Leadership Questions

Richard L. Hamm suggests in his book, Recreating the Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age, that church organizations in general "tend to serve the needs of the previous cultural context."

I find this thought by Hamm to be convicting.  Instead of the church leading the mission of Christ in a changing and challenging culture, we find ourselves focused on the past, or "what was."  It feels like today's church is working hard getting people to "like" or to be "conformed" to the way it used to be instead of discovering new expressions of Christ's body (which is the church), and relevant avenues of worship and ministry.  Don't get me wrong, I liked the way church "used to be."  But I am finding many who are looking for church to be different for them than the experiences and forms to which I personally grew accustomed.

Is it possible that God has commissioned us to discover new ways to connect worship, ministry, and service to a cultural context that has changed, to a people who think differently or value experiences differently?  This does not mean minimizing worship and service, and certainly not commitment, but it may mean that church may have to change forms or practices.  It does not mean that we adjust the gospel to accommodate culture, but it may mean we adjust methods in order to accommodate cultural shifts in regard to time, schedules, and yes, even certain values.

The Dutch Theologian, Gerben Heitink writes in his book (Practical Theology: History, Theory, Action Domains), "The church...has the responsibility to search for a credible way of 'being church,' for new forms of Christian community, that calls for a counterculture against an extreme individualism and an anonymous bureaucratic collectivity."  One of the challenges of Heitink's comment is "will the church or the leadership of the church take this responsibility seriously?"  Or, will we (the leadership of the church) continue to pretend that we need not spend our time, energy, or resources on paradigm shifts that continue to challenge our comfort levels?  Maybe the real question is "will we lead or not?"