Center for Pastoral Effectiveness Blog

WHITE HAT
     Frustrated by the ineffectual nature of many organizations, Wheatley sought a way to understand and influence management practices. She became convinced that, “….there is a simpler way to lead organizations, one that requires less effort and produces less stress than the current practices.” (p3) “Leadership and the New Science” is Wheatley’s response to that conviction.
     Wheatley “discovered” the beauty and health found in apparently chaotic systems. Rather than disintegrating into utter chaos, systems will ultimately choose the paths necessary for creation and change. Wheatley is determined to utilize in organizational management principles observed in nature. When viewed as a web or whole rather than in mechanistic parts, organizations are seen self-organizing into life giving of forms. Rather than disintegrating into utter chaos, systems will ultimately choose the paths necessary for creation and change.

YELLOW HAT
     Reading Wheatley’s exploration of our mechanistic world-view puts language to something I have observed for some time. Quoting Zohar, she writes, “‘….things moved because they were fixed and determined; cold silence pervaded the once-teeming heavens. Human beings and their struggles, the whole of consciousness, and life itself were irrelevant to the working of the vast universal machine’ (1990, 18)” (p.30). There are so many people hungry for something more. I believe Wheatley is correct: a mechanistic understanding of the world and its parts will leave human beings feeling empty and cold. The world is ripe for the life-giving message of Christ. However, it will defeat the purpose to try and introduce people to Christ through a closed, mechanistic system!
     Another statement Wheatley makes that puts language to my inner thought is found in her discussion of quantum physics. She writes: “Each of us is a different person in different places. This doesn’t make us inauthentic, it merely makes us quantum.” (p.34) So that’s it!

BLACK HAT
     I was slightly frustrated by the weight Wheatley gave to her discussion of the findings of various sciences, while briefly touching on her assertion that love is the most potent source of power.

GREEN HAT
     I appreciate the need to allow the church to live in the chaos until they, through a natural process of self-organizing, determine their own future. Rather than providing a specific course of action then appoint people in the church to fulfill it, I will allow — even facilitate the group to wrestle with the issues until we determine together the actions to take.

RED HAT
     I enjoyed reading “Leadership and the New Science.” I found myself pausing several times to apply directly to my current setting some of the insights she shares. I wish she had written specifically for organizations dealing primarily with volunteers, however! Although most of her information can be applied to both professional organizations and volunteer groups, some things do not translate easily from one to the other. Nonetheless, I very much appreciated her exploration of fields of energy, self-organization, control vs. order, and the effect the observer has on the process, to name a few. I think it would be helpful for my Futures Committee chairperson and Administrative Council Chairperson to read this book!

BLUE HAT
     “Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe”, is a thought-provoking book designed to help us re-think the way we work. She gives language to what many people intuit when faced with ineffective organizations. She takes fear out of exploring mysteries of the universe and beautifully applies their lessons to human organizations.

 

 

 

 

Your  great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you, and the tiny speaker on the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

I pondered what word is most pressing?  In this world full of words what needs to be said?  What word leaps out of the silence to behold us? 

Jesus,

   Love,

      Reversal,

         Transformation,

            Death,

                Resurrection,

                   Hope

                      Beauty

In the midst of all that concerns us– in the world, the church, our personal lives– would not more practical and useful words serve us better?   Yet, these words rise up to the top. They remind us of our participation in God’s magnificent saving drama.  They recite the story of our lives. They take us by the hand and turn us around.  These words lead us to drink deeply and fully of living waters.  These words use us more than we use them.

Recently I reread these reflections from Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer by David Steindl-Rast:

Beauty is useless, superfluous, like all great things in life… When Jesus says, ‘Behold the lilies’ (Mt 6:28), he is inviting each one of us to take beauty seriously in all its uselessness… the moment we give ourselves to this vision a surprise happens.  We thought we were looking at the lilies, but suddenly the lilies were looking at us… With six tongues the glory of God shouts at us from every lily in bloom.  “Stop and look!”  Or, as the Psalm puts it, “Be still and know” (Ps. 46:10).

                        Jesus,

                     Love,

                  Reversal,

               Transformation,

            Death,

         Resurrection,

      Hope,

   Beauty
These words call us to be still, not only in order that we may behold God’s beauty, but that we may know ourselves as beheld in the loving gaze of God.               

May you know yourself as seen and loved by the God who created and is creating.

_________________________________
 
Brother David, Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness. (New York: Paulist Press, 1984) pp. 155-56.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

When we let Spirit
Lead us
It is impossible
To know
Where We are being led.
All we know
All we can believe
All we can hope
Is that
We are going Home
That wherever Spirit Takes us
Is where
We
Live. (and need to be)

Pastors confronted with the tricky business of leading a congregation will find some friendly help in Craig Gilliam’s new 30-page book on church conflict.  He insists that anxiety and conflict are a natural part of every system, including congregations, and that the possibility of transformation is greatest when “the heat is highest, the anxiety swirling, and the chaos loosed.”  That means the question for leaders is not, “How can we eliminate conflict?”   It is rather, “How can we manage conflict, so that it does good rather than harm?”  And Gilliam’s book offers the reader pages of helpful tools to answer that question.
 
The book offers a succinct introduction to the family systems lens for understanding what goes on in a congregation.  For those new to this model, the book will likely lead them to further study in those disciplines.  For others, it will serve as a valuable reminder of truths they know but haven’t explored in a while. Gilliam keeps the discussion of theory rooted in reality.  He has an ample sprinkling of illustrative stories from his work with congregations that bring abstract notions to life.  He also offers numerous poignant quotes from a variety of sources – philosophy, literature, and the social sciences – that shed light on the subject.Where Angels Dare to Dance keeps before us important questions of ministry:

• How is my leadership helping or hurting the congregation I serve?
• How do I stay connected and at the same time maintain healthy perspective?
• How can my words and actions in times of anxiety and conflict lessen reactivity  and promote responsiveness?           

This would be a good book to pick up and read in preparation for a meeting that has the potential for destructive behaviors to emerge.  Particularly useful is the chart that shows, side-by-side, anxiety-ridden and healthy functioning in congregations and leaders.I recommend this book.  It is a quick read (I started it when the Hot and Sour Soup arrived, and was nearly finished by the time I broke open the fortune cookie), and the awareness it promotes will help pastors be the best leaders they can be. 
           

  

 

 

 

 

 

I remember the first time my mind wandered aimlessly

Pacing the turns inwardly while releasing

My fears and transgressions with each step accompanied breath

The Spirit unfettered, wholly showing me the quest

 

With my feet unbridled, I idled at the entrance

Penitent and unworthy to tread with God’s presence

Unknowing what’s before me, I bravely try to stride

On the path of my past I hold fast to hide

 

On the first purple line the silence is deafening

The candle wicks flicker, the only light transpiring

Guiding me pensively toward my first inward turn

With the world now behind me, my thoughts unfurl

 

Is beauty universally seen alike in all eyes?

Is beauty left to context, morality, or time?

Is beauty a Godly thing, the Trinity’s inner splendor?

Or is it human construct based in race, class, or gender?

 

Revelations abound drowning out my reality

As the labyrinth’s simple path winds almost seamlessly

Begging the question of what’s melting away

Is it reality or falsity that’s truly giving way?

 

The world outside tries to hold fast my heart

Omnipotent dominance it seems as it starts

Parting ways with my soul, staking its claim

I now know my idol.  I’ve now named its name

 

With struggles behind me I slip slowly into

A world of inner circles, whirling, whispering, “This do

in remembrance of me,” as my mind’s eye gazes

on the bread and the wine atop a metaphysical table

  

My mind’s eye’s impaired for the bread is blurred

Is it unleavened as Paul beckons, or four cornered like the world?

Is it rounded and stiff like a priest’s Sunday collar?

Is it processed and bagged for the American dollar?

 

The wine, how it sparkles in a cup I know not

Is it silver refined, or clay kilned with cracked pots?

Is it filled individually for communal logistics?

Or one common cup for the monk and the mystics?

 

The table now set, whetting my deep desire

To sweetly feast, yet my feet seem mired

My mind snaps back, the straight path is lost

Causing hesitation, the frustration, “Dear Lord, what’s the cost?”
 

