Don't Replace the Creatives. Replace the CEOs.

What do you talk with AI about?  I talk with AI about how it could most effectively replace the global elite. 

All of that money, all of that resource, all wasted on a parasitic class of yacht-capitalists who add no value.  Replace them with machines.  All of them.  The machines would do a better job, and do it for nothing.

Here's a sample:

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BelovedSpear
In our last conversation, I asked for a review of ways generative or general AI could be utilized in the role of CEO of a corporation. One of your replies suggested that AI was limited by its knowledge base, and could not thus anticipate new circumstances. Anticipating probabilities, in a Bayesian sense, requires a deep engagement with all relevant priors. Given that LLMs and GPTs can have access to knowledge significantly exceeding the capacity of any one human being, and could thus have a greater predictive capacity, I question that premise. Can you elucidate?

ChatGPT
Certainly! While it's true that large language models (LLMs) and GPTs can access a vast amount of information, their knowledge is based on pre-existing data up to their last training cut-off. They don't have real-time awareness or updates on events that occurred after that point. This limitation can impact their ability to anticipate new or rapidly changing circumstances.

Bayesian reasoning involves updating probabilities based on new evidence or information. While LLMs can make use of contextual information and infer relationships within their training data, they lack the ability to incorporate real-time data or understand events that have occurred since their last training session. This makes them less effective in situations where up-to-date, context-specific knowledge is crucial for accurate predictions.

Additionally, the quality of predictions depends on the nature of the task. LLMs might excel in tasks that require language understanding and generation, but their predictive capacity is constrained by the nature of their training data and the inability to dynamically adapt to new scenarios.

In summary, while LLMs have access to a vast amount of knowledge, their predictive capacity is limited by the static nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates, making them less effective in anticipating new circumstances compared to human intuition that can quickly adapt to changing situations.

BelovedSpear
So, to your response, the failing isn't inherent to LLMs or GPTs, but in the limitation of the dataset. By extension, a LLM or GPT that was not constrained by a time delimited dataset and had access to real-time updates would have vastly improved predictive capacity, and could potentially serve more effectively in that capacity.

ChatGPT
Yes, that's a correct interpretation. The limitations in predictive capacity are not inherent to LLMs or GPTs themselves but are primarily related to the nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates. If an LLM or GPT had access to a continuously updated and comprehensive dataset that included real-time information, its predictive capacity could indeed be significantly enhanced.

In such a scenario, the model would be better equipped to anticipate new circumstances and adapt to changing situations, making it potentially more effective in roles that require dynamic decision-making, such as that of a CEO navigating a rapidly evolving business environment. Continuous learning and access to up-to-date information would be key factors in improving the model's ability to make accurate predictions.

BelovedSpear
Thanks so much for your insights! Should I share this information with the Board of OpenAI? ;0)

ChatGPT
You're welcome! While I don't have a direct line to the Board of OpenAI, sharing insights and perspectives can be valuable in any organization. If you have thoughts or feedback, it might be worthwhile to communicate them through appropriate channels, whether that's through OpenAI's official communication channels, forums, or other established means. It's always good to contribute to discussions and provide input to help shape the future development and understanding of AI technologies.

Piloting A Tiny Church

How do you serve and support a healthy small faith community?

That's one of the core questions of my doctoral research, and I've been wrestling with it for the last month or two, as I've pored through dozens and dozens of books dealing with every form of small church life.   I've studied cell churches and house churches, storefronts and intentional communities.

I've read through book after book about tiny little old-line congregations, the families and tribes that gather in those little buildings that are scattered like wildflowers by the roadsides of America.

What I have not done, not for an instant, is look into the dynamics of "growing" these churches into huge churches.  That's the goal we're supposed to pursue, of course.  We are told that we must grow, must constantly be adding to ourselves until we're meeting in a glistening Jesus MegaCenter with a parking lot that spreads out to the far horizon.

We are to be faith-a-preneurs!  We are on the Holy Ghost CEO track!  We want to be the Amazon of the Christian world, the One Box to Rule them All, the next Rick Warren or Joel Osteen.  Our little church is like a mustard seed, we say, as is the tiny salary they pay me.  And so we study the "growth track," study the huge shiny stars, our eyes set on our radiant Jumbotron future.  We think big, we hope big, we see only big.

This is why we fail.

Trying to learn what it means to effectively serve a healthy small faith community by studying corporate Christianity is utterly pointless.

A metaphor for that truth popped out of my geek-brain the other day:

You do not learn to fly an X-Wing by studying the plans for the Death Star.  You can review those schematics all day long, and you'll still be just as useless at the controls of a snub fighter.

You get good at flying an X-Wing by putting in hour after hour in your T-16, diving in and out of Beggars Canyon until you can bag Womp rats in your sleep.

You get good at doing small by doing small until you are good at it.

The Church that Doesn't Need You

It's been quite the week at my little congregation.

This Monday morning, a multigenerational group of teens, young adults, and adults took off in two rental vans, headed for a youth service mission trip to West Virginia, something that's been a regular staple of the life of the church for years.

There, my congregation is helping rebuild and repair homes during the day, and spends time in worship and fellowship at night.  It's a wonderful blend of direct, hands-on and material care for others and Christian faith-expression.

In preparation for this trip, I've spent the last few months in a flurry of doing... nothing.

Not a thing.  I don't organize it. I don't schedule it.  I don't go pick up the vans, or carefully plan the evening worship and prayer events.  I don't gather the materials, or insure that we've got enough participation.  I don't coordinate with the parachurch organization that sponsors it, or send planny emails back and forth with the pastors of the two other congregations that will be participating.

It is not even the expectation that I go, and so I don't.

Because in my little church, that's not been the pastor's job, not during the time I've been there.  Nor was it the expectation of the pastor before me.

And no, I haven't handed this off to an associate, or a youth pastor.  We're a little church, meaning I'm a half-time pastor in a community that has been served by part-timers since 1847.  So church members do their own thing.  It's gotten woven into the congregational DNA.

The mission trip is a fine example, something that is entirely the work of some passionate, committed souls in the congregation.  They and the youth organize and prepare for it, handling the whole thing, from incept to implementation, completion to the worship experience that celebrates and reports back on the event.

Why?  Because it's good, and a joy to do in the way that hard work to a good end is a joy.

