Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

by Tod Bolsinger

Lewis immediately cast the thoughts of perceived difficulties out of his mind, writing, “I will believe it to be a good comfortable road until...

Lewis exemplified what happens to most of us when we are confronting rapidly changing circumstances: even though the evidence is around us, we cling to the previously held assumptions as long as possible.

History is defined by this moment and all they could have done. They could have decided that they had indeed discovered the vitally important but certainly disappointing reality that the long-hoped-for Northwest Passage and its water route was a myth. They had set out defined by a myth. Imagine their thoughts as that reality set in.

Recommitment to Core Ideology

First, by continuing on, they recommitted to their core ideology.

At the core of adaptive work is clarifying what is precious, elemental—even essential—to the ...

The core ideology of any group functions as both a charter and an identity statement. This is who we are, we say. If we st...

church leaders, moments of disequilibrium like Lewis and his party faced at the top of the Continental Divide certainly bring our own motivations into focus: What are we really called to? Is it just to professional success or personal security? Is it merely to get more people in the church pews and dollars in the offering plates so our congregations can keep offering religious services to those who desire them? Is church leadership nothing more than an exercise in institutional survival?

Or isn’t there a higher purpose, a set of guiding principles, a clear compilation of core values that are more about being a community of people who exist to extend God’s loving and just reign and rule in all the earth?

And for each organization, this facing-the-unknown moment asks us particular questions we need ...

Why do we exist as a congregation, institution or organization? What would be lost in our community, in our field or...

What purposes and principles must we protect as centra...

What are we willing to let go of so the missio...

When we recommit to our core ideology, we are claiming—no matter the circumstances—an identity that is larger than our success or failures.

Reframing Strategy

They reframed their strategy. With a recommitment to core ideology (values and mission) there is a critical moment to reframe t...

In adaptive leadership, reframing is another way of talking about the shift in values, expectations, attitudes or habits of behavior necessar...

Lewis and Clark reframed their mission. While it was no longer about finding the Northwest Passage or water route, it was even more so about exploration.

missional moment, the reframing of church strategy from a sanctuary-centered, membership-based, religious- and life-service provider to a local mission outpost for furthering the kingdom of God enables our congregations to discover a faithful expression of our corporate identity in a changing world.

No longer will we be the center of or have a monopoly on cultural conversations regarding moral life and spiritual values. No longer do social structures support church life or give preferences to Christian tradition.

But, in a more pluralistic public square, where there were many different voices and perspectives offered, we have an opportunity closer to Paul’s at Mars Hill (Acts 17), engaging the philosophies of the day, or to the early Christians’, whose movement gained credibility (and converts!) at least in part bec...

But a reframe itself is only a new way of seeing and describing the problem.

catalyst. A reframe, while vital, isn’t enough to bring the deep, systemic changes necessary.

New Learning They relied on new learning. At the heart of adaptive leadership is learning.

To put it bluntly, if you are not learning anything new, it is not adaptive work.

It might be a good, necessary, wise, even vital strategy. But if your group is addressing a new challenge with an old solution, relying on a best practice or implementing the plan of a resident exper...

In moments of uncertainty and disorientation, leaders own internal adaptations; that is, the work that leaders themselves have to do to clarify their own motives, identity and mission is the necessary precursor to the work that the entire community will have to do.

- 8 - My Italian Grandfather Was Killing Me A “system” is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

In nature, adaptability is a highly conservative process.

Ronald Heifetz, Lecture, Duke Divinity School, ...

Bugged in the Sanctuary I knew it before he opened

At the

heart of adaptive leadership for the church is this conviction: The church is the body of Christ. It is a living organism, a vibrant system.

That is what adaptive leadership is all about: the way that living human systems learn and adapt to a changing environment so they can fulfill their purpose for being.

Surviving the Italians

Our churches and organizations are systems—organisms—with a unique life and vitality. They are not mechanistic religious production lines but bodies that need to be tended, cared for, challenged and strengthened so they can adapt to their environment.

This is what adaptive leadership is all about: hanging on to the healthiest, most valuable parts of our identity in life and letting go of those things that hinder us from living and loving well. *REORIENTATION* In a Christendom world, vision was about seeing possibilities ahead and communicating excitement. In uncharted territory—where no one knows what’s ahead—vision is about accurately seeing ourselves and defining reality.

Leadership for uncharted territory is a shared, corporate (see the Latin root word for “body,” corps, in corporate?) learning process that enables the community to thrive and fulfill its mission in...

task is leading the learning so our churches will adapt and thrive as a local expression of the larger system that is the body of Christ in the world. But in ord...

Leadership Vision

As the former CEO and leadership author Max De Pree has famously written, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”

And perhaps one of the most important pieces of reality that must be first defined is the reality that every organization, indeed every organism, functions within a larger system.

Seeing this systemic nature of all living things and seeing how one part of the system affects every other part is a crucial but often overlooked component of leadership vision.

An organizational system is the composition and interaction of the people, resources, interconnections and purpose of a group.

So a congregation is not just the group of people who gather on a particular Sunday, or merely those who have their names on the membership roles, but the combination of people, their relationships to each other and the mission (or purpose for being) of this congregation.

Energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.

If a systems perspective gives us a window on the reality and dynamics of a congregation at work in this definition of leadership, then the next question understandably follows: How do we do that? What is the process or practices that energize a community for transformation and fulfilling of their mission or purpose? What are the core activities and practices of leadership in uncharted territory?

Because the church is the body of Christ, in order to lead it a leader must be able to see and lead the church as a living system.