My ears now hear amidst the silence

Parapet anthems of victory over violence

The glorious organ gorgonizes my mind

Freezing me in place, a power sublime

 

The powerful hymns of centuries gone by

Inspire the weak-hearted, those of soul parched and dry

I remember the debate, of late, the bitterness and gall

Of how contemporary music would cause Duke Chapel to fall

A tense, pinched face,

ungraciously distasteful

Murmurs words of scorn

born from lips of past depression

For him, the hymn to whimsical

For her, the words to cyclical

For they do prey on the cynical

An unceasing cycle of miserable spectacle

New music sickens the traditionalist

Missing the Spirit’s movement meant

For a new generation bifurcated upon

An altar of good intention built with stone of ancient song

 

My walk becomes a dirge, searching for the center

But my eyes arise skyward through the darkness I had entered

A skewed view of centers where worship takes place

The font, pulpit and pews, each of which a means of grace

 

The pulpit sits upon a ton of quarried, crafted stone

With faces of the past, old memories on loan

For those of our generation often unknowing of the past

The lives of the Saints, stiff in stone in darkness vast

Hearing a Word unheard before

Stories of the soul’s seeking

Is like a babe’s first momentary gaze

Toward the mother of her birthing

 

Eyes open anew peering deeply into

The mystery of life’s wonder

Understood not completely, yet instinctively known

Is the grace given me so freely

 

The pews hewn from mighty oak, trussing unsuspecting folk

Who journey here with heavy hearts before departing with lightened yolk

The in between is transformation, desperation lifted ‘way

While hearing that the debt is paid, by grace through faith the soul is saved.

 

Moving from the pews I wander to the font far off from view

Masquerading a signal import as ottoman of wealthy few

Ornately adorned with sides of eight, contemplating rebirth

Dying with Christ and rising anew, a sinner of infinite worth

 

At the head of the church, perched high above the maze

A wooden cross hides, disguised amongst disciples’ gaze

Anamnesis teasing time, I find myself within the crowd

Shouting loud a screaming scorn, “A crown of thorns upon his brow!”

 

Whipped and kicked with sinners’ hate, my Lord awaits his paschal fate

Pilate dances as he dangles silent Christ in grand debate

To the crowd aroused with fury, Pilate hands them God’s own son

With hands still dripping he announces to the crowd, “thy will be done!”

 

Leading Christ away they prey upon a master’s love

Ridiculing sweet redemption as they raise the lamb above

Upon a tree with nails of three, piercing hands and feet and side

Now deserted and alone his friends leave him there to die

 

I’m now at the center, entering timid and shy

For this is God’s heart, what value have I

To kneel pneumatically numb, struck dumb by a presence

Radiant and holy, only silent with reverence

 

Patiently awaiting my penitent sentence

I slowly focus my soul

Memories tremble, escaping assessment

The “why did I” denied by what’s shown

 

Sitting there silently, pining for time

My heart starts to rip at its seam

The pieces asunder held by hands not mine

Are mended by my loving Redeemer.

 

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      A man was riding a horse that was racing through a village.  Someone shouted to him asking, “Where are you going in such a rush?”  He responded, “I don’t know.  Ask the horse.”  From conversations with clergy, I am discovering that many of us feel like that person riding the horse.  Our ministries are the horse.  We are riding it, but do not have any clue where we are going, where the horse will take us, why in such a hurry, nor do many of us believe we have any power to influence it.  The question for me is, “How do we begin to have conversation with the horse, so we are not simply letting the horse dictate where we are going and at what speed we travel?”  How do we take responsibility for our own inner lives, and not allow the horse to dictate?              

     I believe that Jesus’ dance between solitude and community, activity and contemplation, reflects one way he dealt with the horse.  Through his delicate dance, he maintained his soul/Self and its power, while continuing to recognize the horse, its power and importance.  Through honoring his inner rhythm, he kept riding the horse, while not giving it the absolute power to define him or his pace of life.  The poet Gerald Manley Hopkins writes:               

                 Each moral thing does one thing and the same:
                      Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
                Selves, goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
                      Crying What I do is me:  for that I came.