DBMIM Ezine, December 15, 2011

-- When the Adversary Can't Get in the Front Door, He'll Use the Back, by Teena Stewart.

-- Book Review, "Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit , by Lovett Weems, reviewed by Tom Hanover.

Peter was working through some leadership challenges at Roosevelt Street Church and feeling that the resistance was growing against his attempts to bring positive growth to the church. (This is a sequel to a previous article published in theJuly 1 issue).

Not wanting to slide into the pit of despair and merely feel sorry for himself, nor wanting to fall into the blame and shame game with his parishioners; Peter called for help. Sarah was one of his mentors in his earlier years. Even though she was older and more experienced, Peter had always been impressed with her leadership savvy. She was always reading, learning, and experimenting with new insights on ministry leadership.

In the first call Peter renewed the conversation with Sarah. She was able to affirm that Peter was not a failure nor was his leadership at Roosevelt Street Church a mistake. They agreed to continue talking on a regular basis.

It wasn’t until the second and third phone call that some noticeable gaps began to emerge in Peter’s mind. Effective leadership calls for the focus of power at strategic points to align resources with the accomplishment of a mutual vision. Peter had always thought of power in human relationships as a negative abuse. But Sarah helped him realize that any influence for the good required power. The issue is how power is used.

There were two sources of power Peter had underestimated, if not overlooked altogether. The first source of power we will unpack in this article. The second source will come in the next column.

In today’s culture information is power. People might think a muscle bound athlete is powerful if he can push a car up a hill. But even the frailest and smallest person can be more powerful, if they know how to turn on the key and drive the car up the hill.

The information Peter had not yet fully utilized fell into three areas. The first area is generally available and usually overestimated in its influence. It is the technical information.

Peter had been to school. He had learned how to construct a sermon and how to plan a worship service. He had taken courses on counseling and waded through the writings of some of the deepest of theologians. In fact, Peter had received glowing evaluations of his academic work.

This sort of information is important. The technical aspects of functioning in ministry are needed. Unfortunately, it is only a part of the information power one needs to lead ministry effectively.

A second source of information is self-understanding. Leaders are not like mechanical pieces that can easily be interchanged in any system.

When the brakes on a car begin to squeal, the mechanic will take out the old brake shoes and replace them with another pair of brake shoes. There are a few options such as choosing more expensive ceramic shoes as opposed to the standard carbon steel. The mechanic will need to select the right size for the wheel, but that is about it. There are no color selections or choices of musical pitch when the brakes begin to squeal. It is just a mechanical part.

Leaders are unique and individual persons. No two leaders are exactly alike. Even very effective leaders can be quite different from each other.

For years, leadership studies tried to identify the unique traits and characteristics unique to effective leaders. There are some values that are common among dynamic leaders such as honesty, authenticity, and trustworthy. These, however, are regarded more as behaviors than personality traits.

What is most significant is that a leader knows himself/herself. It is not an issue of having the right mix, but bringing forward the strengths and gifts that are most useful in any given situation.

Sarah referred Peter to some websites where he could do some self-assessment. Then they talked about what Peter learned about himself. These were not dramatic discoveries for Peter, but a helpful reminder to examine what gifts and strengths were most useful at different times and places. Any strength used at the wrong time or in the wrong place becomes a weakness.

The third source of information is knowledge about the context. Peter was new to Roosevelt Street. While Peter could study web sites and read newspapers about the community, he still had not tapped the reservoir of experience that many of his church people carried with them when they walked into the church. It was this reservoir that often shaped and formed their attitudes toward the ideas that Peter wanted to propose.

It was not that Peter had to start wearing a tie again, but that he needed to understand what it meant to the people he met. Peter discovered it was to his advantage to polish his shoes once in awhile. His dress was not about his making a statement about himself, as much as it was communicating his respect, esteem, or accessibility to the people he would meet.

It went deeper than his dress. Peter began to understand why certain pictures hung on certain walls and why specific Sundays had specific traditions. It was not that those could not be changed, but Peter had to address the underlying meanings behind those traditions before healthy growth could begin.

There is a second important source of power. We’ll talk about it in the next issue.

Tom Hanover is Advertising and Promo Director of MIM ezine. He has served in a variety of pastoral leadership roles for more than 30 years, including seven as a District Superintendent supervising the ministries of more than 100 pastors and churches in southern Ohio. He is currently Senior Pastor of Sulphur Grove UMC, a multisite ministry in Dayton. He has a BA (cum laude) from Taylor University, and the MDIV and DMIN degrees from United Theological Seminary in Dayton. You can contact Tom at hanover@dbmim.net.

