Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society

7. Managing Change

49 7. Managing Change C hange can be managed—but only when it is acknowledged, accepted, and embraced. Parents, for instance, are constantly managing change, sometimes caused by major transitions in the family ’s history (moves, job changes, divorces, deaths in the family), and sometimes by the radical transitions that children go through as they age. Pastors are also constantly asked to manage change, whether it comes through new leadership, church crises, demographic changes in the community , new social movements, or new social structures and values. Of course, there are church leaders who fight to hold on to the past and who thus fail to respond to what’s happening in their congregations and around them. But there are also great examples of pastors who are brilliantly managing upheavals and transformations in their congregations. (The TransformingTheology. org project is assembling “best practices” from these congregations and pastors and posting them to the website.) Is it possible for denominational leaders to manage the sorts of changes in American churches that I’ve been describing? These are hardworking Christian executives with deep religious commitment and a professional approach to management. Unfortunately, the people around them are often pushing pretty hard to minimize change, so that they can preserve past structures and practices. In some cases the pressures have led to hiring Madison Avenue advertising firms, who construct expensive campaigns to market the denomination’s “brand name.” Perhaps you’ve seen some of these new advertisements on your television. The denominational execs know that their churches are facing a period of extreme crisis. At our summit meeting in May 2009, one of the denominational leaders described the situation with remarkable clarity: “We have inherited traditions that are in some cases hundreds of years old. We are being asked to keep these traditions and practices alive. Yet we know that they are under attack and many of them are 50 | Transforming Christian Theology struggling for their very existence. Many of our churches and other institutions may not survive the present century.” Then, on a self-critical note, she named the irony: “But each of us is determined that things not collapse ‘on my watch’!” That’s it in a nutshell: change may happen, but just not “on my watch.” When this attitude dominates, leaders are not really preparing for the future. I want to urge the opposite response: change can be embraced and managed ! In fact, there’s an entire branch of management theory focusing on managing change. Just look at classics such as John Hayes’ The Theory and Practice of Change Management (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), or Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change by Esther Cameron and Mike Green (Kogan Page, 2004). Closer to home, consider Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (Seabury, 2007), with its special focus on American religious leadership. Here is a real challenge to all who would accept the title leader. In promotional materials for the book, the publishers give a pithy summary of Friedman’s argument: “more maturity , not more data; stamina, not technique; and personal responsibility, not empathy.” Christian leaders whom I respect, while reading drafts of this section, have complained that change—change of the magnitude the church is now facing—cannot be managed. I have retained the term, despite their worries , because there will always be those among us who are assigned the task of managing Christian organizations, denominations, and congregations. I want to undercut the widespread view that there are only two options: preserve the past, or quit your management position. Instead, I’m calling for a new kind of manager, one who is actually out in front of the change, getting others to look it in the face and to begin preparing their organizations and groups for what’s coming down the pike. Clearly this is a new breed of manager, one with a different vision of management. Spencer Burke and I were discussing this new kind of leader over lunch recently, just before shooting a new segment for TheOOZE.TV. Spencer suggested that the new leaders think of themselves not as controlling events and people but as hosting them. Hosts invite people together, create safe settings, enable folks to feel comfortable with each other, allow differences to be expressed—and then help them deal with whatever happens during the time together. Hosting is linked to hospitality, which is a gift [3.12.162...