I’ve been pondering that a lot. Have we become a timid church?” Hanson asked the ELCA leaders. A sign of a timid church is one that describes itself by what it has lost and what it lacks, he said. Such a church is one that tries to hold onto the past and preserve what was, Hanson said.
A church that defines itself by controversies and partisan divisions “will become a weary and timid church,” Hanson said. A timid church has lost confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to work through the gospel, he said. The presiding bishop also said he is “deeply concerned” that leaders preach with a sense of confidence.
Tag: leadership
Sparnaðarleiðin “sjálfboðin þjónusta”
Á liðnu aukakirkjuþingi var bent á mikilvægi sjálfboðinnar þjónustu á lista yfir mögulegar leiðir til sparnaðar í þjóðkirkjunni í ljósi breyttra fjárhagsforsenda. Ég hef tvívegis síðan þá skrifað langlokur í svarhala Facebook um málið, en ákvað að taka saman þanka mína hér.
Í upphafi er mjög mikilvægt að taka fram að ég held að það sé öllum ljóst að safnaðarstarf framtíðarinnar í íslensku kirkjunni verður að byggja meira á sjálfboðinni þjónustu. Það er hins vegar ekki sama hvernig það er gert. Það að fá einhvern til að gera eitthvað frítt í sparnaðarskini er ekki það sama og að virkja fólk til sjálfboðinnar þjónustu. Continue reading Sparnaðarleiðin “sjálfboðin þjónusta”
Samræða um sóknir og safnaðarstarf
Kirkjan á Íslandi virðist um þessar mundir vera í mikilli varnarbaráttu. Ef mark er takandi á því sem ég heyri frá vinum og kunningjum á Íslandi, innan og utan kirkju, þá eru margir söfnuðir í mikilli krísu vegna þrengri fjárhags enn áður. Ein birtingarmynd þessarar krísu var aukakirkjuþing í ágúst, þar sem hugmyndum var varpað fram um lausnir. Continue reading Samræða um sóknir og safnaðarstarf
Umhyggja, vonbrigði og reiði
Þankar vegna skrifa formanns Framsóknarflokksins í Morgunblaðinu 4. september 2010.
Margir hafa tjáð sig um málefni þjóðkirkjunnar síðustu vikur, margt gott hefur verið sagt, og annað miður fallegt látið fjúka. Þegar formaður Framsóknarflokksins kvaddi sér hljóðs í dag, ásakaði fréttamenn um annarlegar kenndir og minnti okkur sum með óbeinum hætti á ógeðfellt samtal Davíðs Oddssonar og Ólafs Skúlasonar um að athygli fjölmiðla væri eðli málsins samkvæmt alltaf tímabundin, þá fannst mér tímabært að leggja orð í belg.
Continue reading Umhyggja, vonbrigði og reiði
Fake Christians
No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.
“There are countless studies that show that religious teenagers do better in school, have better relationships with their parents and engage in less high-risk behavior,” she says. “They do a lot of things that parents pray for.”
Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their childrens faith, places the ultimate blame for teens religious apathy on adults.
Some adults dont expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.
Others practice a “gospel of niceness,” where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says.
“If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation,” wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary.
For Those Speaking (and listening) on behalf of God
A prose from The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky which the enlightened atheist Ivan shares with his younger brother and monk Alyosha.
He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone recognised Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they recognised Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. Continue reading For Those Speaking (and listening) on behalf of God
Manneskjan og/eða kerfið
Árið eftir að ég hætti störfum sem framkvæmdastjóri ÆSKR (Æskulýðssambands kirkjunnar í Reykjavíkurprófastsdæmum), notaði ég mikið af tíma mínum í lestur og skrif um persónuleikabresti, velti upp spurningum hvað það merkti að kirkjan væri öllum opin og að allir væru velkomnir. Brennipunkturinn í vangaveltum mínum var mjög einstaklingsbundin og undir sterkum áhrifum einstaklingshyggju pietismans. Continue reading Manneskjan og/eða kerfið
Hið Heilaga Ísland
Frábært innlegg um aðskilnað ríkis og kirkju. Að öllu leiti mjög vel unnið og greinargott. Eina athugasemdin sem ég hef er að eitthvað segir mér að eignir lúthersku kirkjunnar í upphafi 20. aldar séu ekki endilega jafn tengdar við eignir katólsku kirkjunnar fyrir siðbreytingu eins og séra Hjörtur Magni heldur fram. En ég er reyndar ekki sérfræðingur um meintar eignir kirkjunnar í upphafi 20. aldar.
via vantru.is frá Hið Heilaga Ísland on Vimeo.
Leaving ELCA (or not)
Out of 10.230 congregations in ELCA, 199 have already taken two votes and decided to leave ELCA due to its decision at Church Wide Assembly 2009. When this is written 136 are in the process of making the second vote to leave after having passed the first. This means that in case all of the 136 decide to leave, ELCA has decreased in number of congregations by 3.2%.
What would be an interesting statistics in comparison with this number, is the number of members that have left. My assumption is that congregations that are most likely to leave are on average larger than those that stay. This is of course only a feeling, based on only one example (UALC) and a gut feeling about the nature of congregations. Of course I might be wrong.
based on pretty good lutherans » Blog Archive » ELCA by-the-numbers and numbers from the ELCA site.
