Last week I read through Phyllis Tickle’s new little book, The Great Emergence. It’s a brief (160 pgs.), brilliant overview of where we are as a North American culture and church. She suggests that every 500 years the church undergoes a giant shift. Around 500 or so it was the emergence of the monastic movement. Around 1000 was the split between the Eastern and Western churches. Around 1500 was the Reformation & Counter-Reformation. And here we are again.

It’s critical for leaders to recognize the wider systems we are a part of. No one knows what will emerge out of this enormous transition we are in, and no one knows exactly what to do. We are all engaged in big and small experiments. Ronald Heifetz points out in another great book, Leadership without Easy Answers, that in the huge national crisis of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt called for “bold, persistent experimentation.” Roosevelt said, “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Yesterday’s teleconference with Meg Hess on knowing your own family story provided some food for thought for me, particularly her comments on the impact of doing family of origin work on preaching. She talked about her goal being “less-reactive functioning” rather than being a “non-anxious presence,” which she suggested was not possible!

Here are comments that struck me:

“The more you know your own story, the more authentic you are going to be in the pulpit. I think there’s a correlation between those two things. That sort of internal sense of authority becomes more inner directed rather than responding or reacting to what you think you are supposed to be preaching about.

“I’m going to be thinking differently about how I preach about particular things — for example, if I’m preaching about a topic that might be controversial, I’m going to be asking myself questions: is there a triangle that’s formed around this particular issue? Are there people who are for it and people who are against it? Where am I in that triangle? That is going to shape how I talk about the issue and how I try to speak to both sides of the issue, and how I try to model what it means to be in dialogue about a particular issue.”

“I think a lot about my willfulness in preaching. What is the purpose of preaching? The traditional classical understanding of the purpose of preaching is to exhort, or to convince, or to persuade. Those are all very willful words as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s my job as a preacher to be very clearly self-defined, to state what I think and what I believe, as clearly as I am able to differentiate from the group in terms of what I’m putting out there, and then what they do with it is entirely up to them. I’m trying to tell my story as authentically as I can and figure out where my story intersects with The Story, and to invite people to reflect theologically on their own lives. So my definition of the success or failure of a sermon may have shifted in terms of preaching for ‘results’ – that’s not my job, that’s their job. My job is to be faithful and preach authentically, and their job is to take it and do whatever they are supposed to do with it.”

The recording of the teleconference is available. E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com, and I’ll send you the link.

Learning about our own family story, and reflecting on how it impacts our leadership, can benefit us more deeply than any class, workshop or seminar. This may seem surprising, but we all learn how to relate to other human beings in the families where we grew up. We often default to the reactions we learned at home, especially when we are anxious or under stress. Over time we can learn to become less automatic and more thoughtful. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort.

For example, our sibling position contributes to our functioning in family and work life. Many leaders, especially in the helping professions, are oldest children (or functioned as oldest growing up, even if they weren’t technically the oldest). Oldest children tend to be good at taking responsibility — sometimes too much so. And generally speaking they, or I should say we, are not always as flexible as we might be in relating to others.

Other patterns may show up in our leadership as well. Some of them can enhance our leadership: a minister who comes from a family where sons are close to their mothers may find himself easily able to develop a relationship with the matriarch of his new church. I come from a family where people frequently move, going back generations. I adjusted quickly to a cross-country move for a new leadership position. Another leader from a family that is well-connected across the generations finds it easy to stay in touch regularly with staff, enhancing the work of all.

Some patterns can trip us up in our leadership. If your family had high anxiety about money over the generations, you may face additional challenges now. A family pattern of head-to-head confrontation can limit our repertoire when disagreements emerge. Likewise, a conflict-averse family can teach us to postpone difficult conversations or decisions.

These family patterns do not arise with one person or in one generation, and we can’t address them overnight. It’s a lifelong task to observe ourselves and learn about our families from an adult perspective, rather than the childish point of view we internalized early on.

