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Existing/Emerging Leadership: The Saga Continues

Posted Oct 8, 09:45 PM | 1 comments | by Editor | Link

By Leon Bloder, re-posted from Presbymergent.org:

A few months ago, I wrote short essay entitled “Living In Two Worlds: Existing/Emerging Leadership.” Somehow the essay got into the hands of Eileen Lindner, an author and Presbyterian minister who offered a presentation at an Ecumenical & Interfaith Network gathering in 2007. She read from my essay (among others) as part of a presentation that she did on “Post-Denominational Identities and Emerging Ecclesiologies.” Her title was better, I must admit. I also have to admit that it was kind of nice to be noticed. Mind you, there are no literary agents pounding down my door to offer me a book deal (Seriously … Anyone know a literary agent? Anyone?), but the realization that someone responded to what I wrote and actually discussed it was gratifying.

That little essay was born out of the struggle that I was going through at the time as I began to identify more with Emergent or Missional theology and ecclesiology and sought to lead the church to which I was called accordingly. At the time, the church I was serving could be defined as containing both “emerging” and “existing” traits. On Sunday mornings the existing aspect of my church met for worship, and on Sunday evenings there was an emergent worship gathering/community that regularly met in the same space. These communities could not have been any different, but they both formed and informed one another in interesting and exciting ways. It was good to reflect on my struggle as an emerging leader in an existing church, though. Because of that time of reflection, I came to understand that in many ways I was embodying the very struggle in which my church had become engaged. My efforts to put my feelings into words was a part of that struggle—an effort to write a story that was far from complete. But there was something unsatisfying in that effort, to be honest. It felt like I (and to some extent my church as well) had come to the end of a chapter, but didn’t know how to finish the last sentence in a way that felt good and right. We had both come a long way, but not far enough.

In the end, neither one of us could put a period at the end of that sentence.

When I wrote that first essay, I knew that my time at my emerging/existing church was going to be cut short. The senior pastor of the church accepted another call, and I became the interim pastor/acting head of staff for over a year. All the while, I was also exploring other opportunities and trying to discern where God might be calling me to serve. I imagined and dreamed about the possibilities of serving a community of faith that was already part of the “emerging conversation,” a place where the word “missional” did not have to be unpacked. I dreamed of a place of diversity—in worship, in mission, in ministry, and in constituency. These dreams carried me through some fairly tough times of doubt and uncertainty, but they were my dreams, and no one else’s.

God’s dreams for the community of faith I was destined to serve were quite different from mine, as it turned out. I was called to serve an historic, traditional, established, corporate, existing congregation in a small town in Central Florida. I was called, and I knew deep in my heart that I would go as soon as I heard the invitation. When I realized that God’s dreams for me did not include any of the things I thought I wanted for myself, I grieved a little, to be honest. Further, shortly after I accepted the call to serve my historic, traditional, established church, I was contacted by three different churches who were extremely interested in calling me as their pastor. They had been the three churches who were at the top of my wish list when I was dreaming of the kind of community of faith I [selfishly] longed to serve.

As I pondered all of this and grieved a bit more over what might have been, a friend of mine told me a story from her own life. She said that her father, a Presbyterian minister, once visited the “perfect” church to determine if he was being called to serve there. Her mother loved it, she remembered. The manse was large, the church was in a beautiful mountain community in North Carolina, there were no financial worries, it was well staffed and the congregation was happy and motivated. But her father declined the church’s offer. My friend remembered him saying, “I don’t want to go somewhere that doesn’t need me, and they don’t need me.”

Then I realized that the period had just been placed at the end of that troublesome sentence.

The first pastor of my church was called 125 years ago. His name was [seriously] The Rev. Dr. James Hair Potter. You can’t make this stuff up. There is a huge Tiffany-style stained glass window in the sanctuary—a sanctuary that was dedicated in 1914. Dr. Potter’s picture is in a glass case in the parlor [complete with huge wingback chairs, coffee tables, and large oil paintings depicting deer, landscapes, etc.]. He was an austere-looking fellow with a beard that reached all the way down to his waist. Potter served my church for 20 years. I think about him sometimes when I stand by myself in the sanctuary preparing for my sermon. You can’t help but think about him, really. The stained glass in his honor is huge, beautiful, and stately. I like looking at it.

A friend of mine, who was part of the emergent worship gathering I used to lead, visited a worship service at my new church recently. As I greeted her before the service, she looked at me all decked out in my robe and colorful stole, peered at the pipe organ and all of the old wooden pews, the Potter stained glass, and said to me, “I cannot picture you in a church like this.” I considered what she said as I made my way up to the somewhat high chancel [six feet above all controversy] to begin the service. She was right. I would have never pictured myself in a church “like this” either, but God did, and I am glad that God has a more active imagination than I do.

I happen to love my new church … a lot. I understand a bit more about what God has called me to do here. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time talking and thinking about what it means to be an emergent church leader. I’ve led what people have come to call “emergent” worship services [which is really a misnomer, if you ask me], and I have had long, passionate discussions and debates with colleagues on what the Church needs to do to become more missional. And God in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy has seen fit to make me put my money where my mouth is.

This thing that has come to be known as the Emergent Church has moved from idea to reality in so many ways, but still is hard for most of us, who care about these things, to define, and even more difficult to put our arms around. I recently read that some of the pioneers of the emergent movement have broken from it because it was too all-encompassing, too ecumenical, too open and affirming of different beliefs, Biblical interpretations, blah, blah, blah [indicates my impatience and frustration]. But I see things a bit differently. I feel so strongly that in order for the Church to be shaken from her sleep she must be missional and relational, embodying what it means to be the Bride of Christ and evidence of the kingdom of God on earth.

But the Church has become fearful and anxious in recent years—fueled in large part by huge declines in membership, conflicts over theology and the interpretation of Scripture and yes, even by the emergence of new ways of understanding what it means to be the Church. Fear and anxiety [as we have seen in our own country over the past 7 years] can result in irrational behavior, acts of radical self-preservation and perhaps even destruction. Edwin Friedman prophetically wrote of these kinds of things in his book, A Failure of Nerve. Friedman stated that when good leaders dare to rise up and take a stand for what is right and healthy, our sick and anxious society does everything that it can to sabotage them. In order to be an effective leader, according to Friedman, one must become a non-anxious, reflective presence—a voice that speaks the truth, and works to help the community, culture, society become healthy enough to fight off the diseases that plague it. A leader like this requires the kind of nerve to remain steadfast where they are called, even though it would be easier to retreat, easier to find a corner of the world where everyone tends to agree, speaks the same language … understands what it means to be missional.

Theologian Wesley Carr once wrote that the Church needs to be formed and informed by the Spirit of God that is calling to it not only from the past, but the future. For me, helping my congregation truly see this is an epistemological task. I know beyond any doubt that I have been called to my historic, traditional, historic church to journey with them as they emerge from their past and move toward a new and uncertain future. I desire so fervently that my church will begin to see itself differently, will understand what it means to be the Church, the very hands and feet of Christ in the world. I pray that this desire, this call, will not be weakened by my own fear and anxiety. I pray that I will have the strength to stand and to speak the truth in love. I pray that this emerging leader will be able to carefully guide this existing church. I pray that I will be a good and loving pastor. I pray.

Photo by Kurt Collins

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Leon Bloder is Senior Pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Eustis in Eustis, FL. He is a self-described “emergent” leader in an “existing” church.

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