Anglican Perspectives

We need to train-up leaders – NOW

The Anglican Church Must Train-up New Leaders and equip every member to share Christ – NOW!

 

Last week we published the first part of a survey that we took of clergy and laity in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).You can see the results that we published from the 250 clergy who responded (we will publish the results of the 700+ laity who responded in the weeks to come).  I’ve had some time to reflect on these answers from fellow clergy, and would like to offer some suggestions in response to what we have learned:

 

  1. With 61% of our clergy retiring in the next 20 years, we need to raise up younger clergy leaders with the heart and skills to lead aging congregations to new seasons of growth in evangelism, discipleship and mission.

 

As the survey indicates, nearly 2/3 of our ACNA clergy plan to retire no later than 2037.  The survey also shows that clergy view the number of aging “Boomers” in their congregation as a significant obstacle to church growth.   One described the congregation as “tired, worn out and exhausted.” Unless we want smaller, aging congregations to simply die out, we need a succession plan to raise up younger leaders who are prepared to help them re-engage the secular, “post-truth” culture in North America. In other words, we need right now to create and fill a leadership pipeline from youth ministries through college ministries through seminaries (residential and on-line) to develop clergy who are ready to assume leadership of these aging congregations.

 

 

I don’t believe it’s a good idea to simply allow smaller, aging congregations die out.  Though we have many aging “Boomers” who are exhausted from the exodus from TEC and transitions to new facilities, these same folks have latent vision, energy, time and resources just waiting to be mobilized for the Kingdom!  What they often lack is a vision or picture of how they can contribute their time, energy and resources in meaningful ways that will impact their friends, neighbors and communities with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

 

So, we need younger leaders with skills to cast such a vision—with passion, energy and confidence in Christ.  But we also need leaders who have the heart to work carefully and patiently with aging congregations.  Peter Drucker (and others) have famously noted that “Culture eats strategy for lunch.”  Younger leaders need to recognize that with the vision they cast comes a call for change, and virtually any change requires a change in the culture of the church.  What does the leader do when the congregation resists such change?

 

Faced with such resistance to change, it’s easy for leaders, young and old, to say in effect “it’s my way or the highway,” out of the conviction that the vision they have received is not only Biblical, but inspired by God.  In the face of such certainty, it is not easy to listen to the voices of resistance.  Sometimes the leader ends up communicating something like this: “You might not like the changes you’re going to have to make.  In fact, some of you will probably want to leave. That’s ok.  Just make sure your tithe is paid up when you leave and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

 

Is that really the best we can do?  And how is that message any different than the message people received from revisionist leaders, young and old, on their way out of TEC?

 

You see, we need younger leaders who recognize that relational trust is the “capital” they have to make the necessary changes—including fundamental changes in church culture from maintenance to mission.  For precisely this reason our AAC Clergy Leadership Training Institutes focus on equipping leaders of all ages with adaptive/transformational leadership skills to help their congregation work through the competing values that are invariably at the heart of resistance to change.  We focus on the pace of change, relational wisdom, and how to listen to the voices of resistance with discernment.  We add personal coaching to all of this so that leaders will build trust with the people they serve to help them turn from an inward focus to an outward, evangelistic and missional focus!

 

  1. We need clergy who can so present Jesus Christ in Spirit, word and deed that the congregation’s vision will be lifted from an inward focus to a passion to share Christ with others

 

This morning in my devotional time I was reminded of a hymn that I have come to love, “Give me Jesus”.  “In the morning when I rise…And when I am alone…And when I come to die…you can have all this world, but give me Jesus!”  I listened to those words beautifully set in the context of a tribute to Ruth Graham’s life (the wife of Billy Graham) and as I did, Christ’s presence washed over me.

 

I’m willing to bet that some of you listening to that hymn would find it as compelling and deeply moving as I did—the summation of a life so well lived. It’s a message in a medium that I want to share with others!

 

But I also recognize that this might not strike the same chord with others in my network of relationships today.  What about the Hispanic businessman in my doctor’s office who is almost fluent in English, trying to recover from an injury and get back to work? What about the young professionals who are beginning careers and raising families or just trying to make ends meet that move next door? The students who have come here from far-away lands to study in our schools? How can I share the transforming love of Jesus Christ with them in a compelling way, with up to the minute relevance to their lives?

 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul raised this very question, and went on to say how we must make every effort to reach people in terms they can understand. I appreciate how The Message paraphrases his Biblical, missionary strategy:

 

“Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” (I Cor. 9:19-23 The Message)

 

This is exactly the point Canon Mark Eldredge makes in his article about becoming an expert fisher of men.  This is the focus of our church revitalization workshops: helping clergy and congregations understand the communities and peoples among whom God has planted them, so that we may effectively lead them to Christ and “Give them Jesus”!

 

These are just some of the needs and challenges our survey of clergy reveals.  Next week I will say a bit more about how clergy can multiply leaders and ministries instead of becoming a “bottleneck,” how we may need to rethink training for ministry…and what about children’s ministry?

 

As we move forward, I’m convicted that God has a great future ahead of us (Jer 29:11) as we prayerfully yield ourselves to his leadership.

 

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey is President & CEO of the American Anglican Council. 

Share this post
Search