Real, long-term work on the family issues which color (and sometimes hinder) our leadership can’t be done in an afternoon. A skilled coach or therapist can offer help. (I also recommend the Leadership in Ministry workshop, which is not just for ministers.) But here are a few questions to consider:

Can I see how my leadership functioning is affected by my family story? What comes to mind first? What about my sibling position?

Who are the “insiders” and the “outsiders” in my family? What do I know about the outsiders?

What have people done for work over the last three generations? Are there any other leaders?

What gifts did my family give me for my leadership?

When we can become curious about what we do and what others do, both in our families and in our leadership setting, and become less automatic in our responses, we’ll be more effective in all our relationships.

I want to announce officially that my book, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry, is out from Seabury. Church leadership does not have to be a recipe for burnout. There is an easier way, one that is doable, effective, and sustainable. It is counter-intuitive, though, so help is needed to get it right. This book is one way to get that help.

Learn how you can:

Be more of a leader and less of a controller

Adopt a new system of seeing yourself and those you lead

Focus on yourself and your resources rather than trying harder to help, fix, or change others
Respond to others with more clarity, calm and creativity

Remain more thoughtful during challenge and crisis

Increase your influence without increasing your workload

Reduce your overall stress about congregational life

Order it from Amazon here.

Last night we sang When I Survey the Wondrous Cross at the Maundy Thursday service at my church, where I assisted with communion. My pastor and friend, David Wheeler, says we Baptists are “liturgically challenged,” and in the churches I grew up in we tended to jump from Palm Sunday to Easter. I find the full walk through Holy Week to be profoundly important to me now.

In singing this hymn, I was struck by how much the words have to do with letting go:

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

These words are not about self-hatred, despite the word “contempt,” but about keeping perspective on the things we are inclined to cling to, including our own pride.

Here’s a homemade youtube video (less than four minutes long) of someone singing this hymn to a different tune, which I found moving.

I did the children’s story in worship at the church I belong to last Sunday? I didn’t exactly want to say yes, but I did. I never feel like I’m at my best with children, and even as a child sometimes felt like I related better to adults. But I was struck by something I read in Kathleen Norris’ book Acedia and Me last week. She wrote about saying yes when asked at church even to things she wasn’t particularly good at, as a spiritual practice. And of course I did children’s stories as a pastor almost every week for years, so it’s not like putting on a dinner for 150 (something I really wouldn’t be good at).

Saying yes in a thoughtful way, for a reason, to something you don’t particularly want to do, is not the same as a compulsive, overfunctioning yes. It’s important, though not easy, to make this distinction. Spiritual growth can come when we gently open ourselves to people and tasks we don’t necessarily like. And I actually enjoyed my few moments with the children in worship, and feel a bit better connected with them. (While enjoyment may not be the point of this practice, it’s a nice by-product when it happens.)

What do you have to do this week that you don’t want to do? Can you welcome it instead of resisting it?

I’ve been reading Kathleen Norris’ latest book, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life these last dates of Lent. I’m still trying to get my head around just what acedia is. The traditional term is sloth, but Norris describes its many manifestations including the inability to care. She explores the relationship between acedia and depression, and describes her own struggles with both.

She goes back often to Evagrius, one of the desert fathers. Here’s a quote I’ve marked and keep reading again: “Evagrius notes that the demon of acedia manipulates both our presumption and our despair, puffing us up with thoughts of the great accomplishments we will make and then crushing us when our efforts fall short of expectations. We may be left feeling that we have gained nothing and that we were idiots to have attempted anything in the first place. Our only remedy then, he writes, is, ‘as far as we are able, [to] exalt the mercies of Christ.”

In ministry it’s easy to vacillate between grandiose dreams of what is possible and vicious self-flagellation. As Holy Week approaches, no matter how your ministry seems to be going or how many services you face between now and Easter, can you simply allow the week to unfold?