Pastor's Corner

Some Notes on Leadership and Adaptive Change

This week in a clergy gathering I found myself reflecting again on Ronald Heifetz’s core definition of leadership as “mobilizing people to do adaptive work,” which he famously describes as “disappointing people at a pace they can tolerate.”

A professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership, Heifetz argues that true leadership requires making people face difficult realities, give up deeply held habits, and accept losses.

My study of the gospels leads me to believe that Jesus frequently led in this way, giving the work back to his disciples. One example is when Jesus and his disciples faced the challenge of feeding 5,000 people. When his disciples suggested they send the people away, Jesus said no, you give them something to eat! I’m sure this disappointed his disciples, but it also forced them into taking on the difficult task in front of them.

Adaptive change is hard work. I’ve been thinking about my sermon for All Saints Day on November 1, in which I plan to try to address the challenges of aging. Talk about adaptive change!

What support can we provide as a church for those facing the challenges of getting older, managing bodies and minds that are slowly failing, or providing care for family members who are in this situation? And on the other end of the spectrum, how can we support the teens among us who face incredibly difficult changes, not only to their bodies, but to their sense of worth, and their sense of how they are perceived by others? And parents with young children who may feel overwhelmed?

Our “ACT I” team got us off to a great start in addressing adaptive change as a church. Now it’s time to ask, what are the next steps? Is it time for an ACT TWO? Would you have an interest in serving on a team that helps our church to address these questions? Do you know someone who you may wish to nominate to play a role in ACT TWO?

A Letter on Our New Website

I'm excited about the construction of our new church website. As I write, it is nearing completion, but there is still work to do. We hope to go "live" with the new website sometime in September. We express our sincere thanks to the anonymous "angels" whose generous donations have made this possible, to Thom Butler, our web designer, and to Matt Graham and Jenny Fuqua, who are the "website point people" working with Thom, as well as to all who have expressed their creative thoughts via email and in person about our website.

I want to share with you my vision of what a church website should be and do, based on my theology — a word that simply means, "ways to speak about God." I would love to hear your vision and theology as well! Your "Voices & Visions!" As a congregational church, every voice is important, and there is no real distinction between "clergy" and "laity" because God has made us all priests, that is, the visible presence of Christ on earth, Christ's hands and feet in the world.

So, with that in mind, here goes: my vision and grounding theology for church websites.

Core Values

• God's good creation is lost in a haze of fear, violence, and extreme "domination practices" that lead to an unsustainable future that threatens us all.

• Nevertheless, God will not give up on God's good creation.

• God is actively redeeming God's world in ways visible and, often, invisible (to us).

• God will always get what God wants; God's Dream for creation will be fulfilled, and God's chosen instrument for this fulfilment is God's church, elect from every nation, and a "parable of true communion" (Brother Roger of Taizé).

• The darkness we see cannot overcome the light that is coming into the world through Jesus Christ, the source of light, the light itself.

• Therefore, to God there is no darkness at all and those who are lost will be found.

• God through the "Wild Goose" (Holy Spirit) who makes Christ known, is like the "hound of heaven," who recklessly and tirelessly pursues us, and this pursuit will continue in the age of the church until every last one of us is found and finally able to return home, to God, our truest home. This theology is sometimes called "universalism." Count me in!

• Because the lost are findable, and we as a church are bearers of the light of Christ, we must organize ourselves not around ourselves but around those we have yet to meet, who must be welcomed with extravagant hospitality, taught (discipled) and sent back into the world as bearers of Christ's light.

• Churches should make decisions based not on those "who have been here the longest" but on those who are not yet here. (This is truly radical: Those who first heard Jesus' Sermon on the Mount must have thought he had truly lost his mind when he compared God to a shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep to seek and to save one lost sheep! As church members, we may not like it, but this is what God is like. There is more joy in heaven, Jesus said, when one sheep or one prodigal returns home (although those left behind, like an older brother, may grumble, not feeling the joy!) over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke 15:7).