It's tempting to get all Robespierre-leadershippy on such a thing.  You know the semi-apocryphal classic "leadership" story, right?  What?  You don't? Well, gosh, I guess it's share time.

As the tale goes, Robespierre, the psychotically self-absorbed and self-righteous Jacobin who helped turn the French Revolution into the bloody Reign of Terror, is sitting in a restaurant.  A mob comes storming by, shouting and waving banners.  "Look!  There go my people," shouts Robespierre, leaping up and rushing to get to the head of the mob.  "I must lead them!"

The absurdity, of course, is that all that mattered to Robby was that he be up in front, that he take the energy of the group and use it for his own glory.  It's leadership as ego-fodder, and that's a real danger for pastors--and anyone in leadership, frankly.

Because when the pastor must be in charge of everything, must guide everything, must control everything?  They create dependent and spiritually stunted communities.

That's not to say there's no role for a pastor.  You should add life and health, sure.  Your presence there should deepen and strengthen the life and gifts of others, and your teaching should manifest the best calling of the congregation.  An essentially healthy church lets you know you're fulfilling that role, and encourages you on the Way.  I've been blessed with that encouragement from my little fellowship over the last few years, and it's been profoundly affirming.

But when our need to be needed gets in the way of the gifts and graces that others have to offer, we have become an active impediment to the movement of the Spirit in a fellowship.

Gatherings of mature Christians should not function that way.  In a healthy congregation, there are folks whose energies, vision, and creativity will operate in parallel with those of a pastor.  It's the role of the formal leader to support, sustain, pray for, and celebrate those gifts.  It's my role to teach and preach and model the Way in my own existence, and to support every soul I see helping others towards that gracious path.

Because that's the Spirit at work, right there, and we get in the way of the Spirit to the peril of our
communities.  Oh, sure, there'll be times when you do have to step in.  If a church is completely lost, consumed by conflict, or frittering away its energy on anxiety, you need to be there.  If a community exists only for itself and its own needs, you need to be there to guide them back to the path.

But those moments are fewer and farther between than our egos want us to believe.

So this week, I watch my little fellowship do great things that they don't need me there to help them accomplish, and it's awesome.

"Good Servants, Not Good Bosses"

I'm almost done with my doctoral program, which I tend to jokingly describe as an Advanced Degree in Churchiness.

There's a kernel of truth to that, though, as for the last three years I've been engaged in a program on Leadership Excellence in congregations.  Over that time, I've increasingly come to view church leadership as something of a paradox.  Our culture loves leadership.  We're big into leadership, and building leaders, and creating leaders.  

Because being the leader is a power position, and it's the place we all want to be.

But in a community of folks following Jesus?  There are no power positions, at least not as our CEO-fetishizing culture conceptualizes them.  Wealth and glory and power...oh, and more wealth...are the fruits of leadership in the for-profit sector.  In the church?  They cannot be.  In fact, it's exactly the inverse.  You can lead, and you can have influence and the capacity to create change, but the sole purpose of that influence is to teach folks to be better disciples.

Meaning, it's not about being in charge.  It's not about climbing the ladder.  There is no ladder, people.  All there is out there are children of God who need a little bit of encouragement and support finding their way to faith and grace.

Our ethic, our raison d'etre?  It's radically different than the business world. Our bottom line ain't the same, kids. 

That is super extra double plus true for leadership.

This Christian leadership reality was part of a sharply loving little speech recently given by Pope Francis, who may run a somewhat large congregation, but still seems to get the ethic that needs to define it.   

First, he challenged his new batch of cardinals to remember that they're not part of a royal court, and to be wary of the temptation to get into politicking.  And second, he offered the reminder that no matter how far you get up into the church, how "important" you become, the task of Christians is to be "good servants, not good bosses."

This wasn't just a whack o' the pastoral staff on the behinds of guys in fancy robes and towering hats.  It also messes with we homo sapiens sapiens a little.  We like the other way of thinking.  We like aspiring to power, to control, to being Charles in Charge.  That status feels worth pressing towards, worth striving for, a gold ring worth seizing after we clamber over the corpses of the weaker ones.  We want celebrity, acclaim, to have fameandfortuneandeverythingthatgoeswithit.  That's our yearning, and our hunger.

Being a servant?  Being there just to help out, to try to strengthen and support others?  Meh.  

Our egos recoil, particularly if that's the destination.

But it is, whether we like it or not.

Megachurches and Organic Spiritual Leadership

I blogged a bit ago on article last week in the Washington Post, one that described the increasing phenomenon of seminary attendees who aren't moving on to pastor congregations.   In fact, they were never ever planning on it.

Thinking on this got another old line of thought going, that peculiar mismatch between folks who are called to be pastors and congregations.   In my area, for example, there's a pastoral glut.  Lots of trained and eager pastors.   Not quite so many congregations.

At the same time, smaller congregations struggle to find pastoral leadership.   It's more an irony than a paradox, because the forces at play are easy to understand.   Little congregations simply can't pay a living wage to a pastor with a family, and in rural communities that may be economically struggling, finding supplemental work may be equally difficult.  So here there are all these folks who have been given gifts, and they end up doing little with them.

In the face of this, I got to thinking off along another line.

Church now increasingly looks like WalMart, or Nordstrom, or Target.   It's not just that new church buildings look like that, as the vast JesusPlexes of AmeriChrist Inc. spread over the land.  It's that those Big Box Churches are run and governed like corporations.

And like those Big Boxes, megachurches take advantage of economies of scale in ways that little churches cannot.  A megachurch has an internal structure that requires administrative infrastructure, but is considerably less pastor-intensive.

Oh, sure, you have plenty of folks who are tasked with support roles within the hierarchy.  But the job of providing spiritual guidance, of being the interpreter of the sacred, that role falls primarily to the Iconic Leader.

Think about this in terms of the natural state of human communities and what is known as Dunbar's number.   Anthropologist Robin Dunbar found that we homo sapiens sapiens tend to form social groups of around 150.  Across all cultures, it's the natural size of a tribe, and to a large extent, it's governed by our nature.  Up to around 150 individuals, we can grasp the complexities of social interaction, seeing the depth of relationship between those around us.  Beyond that, things become hazier.   Frayed.  Less deep.  Communities that exceed this size cannot, by the way God made us, be "organic" and relationship-driven.

