Coming into the Diocese of San Joaquin in 2008, it was apparent that there had been a harmful style of leadership. There was one leader; everyone else was a follower. Dissenters or questioners were vilified and exiled. Lots of people had been wounded by this style. Two things I encountered: 1) there was a distrust of authority. It is extremely difficult to be a true leader of a faith community without trust. To this day, trust needs to be earned by a leader’s consistent actions and words. If you say one thing and do another, there will be resistance.
2) The leadership of the laity had been crushed to the detriment of congregational growth. This was apparent in the way even lay leaders sought power, as demonstrated by prior authority figures, instead of working to find new solutions or compromise. We need the laity to be responsible leaders in our churches.
Establishing lay leadership is not new to the Episcopal Church. I remember going to classes on leadership back in the 1980’s when I was a member of Christ the Lord Episcopal Church in Pinole. The Cursillo movement was dependent on lay leaders. Dave and I were active members of Cursillo in the East Bay. Lay leaders planned and carried out the 4-day weekend retreats. Yes, there were spiritual directors (I’ve done that too); they planned the liturgies and were there for pastoral care only.
As we begin the 13th year following the schism, let’s continue to strive for positive leadership. At St. Anne’s, time and energy has been spent on learning to trust each other. Jesus and his followers trusted each other; there is our positive role model. Being missional church, we are challenged to look beyond our church building to our community and to find God working there and – dare we say – join God in the work.
We all have experience with good and bad leaders in both secular and church settings. We are formed and learn from both. Let us strive to be responsible leaders. We are called to be involved. The ‘…’ gives each of us the freedom to discern how we will lead.
When Bishop David first came to the diocese, he asked the clergy to read “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading” by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. I recommend it for all of you who would be responsible leaders.
