Barnabas File

In his book Good to Great , Jim Collins argues that those who build great organizations make sure they have “the right people on the bus and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive bus.”  We need the right people on board to accomplish our mission.  He goes on to say, “When facing chaos and uncertainty, and you cannot possible predict what’s coming around the corner, your best ‘strategy’ is have a busload of people who can adapt and perform brilliantly no matter what comes next.”   Let’s consider a model for getting the right church staff “on the bus.”  First, we must be very clear about the need that we intend to meet and the resources available.  Generally, we define the area of responsibility and identify how an additional staff member might help the church meet that need. We also consider the resources we have available.  This may determine if we will meet this need through a volunteer/volunteers ...

Whatever your career--service, industry, farming, education, church--you are being challenged in this VUCA--volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous--moment. You have to reimagine the way you do business; that is, the way you operate.     THNK recently posted a blog suggesting how we can take advantage of this opportunity, and we can apply their insights to the church. First, take advantage of this time to do things differently.  As we think about the church, clergy and lay leaders have stepped and tried many new things during this time of pandemic, but a key learning is that the church is the people and not the building.  When worship and other gatherings cannot meet in a specific physical location, leaders have found different ways to connect people.  Perhaps we have learned some lessons here that we want to continue. For example, livestreaming services have offered the opportunity for those who are not able to attend physical worship to ...

When I was involved in collegiate ministry, one of the growing challenges was ministry with commuter students, especially those attending community colleges.     They were clearly different from the residential students with whom we usually engaged.     Commuter students lived at home, came to campus to take classes, then jumped back into the car to go home or to a part-time job.     Their lives were more connected to the cities and towns where they grew up than to the college campus.     One person wrote about this as “Ministry on an Escalator” with the students being the ones moving rapidly from one place to another. Often I think of that terminology when I see an escalator, but I now see churches on that apparatus rather than individual college students.  An escalator moves the passenger from one place to another without any effort on the part of the individual.  Things are changing around the person but he or she i...

Several years ago, I was teaching a class on the missional church.     One session was devoted to the various paradigms out of which the church has functioned over the last two thousand years.    One student summarized the basic idea very succinctly when she said, “Every so often the church has to renew itself.” Despite all of the articles and blogs we read about the challenges that the church faces today, I am optimistic that the church will not only survive but prosper in the days ahead, but the way we do church will look different.  Even more traditional churches can adapt in order to minister effectively in their context without sacrificing their theological foundations. The key word is “adaptive.”  We must move beyond “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” and find a new means of transportation.  Rather than just tweaking a few things, we have to rethink how we do church. Encouraging adaptive is an emphasis of Pinn...

In an interview with Faith and Leadership, Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, the Episcopal Bishop of Texas, made this comment: “So as judicatory heads or diocesan ministers, we have to cast a vision for the things that we think are needed for the future clergy, which is a capacity to fail and pick themselves up and do the work, the ability to be adaptive in circumstances, the ability to preach, to talk to and captivate people.” He also said, “We need vision people; we need people who can communicate well; we need people who are using social media and are digital immigrants at the very least, and are digital natives at the very best.” These are interesting comments that reflect the reality of contemporary parish leadership.  I would insist, however, that these are skills not just for future clergy but for those who are presently in congregational leadership.  I believe that anyone can learn these skills. First, leaders can learn how to cast a vision based upon the ad...