Within each Dunbar-sized grouping, there would naturally be at least one pastor/shaman/spiritual leader/interpreter of the sacred.   The weird dude who arrives on a caribou with a message for you from the Spirit Realm.  Within a tribal culture, that's the natural state of things.

So here's the hypothesis: the larger gatherings made possible by our increasingly technological and hierarchical society "crowd out" this naturally occurring leadership.

Lets play around with this thought for a moment.  What would this look like?   If in natural human communities there is at least one gifted spiritual leader per every one hundred and fifty souls, then what impact does a corporate congregational structure have?  

Here's a sample of large corporate and megachurch structures, drawn from my denomination and a couple of large local congregations.  I've broken it down by number of named "pastors" serving number of individuals that comprise the community.  That's followed by a Dunbar Pastor Number, meaning the number of 150 member communities within each megachurch, and then a percentage that indicates where that congregation lies relative to what would be a human-scale fellowship:

Church	Membership	Pastors	Dunbar/Pastor	Dunbar Ratio
Vienna PC	2516	8	16.77	47.69%
National PC	1870	4	12.47	32.09%
Peachtree PC, Atlanta, GA	8675	8	57.83	13.83%
McLean Bible, VA	11748	2	78.32	2.55%
Thomas Road	16000	7	106.67	6.56%

Using Dunbar's Number as a measure of an organic pastor-to-church ratio, Big Box churches seem to do to organic spiritual leadership what WalMart does to the Mom and Pop Hardware store.   Meaning, they crush it like a bug, and the bigger they are, the more they crowd out the leadership that would otherwise be naturally occurring in human gatherings.  Take Thomas Road, for instance, the largest church in my home state.  There are seven named "pastors," leading what is effectively one hundred and seven separate churches.

Of course, one can argue that such economies of scale are just part of the competitive dynamics of a spiritual marketplace.  Better leaders gather more followers and build more robust institutions that provide the faith product that church shoppers want.  It's the church, red in tooth and claw.  So to speak.

One could also argue...reasonably...that organic leadership remains healthy in larger churches, particularly within small groups, affinity groups, and "task groups."

Still, as faith communities grow larger and more Christians get their Jesus on in large venues, it seems an interesting dynamic to explore.

Leading and Following

A week ago, I sat in a classroom of fellow Doctor of Ministry students, all pastors, all learning more about leadership dynamics in congregations.   Leadership studies are the big thing now in both ministry and business circles, a pairing that is somewhat telling.  It's useful information, though, and good grist for the book project that will come right after I'm done with the next one in the hopper.

My conversation partner in the one-on-one class conversations was a Baptist pastor, a genial African American woman with a gentle smile and a voice like honey-butter on warm bread.  Though we shared about a number of things, one of our moments of reflection still hangs in my memory.

The class was asked to pair up and discuss the assumption, oft repeated in oldline vision statements, that "everyone in the congregation is a minister."  We're all empowered.  We're all living into our gifts, creative and engaged.  The goal of a leader, or so that assumption goes, is to create a congregation that is completely full of folks empowered to be Holy Ghost large and in charge.  We're all equal, all masters of our own Jesus domain.

Our conversation wandered a tiny bit off track, as a question stirred in both of us.  Is it better to have a congregation that thinks of itself as full of leaders, or a congregation that thinks of itself full of followers?  Which of those things should a pastor be most intentional about modeling for a community?

We hate the idea of following.  Followers are weak.  Followers are, in the parlance of blogosphere trollery, "sheeple," the mindless masses who are utterly incapable of thinking for themselves.  In this land of fiercely held individualism, the idea that we'd hand over the keys to our life-direction to another is utterly alien.  

We love the idea of leading.  Leading is strong.  Being the leader means being in front, being empowered, being the captain, being the one behind the wheel.   Being the leader means casting a golden vision of glory before the amazed, or coming up with a product that is so magical that everyone who touches it becomes an instant fanboy/girl.

And yet, as was so delightfully illustrated by Derek Sivers in his TED presentation last year, a movement is ultimately not defined by a leader.  What makes for a movement is followers.  No followers?  No movement.

As churches try to articulate Christ into a culture of radical self-absorption, that's a bit of a challenge.  On the one hand, we're aware that all of us are gifted with the blessings of the Spirit.   All stand equal before our Maker, who is no respecter of persons.  Authentic Christian faith rejects all forms of power over others, and in that is as radically egalitarian as you can get.  Trotsky and Ron Paul ain't got nuthin' on Jesus folk.

On the other hand, we need to ask ourselves which is healthier:  A congregation in which everyone sees themselves as the pastor, or a congregation in which everyone sees themselves as a disciple?

Passionate Visionary: Leadership Lessons from the Apostle Paul

Having worked through books about David, Saul, and Moses as models for organizational leadership, I find myself now chugging my way through an assessment of the leadership style and approach of the Apostle Paul.  The book, entitled Passionate Visionary: Leadership Lessons from the Apostle Paul, was written by Dr. Richard Ascough and Dr. Charles Cotton, respectively a Professor of New Testament and a leadership consultant hailing from Canada's Royal Military College.

Entering into the book, the concern puttering about in the recesses of my subconscious was that it would shoehorn Paul into a box of current leadership literature, or misrepresent the core of authentic Pauline theology.  Neither of those fears proved justified.  With the input of both authors, the book moved seamlessly between the world of contemporary organizational dynamics and Paul's teaching and sociocultural context.

I particularly appreciated the decision of the authors to focus on the seven undisputed letters of Paul, and to leave the pastorals and the other deutero-Pauline letters out of the assessment of Paul's impact on the Jesus movement.  In doing so, Ascough and Cotton present a more accurately nuanced picture of Paul in all his bright, ferocious complexity.

In reading through this well-structured and conceptualized book, a few key features leapt out.

The end of chapter "questions for reflection" were actually rather engaging.  This is not always the case in  but I found myself consistently meditating on how and in what ways my own experience of leadership were reflected in the themes from the chapter.  In chapter fifteen, for instance, the reflections on the honor/shame dynamics that can stifle authentic conversation in communities resonated strongly.  Having recently left a ministry that was deeply influenced by the honor/shame dynamics of Korean culture, I found the assessment of those influences (standing in opposition to the Christ-centered freedom encouraged by Paul) to be accurate.

