leaders as poets

Friday night was a monumental night - it was the last night of Missional Church class for the semester. We had the privilege of having an adjunct professor from Chicago come up once a month for the last four months to teach this course. So kudos to Dr. Roland Kuhl for creating time and space to come and teach and learn at Western Sem. Thanks Dr. Kuhl. In our last hours together, we discussed at length the role of the pastor in the church, particularly missional churches. Here is an excerpt from the class lecture about leaders (pastors) as poets. It's an interesting analogy and I'm curious to know if this strikes a resound chord within any pastors / leaders out there who occasion this blog.

Leaders as Poets
In times of transition and change – cultural shifts that lead us to question the kind of church we are, the need to move from attractional models of church to a missional understanding – congregations feel disconnected from their stable past, which they could easily describe, and people in midst of confusion or lack of understanding have a difficult time to express themselves.

What is required is not some new strategic plan, but an approach to leadership that enables persons to come to terms with the emotions of change within. “What is required of leadership at this point is an ability to articulate, or bring to verbal expression, the actual experiences of the congregation” (Crossing, 125).

Poets Listen
- Have skill in the art of giving voice to the inarticulate feelings of people

- Not a role of providing solutions, but a role of helping give people voice to what they are feeling, but cannot readily express.

- Do not criticize, but bring to the surface the voice and soul of the people, so that they can give words to what they are feeling (has a lot to do with visioning)

- The focus is on people and the inner drives that shape them and give form to their lives.

- To listen to the stories, the events, the symbols, the rhythms of person’s lives

- Becomes immersed in the multiple stories that run beneath the culture in order to understand (and critique them)

- Are deeply immersed in the Christian Story (Crossing, 124-130)

"The purpose of all this is to help people see differently. They are not so much advice givers as they are image framers.

“The poet is a kind of in-between person. Like the pastor, the poet is drawn to that side of leadership that longs to care for and watch over the people of God. Unlike the pastor, the poet is also deeply committed to engaging the imagined future that God calls into being. Like the prophet, the poet understands that this imagined future will, necessarily involve great grief and travail for the people of God as they journey toward that, as yet, unfocused, alternative life” (Crossing, 132).

So, I'm a second career seminary student. I'm 30 years old, I'm married, and have two children. I've been in positions of leadership in the past and sometimes find myself in those kinds of positions today. However, I was struck the prospect that the younger students in my class were deeply troubled by the prospect of pastor as a poet. Somewhere sometime in their young lives (and as they work through the steps seeking ordination) that they were led to believe that pastors are supposed to be the "strong leader" types - the ones who have all the answers, the vision, the drive, and passion. The pastor as poets conflicts with their ideology. Even the idea of pastor as servant leader was troubling. I'm not suggesting that all the younger students in my class had this perception, but it was a fair number.

The pastor as poet resonates deeply within me, so does the pastor as servant leader. When I'm in that pastor position, I will not expect my church to commit themselves to anything more deeply than I myself am willing to commit. I would hope that I could be transparent enough with our folks to enable them to be more than passive participants in casting and carrying out the vision of the local church. There's much more I could say on this and I'll come back to this in a few weeks, but what are your thoughts? Can you relate to pastor as a poet? Or serveant leader? Or something else? Peace.