Relay Leadership

The world record for the 3000 meter run is 7 minutes and 30 seconds. The world record for the 4x800 meter relay (3200 meters) is 7 minutes and 2 seconds. When we hand off the baton to each other we can cover more ground in a shorter period of time.

One of the problems we face as contextual missional communities is the challenge of developing and maintaining functional leadership structures. This is a vital component of all organizations but is crucial in faith communities; see Christian Schwartz and the work of the folks at Natural Church Development. Unfortunately, in many cases we as people of faith inherit a leadership structure, or bring an assumed leadership structure to our discussions about this issue that may or may not be effective or appropriate. These structural assumptions and practices are usually based on past congregational experiences; e.g. the church is led by the council, or the board, or the staff, or the executive committee, or the solo pastor. And in many situations the structure that are in place in faith communities are highly functional. But in others, the structure is lacking functionality and causing the entire community to become severely dysfunctional in practice and missional effectiveness.

One of the reasons for traditional church leadership structures losing their functional effectiveness is their inability to deal with the changing context of our ever busied (and over busied) lives. Now at this point, you may want to quit reading and close this window if you think that ‘if people would just get their priorities straight this would not be an issue.’ Our pace of life is a real problem I think, but a different issue entirely. The point I am making here is this: if we are serious about engaging people in their context (a harried and busy one), we need to think about how we are organized as the church in relation to this cultural reality. Can we expect a two year commitment from people to serve on church councils and committees? Does the thought of serving on a standing committee really bring you energy and inspire you to engage the world differently as Christ calls us to do? Is this a formula for success as the hands and feet of Jesus or a recipe for burnout and discouragement?

One of the functions of River of Joy is to provide contextual research and development for the larger church. As a mission congregation we are charged with the responsibility of taking risks and Biblically discerning new methods of engaging the world. For the last year we have organized ourselves around Acts 2:42 and the early apostle’s focus on teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. This loose structure has served us well as we have grown into our identity as a community. Long term however, it is not functional.

In Acts chapter 6, the new Christian community goes through the second phase of their organizational development. The community has become aware of its own capacity issues and realigns itself with a team of seven people who are devoted to attending to the ministry issue at hand in the short term. As we move into our next development phase, we are doing the same thing, retooling for short term leadership that is handed off and realigned as the next missionary opportunity presents itself.

River of Joy is committed to dedicating the next ten months to ministry seasons related to Jesus’ command in Matthew 25. We have dedicated our community efforts to the hungry (this past summer), to the thirsty (this fall), and will progress through Jesus’ command to interact and care for the stranger (this winter), the sick and imprisoned (this spring), and the naked (next summer). This focus has served us well in developing a missional outwardly focused identity. In order to provide functional structure to these efforts, we will be forming 3 different leadership teams of 7 leaders to lead the rest of the community through each of these different seasons.

This broad based structure does a few things: First, it maintains Christ’s command to attend to the life of the larger world as a primary function of the ROJ community. Second, it allows people to engage in leadership in areas where they are gifted and called in an empowered fashion with three month bursts of energy and commitment. Third, it does not set people up for leadership burnout by placing them in areas where (and when) they are not equipped to devote their time and energy. Fourth, it allows for collaborative leadership and diverse and creative expressions and activities that will address the spectrum of community life: our prayer, worship, engagement with the world, education, etc. Fifth, it allows for a reasonable expectation that everyone gets involved.

So there you have it. Chew on it. Digest it. Spit it out if you think it is rotten. Savor it if you think it sounds like a good idea. And shoot me an email if you are interested in getting your feet wet with leading the first season of planning, our winter for the stranger.