I found myself powerfully resonating to the chapter on the "bottom line" for Paul.  Keying off of the soaring hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13, and echoing off of other core Pauline texts, the authors accurately present love of other as absolutely central to Pauline theology.  By extension, this is also the bottom line in Paul's approach to leadership, and the core measure by which anyone in leadership needs to be assessed.  As Ascough and Cotton put it:

Vision counts for nothing without compassion, charisma fades without it, and all the spin doctors in the world produce meaningless words if the leader does not connect with followers in a caring, compassionate way. (p.146)

This measure, I think, gets to the core of what is most vital and life-giving in organizational leadership, whether it be in a congregational context or, quite frankly, in any gathering of human beings.

Finally, the emphasis on Pauline "chaordic" leadership...meaning leadership that embraces, directs, and empowers the generative character of human communities...was also resonant, although it was not clear as I was reading it whether or not this was simply because I grok to this approach.

Ultimately, this was a solid, well-developed, and readable work, rooted strongly in both organizational literature and the theology of one of the most influential individuals in the Christian faith tradition.  It's a fine read, both for pastors and for any Jesus folk struggling to see how they might apply some of the core principles of our faith to their life out there in the world.

Moses and the Journey to Leadership

The second in the sequence of books for my D.Min. program is Moses and the Journey to Leadership:  Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from the Bible and Today's Leaders, by Dr. Norman J. Cohen.  Dr. Cohen is a Professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College, and it shows.

The book is layered through with tellings and retellings of Torah, both from the primary narrative and from the secondary/legendary traditions of Midrash.  Dr. Cohen continually drops into a patois of blended Hebrew and English, peppering transliterated words into the flow of the narrative both for flavor and to engage in impromptu word-study.  It's a pretty standard rabbinic schtick, one that made reading through the book reminiscent of listening to the rabbi expound on Torah at my family's synagogue during the High Holy Days.

In reacting to the text, I had several challenges as I schlepped my way through the reading.

The first was that it seemed somewhat removed from the actual practice of leadership.  Given the scholarly/rabbinic character of the work, this is perhaps not surprising.  In an effort to relate the leadership of Moses to leadership dynamics in government and business, the text is smattered with pull-out boxes that describe semi-related leadership approaches in both government and business.  This was intended to give context, but after about the tenth pullout telling us, again, that Ernest Shackleton was a collaborative and positive leader, we get it already.   The general points were fine...be an inclusive leader, be sure of yourself, don't overfunction, involve and empower others...but they felt generic, underdeveloped, and cribbed from another primary source.

The style and dynamics of rabbinic explication also ended up feeling like a distraction.  The extensive and repeated explorations of the root meanings of words were fine in and of themselves, but felt a bit aimless in that meandering academic way.  In explaining the significance of the word rephidim, for instance, we are on page 79 told that it derives from the Hebrew term rafeh yadayim, meaning "weak hands."  Because the people squabble with God, their hands are weak.  But five pages later, we're told that rephidim derives from raphad, meaning "chair" or "support," because Moses needed the support of Aaron and Hur.  Recognizing that the rabbinic tradition is filled with such etymological exploration, and that the Hebrew language lends itself to polyvalent word-root speculation, it feels distractingly inconsistent.  Or perhaps just like an entertaining late night bull session at yeshiva.

I also stumbled over some of the interpretive work, particularly the efforts to reclaim and validate the Biblical injunction against being an Amalekite.  Or a breathing one, at least.  Where Cohen suggests that we should just understand Amalekites as symbolic representations of all that is evil in the world (p. 87), I just can't get there.  It's just an ugly bit of unpleasantness, if we're honest about it.   Not being a literalist, I see no need to read those passages as anything other than an unpleasant historical echo of ethnic tension that has been theologically spun.

Certain sections were more resonant, like the chapter exploring the need to empower individuals who support the vision laid out by the leader (ch. 9) and the last chapter, which dealt with the need for leaders to manage the inevitable transition to another leader.

The call and leadership struggles of Moses are a particularly powerful and resonant narrative for those who've been called to lead the church, and Cohen's exploration of that dynamic did have potential.  Ultimately, though, it felt disconnected from both a foundation in organizational praxis and in tenuous relationship with secular research on leadership effectiveness.

Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly

Having been asked to reflect on four books for my upcoming D.Min. coursework, the first I'll be reviewing here was written by two folks at Wesley Theological Seminary, one the Director of the D.Min. Program and the other a recently retired professor of Old Testament.

Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly explores the dynamics of leadership, and particularly church leadership, through the lenses of the stories to be found in 1 and 2 Samuel.  Those two books of the bible, in the event you aren't familiar with them, explore the history and theology of the rise of the monarchy in Israel. They lay out the narrative arc of transition from the time of "judges," those leaders of necessity who rose up out of the tribes in times of crisis, to the more structural, institutional, and centralized power structures of the Davidic/Solomonic royal lineage.

The book gets its title from two visual images from the rise of David in Israel.  The first is David dodging the spears that Saul would chuck at him when he was in one of his, you know, moods.  The second is the image of David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant, right after Indy got it back from the Nazis.  No.  Wait.

As I read through this generally engaging book, I found myself having a series of reactions.

First, Birch and Parks make a point of resisting business-leadership hagiography.  1 and 2 Samuel are a realistic and clear eyed account of the struggles and foibles of the first kings of Israel.  Unlike the rose-colored theological glasses worn by the author of the books of Chronicles, these books include a "prophetic criticism of institutional forms." (p. 25)  What gives them value is that they do not present leaders as flawless paragons, but serve up the stories of Saul and David that portray them in nuanced human beings.  It's a useful reminder that leadership in any institutional structure isn't populated by perfect  souls.  This is particularly useful in the church, where charismatic leadership is often assumed to be without flaw.  That assumption is dangerous both for congregations and for the leadership, as it traps both in a nonconstructive, delusional expectation.

Second, the book makes an aggressive point of exploring the theology of call.   Oldline denominations are great at establishing "gatekeeping" structures, the hoops and requirements and committees that stand between those seeking ministry and congregations.  But call itself is a more dynamic and unpredictable thing, one that has almost nothing to do with the self-sustaining demands of institutions.  It is less about establishing protocols, and more about listening for God's voice in unexpected circumstances.  (p. 43)

Third, the book spends the entirety of the fourth chapter dealing with "call-envy," using the fierce/psychopathic jealousy of Saul as a framing narrative.  Call envy is that tendency of pastors to look at their vocation not in terms of God's claim on their lives, but in terms of whether they're in a more prestigious/larger/better paying "call" than their cohorts.   This is placed in terms of the story of Saul's relationship to David in 1 Samuel 18.  While most pastors don't lob pointy objects at those whose worldly attainment exceeds their own, there is plenty of bitterness and grumbling out there.  Just spend a moment or two on the Presbytery floor during the meeting when the comparative salary report is released...

