All of us are at once teacher and student. I think the best leaders among us embody this learning spirit. We take classes, we practice alongside our own students and allow ourselves to be supported and challenged by the learning community. This transforms our teaching, our leadership and our lives. We probably lead more by that example than we do when we are teaching a class, preaching a sermon, or organizing an event.

What if your congregation looked more like my yoga studio? The lifelong member would sit in Bible study next to a visitor, learning from each others’ perspective? Children or teenagers would lead Sunday school classes for those who are younger or even for adults. Each person would have relationships with mentors and people in small groups who nurture and challenge each other to grow in faith. Pastors would take a back seat in leading worship so that others can share their faith story.

How do you embody learning leadership? How does your church encourage lifelong learning among ALL people?

I was especially frightened by the behavior of two teenagers whom I encountered about fifty miles apart. Each of them was driving down the interstate at over 80 miles per hour and each of them was busily sending text messages on their cell phones. This is risky behavior at any time, but at those speeds on that highway, it struck me as simply insane.

It has been more years than I care to admit since I was a teenager, but I still remember that risk assessment and the ordering of priorities are not things at which teenagers excel. Even for teenagers, however, this was just nuts. What could possibly have been so important to say that it couldn’t have waited until the next rest area, the next fuel stop?

If only such behavior were solely a mark of youth, a character flaw that disappeared along with squeaky voices and hairless chins. How much warmer and more welcoming, how much more friendly would our churches be if this were the case? It almost breaks my heart to admit it, but many of us seem no more able to control our behavior as adults than we could as teenagers. How else can one explain the way we act, the things we do and say to each other, the decisions we make when we come together and interact as supposed families of faith? 

Everywhere I go congregations raise a common complaint: “Why don’t people want to come join us?” I’ll be the first to admit this is a complicated question. There are no simple answers. One thing, however, is pretty clear. If you want to know why people aren’t forming a line at the front door to the church that runs out to the parking lot just take a look at what goes on inside. Angry outbursts, power games, stubbornness, the inability or unwillingness to embrace anyone’s viewpoint but our own—can this possibly be what it means to be Christian? What about trust? What about a sense of shared purpose? What about the idea that what’s better for all of us trumps what’s better for me?

As he does with many of the issues of our common life, Paul provides some pretty good advice about how we should live together:

⁹Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. ¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:9-17).

Think about that the next time you feel the urge to tell your fellow congregants what fools they are.

 Tony Stoik, Associate Conference Minister of Eastern Iowa

What I discovered in the gospel texts was entirely liberating. Though Jesus was steeped in Jewish tradition, he taught that we should not attach to old rules, regulations and structures. Instead we should focus on what’s important — ministry, worship and prayer. He was met with resistance; constantly lawyers and scholars of his day questioned him, trying to trip him up. But, he could not be derailed. In Matthew 22:34-40, he tells them what he thinks is important, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

That radical message freed my faith and I became a convicted Christian. Jesus was asking us to do the important things, not obsess about or create rules and regulations that keep us from praying and worshiping, ministering to the poor, working for justice for the oppressed.

Despite Jesus’ well-known command, we all get bogged down in details, rules, regulations and structures. We get much too focused on HOW we do things –  ranging from the way in which glasses and silverware are set out at our potlucks to how our meetings must be run. Too often these things get in our way, rather than support, our mission and ministry, our worship and prayer lives.

What are some of the ways this gospel message can liberate you? What detail, rule, regulation or structure would you abandon in order to more effectively live Jesus’ golden rule? What could your church let go of in order to create a more vibrant witness to Jesus’ life and ministry?

Nicole Havelka, Associate Conference Minister for Youth and Young Adult Ministries

Like many of us, however, there are times I forget my limitations and plunge into territory for which I have no reliable map.  Given my reluctance to admit ignorance, I get into this territory too easily.  It shows up when I tackle a home improvement project that’s over my head. 

I have little illusion, however, about my capacity for knowing the future.  I’ve got hunches and guesses and suppositions, but when push comes to shove, the shape of the future remains opaque.

This isn’t much of a problem vis-a-vis automobiles.  Nobody — not even me — cares whether I can predict the styles and features of cars to come.  I’ll take whatever comes.  But the future of the church is a different matter.  In some measure it seems to me that if I’m to be a leader I ought to know the future.  If I’m to rally the troops, certainly I ought to have some sense of where we’re to go, right?

Maybe….or maybe not.  Too often, I think, we encumber ourselves with ideas and presumptions that are unnecessarily or even destructively burdensome.  We are part of a church tradition that struggles with the mere concept of leadership.  We are children of a history that is profoundly wary of authority run amuck.  And we SHOULD be.  Unaccountable authority has caused untold human trouble.  But sometimes we conflate our wariness of unaccountable authority with a more generalized suspicion of leadership, and in so doing throw a valuable baby out with dirty bathwater.  I’d suggest we think more carefully about this matter.

