an emerging profession: leadership in the new environment part 2

i know some of you follow blogs in news readers in which case you miss the conversation that goes on in comments. so you might want to revisit the post earlier this week - an emerging profession:leadership in the new environment which has generated some good discussion and blogs elsewhere in the blogosphere. the longest response i have found so far is from paul roberts, who makes some great points about leadership and the difference between how accountability plays out for emerging congregations and emerging churches. i have chimed in in the comments on my post and commented on paul's post but thought it worth cutting and pasting a few of the things i've said, as much for gathering my own thoughts as anything else...

...it works because we are located within the anglican structure in a parish church. we want to be related in rather than separate. if we were starting out as a separate church community i guess we'd either look to find somewhere or seek relational connection/blessing and explore what we needed to do to make that work. you have to work with your context. that's why i am supportive of people going the ordained route and those that are not - it just depends where you stand. with different circumstances i appreciate that we might have gone down a route of encouraging someone to be ordained (though i think they would play a different role to most and not be salaried) or of leaving or of a number of other options.

i do fear that emerging church has set up quite a number of churches that are too expensive to run. they seem predicated upon having a full time person. funding exists for a few years start up but the church can't sustain a full time salary beyond that. so i am very interested in ways of doing things that start small and cheaply and don't have that crisis...

(in response to comment that the vicar is the leader albeit light touch and permission giving) ...in that case he is a model of leadership in absentia - gives permission, but doesn't ever come, doesn't ask what we are doing, and meets with us maybe twice a year to catch up (initiated by us rather than him). this suits us just fine. i guess he trusts us which is great.

it would be interesting to see what happened if that changed. we did have a situation of conflict with the st marys many years ago when the church was between vicars when we were read the riot act by a slightly power hungry curate over liturgies we could use etc. we contacted the bishop and got a letter of permission giving us the right to use liturgies that were experimental and the pcc relaxed and the curate left shortly after anyway. of course it is possible at that point that the church could have clamped down on us and i suspect we would just have left and found a home elsewhere. or met in the pub over the road (which might be a good idea anyway of course).

i think my most interesting thoughts about leadership are less about paid/unpaid ordained/unordained and more about how leadership functions - i.e. things like it creates an environment of participation and gift exchange rather than dependency (which invariably is the default position of the clergy/laity construct that seems hard to break whatever you try)...

(in response to paul's post) ...1. in describing grace it is pragmatic. that’s how we work it and it works because of the context we are in (congregational model in st marys with light touch and permission from vicar and bishop). you are absolutely right.
2. i think if this were challenged the 3 options you outline are also right - cease to be Anglican, get Bishop to provide some mode of episcopal oversight (using bishop’s mission order now passed as legislation i think?), or it would need to come under the patronage of another parish church. i am 99% certain we could get the second option. we have always preferred to remain connected to the wider body of christ rather than independent and the bishop is very supportive of grace (in absentia!).
3. where i part company is in your use of the term “a church”. i want to resist that kind of language. by that definition church means independence in a structure of independent units - and in real terms independence of governance and monies. i personally prefer to reserve the word church for the whole body of christ global and down the ages. everything else is simply an expression of the body of christ in a particular context.
so st marys is an expression of the body of christ, grace is an expression. st pauls cathedral is an expression. church is about being connected to christ and the wider body - it’s interdependent. or i’d say church is a verb - all those groups are churching it. we manage monies and govern grace as it is. the shift you describe doesn’t make us “a church”, only in legal terms of the c of e - maybe that’s what you meant?… this seems to me to be one of the challenges of the moment we are in. because of the wider cultural shifts especially in communication technologies - e.g. connectivity, networks and participation, the “a church” thing no longer makes sense, at least not to me…

Comments

[Duncan]

An interesting and wide range od responses.

There are number of points or questions I would want to raise - particularly as I am regular Grace-goer and ordained, and have attended some planning events.

As an Anglican priest I am completely at home with the ecclesiological function of leadership within Grace. It is earthed in community that recognises its interdependence in a number of mutual relationships. These relationships are happy to sit under the vicar the bishop. My question would be, how would Grace respond if the vicar and or bishop became more hands-on and controlling in a way that Grace felt was counter-cultural to its mission? When would push come to shove?

For me the issue of paid/ordained is not necessarily about authority or identity but about availability. I have worked in both free church and Anglican set ups over the past 30 years and it seems to me that the day-today-task of leadership is worked out by those who are there irrespective of whether they are paid or not, ordained or not. The sense in paying someone to lead is, as has been stated, so that they can give their energies to the work of the community. Questions of ordination, whether within the three-fold order of deacons, priests and bishops, or simply through being callled by the local community are more about order and tradition and need to be thought through to ensure that old patterns don't hinder present practice. It can also give an avenue of connectness in the way Jonny uses it to earth the local community with the Church universal - Anglican orders easily allow this.

For me the key element of full-time (paid/unpaid) leadership is about the prophetic nature of leadership. Those who are entrusted with continuing local ministry day-by-day in the name of the community are those who are earthing the strategic vision and goals of that community in the here and now. Therefore how vision is discerned, held, articualted and practised, is of vital importance not only to the mission of a community but to its identity also. These values and goals become embedded and personified in those who lead and those who 'do'. Therefore, those who 'do' more, are more closely identified with the funtion of leadership.

There is also something about spirituality (corporate and individual) and tradition that ties Grace-like expressions of Alt Worship into the universal Church. By seeking to rediscover and reinterpret afresh for today ancient forms of worhsip, liturgies and styles of learning, we are tying ourselve ever closer to the those who have gone before us as we seek to discover what it means to live as followers of Christ today. This in a real sense continues a conversation down through the centuries between creation and Creator within the context of the local community. Leadership's role is to interpret and frame this conversation in a way that makes it accessible to the community and gives continuity to continue the conversation.

More than enough for now!