Finally, I did find myself occasionally wishing that Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly had gone beyond the Saul/David narrative.  As rich a story as it is, and as full of characters as it is, the story of call and leadership in Israel and Judah is continued through 1 and 2 Kings.  That arc of the rise and fall of the Hebrew monarchy includes a great array of similarly illustrative leadership teachings, and might have added some additional depth and richness to this exploration of Biblical leadership.  Perhaps in their next book...

As it was, though, Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly is a tight little book, and worthy reading for anyone who has been called to congregational leadership.

Re: The Occupy K Street Account

The following represents a privileged client communication of Ferguson and Cohen, LLC as defined by federal law, SEC Section C642.h - C645r, 1992.   Any unauthorized distribution of this material represents a violation of the aforementioned statute, and will be subject to felony prosecution and penalties.





CONFIDENTIAL
DATE:  10.28.11
TO:  R. Cohen, D. Ferguson
FROM:  J. C. Morgenstern
RE:  Occupy K Street Account Development Strategy Session

Following our new client development strategy session last month, I and my staff were tasked with doing an initial development FTF with Occupy K Street.

As the management team discussed during our September 17 planning meeting, the Occupy movement has increasing brand visibility, with all media-market metrics since brand incept showing explosive and exponential growth.   This growth is coupled with a strikingly positive brand-identity in broad and multiply replicable public survey data, a yield that is verified by our own internal assessments.

Our review of recent contract-chatter through informal professional social networks indicated that, amazingly, neither Occupy Wall Street nor its subsidiary Occupy K Street have retained the services of brand management and strategic planning consultants.  Clearly, this represented an opportunity for F&C to expand our client base into a new and growing market.

Our New York office was charged with initial contact with Occupy Wall Street, and I and my team began preliminary work on potential front-end deliverables for the K Street subsidiary.

To that end, my client development staff conceptualized some preliminary Six Sigma/POLIS Delta protocols for the movement, which we felt would clearly represent the value-added of engagement with F&C's branding team.  The two most promising POLIS/Delta yields:

1) Increased Drilldown on Brand-Specific Marketing Events:  In our assessment, Occupy K Street has the potential to be the most viable of the Occupy subsidiaries, particularly given its location at the nexus between corporate power and the American political system.   Its primary location is within several hundred yards of some of the most influential and well funded corporate lobbying firms.   To date, however, it has failed to leverage that synergy to any discernable advantage.

Instead, it appears primarily focused on impromptu dance parties in intersections, making cardboard signage, intense respectful discussions, and drum circles, none of which are recognized as mission critical functions in our Six Sigma protocols.  It has also diluted brand-identity by engaging in non-productive partnerships with previously established brands, such as FreeTibet LLC and GazaCorp.

Our value-added on this front would be to identify individual lobbying firms, their partners, and their office locations.   Focusing media events on the entities that define K Street in the public eye would, in our assessment, yield a positive and predictable process result.  It would also expand brand appeal into the fragmenting Tea Party market.

2)  Improve Social Media Messaging Brand Protocols:  A review of social media outputs indicated considerable potential for improvement in messaging strategy.   The primary twitter feed, for example, seems primarily used to say there isn't enough water/shelter/pizza, or to fret about the cops, or to talk about interpersonal disagreements.  As messaging goes, this could use some refinement.  A market-identity that is hungry/thirsty/cold is unlikely to draw significant support in the key 18-34 young urban demographic, and while highlighting interpersonal drama works well within the reality television marketplace, it has been shown to be less effective as a tool for mass movement mobilization.

Refocusing primary social media messaging away from damage control, in-house-chatter, and development efforts and towards the aforementioned Brand-Specific Marketing Events would increase the visibility of the Occupy K St movement.  Those functions could be dealt with by secondary outlets.

With these two primary yields, our team endeavored to approach senior management at Occupy K Street to establish the front-end relationships necessary for proposal negotiations.  Background research indicated that the management structure at all Occupy subsidiaries is a carefully guarded corporate secret, and our experience onsite confirmed this research.  Each initial contact insisted they had no knowledge of senior management.  Most seemed unwilling to admit to any knowledge of CoC structure, and would stay messaging-consistent, insisting that there was no such thing.   Despite this considerable and impressive control over management access, we persisted.

Our eventual on-site FTF came following a chance encounter with an individual named Johnny Justice Muffin, who admitted that he was, in his own words, "The Supreme High CEO of All This [Fornicating] [Excrement], Bro."   CEO Justice-Muffin indicated that there is some distance between our anticipated front-end billables (150 hours at a staff-average $100/hr, plus 35% overhead) and their fiscal year 2012 budget for management consulting (a previously used tarp, two hand-made free-range squirrel-fur caps, and a package of what was described as "some seriously kind [stuff], it only looks like shake, man.")

Given this hard-line approach to contract negotiations, it is our recommendation that next-stage conversations be subcontracted to our contract development specialist team.  I will look forward to further conversations on that front, and to responding to your questions, at this next months client development strategy session.

JCM

Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble

As I plunge into the reading for my D. Min. program, the first of the books that I'm cranking through is by Debra E. Meyerson, an Associate Professor of Education and Business at Stanford.  This academic but basically readable book revolves around an exploration of what it means to be a change agent within an organization.  This, obviously, has some potential implications for leading a congregation, particularly a congregation that is stuck or needs to transform itself. 

The core concept that acts as the unifying principle of this book is the concept of the "tempered radical" as the primary instigator of change and transformation within an organization.   A "tempered radical" is an individual who, on the one hand, is a radical.  Something about them sets them apart from the core ethos of the group within which they find themselves.  Their thinking and their action stands in marked tension with the expectations around them.  They are a deviant, but not (hopefully) in the "I'm really really really into patent leather undergarments" sort of way.  They deviate from the norm, and from that deviation, they bring with them the potential to effectuate a shift in institutional direction.