To put it bluntly – leadership (at least GOOD leadership) does not consist in possessing absolute certainty and in requiring unquestioning fealty.  Good leaders don’t dictate, they don’t manipulate, they don’t pretend they know things they really don’t.  Good leaders don’t know all the answers.  Good leaders don’t announce “the plan” — but they might insist that we NEED a plan.  Good leaders aren’t much into fiat — but they do raise questions — often questions most would rather evade.

If leading isn’t really about coercing folk to go places of the leader’s design — what might it be?  I once had a mentor who suggested that leaders have two responsibilities — to speak reality and to say thank you.  I’d add another — leaders insist that we face our challenges — though I suppose that’s a subset of speaking reality. 

This past Sunday I gave a talk at the Eastern Association under the title “The Future Shape of Conference Ministry.”  It wasn’t a title I chose, but that’s alright.  If nothing else, it forced me to acknowledge that I don’t know the future shape of conference ministry.

But acknowledging limited prescience does not equal total agnosticism.  I do know some general things about the future.  For example, I can read balance sheets and financial statements.  I can read spreadsheets of statistics.  I read that stable of writers who think about the future all the time.  Whether I like it or not, the present shape of church — of organized religion — is passing away.  Faith, spirituality, belief — these things are not passing away, but the containers which have held them for generations are extraordinarily stressed and are almost certainly going to die and be reborn in the next decade or two.  It’s the specifics of the rebirth about which I have little idea. 

Here’s another thing I’m pretty sure of – the essence of church shouldn’t be our institutional structures.  If we’re mainly about committees and boards, about rules of order and agendas, about financial reports and statistics — that is, about governance — then perhaps it’s time to say goodbye.  These things all have their places, but not at the center.  The heart of faith must certainly be more about worship and mission than about governance and decision-making. 

Next month the Iowa Conference will gather in Grinnell to celebrate our 50th anniversary as the Iowa part of the UCC.  Thanks be to God!  We’ll have a parade and worship together and spend time in service and learning.  We’ll also do some business — we’ll adopt a budget and elect officers and consider bylaw changes that were introduced last year — proposals to modestly simplify and streamline our ways of governance.  We may or may not like or agree with the proposed changes, but hopefully we will all agree that whether we adopt them or not, they are not the essence of being church — they are merely means to an end.  These are means to the end of helping us as churches and as CHURCH to faithfully bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in ways relevant and winsome in a changing context.  I hope you’ll be present to join the party and participate in the decision-making.

I look forward to seeing you in Grinnell next month.  In the meantime, be a leader in your place according to the call God has placed on you.  Lead with humility and grace, but DO lead.  You don’t need to have all the answers (in fact, it’s better if you acknowledge that you DON’T), but you do need to invite the community forward.

God bless you!

Rich Pleva, Iowa Conference Minister

I learned that today, May 3, is National Thank a Youth Worker Day!” So, instead of challenging or cajoling you in this weekly post, I’m simply going to thank you.

I am deeply grateful for the work you do on behalf of the church and with children, youth and families. I am grateful for the long hours and countless weekends you give up to do this work. I am grateful for the ways in which you compassionately counsel a young person or family during difficult times. I am grateful for the ways in which you creatively form the faith of the people in your congregation. I am grateful for the ways in which you include young people in the life of the church.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It cannot be said enough.

The traditional celebration for Saint Zita’s Day is to bake a loaf of bread.  This would be a great day to bake a loaf of bread (or even to buy a very good loaf of bread) and share it with someone who would be blessed by your gift and who is not easily able to return kindnesses to you.

The Saint Zita stories have had centuries to stretch and spin, as such stories will.  I’m drawn to Fr. Richard McBrien’s simpler description:  “Her fellow servants and the Fatinelli family resented her devotional life, but she eventually won them over by her goodness and constancy.  She was generous to the poor and kind to the sick and to prisoners.”

She eventually won them over by her goodness and constancy.  Eventually.  Nearer the fortieth year than the first, to be sure.   Eventually.   Hearts began to turn.  Hearts began turning toward Zita, but kept on turning until they were turned toward God. 

I’ve written “constancy” on a little card today to remind myself that some holy work takes all the time we have.  To remind myself to keep at it!  To remember a saint who didn’t decide, “I’ve scrubbed and cooked and I’ve been a good lady and I’ve been generous even as a maid and kind to ones who could not return kindness and I’ve done it all for a whole year [two years…five years…ten years…] and it hasn’t made one bit of difference!  I’m giving up!  I’ve had it with those Fatinellis!  I’m not getting any younger!”

Saint Zita is known as the patron saint of servants.  Beloved, we are all servants.  We follow Jesus as servants.  We do the work of Jesus as servants. 

The One Who Sends Us absolutely uses our goodness, our generosity, our kindness to win and to welcome precious ones yearning for a holy welcome. 