Implications of All This for a Church Website

• A church website must be outward facing, toward the communities it serves, and not inward facing, towards us only. Having received by grace alone the light of Christ, we are like beggars who have found bread, sharing our bread with others.

• Research shows that 85% to 90% of first-time visitors look at a church's website before stepping foot inside the building. While church members must be an "invitational people," always welcoming, always inviting others to faith, the church website is where guests decide if they actually feel comfortable enough to attend. Visitors typically look for worship times, the physical address, what to wear, and programs for children. Especially for historically oppressed groups of people, they must feel that church is a community where they are safe.

• Worship and church life should be hybrid, that is, both in person and online. This is especially important in rural communities where it may take an hour or more to drive to church on a Sunday morning! As one church puts it, we must redefine "the experience of spiritual community by integrating innovative digital and physical spaces that foster deep connections, personal growth, and actionable service. Our mission is to create a dynamic and inclusive platform where individuals can explore their faith, engage in meaningful dialogues, and actively participate in community-driven service projects. By embracing creative flexibility and intentional design, Illume seeks to remove barriers to spiritual engagement, making it accessible, engaging, and relevant for modern seekers everywhere."

• "Hybrid worship" means presenting guests with two viable options: Livestream and in person worship. If Open Door commits to becoming a "missional church" focused on connecting with seekers of wholeness and healing not only in Murphys but in the wider (five county) surrounding community, we must become intentional about becoming a hybrid, missional church.

• This will take considerable "adaptive change," and the transition from "church as usual" (old wine in old wineskins) to this "new wine" that cannot be contained in old wineskins! (Jesus used this parable in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5 when people asked why his disciples did not conduct themselves according to the old assumptions and established religious practices. Jesus explained that his arrival signaled a completely new era. Trying to mix Jesus' life-giving grace into an old system of earning salvation through religion breaks the system. It requires a fresh heart and an open mind. Christianity is not a religion so much as it is a life altering relationship with a person, Jesus the Christ. As my friend Walter Wink used to say, Jesus was so far ahead of his time, so radical in his vision, so inclusive in his acceptance of those deemed undesirable to religious folk, that if he had not lived, we would never have been able to invent him!)

Closing Reflections

• If we commit to becoming a missional church — that is, an outpost of God's realm of peace and justice in a very rural part of California where folks may need to drive an hour or more to attend worship in Murphys — and we accept the fact that the age of "Christendom" is over and we live in a post-Christian era, then we need a website that accurately reflects the kind of church that we aspire to be. Our theologies ("ways of speaking and thinking about God") should guide our website design (as well as everything else).

• Among other things, this means we want to "lean in" to being Open and Affirming, prophetic (or, if you prefer, "progressive") and above all safe for any who may be frightened to come through the doors.

• The front door of a church can be terrifying for those wounded by bad religion, or those who have recently heard about church but have no idea of what church is — in this sense, the "mission field" our ancestors understood as far away in places like Africa, South America, and Asia is right here, in Calaveras County.

• "Missional church" is just a fancy way of saying, a Jesus centered church. An exciting church! Jesus was never boring, often funny (the peasants he preached to would have naturally roared with laughter when Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven — classic peasant humor!), frequently in trouble with the law, and constantly summoning people to the greatest adventure of their lives — the life of Christian discipleship.

• Jesus centered churches are never boring and are not satisfied with being one more aging, boring, status-quo embracing, cookie cutter mainline Protestant church dimly reflecting the nostalgic mist of an earlier era of a Christendom which is dying, and may well deserve to die, because it lost its first love — Jesus, who, I repeat, was never boring, always radical, always challenging systems of domination, always calling folks to a higher vision, to God's Dream of human flourishing for all.

• Thus, we need a website that will create "side doors" and "back doors" — any kind of door! — as online and in-person points of entry into the church.

• Our very name, Open Door, suggests this.

• Can we build a website that functions like a door swinging open on the hinges of love and true communion, and an interactive website that is not merely a boring "information tool?"

• Question: Can we afford to build such a website, and make the shift to being hybrid church?

• Can we afford not to?

More about this in our next edition of the Nugget!

Sending much aloha to each of you,

Gary