This person isn't, however, a bomb-throwy blower-upper of things.  They are "tempered," meaning that inherent deviance from the norm is tempered by a deep commitment to the well-being of the institution in which they are active. That fusion of commitment and a willingness to transgress against organizational boundaries is a key feature of transformational leadership.

As I reflect on how Meyerson's insights manifest themselves within my own ministry, I had a couple of reactions:


1)  Organizational Culture, Difference, and the Tempered Radical.  As Meyerson describes it, the countercultural identity of the tempered radical frequently means they end up facing both explicit and implicit resistance within their organizations.  Because they don't fit within the broader culture of their community, they can often be afflicted with a sense of isolation.  (Meyerson, p. 5)

As a pastor serving a community where I am visibly different from the majority (in my case, second generation Asian-American), I've felt this difference consistently over the last seven years.  The theological and social expectations of my congregation vary in some significant ways from my own.  Theologically, I'm a progressive in a conservative/evangelical milieu.  Where my theological inclinations tend towards justice, service, and classical Christian mysticism, my congregation's expectations are more in line with Korean American evangelicalism.  That would include a "personal relationship" with God, an intense focus on emotional worship, a more literal approach to scripture, and an approach to evangelism that is very focused on converting unbelievers...at least in theory.


That theological difference has placed me on the periphery of the community.  That is intensified by cultural factors particular to 2.0 Asian Americans whose faith experience is formed in 1.0 Korean congregations.  Most of my congregation shares a long history of active participation in the same youth group, which defined not just their faith, but their social circle.  It's a tightly knit group of old friends, and the boundaries of social and church life are often difficult to discern.  The set of social expectations that arise out of that relationship radically define the character of the congregation, which resembles a family in large part because it has often served as a family surrogate.  This social intimacy stands in direct tension with the ethos of evangelical conversion, a tension with which my community still struggles.

While these points of difference are considerable, I've found that the core of connection to the community...meaning, our shared faith in Christ...has been a major "tempering" factor.  As often as I've felt out of step with the community, I've felt how the shared passion for the essential grace and goodness of the Gospel provides a bond which transcends that difference. 


2)  The Tempered Radical and Pastoral Leadership.  Here, I struggled with Meyerson's thesis, not because it is an invalid change model, but because it seems mismatched with the reality of pastoral leadership.  In each of the framing anecdotes presented by Meyerson, the essential story of the Tempered Radical is the same.  Within the framework of a large or midsized corporate entity, a tempered radical works in middle management, where they effectuate gradual change by acting upon values that differ from the norm.  That effort is consistently described as primarily sub rosa.  Their efforts are "..less visible, less coordinated, and less vested with formal authority."  (ibid, p.171) 

This works if you are a middle manager, but it does not apply to pastoral leadership.  Pastors are, within the congregations they serve, the most highly visible representatives of the community.  If they are to be successful, they need to articulate and personally embody the highest values and aspirations of their community.  They cannot be invisible or peripheral.  If they are, then they are not providing the leadership a community needs. 

Can they challenge community norms?  Absolutely.  They need to.  Can they be radical?  Yes.   But the organizational context of the tempered radical and the organizational context of the pastor are not the same.   From the organizational location of a pastor, characteristics like personal charisma, the capacity to produce visible success, and being visionary (ibid., p. 171) cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the health of a congregation. 

Pastors are not managers.

Diversity and Incarnational Leadership

In a recent post on her blog Tribal Church, Carol Howard Merritt raised concerns about the relative lack of diversity among church leadership.  As a child of the evangelical movement who has found a home in the oldline, she's particularly troubled by the lack of women's voices in the church.  She's also troubled by the cultural homogeneity in the church.  I feel that, and it's a good issue to raise.

We Jesus People, being people, are really rather craptacular at selecting leadership that doesn't look like us or sound like us.  If a pastor doesn't affirm what a church already knows, they won't want that person as a leader.  I understand how repressive this can be to those who aren't viewed as leadership material by a dominant culture.   But I also struggle with how effective leadership can be possible if a leader doesn't represent a community.

Take the church I'm serving.  I like folks here.  I really do.  They're good people.  But I am..well..different, different enough that it impedes my ability to be effective.  There's the surface level stuff, of course.  This Sunday, I took a gander around the room as the worship gathered steam.  About 10 minutes in, I was the only non-Asian in attendance.  That, frankly, didn't bug me.  Never has. Most of the time, I don't even notice it. 

More significant, though, are the expectations of a community formed by the experience of being second generation Asian Americans.   The family-tight bonds forged in a Korean church youth group are a powerful thing, one I can appreciate conceptually, but just isn't the way I do church.  The theology of folks coming out of a conservative and evangelical tradition just isn't mine, either.  There are powerful commonalities around Christ, sure.  The bonds of faith and the Spirit are shared.  I can worship and laugh and enjoy the company of brothers and sisters in Christ.  But the way I express my faith just doesn't articulate community enough for me to work as a leader.   As I've conveyed to the cadre of young folks at my church with some real sadness, I'm just not a good match.

To be effective, I'm convinced that leadership needs to manifest the essence of a community.  It's a bit like worship that way.  Good, moving worship is contextual and incarnational, expressing the musical and liturgical sensibilities of a particular gathered body.  It's part of a shared identity.  Similarly, a congregation will seek a leader who visibly manifests and personifies their identity as a fellowship.

The issue here, though, is that such leadership does not really challenge a community to make changes.  If there are systemic injustices, the incarnational leader will not address them.  If there are systemic failings, the incarnational leader will often embody them.

Incarnational leaders aren't prophets.  They can be agents of growth, but they aren't agents of transformation.  There's a huge difference...and that's a problem for churches as human institutions.

Freedom, the Burqua, and Women

Yesterday, as I picked up an inexpensive vacuum for the church at the local K-Mart, I found myself waiting by my vehicle as a woman loaded her kids into her own minivan. Her cart and her kids were right next to my door, so I just said a gentle "excuse me," smiled, gave a little shrug, and stood there. I've done the "loading up the Conestoga" thing with kids many a time, and there's just no rushing it. She apologized, and smiled, and bustled about her business.

In keeping with the diverse and varied nature of my close-in suburb, the woman was Muslim, and was wearing a headscarf. Her two young daughters were also wearing headscarves. The scarves were bright and lively in color, and both she and her daughters were dressed in a way that was both demure and pleasant.

