Bound by the Voyage Jesus Launched
Coronavirus and Church Networks, Part 1: Stewardship of Both Structures and Supporting Core Values
I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
~Jesus
I lost my sight; But not the vision
Eyes on the prize; Reboot the mission
~The Wallflowers
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
~Marcel Proust, 1923
In his 1948 book, Citadelle (The Wisdom of the Sands), French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote of someone wanting to build a boat, so he imparted a love of sailing to a group of people who then spontaneously went to work on the necessary subtasks:
One will weave the canvas; another will fell a tree by the light of his ax. Yet another will forge nails, and there will be others who observe the stars to learn how to navigate. And yet all will be as one. Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky. It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a community of love.
Teaching a group to yearn for the vast and endless sea can get a ship built. In 2008, a Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, George Edwin Goodfellow, put it this way:
If you wish to build a ship, do not give directions and technical advice to others. Rather, show them the wonder and adventure of the open ocean.
Jesus, as “shipbuilder” (of His church), shows ol’ Rocky (Peter the fisherman) the wonder and adventure of His kingdom voyage (Matthew 16:13-19) and spent several years giving His disciples a “shared taste for the sea.” Then Jesus leaves them with a vast commission to set sail on open oceans, casting their nets as they go (Matthew 28:18-20).
Fast forward a couple thousand years and find that denominations and churches have lost their love of sailing the ocean blue. Most of their churchgoers have not even heard of Jesus’ vast commission. Barna reports only 17% say they’ve both heard of the Great Commission and can kinda take a stab at telling what it means.
A somewhat understandable development in all this lack of missional-voyage yearnings is a growing desire to eradicate denominational and congregational structures. Obviously, there are times that call for an immediate change, especially in our faster-moving world. It’s not hard to envision situations for the eradication of some centuries-old inherited forms that are barely recognizable compared to their original version. But it’s problematic when a mutiny to throw structures overboard is conjured up by false narratives mixed in with a few facts to appear legit.
The best stories of that ship’s voyage may yet to be written. A vessel may be “laid up” but not “laid down.” A ship that’s laid up due to damage sustained in a violent storm may need time back at the shipyard spillway where there’s temporary scaffolding for repairs in hard-to-reach places. But never mistake scaffolding for the structure, and a ship’s commission is not the same as its original launch from the spillway. Commissioning is done when the ship has completed all “sea trials” and has then been accepted by the Chief of Naval Operations, placing the warship in active duty with the rest of the fleet (the broader body of Christ).
A sea trial is a testing of a watercraft, also referred to as a “shakedown cruise,” which occurs out on open waters to measure a vessel's performance, seaworthiness, speed, and maneuverability. Today, the church is being tested by turbulent waters of historic proportions. The global Coronavirus pandemic is the kind of “perfect storm” the church of the West may not face again in our lifetime.
As COVID-19 spreads and wreaks havoc, church leaders are quite concerned, to say the least. Having spoken to dozens of pastors in recent weeks, many are expressing a wide range of emotions, from fear to frustration. And some already have first-hand experience with family, friends, or congregants getting sick from the Coronavirus. No doubt, COVID-19 is already causing widespread economic and social disruption in ways we could not have imagined a short time ago. This is certainly a season of tension, grief and lament for denominational and pastoral leaders. What’s old is going away fast and what’s new is being thrust upon pastors and church leaders.
Even before the Coronavirus crisis hit nationally, American ecclesial and institutional structures had already been unraveling in response to rapid societal developments. To a growing number, traditional ways of doing church are just no longer meaningful. Some have argued for abandoning structures and institutions altogether.
Such wholesale abandonment, though, can bring both unintended consequences and missed opportunities. It’s time for a new playbook. Bring it. I’m 100% there. But as to existing structures, we’d be prudent to first look deeply. Structures embody both core values and legitimizing narratives that are valuable to an informed future. Without such considerations, simply replacing an institution with a new one may be unnecessarily costly and even fruitless. Crisis in a denomination or church may not be a crisis of institutional structure but of catalytic leadership, courageous stewardship or re-imagination.
We do live in a brave new world, so let’s give it brave new deliberation, including this reality check: Structures in and of themselves are often symptomatic, but not the cause of crisis or decline. An existing bias or drive to problematize structures can deflect from the real issues and causes of the current malaise. Worse yet, this provides cover for someone in a position of leadership that doesn’t really believe in the organization. They still guard their position, rather than see succession to another leadership team that’s energized by the voyage. They’d rather go down with the ship.
This drive to jettison structures can be presented as an assumption that removing them will address the challenges facing a denomination and therefore its churches. And what’s often left unaddressed is the corresponding assumption that institutional structures are themselves unnecessary layers that obscure the true church and somehow hinder it from breaking out.
We should all share a sense of urgency and strong desire to accelerate beyond the current decline and malaise. That’s legit, along with steps for leading change in order to survive and then thrive in an ever-changing culture. Consider carefully the words of a leading authority on leadership change, John Kotter, in Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World:
The world is now changing at a rate at which the basic systems, structures, and cultures built over the past century cannot keep up with the demands being placed on them… The solution is NOT to trash what we know and start over.
“But instead,” you ask? A vital question, indeed. If feedback reveals interest, I’ll gladly expound in a future post. Till then, ponder this: Among many things, my GC tribe serves as a several-decades-long case study of governance in our day. After years of up-close, in-depth, detailed examinations, consultations and debates with regional leaders from across the country at a national leadership council and institute level, I’ve observed firsthand many revisited attempts to find a solution to the conundrum of biblical governance in the 21st century, both in organizations and churches. Allow me to share a key finding of this “research project.”
