our sharing the general lack of visionary leadership in the larger culture. The historian James MacGregor Burns in his pivotal book Leadership says, One of the most universal cravings of our time is a hunger for compelling and creative leadership.¹ In the years following Burns's sobering statement, other thoughtful leaders have expressed despair about our dilemma. Robert K. Greenleaf, whose work on the concept of servant leadership has been extremely helpful for many people, said starkly, The leadership crisis of our time is without precedent.²

Cornel West spoke of the

paucity of courageous leadership. . . . The major challenge is the need to generate new leadership. . . . We need leaders . . . who can situate themselves within a larger historical narrative of this country and world, who can grasp the complex dynamics of our peoplehood and imagine a future grounded in the best of our past, yet attuned to the frightening obstacles that now perplex us.³

Recently, I heard a young woman say that, in her area of work, others looked with suspicion upon her striving for excellence. Did she think she was somehow better than the rest of us? That sounds much like what the educator and public servant John W. Gardner spoke about years ago when he described an antileadership vaccine in America. We are immunizing a high proportion of our most gifted young people, he said, against any tendencies to leadership.⁴

This national decline of effective leadership is mirrored in the malaise and decline of many congregations and denominations in the last generation. Many people do not find in their churches a compelling and appealing mission and vision. This is a lack of leadership. It means that we are not engaging our identity, the people, and our environment.

The Leadership Opportunity

Thus, it is in such a difficult and challenging environment that we ask pastors and other church leaders to exercise visionary leadership. The problems faced today are what Ronald Heifetz calls adaptive challenges, in which the problem or the solution is uncertain or both are uncertain.⁵ Those writing about leadership often use language of paradox and ambiguity to capture how difficult the leadership challenge is now. But has that not always been so in the church? In a recent book, church historian Brooks Holifield reminds us that clergy have always argued that the source of their vocational authority is ultimately Christ, to whom all fidelity is due. At the same time, Christian clergy have inherited a gospel that is both world denying and world affirming. The result is that clergy embody an irreducibly paradoxical relation to American culture.⁶

Nevertheless, pastors are leaders, in partnership with laity called to church leadership; and the task of leaders is to lead. The importance of the calling by the church to leadership takes on even greater significance in difficult times. The best of message, opportunity, resources, facilities, and people will count for little if leadership falters and is ineffective. There is a hunger for a compelling message and commitment to an essential mission.

In his novel Light in August, William Faulkner wrote: That which is destroying the church is not the outward groping of those within it or the inward groping of those without, but the professionals who control it and who have removed the bells from its steeples. Many are listening for their church leaders to ring out a clear and sure message of faith and hope.

Leadership is, in essence, a ministry of stewardship. It is through the proper stewardship of purpose, time, resources, opportunities, challenges, and energies of the people of God that vital ministry and mission take place. Leaders are indeed called to be good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If you are a leader, exert yourself to lead.

Romans 12:8b NEB

Discovering Leadership

Leadership is needed for Christian communities as for other human communities, but not necessarily leadership in a fixed hierarchical model. Churches are likely to grow toward partnership among their members when there is a dynamic of leadership behavior among a variety of people and not just one leader.

Letty M. Russell, The Future of Partnership

After many years as a pastor, I became a seminary president in 1985. While I had previously provided pastoral leadership in congregations, I now had the responsibility to see that others were prepared for such leadership. In those days, I was not using the language of leadership. My focus on leadership emerged from experiences during my first two years as a seminary president.

Knowing as a president that I needed to listen before speaking, I began to have conversations with many people. I met with clergy and denominational leaders, but most of the conversations were with groups