As I motored away, I was reminded of the current struggles that secular Europe is having as it attempts to adapt to some of the dynamics of Islam. In particular, it called to mind French president Sarkozy's recent efforts to completely ban full coverage veiling of women. France has had a tremendous amount of difficulty assimilating Islam into itself, particularly in its most rigid forms. "Full coverage" and "women" just...well, it ain't French. But it goes deeper than that.

Sarkozy's central beef is that the burqua and requiring a face to be covered dehumanizes women, and that this ce n'est pas acceptable in France. Though I suppose as a progressive I'm supposed to be generally tolerant of all things, I find that I have a very similar reaction whenever I've encountered burquas here in the DC area. While I find headscarves for Muslim women no more degrading than head coverings for Mennonites, I find the burqua painfully offputting.

It is quite simply not possible to argue that they do not dehumanize women, because that is precisely what a burqua does. That's the purpose. It strips a human being of any identifiable features. They cease to have any visible traits that permit you to recognize them as an individual. Behind a full coverage veil, women are easily viewed as wraiths, shadowy beings that must remain silent in the presence of real human beings, meaning, men.

Confronted in this way, conservative Muslims tend to have two responses. First, they assert that it is their right in a pluralistic society to do as they wish, and that if a society wants to claim it is modern and open, it must be tolerant of such things. There is more than a little truth in this. We Americans tend to err on the side of tolerance, because it's a vital and central part of our history. The net effect is that Muslims in America tend to be more moderate, more open to others, and are much more vested in this nation and it's principles. People who bloviate about Islamofascism and the inherent evils of Islam and imagine that they're defending American values are, in fact, doing the exact opposite. American freedom is a far more robust and viral thing than they seem to recognize.

The "tolerate our difference" argument is, therefore, fine...so long as folks making that argument recognize that this "difference" is not something that can ever be coerced. Do you have the right to wear a burqua? Sure. But in a free society you also have the right, the very moment you realize the burqua is not something you want to wear, to take the damn thing off. And I use that word advisedly.

If you want to participate in a pluralistic society, and to enjoy it's many benefits, your faith community needs to recognize that here every woman is free to choose 1) what she wears and 2) whether she wants to be a part of your faith community at all. In the places where the burqua is worn by all women, neither of those two things are true. That will never, ever be the case in America.

The second counterargument is one that shuts the mouth of a significant portion of American conservatism. That argument is simple. Most conservative Americans are Christian. Most conservative, Bible-believing Christians will argue that women are theologically subordinate to men. It's right there in Genesis, say they. It's right there in Timothy. Women are beneath men. They can't be leaders.

And so in a proportion of American churches that I find quite simply mindboggling, women can't be pastors. They can't be elders. They can't be deacons. They are spiritual inferiors, who can teach the kiddies, but are expected to...sssshhh...not teach or lead men. In the most successful nondenominational megachurch in the capital city of the great Republic of the United States of America, for example, this is how it works.

"You see?" a crafty Taliban might say. "You Christians also understand that women have their place. We simply have a different way of expressing it."

And he'd be right.

Breaking Through the Pastoral Fourth Wall

Over the last several years, I've been a part of the gradual transition of my worship service. When I started at my church, a-ways back in 2003, we did things in an entirely traditional way. We sang from hymnals. The service followed a stock-standard Presbyterian format. I stood behind the communion table, and preached from a written text whilst wearing my Geneva robes and a stole and some Jesus-bling around my neck.

Things have changed, because they had to change. As our incarnational worship has taken the more contemporary form that our young adult majority church prefers, we no longer sing from the hymnal. We don't have a regular paid accompanist any more, choosing instead to rely on an all-volunteer praise team for a significant part of the liturgy. I ditched my robe and stole a few years back, for all but special occasions. I preach almost exclusively from presentation software.

The basic structure of the worship is the same...but the way we do it and the style in which we approach it is utterly different.

As of this month, as we began the transition to using presentation software to guide the congregation through every element of worship, I no longer even bother sitting behind the table. I am no longer physically separated from the congregation during worship. I'm sitting in the first pew now, next to our lay pastor. He works the sound system. I keep those Keynote slides popping up to lead folks through prayers and praise.

In fact, I think it would be difficult for a new visitor to tell upon entering the sanctuary that I was even the Minister of Word and Sacrament in the house. I'm just another guy in the pews, right up until I pick up the laptop, move to the lectern, and start in on reading the scripture and delivering the message.

I'm not sure how many other pastors do this in my denomination. I'm not sitting up on some throne-like chair coolly surveying those who have gathered to hear the authoritative words I have to deliver from on high. I'm not waiting behind the curtains of the Jesus MegaCenter, ready to come before the adoring throngs as spotlights and fanfares announce my arrival. I'm making myself useful.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it when we started doing it this way. But honestly, I kinda like it. It gives my role in worship more of a Mark 9:35 feel.

The Ultimatum

Yesterday was a pretty solid Sunday. Worship was solid. There were more little squeakers in the nursery than I've seen in years. Our praise team did a solid job. After worship, we had a decent new members class. None of them fell asleep, at least, not for more than a few moments, and they were all trying really hard to stay focused. That was followed by a good, productive, and long session meeting.

And during worship, I told Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda that I will resign in a year unless things improve.

It was a conditional resignation, of course. I really like my congregation. They're good folks, and there's a lot of promise and possibility for our future. Things there are totally, utterly different than when I began six years ago. The congregation has twice as many members. It has more than doubled the attendance in worship. Annual giving has tripled. It is now majority young adult, and this year, it's leadership is on track become majority young adult.

But for the last three years, things have stagnated. Stalled out. Gone nowhere. Our membership numbers are the same. Our worship attendance? Slightly down. Our giving? Also slightly down. If we were a strapping healthy congregation, that could be chalked up to randomness. It could be weathered. But we're not. Not yet. We're a redeveloping church that needs to revitalize if it is to survive. And if we're not growing towards a hopeful future, we will not survive.

And instead of focusing on what matters, we've been putzing around or wallowing in negativity. There's been plenty of 한국드라마, and very little telling the old old story. I could complain about how it's this person's fault or that person's fault. I could claim that the malaise is due to the brutal church fight that just blew a gaping hole in the Korean church that we've been partnering with. Or mutter about endowments and their tendency to instill complacence.