Structures are upheld by values. Governance must reinforce the biblical principles of BOTH governance and values . Therefore, here’s my thesis statement: Governance must be the continuously courageous stewardship of BOTH structures and supporting core values. Whether it be a denomination, network or church, board governance requires stewardship bravery without gaps to keep all of its body parts alive. Boards must maintain strength of conviction over the long haul and never become lax in values. Otherwise, the values are no longer the “core.” Therefore, board members must resist attempts by another member or even temptations for themselves to play politics or show favoritism.
So then it’s HOW ones GOVERN that must be critiqued, not merely a governance structure itself. Take your favorite sport. Remember the last time you caught yourself railing against a referee who made a bad call that went against your team? But take away the refs and the rules they enforce, and the sport you’re an avid fan of could no longer exist in a professional sense. So, too, organizations and churches would reflect a reductionist form if qualified overseers and New Testament equippers are not functional.
We mustn’t underestimate the importance of both structures and values. If ones dump their nonprofit corporate articles and supporting values statement in the trash can, well, such docs will still be needed for what’s newly created in its place. Therefore, WHO LEADS (and HOW they lead) is where the rubber meets the road. WHO sits in an official seat on staff or a chair on the board? Within a given structure, WHO has the board placed in key positions of leadership and management and HOW well are they leading and managing? Don’t blame the structure if these questions go unasked or unaddressed.
When someone sits on a board, whether it be a nonprofit ministry, denomination, local church, or even a business in the marketplace, the decisions about how to both lead and manage are all tied to the purposes of the organization. If these purposes and corresponding goals of the enterprise have not yet been met, then the board has an ethical obligation to steward toward those purposes and goals moving forward. That is what they signed up for.
No managing director or executive-committee member should be allowed to become a technocrat characterized by controlling the vital conversations around needed change, holding all the the cards or operating as if they are the only one that could or should hold their position of elite expertise. This results in stagnant vision and leadership of the organization. Nor should the opposite be allowed. Address situations where long-term executives or committee members either go AWOL—”absent without leave” from one’s post—by disengaging, or become a lame duck riding out a final term or acquiescing to being ineffectual.
Time to make a change? Sure, but it MAY NOT be time to trash what you know and start over. Since governance is stewardship of the structures we inherit or create, good governance is not just a matter of possessing character, wisdom or expertise. It is systemic.
Systems theorist, Russ Ackoff, once described the trap of “doing the wrong thing righter. The righter we do the wrong thing,” he explained, “the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Most of our current problems,” he said, “are the result of policymakers and managers busting a gut to do the wrong thing right.”
Instead, let’s be bound by the voyage Jesus launched. In his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of Quick Fix, Ed Friedman writes:
Conceptually stuck systems cannot become unstuck simply by trying harder. For a fundamental reorientation to occur, that spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new perceptions beyond the control of our thinking processes must happen first.
And it was T. S. Eliot who masterfully quipped as to the ultimate outcome of adventurous exploration:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~T. S. Eliot, 1942
Taking on an adventure-or-die attitude may well be the first key step toward seeing the kingdom of God among us, already going forth ahead of us and beckoning us to follow.
The adventure set before us is God’s own expedition first and foremost, then ours secondarily. Yet, along with His commission to explore comes God’s own empowerment that He puts right within—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).
God also resources us with those whom He has put around us. Together we create the conditions and cultures for the stewardship of our organizations and churches. He calls us to the expedition; to continually journey toward being more like Christ. In times such as these, Jesus still sounds the call for all to be adventurers for the Great Commission. The ship is safest in the shipyard or anchored in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are made for!
Bonus poem:
Bound by the Voyage Jesus Launched
Come fill the deck, show respect for the dear departed
Gather ‘round, let's be bound by this voyage He started
Save all your strength for the length of His task before us
Think on this vessel from His shipyard; He won’t ignore us
It's what our Captain wanted, He’ll not be disappointed
Each of us well appointed, we all have been anointed
Fishers of men—our occupation, make disciples of the nations
We'll make our ropes out of our hopes ’n dreams and tribulations
Each one of us connected, all gifts and skills respected
Always to be expected, we will not be deflected
Tho we won't know whether, it's fair or stormy weather
We'll weave our souls together, we'll splice this net and tether
Pick up your tools, we're not fools to be treated lightly
We'll tie our souls to the bulkhead, secure them tightly
We'll use the skills and the crafts that our fathers taught us
Servants who lead, as His slaves, ‘coz our Master bought us
We'll weave a net of our hopes and our dreams between us
We'll be the envy of that sorry bunch who'll wish they'd been us
We'll form a web of steel, a structure that will not be broken
We'll be the heroes of the day whenever tales are spoken
Come strike the floor with your feet all you lads and lasses
And if you're too old to dance, you can raise your glasses
It’s why you’re there, grow a pair, put what remains in order
What are ye, a man or a mouse? Or kingdom explorer
The timid get nowt for waiting, so why ye hesitating?
Ships don't get built debating, or launched just contemplating
Hoist anchor altogether, wear out your old boot leather
We'll stay the course together, in fair or clement weather
Few supplies for the voyages, we're hardly spoiled with choices
To be heard above the noises, we'll need to raise our voices
Our strength is in communion, this great-commission union
This gospel workers' guild, with every working station filled
Tho winds and waves get faster, she’s build by our Shipmaster
No vessel will outlast her, no pirate ship gets past her
These bonds we've spliced together, will face all kinds of weather
Winds stronger than a gale, but storms of hell will not prevail
Yet we’ll show the wonder and adventure of the open sea
Launched from His quay, bound to cast this net for souls, where will you be?