While working on this writing, a fragment of prayer buzzed around in my head:  “servant church of the servant Christ.”  I remembered praying those words many times in worship.  The image stuck, even though I couldn’t remember the rest of the prayer.  I found it again.  In our UCC Book of Worship, one of the prayers offered for thanksgiving following Holy Communion ends with these words:

By the power of your Holy Spirit, keep us faithful to your will.   Go with us to the streets, to our homes, and to our places of labor and leisure that whether we are gathered or scattered, we may be the servant church of the servant Christ, in whose name we rejoice to pray.  Amen.

Amen!  May it be so for us.

Jonna Jensen, Associate Conference Minister for Eastern Iowa

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to downplay Mr. Robinson’s accomplishments or imply that he was any less a hero than everyone says he was. By all accounts, he was a man of great personal courage and integrity and a marvelous baseball player. But nobody, not even Jackie Robinson, could single-handedly make something as momentous as the integration of the Major Leagues happen all by himself.

What about Branch Rickey? It was Rickey who, as the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, brought Robinson to the Major Leagues when he signed him in ’47.  What about Leo Durocher? It was Leo the Lip who is credited with quelling a clubhouse mutiny with these words: “I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a [expletive deleted] zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays.” What about Larry Doby and Bill Veeck? Robinson may have been the first African-American player in the modern era, but Doby, who played for Veeck’s Cleveland Indians, was the second, and only by a matter of weeks. And no matter how talented or courageous Robinson was, there would never have been a third African-American major leaguer player until there was a second. After Doby, there was Hank Thompson and Monte Irvin and Sam Jethroe and all the others who followed after. Very little of moment happens because of the efforts of a single human being, no matter how courageous or gifted he or she may be. Great results require great efforts, not just of one person, but of two or three or ten or ten thousand.

As it is in life, so it is in ministry. When I work with search committees, I hear a common refrain with distressing frequency. The words may vary slightly, but the melody is constant: “Find us a minister who will make it all better”. Well, the honest truth (dare I say God’s honest truth) is no minister can single-handedly cure an ailing church. Most churches in trouble didn’t get that way overnight or because of the bad intentions of only one or two people. Just as it takes the actions or inactions of an entire congregation over a period of years to put a healthy congregation on life support, it takes the efforts of an entire congregation over a period of years to revive it. Pastors can lead, but no leader succeeds alone.

When Jesus stood on the cusp of his journey to Jerusalem and the cross, he sent out a group of messengers to spread the word of his coming. It was this group, a collection of anonymous disciples known only as “the Seventy”, who went out “like lambs into the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3) spreading the Word, working miracles and driving out evil spirits. When they returned, they returned with joy.

The Seventy aren’t a bad model for a congregation looking to turn itself around. If Jesus himself couldn’t make his journey to Jerusalem without help, what chance does a mere pastor have? Every successful congregation needs the Seventy (or the twenty or the thirty or the ten or the five) as much as it needs the pastor. So how about it? Are you one who Jesus has sent out like a lamb among wolves? Are you willing to do what it takes to return with joy?

Pastors don’t make healthy congregations any more than Jackie Robinson made baseball color blind. That’s a lesson well worth remembering.

Tony Stoik, Associate Conference Minister of Western Iowa

This conversation could have just as easily been about the institutional church. Changes in cultural attitudes and practices regarding religion have been happening for decades. They’ve now become too big to ignore. Tornadoes have hit our churches — declining participation and giving, diminished status in the wider culture and dwindling numbers of young people coming back to church — and our lives will never be the same. Just like those people speculating about the weather, we have to make meaning of what is happening around us. The advantage we have is that making meaning is what church DOES. We take those life changes and ask how God is working. We look for the signs of God’s call amidst what seems to be disaster.

How do you make meaning of your church’s current reality? How do you help people in your congregations make meaning of these changes? How do you help each other rebuild after and through this storm?

Sign up NOW by April 30th and SAVE! 

Register for the 50th Anniversay Celebration…just click here.  

Find out the many exciting birthday activities and how to easily register online.

If you watch the video below, you’ll see some stunning statistics about the growth of social networking and the role it’s playing in how we connect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM

The point the video makes early on is that social networking isn’t about technology, it’s about relationships. This isn’t really revolutionary, we are just creating new ways to do what humankind has always done – build social networks that help support and sustain us.

The church has also been exploiting this fact of human nature for millennia. We’ve been gathering to sing and pray, struggle and grow in our faith, and give and receive care and support. Through one another we connect to God through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

No matter how fast the world changes, we are still about relationships, making connections.

How do you see yourself making connections and building relationships in the next decade? How do you see your church reaching out to spread the message of the gospel?

Make some connections with other UCC churches at our upcoming events:
April 19, 2012 8:30 – 9:30 p.m. — Iowa Conference Facebook Party with special guest Kelly Burd
June 7-10, 2012 – Iowa Conference 50^th Birthday Celebration at Grinnell College

-Nicole Havelka, Associate Conference Minister for Youth and Young Adult Ministries