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Finding Our Story: Narrative Leadership and Congregational Change
Helping a community of faith 're-vision' its personal and collective narratives is one of the greatest leadership challenges of the age. In Finding Our Story, Larry Golemon, lead researcher of the Alban Institute's Narrative Leadership in Ministry project, has assembled essays by congregational consultants who use the power of story to help congregations heal, strengthen, and reinvent themselves. These consultants describe how narrative therapy works, explore its promise and its challenges, and share the practical wisdom of their own experiences along with their favorite models of narrative change to show how congregations can be transformed by reauthoring the operative stories they live by
- GenresLeadership
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 6, 2015
As Gil Rendle says in chapter 2, “How Do Stories Work?”, “Stories engage people deeply because they tell people what is already known, or already hoped for, but not readily apparent because the truth, or the possibility of the truth, has not surfaced to conscious awareness.” So how exactly do we use stories as leaders?
Perhaps the most intriguing lesson in these essays is a reflection on Numbers 13 by Susan Beaumont in chapter five, when the Israelite scouts declare the Promised Land full of giants and impossible to ever claim. Our congregations live in similarly anxious times when “the giants on the horizon of church life today are producing unprecedented levels of congregational anxiety” (first untitled section). The first thing that we as leaders have to know is that stories in church-life, as with the Israelites, is that a story becomes “a self-fulfilling prophecy,” (first untitled section) so we need to steer the story away from unrecoverable moments in the past, complete disasters, or tragic heroes or equally tragic villains, including and especially the pastor. We need, though, to prompt the congregations to tell better stories, and we ourselves need to tell better stories, in which we couch realities (limitations and systemic issues—our giants) in a framework of positive change (our gifts and possible growth—our living in the Promised Land). Clearly, since we are living in a time of anxiety in which it’s easier to tell safe or weak stories, we need to acknowledge our giants but still tell the story of our one day living in the Promised Land.
Considering how easy it is to tell safe or weak or harmful stories, we need to be aware of how we are contributing to such stories. Lawrence Peers tells of a phenomenon that I have witnessed, and abetted, in which clergy tell a problem-saturated story which then turns into a venting fest. Since it’s so hard to avoid doing this, it clearly becomes a matter of urgency to realize what story we are living and telling about ourselves as an individual and as a leader of the congregation, “For in embodying a story, we become that which we tell; we give a glimpse of what is possible” (chapter three, “Leading Narratively”). The idea is that we don’t contribute to the problem but contribute to the change.
I also hadn’t thought about what story the community outside of the congregation tells of itself and how the church plays a role in that. Alice Mann argues that stories aren’t only important in the church but also in the wider community. To learn that, we have to be missionally engaged with the community’s narrative. We can’t think about doing outreach or evangelism, or welcoming in new people, until we find our story within the community’s much larger story. Once we do that we can then, perhaps, become a leading character in the community’s story moving forward.
My only criticism of this book, and it’s minor, is that the first chapter, written by Larry Golemon himself and which includes a lot of the technical and historical information on narrative leadership, isn’t more flushed out. Certainly the other authors are informed by the background of narrative leadership work, but Golemon includes a lot of great work done by Ronald Heifetz and James Hopewell (his four congregational worldviews alone are a good study) that don’t really see the light of day again. Now I have to do the unthinkable and read Hopewell myself.
Perhaps the most intriguing lesson in these essays is a reflection on Numbers 13 by Susan Beaumont in chapter five, when the Israelite scouts declare the Promised Land full of giants and impossible to ever claim. Our congregations live in similarly anxious times when “the giants on the horizon of church life today are producing unprecedented levels of congregational anxiety” (first untitled section). The first thing that we as leaders have to know is that stories in church-life, as with the Israelites, is that a story becomes “a self-fulfilling prophecy,” (first untitled section) so we need to steer the story away from unrecoverable moments in the past, complete disasters, or tragic heroes or equally tragic villains, including and especially the pastor. We need, though, to prompt the congregations to tell better stories, and we ourselves need to tell better stories, in which we couch realities (limitations and systemic issues—our giants) in a framework of positive change (our gifts and possible growth—our living in the Promised Land). Clearly, since we are living in a time of anxiety in which it’s easier to tell safe or weak stories, we need to acknowledge our giants but still tell the story of our one day living in the Promised Land.
Considering how easy it is to tell safe or weak or harmful stories, we need to be aware of how we are contributing to such stories. Lawrence Peers tells of a phenomenon that I have witnessed, and abetted, in which clergy tell a problem-saturated story which then turns into a venting fest. Since it’s so hard to avoid doing this, it clearly becomes a matter of urgency to realize what story we are living and telling about ourselves as an individual and as a leader of the congregation, “For in embodying a story, we become that which we tell; we give a glimpse of what is possible” (chapter three, “Leading Narratively”). The idea is that we don’t contribute to the problem but contribute to the change.
I also hadn’t thought about what story the community outside of the congregation tells of itself and how the church plays a role in that. Alice Mann argues that stories aren’t only important in the church but also in the wider community. To learn that, we have to be missionally engaged with the community’s narrative. We can’t think about doing outreach or evangelism, or welcoming in new people, until we find our story within the community’s much larger story. Once we do that we can then, perhaps, become a leading character in the community’s story moving forward.
My only criticism of this book, and it’s minor, is that the first chapter, written by Larry Golemon himself and which includes a lot of the technical and historical information on narrative leadership, isn’t more flushed out. Certainly the other authors are informed by the background of narrative leadership work, but Golemon includes a lot of great work done by Ronald Heifetz and James Hopewell (his four congregational worldviews alone are a good study) that don’t really see the light of day again. Now I have to do the unthinkable and read Hopewell myself.
November 16, 2019
Highly recommend for anyone interested in learning about how to find, craft, and tell the narrative of their community; this is fantastic in both theory and application, all while remaining rooted in context and place.
I read the intro by Golemon and thought, "This is nothing new or unknown," and let it sit on my desk for months. Finally returned to it this fall, and the chapters are rich and thoughtful. Going to try to narrow down 1 chapter for staff training and 1 chapter for participant learning, but will likely end up may end up adding the whole book to our recommended reading lists.
I read the intro by Golemon and thought, "This is nothing new or unknown," and let it sit on my desk for months. Finally returned to it this fall, and the chapters are rich and thoughtful. Going to try to narrow down 1 chapter for staff training and 1 chapter for participant learning, but will likely end up may end up adding the whole book to our recommended reading lists.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews