Taking a stab

I began this blog three months ago. In that time I have been building friendships in my new church, Emmaus Way, reading about missional communities, talking with informed people, and visiting the Church of the Savior. In that time, I have indeed made some progress in my thinking, even though as some questions have been answered, others have rushed in to take their place.

Up until now, I have been peeling away unnecessary layers of church, seeking what is essential and vital. I now have a rough idea to build on. Please don't hold me to it - it's a  *rough idea* - but I do want to share it so I can receive critique, ideas or encouragement. 

Recall that what I seek is church centered on action which then gives people a reason to gather and share knowledge. This is the opposite of most churches, which are centered on knowledge in the hope that it will lead to action. A cluster of people in conversation with me, and who also want such a church, share an interest in food and gardening. Yes, we all like to eat. But that isn't the point. The point is that food is fundamental, and so is the soil it comes from and the labor that produces it. Food has also become the principal language of ethics among many people today - especially college students and young adults. It is often their basis for caring about fair trade, the environment, farmer's markets, vegetarian diets, and more. (A book on my reading list: Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, by Norman Wirzba [thanks, Allegra, for the recommendation].)

Now, consider that former refugees from the Congo and Sudan are being resettled in the Triangle area. Anyone coming from a rural area of a developing country is going to miss having their hands in the soil, and miss eating certain foods. If we can get a plot of land that is close to where these people are being settled, they and we can join in gardening and raising the foods they miss (if they can grow here). Working side by side in this way is not a charity - it is a way of building relationships and living out the love of God. It will provide an opportunity for listening to each others' stories and responding to each others' needs.

Carrboro Community Garden

Carrboro has a community garden - for a purpose different than what we intend, and it looks full at the moment. That's OK. We can find a plot elsewhere, and we can learn from the Carrboro experience. They gather to tend the garden from 10 to 12 each Saturday. If we were to do the same, on Saturday or Sunday, we could then wash up at the end and go to someone's home for a shared meal, followed by a time of prayer and discussing the Bible. Whether Christian or not, everyone would be welcome to join us. For three weeks a month, that would be our church service. On the fourth week, we'd join Emmaus Way to stay connected to another group of believers and to encourage and influence one another.

No doubt the relationships formed by hoeing and weeding together would lead to care of other kinds, say practicing English, tutoring students, and helping people figure out American life. We would also want ways the immigrants could help the non-immigrants. We'll learn those in time. These non-gardening activities would become the main ways of interacting in the seasons when things are not growing.

That's about as far as I can go with this idea at the moment. Lots of questions follow. Where are immigrants concentrating in the Triangle? Can we find a mature Christian among them who could be a co-leader? Can we find a plot of ground? Can I put my time into this when I am having to put more time into my job and my other venture, Africa Rising? Who else might help? These are all matters for prayer.

Thanks for reading along. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Dropping the baton

In my visit to The Potter's House (see last blog entry), my host mentioned that the mother institution, Church of the Savior, had closed down and sold its building as the founder, Gordon Cosby retired. In an exchange with philosophy professor and Christian author Dallas Willard, Cosby posed the question, "Why do churches and ministries so often lose the essence of their founding vision, to the point that the resulting institution, years later, is quite unlike the original dream? What happens along the way?" Willard responded there are exceptional people with a strong vision who start something new. Then,

Organization of their activities takes place, and other organizations spin off from them numbers of talented individuals are drawn to them and make their lives in their wake. But these other individuals - usually, but not always, very well-intending - do not carr the "fire" the "certain something," within them. The mission or missions that have been set a foot begin a subtle divergence from the vision that gripped the founder, and before too long the institution and its mission has become the vision.

Certainly this happens. But Dallas Willard is describing rather than explaining. What he is describing is one of the earliest milestones of every institution: passing the baton from the founder to the next leader. The passing is fumbled in many ways. In some cases, the founder holds onto the baton too long, resisting the release of control. In other cases, the founder simply gives no thought to who should lead next and how. In Africa Rising, this is one of the challenges we see in each of the African organizations - how to manage that first succession of leadership.

Examples of failures to manage the transition litter the roadside. Willard gives a few prominent examples. But our societies are built on examples of successful transition. These are the institutions that managed that first transition and reached heights unimaginable to the original founder. One example might be the Ford Motor Company. Another would be the university where I teach: The University of North Carolina.

I consider leadership transitions to be fundamental to leadership. To that, I would add leadership development. In the case of Gordon Cosby and the Church of the Savior, I wonder what emphasis he gave to raising up new leaders. Within the Church of the Savior, there is the Servant Leadership School.  But as you can see in their website banner, their mission is largely classroom teaching. Passing the baton from a founder to the next leader is a specific task that takes place outside of the classroom. It requires relationship development, mentoring, and the gradual transitioning of responsibilities.

Combine the closing of the Church of the Savior building with the lack of young people in the church's missional communities, and it looks to me like they failed in practical leadership development. It saddens me when I think of what they could have sustained, or how they could have multiplied, with attention to the raising the next generation of leaders.