Organizing Armageddon
The most persistent systemic problem with big international aid efforts, one highlighted in virtually every major study, is that no one is in charge. In a major catastrophe, thousands of high-minded, highly motivated folks pour in from all over the world. Each big agency has its own style and priorities, and each sets up its own supply chain of planes, ships, and trucks. They compete with one another for resources, duplicate one another’s efforts, and generally get in one another’s way.
from Organizing Armageddon: What We Learned From the Haiti Earthquake via Derek Hoven.
What is not mentioned in the article, and is even more catastrophic is the fact that very few of those aid efforts utilize and work with locals, allowing the locals to participate in the decision-making process. This is perhaps best understood by the fact that no Haitian is addressed in the article except for the negative image of a muscular man stalling the Red Cross in their effort to deliver food.
Look at Natural Church Development
Rene Erwich gives an overview of the theological implications of the Natural Church Development in an interesting article called Missional churches: identical global ‘plants’ or locally grown ‘flower’?
Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction
“On More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” by Frederick Herzberg is one of the must read articles about leadership. Its main claim is that there is a difference between the things that motivate employees and the things that make them dissatisfied.
According to Herzberg environmental factors, like boss’s attitude, structure of the workplace, and salaries can surely by demotivating, but the changes in those factors to the better does not create a motivation in the employee.
According to Herzberg it is challenge, interests, and responsibility that do motivate people to do better in their workplace. He even claims that as a fact that:
Motivated people seek more hours of work, not fewer.
Herzberg’s article is valuable, not as a fact study about motivation (though it surely has some value) but to open our minds to the complex systems that are to be found in all structures.
What Makes a Leader?
Daniel Coleman’s article about the necessity of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is an important read, whether we think its status as a classic is well deserved or not. In the article he lifts up the need for self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. All crucial parts of what Coleman calls EQ. In the article Coleman defines what he means by those five crucial components of EQ.
According to Coleman all those components can be learned.
Coleman’s findings are based more or less on a feeling, rather than any hard data. It is based on observation “how emotional intelligence shows itself on the job.” This is not to say that there are no questionnaires to be found, they might, but they are not quoted here or even referenced. Having said that, it is an important read, as long as we are aware of its shortcomings.
From “What Makes a Leader? (HBR Classic) – Harvard Business Review” by Daniel Coleman
The Self Interests of Congregations
A paper called “Church Based Organizing: A Strategy for Ministry” presented be the Gamaliel Foundation, makes an interesting claim about the new focus of congregations:
Fifty years ago, the self interest of the church was to respond to the problems of poverty, poor schools, lack of health care etc. affecting its people. Today the self interest is still there; but a more powerful self interest is the very survival of the congregation.
Here is more about Gamaliel Foundation.
Ecclesiology and Evaluation
My dissertation is now available on the Theological Research Exchange Network.
God’s Vision
The problem is not our inability to create a vision for the church. The problem is not seeing what is God’s vision for the church.
Note from a class discussion in the course Care of Souls@Trinity Lutheran Seminary.
Staff Structure in Congregation
I have concluded that “a staff member reports to a committee” is one of those things that you can say in English but that makes no sense. . . . Committees simply cannot supervise paid staff, because they are not present when the work is done, and it is too difficult for them to speak with one voice. A staff member deserves a boss who works at least as many hours a week as he or she does. Others can participate in the evaluation process or in making policies about staff treatment. But a congregation that wants to remain sane will set its staff up as a single team and hold it responsible for sustaining its own working relationships.
via Leading Ideas: A Resource for Church Leaders.
The problem with this thought from “Leading Ideas: A Resource for Church Leaders” is that the only person that fits the description “a boss who works at least as many hours a week as he or she does,” creates a situation in most congregation where the senior pastor is the staff supervisor, which is not necessarily the optimal situation for the senior pastor.
The Hidden Lives of Congregations
Israel Galindo’s book, The Hidden Lives of Congregations: Discerning Church Dynamics, is in three parts. The first two address the congregation and the forces behind it. The third part is about being a leader in a congregation. When reading it in one setting Galindo seems to repeat him self somewhat when it comes to the third part, as he tries to apply the first two parts to the function of pastoral leaders. Continue reading The Hidden Lives of Congregations
Leaders who Last
Margaret Marcuson addresses leadership in congregations in her book, Leaders who Last, starting with the claim that to sustain leadership we must stop controlling others, and start the difficult task of managing ourselves (3). She continues in a similar fashion, reminding us that pastoral ministry does only bring to us the peace of mind we enter the ministry with in the first place (6). Continue reading Leaders who Last
Managing the Congregation
When I decided almost five years ago to study about theology and church management, I expected something in line with Shawchuck and Heuser’s book, Managing the Congregation. I was hoping for practical answers, figures and lists with various answers to all kinds of complicated situations. I thought I would study various ways of labeling and structuring congregations, I even anticipated learning various ways of quality control measurements. After four years of studies in the States I finally get the opportunity to read about all this, and what a disappointment. The authors are surely doing their best, but their answers are no answers. The book does not try to deal in any serious way with the question what the church is, or why, and even the subtitle presents an understanding of the church that is ambiguous to say the least.
The book is written in 1996, so it is post-Berlin Wall but pre-9/11, and it is relevant to keep in mind. Another thing worth mentioning is that it is 387 pages with indexes and not only has 18 chapter, but those eighteen chapters are organized into 202 sub-chapters or sections. One could actually claim that this is a bureaucratic book about the danger and death that is unavoidable consequence of bureaucracy.