What will normal look like?
Leaders are ordinary people with special responsibilities. Their primary concern is to be effective in their calling, to make sure that the organization or project they lead is accomplishing its purpose in good times and in bad. They nurture great hopes and must cope with harsh realities. They manage people and money. They must be publicly accountable, but often work long, lonely hours in relative obscurity. It ain't easy being the person in charge, especially when times are tough.
Suffice it to say, times have not been particularly easy on the Canadian ministry scene. The faltering economy has presented a host of challenges, especially for those who depend on donations. And the whole way of doing things appears to be changing. Methods that used to generate a healthy flow of funds now show diminishing results. The rallying cries that used to motivate followers no longer seem to make much impact. Volunteers are harder to come by. Leaders are struggling.
"It is increasingly clear that the current downturn is fundamentally different from recessions of the past. We are experiencing not merely another turn of a business cycle, but a complete metamorphosis," observes Carson Pue, president of Arrow Leadership, a ministry that trains and mentors Christian leaders to "boldly, clearly, creatively and compassionately engage their culture and neighbours with the love and truth of the gospel."
In his December "To the Point" newsletter, Pue outlined his findings from 10,000-miles of travels and meetings with some 200 leaders in the past few months. "I now realize that for some organizations, near-term survival is the only agenda item. Others leaders are peering through the fog of uncertainty and are thinking about how to position themselves once the crisis has passed and things return to 'normal.'
"The question is, 'What will normal look like?' While opinions vary on how long this situation will last, what we find on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years. The new normal will be shaped by a confluence of some powerful forces—some arising directly from the financial crisis and some that were at work long before it began. One is the lack of financial leverage available, which will impact most businesses, coaches, colleges and universities and especially not for profit organizations and churches. As people lose jobs and cut back on expenses, there is a ripple effect," writes Pue.
"The second influence is the impact of emerging leaders who desire to remodel, rebuild or remove existing organizations to allow structures to emerge that are appropriate to the very communities they are serving. If we as leaders can release ourselves from the grip of all things familiar, it is a rather exciting time to be alive."
Pue then aptly quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "No man builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it, for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing....We must proclaim—He builds. We must pray to Him that He may build. We do not know His plan. We cannot see whether He is building or pulling down. It may be that the times, which by human standards are times of collapse, are, for him, the great times of construction."
Could it be that this season when churches and ministries are struggling so mightily is actually an era of construction in God's great design? Times like these call for pastors and leaders to attend steadfastly to the business of loving God, making disciples and working for justice and righteousness to prevail.
And times like these present a special summons to the people of God—leaders and followers alike—to pray. To pray, as Bonhoeffer notes, to God "that He may build," and to remember that the "grip of things familiar" may not be the pathway ahead. This is also prime time for all who care for the welfare of the Church to pray for the physical, spiritual and moral wellbeing of those ordinary human beings carrying the special responsibilities of leadership in extraordinary times. They need our support.
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