How do I make the most of the next five years?

Roy and my book, Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling, is getting great responses from many parts of the world. Just this week, a friend in the southern US sent me a significant review of the book. It’s quite an experience to read how someone else understands what you’ve been writing. Lee’s review is a great encouragement. Last week, a leader from Melbourne (one of my very favourite cities in the world) was in touch, wanting a conversation about the book. He was energized not just by the analysis but, more importantly, by the framing of how we become communities of hope in a great unraveling. He had been a denominational leader for many years, but in this last chapter, he had

deliberately returned to congregational leadership. His question to me was simple: if I were leading a congregation at this point, where would I put my energy? I responded by saying the following three things—each requires a long, vivid conversation, but I share them with you here as an insight into the kinds of conversations the book is creating. If I were leading a congregation over the next five years, I would:

1. Work hard at laying down my need to turn my people into objects of my plans, visions, and strategies. Because I am convinced that the Spirit of God is amongst the people of God, my calling at all times and in all ways is for them to know that in them and their relationships lie all the clues to God’s future and the formation of hope. I say all this because it took me years to see that I led out of a plan and strategy without seeing that these ways of leading turned people into the objects of my outcomes. It was a crashing, crushing moment when the Spirit revealed that fact to me. I was confused, disoriented, and angry because I knew no other way of leading. It is in the people that God’s future gestates and comes alive. My vocation is to be like a midwife, making possible the spaces of trust and love where people come to believe that in and amongst them the Spirit is forming a future full of hope.

2. Invite my people to become ever more attentive to the reality of God amongst us and in our neighbourhoods. I would work at inviting us to change the direction of our attention from: “What should we do? What’s the vision and strategy?” to: “What is the Spirit of Jesus doing ahead of us in our neighbourhoods and how do we join God there?” Ours is a culture whose whole attention is directed toward the “What do we do?” question. This is about technique and strategy. But this attention is more than just technique and strategy. It's about the focus and source of our agency. Our attention is on ourselves as the primary actors and agents in the world. Over those five years I would like to ask how we turn our attention from our own agency to discern what God is doing in our communities.

For me, these two modest leadership practices would invite us to discover a community of hope.