What's most needed for leading in today's church - a brain ...but??

So we’ve moved into what some people call The Conceptual Age. For those who promote such a reality (i.e. Tom Peters and Thomas Friedman, to name two) this new era is pronounced with three simple yet profound questions:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age?

These three questions, first posed by Daniel Pink, have been rattling around in my thinking for the past few months. What is the Conceptual Age saying to church and to church leaders?

But let’s not be too modern in our engagement with this question. Rather than straight line these questions, let’s take a curved approach. What are some of the animations of the new age? (Again Pink is helpful here.)

• Creation of artistic and emotional beauty.
• Crafting a satisfying narrative.
• Combining seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.
• Embracing high touch; empathize with others; understand subtleties of human interaction; to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

This list could go on, but the amazing thing for every pastor or church leader in examining these animations is that the Church and the Gospel checks out high on each of them.
Everything the Conceptual Age calls out for – the Church and the Gospel can more than deliver on.

The Church and the Gospel should be fully impactful in the new age.
This is our time.

BUT ….for leaders to charge full speed into this new conceptual age leaders need to flick the switch from left brain to right brain. This is the challenge. Most of our churches and most of our denominations or organizations are led by left brainers. But, left brain will leave you short every drive.
This is the right brain time.

Strategic plan – out; holistic design in.
Church growth theory – out; journey in.
Goals - out; synthesis in.
Data and information – OK; but organizational and behavioral empathy better.
Size - says something; depth says something more.

So what could this look like in a local church setting?

While there will remain the need for making plans and having tactics, new aspects of church will emerge ….local church global involvement. Not the surrendering of this to a para-church missions organization, but the local church doing it. Community care – bigger than pastoral care, but community care that meets the needs of the community at large, not the community within. Planting churches, but churches that not only preach and teach but feed and care and heal and work for justice. Holistic design.

Theories, formulas, models of how it all works are out ….its the journey, the story, the narrative specific to your context, your thumbprint, your DNA. Each one will be distinct, each one will be compelling. But don’t try to replicate someone else’s story. Journey is in.

It’s about seeing, more than goals. It’s about art more than math’s. It’s about music more than science. The difference – art, music, seeing …are much more subjective, more relational. This pushes us away from the flat lines of goals, to the symphony of metaphor.
And …..it is done with feeling, with soul, more than with targets or data. This is synthesis, this is empathy.

Instead of seeking to grow a large church, the church will see the health of reproduction over production. This is the size of health. This is depth.

It’s a new day in church leadership. The shift is subtle.
It happens through fermentation.
But …it’s the way of the now.
It’s our day.

Make the shift.
Change your thinking.
Welcome to the labyrinth of effective church leadership.