When the Adversary Can't Get in the Front Door, He'll Use the Back
by Teena M. Stewart

Have you ever noticed how it's often the little things that go wrong and they can drag you down into the pit? I don't necessarily believe that the Evil One causes every bad thing to happen. Nor do I believe he's hiding around every corner. But I do know he doesn't like it when he sees us working hard to live out Christ's principles. And he especially hates it when we teach others to pass on his love.
       If he sees us gaining ground, he'll do what it takes shake our footing. If he can't walk through the front door, he'll take the sneaky approach and use the back one.
       We experienced literal manifestation of this at Java Journey this past week. On Saturday morning, Meena, one of our volunteers entered through the front door to find the back door ajar. A look at the battered cash register told her someone had broken in and had attempted unsuccessfully to get into our cash drawer. The money was still in the drawers, but the cash register base was mangled. A further search revealed the culprit had made off with about a hundred dollars in change from our office.
       The break-in came just a week after we'd received news that one of our primary workers was leaving for another position. This meant we'd be short twenty hours a week. Since we are in no position to pay workers or ourselves, Jeff was going to have to fill those hours. Add to that the fact that the fundraiser we'd just held hoping to raise thousands, only produced a few hundred dollars. And then the break-in, which meant paying for repairs and insurance deductibles when we were just squeaking by in making the rent.
       As Jeff and I were on the way over to the store after Meena's call, Matthew 6:19 kept playing through my head. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." It was only money, I thought to myself. As we met with the police and several patrons came in for their daily drinks and learned what happened, they extended their heart-felt sympathy to us. Despite all of this we experienced a deep peace. I think everyone thought and even we were surprised at our calm demeanor in dealing with this unexpected downturn.
       We've been in ministry for a long time so I guess you could call us seasoned vets. Java's just a new way of doing ministry. We're aware that though we're wrestling with physical concerns, it's the spiritual realm where things matter the most. The adversary can be pretty creative, coming up with ways to discourage and set us back, but we're getting better at recognizing his game.
       It's part of living the Christian life. Jesus told us "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). We've got to trust that no matter what happens next, He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. So, here's a two-fold lesson we learned this week. In the physical world, we're going to look for ways to make Java Journey more secure. In the spiritual realm we're going to be on guard for the thief who loves to sneak through the back door.
---

Teena Stewart is a published author and artist. She and her husband, Jeff, operate Java Journey Christian Coffee Shop Ministry (http://www.javajourney.org.) Her most recent book is Successful Small Groups from Concept to Practice. For more info about Teena visit http://www.teenastewart.com or http://www.serentipitini.com. You are welcome to email questions or comments to smartwords@embarqmail.

by Lovett H. Weems, Jr. (Abingdon Press, 1999, 147 pages, ISBN-13:978-0-687-04692-8)

Weems is the Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership and Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership for Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is a popular speaker and has also authored several books, some of which will likely show up in this space in the near future. The Lewis Center for Church Leadership publishes a web site (www.churchleadership.com) with a free subscription that is well worth signing up for and receiving.

While not all of our readers trace their roots back to John Wesley, many will recognize his influence in English and American Protestantism. Weems’ work reconnects a vision for church leadership to the great spiritual awakening of the Wesleyan movement. And Wesley’s convictions are as timely in the 21^st century as they were in his day.

Several key points become critical teaching, even for today. Weems argues that leadership begins with people. Drawing from John Wesley’s own story, especially his struggle to begin preaching in the open air, Weems explains that leadership begins with the needs and concerns of the people to be led. Leadership that is centered in the vision and concerns of only the leader will generally end fruitless and ineffective.

Weems continues by noting that Wesley was not known for extraordinary oratory. He is remembered by historians as being solemn and simple. His messages were directed to the needs of the people. “Leadership begins with people” (p. 17).

In his study of John Wesley, Weems discerns more in Wesley’s leadership practices that are part of the leadership conversation today. Weems uses the phrase “multiple leadership” to describe Wesley’s eagerness to share the call and responsibilities of leadership with many others. “Leadership exists on behalf of and for the sake of community.” (p. 59). Wesley’s genius of organization was to recruit, train, and deploy others to share the leadership. These persons were often called lay preachers. They mimicked the faith, fruit, and fire of Wesley’s own call to preach the gospel. The Wesleyan movement spread across England, leaped over the pond, and raced across North America as well. This is largely because of the many that shared Wesley’s vision and were invited to participate in its leadership.

Weems also taps the Walter Brueggemann’s work on the exile in the Old Testament. Weems is describing how the early Methodist movement migrated from the center of socially acceptable establishment to the edges of respectability. This is demonstrated in the English church centering their focus on the poor and disadvantaged. On the American side of the ocean, the early Methodist movement pioneered beyond the safety of the cities in the east by moving to the frontier.

Weems would assert that the Methodists did not abandon those ministries in the cities when they pressed towards the boundaries of the frontiers. In the same manner the church is not called to abandon the rural countryside to return to the cities. His point is that the church needs to stand in the center and on the edges of where people are.

One of the areas in which he unpacks this a little more is the area of racism over the last century. While many structures of racism have been dismantled, the spirit of racism is ingrained across our land. Meanwhile, the growing diversity of our American culture does not lessen the antagonism of racism. To the contrary, our society seems more interested in our own social and cultural tribalism, and maintaining our roots of identity and meaning. This serves to accentuate our differences as opposed to finding commonalities across the divisions.

This reviewer wishes Weems would have shared some insights on the social injustices characterized by economics and class as well.

This space usually features newer books – often provided by publishers to help promote book sales. Sometimes, however, I review a book to reflect what I am reading. Weems’ book is a little older than our usual fare, but I am using this book in a class for training pastors in leadership and administration. It is an excellent resource, especially for those who have Wesleyan roots.

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DBMIM December 15, 2011