Friday, October 05, 2007
Leadership, or the Lack Thereof
Classical Presbyterian writes about "the false idol" of church growth. Hey, there is a topic near and dear to this blog's heart. But he does such a good job of that argument, I will leave it to him today, and instead turn my attentions to an aside from his post:
But it is especially bad in churches and seminaries because pastors (sorry people, but this is true, at least in the Presbyterian system) live reasonably cosetted lives. Most congregations worth the name work pretty hard, whether it is known and appreciated or not, to hide their pastors from the really nasty stuff that goes on in the world. Difficult as political struggles in church may be, most I have know are child's play compared to what goes on out in the worlds of business and politics.
But the bottom line is this, seminaries, designed to make pastors, a leadership position, do not provide leadership training. Oh sure, good ones have intern programs, but let's get real, interns are cheap labor for a semester. It is a rare senior or even associate that takes the intern under their wing and really teaches them about leadership. Do interns even show up at Session meetings? They ought to.
Some of this reflects the changing role of the Presbyterian pastor. The Session is supposed to lead and the Pastor serve. That barely works anymore. A Pastor needs enough leadership training to make the leaders he/she needs on the Session.
There is only one institution in our society that works consciously to make leaders anymore - that is the military. Everyone else just hopes to stumble onto them.
The church is God's army here on Earth. Maybe we ought to take a hint from our secular counterparts.
It's out there and seminary in no way really prepared me for anything more than a theoretical understanding of the real issues at stake here and how I might approach them in a helpful, healing way.One of the greatest failings of our seminary system is that it makes academics, not leaders. Now, that is actually a common problem in higher education in general, we teach people theory but not practice. Generally, people are expected to learn "the real stuff" on the job, you know all the political stuff, the power plays, how to work in a bureaucracy, that kind of stuff.
But it is especially bad in churches and seminaries because pastors (sorry people, but this is true, at least in the Presbyterian system) live reasonably cosetted lives. Most congregations worth the name work pretty hard, whether it is known and appreciated or not, to hide their pastors from the really nasty stuff that goes on in the world. Difficult as political struggles in church may be, most I have know are child's play compared to what goes on out in the worlds of business and politics.
But the bottom line is this, seminaries, designed to make pastors, a leadership position, do not provide leadership training. Oh sure, good ones have intern programs, but let's get real, interns are cheap labor for a semester. It is a rare senior or even associate that takes the intern under their wing and really teaches them about leadership. Do interns even show up at Session meetings? They ought to.
Some of this reflects the changing role of the Presbyterian pastor. The Session is supposed to lead and the Pastor serve. That barely works anymore. A Pastor needs enough leadership training to make the leaders he/she needs on the Session.
There is only one institution in our society that works consciously to make leaders anymore - that is the military. Everyone else just hopes to stumble onto them.
The church is God's army here on Earth. Maybe we ought to take a hint from our secular counterparts.
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