But these are excuses. They mean nothing. Ultimately, the responsibility for failure...and for a church, stagnation is failure...lies with me. It's the pesky thing about being in leadership. If this church isn't growing, the responsibility lies with me.

So the first butt that needs to be kicked into gear is my own. Setting a hard and fast deadline for my own ministry is necessary, because without the realization that the shizzle is on the line, it'd be too easy for me to let things stand.

Of course, it's always been on the line. We're accountable for every last moment of our lives. Sometimes, though, we need a bit of reminding.

Notsanim

I find myself in the peculiar position of being an Anglo pastor in a congregation that is almost entirely Asian, and majority Korean. I'm fine with this, as I actually have a tremendous respect for Korean culture. Koreans are intensely passionate, creative, and musical people. They are, as I am fond of saying, essentially the Scots-Irish of Southeast Asia. They've got all the ferocity of the Celts, uncomfortably co-mingled with a convoluted system of familial hierarchy and a taut Confucian reserve. It's a tension that can be either radiantly creative or as explosive as a kimchi jjigae suppository. Whichever way, things are never, ever dull when you're around Koreans.

When my 1.5 and 2.0 congregation introduces me to Korean speakers, I am often introduced as moksanim, which means either "good shepherd" or "pastor," best I can tell. I'm fine with that. It's kinda cool. I always feel honored and humbled whenever I hear it. I'm never quite sure, though, whether my moksanim-ness is quite the same as the moksanim-ness of some of my Korean pastor co-religionists.

I got a sense of that one Sunday a few years ago when a toilet in the men's bathroom nearest to the sanctuary overflowed prior to a service. I was the one there early, so I immediately got a mop and started cleaning. One of the members of the Korean-speaking congregation came across me doing this, and seemed both amused and appalled. I wasn't supposed to be cleaning! That..well..wasn't my place. There were people I should be telling to do that. I explained, gently, that if my house had a mess, it was my duty to clean it up. That seemed to both surprise and register.

That line of thought has surfaced repeatedly over the past several years, as I've been chastised for not being sufficiently authoritarian. Just tell people what to do! Make sure they do it! You're the pastor! In some ways, it's a fair critique. My weakness as a manager and as a pastor has always been that I am too quick to forgive. Sometimes, a good butt-kicking is both necessary and efficacious.

But in other ways, I wonder if some of the hierarchical expectations of that particular culture don't resonate with the teachings of Jesus. There are strong echoes of the desire to have someone ordering folks around still stirring in my 2.0 church. That desire for a demigod pastor runs strong in Korean culture, which serves up authoritarian corporate megachurches that make Rick Warren look like the vicar of a little village.

In spite of that, I feel deep in my being that the calling to be a pastor is the calling to be a servus servorum, a servant of the servants. When you start being too important or too holy to slop a mop across the floor or get your hands dirty or run a simple errand, you stop living out Christ's servanthood.

He did wash folks stinky, crusty feet, after all.

The Christian Flirt

I am and have always been almost totally incapable of flirting.

That's not to say I don't get along with women. I have always been both attracted to women and completely at ease talking to them. The bonds of common humanity, of shared joy and struggle, those things make it easy for me to connect with women as very real friends. I'm also strongly drawn to da ladies in other, utterly non-Platonic ways.

But since I was an adolescent, I've found that where conversation and friendship has always come easily, the sly-eyed teasing articulation of physical interest has been something about which I'm completely witless. Flirting is one of the primary ways men and women interact, a coy dance of veils and indirection that establishes that oh-so-live tension between the sexes. And I just can't do it. Never could.

Through high school and a portion of undergrad, this was a considerable liability. Though I was attracted to many, many women as both people and as sexual beings, my ability to express interest was either painfully emo earnest or so poorly developed as to leave me in brain-locked paralysis. Just ask the first girlfriend, who was prone to wondering if I was in some way asexual. Or ask my wife. Hoo boy. She's got some stories.

Having done some research into the matter, I've discovered that this is a common syndrome: I am what the kids these days call "flirtarded." I'd say "differently flirtatious," but while that might be less offensive, it really doesn't touch on the depth of my inability in that area.

Here's the thing, though. What was once a significant weakness is now actually rather convenient. Because while flirting can be both fun and really, really helpful when you're trying to interest a mate, once you move out of that state of being, it becomes much less useful. Counterproductive, even.

As a husband, flirting with anyone other than your spouse is...well...not a good thing. It may be "fun," in that it establishes interest and tension. But the signals it sends are dangerous, because the purpose of those signals is primarily about establishing sexual connection. And what begins as teasing play can easily follow its natural course, evolving into something that can rip the heart out of a marriage.

As a manager or a boss, flirting can be oppressive. The boundary between showing interest and using power imbalances to coerce a response is too narrow. The workplace...if you're in a position of authority...is not a place to flirt. Back in my days of secular employ, there was a period of time when I managed several folks, and had other assistants as part of my work team. Though a random sequence of events, for a while every one of them was female, single, and attractive. They were my colleagues and my friends. I heard from them about higher-ups who'd hover outside of cubicles showing interest. "Flirting." "Showing interest." There was sexual tension, sure. But it wasn't fun sexual tension. For those on the receiving end, it was skeevy and more than a little unpleasant.

As a pastor, flirting is completely off limits. Well...that's not entirely true. It's not that pastors can't flirt. Married pastors should flirt with their wives. I've been taking some remedial classes in this area, and it's a good thing. Single pastors should be able to show interest in potential mates outside of the bounds of their role as pastors. But if you are someone's spiritual guide and teacher, you cannot simultaneously flirt with them. It just can't be so.

Introducing sexual tension into that relationship does two things. First, it invites the same sort of misuse of social power that comes when your boss drops a leering comment about how fiiiine you look today. Second, and much more significant, it fundamentally betrays the integrity of the pastoral relationship. When your interest in someone becomes colored by intentionally created sexual tension, your ability to teach or develop them spiritually is compromised.

Yeah, maybe Tantric priests are an exception. But even there, no, particularly there, sexuality is approached with a mystic intensity that is alien to the compulsive flirt. Parvati did not win Shiva by asking if That Was His Unbounded Infinite Lingum or Was He Just Happy To See Her.

Flirting, of itself, is not a bad skillset to have. I do sometimes wish I'd been better at it as a young 'un. But it's something that Christians who are called into positions of either covenant commitment or leadership in the church need to studiously avoid.