A Willimon Stretch from Seminary into Local Congregations

In his 2008 article from The Christian Century, From Seminary to Parish, William Willimon describes his dissappointment with local seminary graduates.  Those disappointments are, he says, the result of a disconnect between seminaries and local churches.  His disappointments  include:

1.  Individuals who wanted to receive what was already established.  They do not want to take a risk with Jesus.

2.  Seminary graduates seem to be introverts and reflective while the church is heavily politicized and communal.

3.  Too much theological training instructs pastors to stand in judgement over their text rather than helping people live into those texts. 

5 of Willimon’s 7 points of advice to new seminary graduates includes:

1.  Learn to speak and teach scripture rather than using religious words like liberation, empowerment, spiritual practice and intentional community.

2.   Recognize the intelligence of your local community.  Do not expect them to sound like academicians.  They are not stupid because they don’t

3. Criticism of the church ought to be part of the ongoing mission so that the church rises above complacency and status quo – pastors have leadership responsibility in this. 

4.   Lean on God by engaging prayerful and intense reading and reflection that was begun in seminary.

5.  Secure some good mentors and develop a critical approach to ministry that is constantly honing and looking for new skills. 

 These may also be good advice /reminders for pastors who have been working for awhile. 

Are you a church searching for a pastor?  Are you a pastor searching for a church?  I hope this brief summary is helpful.  Do you agree with Willimon?

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Chapter Five: Clayton’s Mind and Emergence – Personhood and Divine Action

Clayton returns to challenge the overly physical or overly theistic interpreation of the human experience.  In this final chapter, he argues that emergence is an important middle ground both because it honors science as a profound effort to increase human knowledge. However, he seems to imply that there is no adequate emergent language in religious discourse.  Describing God as foundation of the world (which is common) is not in conflict with science and physicalism, however, describing God as active in the cosmos encroaches on what we have come to understand scientifically.  This gives rise to a dualism that Clayton has rejected throughout the five chapters of the book.

 Therefore, he asserts, it is not helpful to the religious person  to maintain religious beliefs that discount science or assume its falseness without an effort to improve the premise or finding of science.  Specifically, Clayton presents a traditional understanding of miracles as an example of religion’s blantant disregard for science except at the level of quantum possibilities.  Even if there is a suspension of these laws and God can do whatever God wants in the world, such anomoly prevents the human being’s beliefs from rising to the level of knowledge.   The traditional approach to miracles does not adequately solve the question of divine action (188).

Clayton then distinguishes human action from divine action.  He notes that there are no laws that “…determine the decision-making process.” (189)  The theory of emergence is again argued for.  While it honors the physics and biology of the brain, it does not reduce the explanation of the mind to those functions.

Then Clayton approaches his more challenging question -what is the divine influence on mental process.  (Remember mental processes are the inclination to take some action).  Reminding the reader that the human being is more than its chemical processes (i.e. hormones do not explain a human beings hunger for meaning in their life),  Clayton defines the integrated human being  as a combination of body, environment, relationships,  and overall mental state which includes social, cultural historical and religious context.   As such the “… integrated self or psychosocial agent-in-community, offers the appropriate level on which to introduce the possibility of divine agency.  Here and  perhaps here alone, a divine agency could be opeartive that could exercise downward causal influence without being reduced to a manipulator of physical particles or psychotropic neurotransmitters.  Only an influence that worked at the level of the person as such could influence the kinds of dimensions that are religiously significant without falling to the level of magic:…” (198).

After speculating on significant objections to his theory of emergence, Clayton ends by asking a most important question:  With all that science knows and reveals, does it really know all the levels that explain the phenomenon of the universe? (205)  he asserts that it cannot.  “Some levels of reality are suited for mathmatical deterministic explanations (macro-physics), others for explanations that are mathmatical but NOT deterministic (quantum physics), and others for explanations that focus on structure, function and development (the biological sciences from genetics to neurophysiology).  But at other levels laws play a more minimal role and idiosyncratic factors predominate;  hence narratives tend to replace measurements and prediction becomes difficult at best. It appears that much of the interior life of humans and whatever social interactions or creative expressions are based on this interiority, fall into this category.” (205).

Clayton is  a challenging but powerfully integrative read.  He offers emergence as a genuine and intellectual alternative to either an uncritical confidence in science or a  defensive rejection of it.  Again, I commend the subsequent book to this one, Adventures in the Spirit:  God World and Divine Action.

Most congregations would assert that God is working through their shared life.  Perhaps even that in them, divine action is being realized.  Clayton’s work asks congregations to explain themselves.  The question that Clayton might have for such assertions might sound like: Are congregational actions trivial and easy or more substantive and complex?  Clayton uses a term from process theology harmony to help folks like me answer the question.  Harmony is defined as “…a balance between some divergent factors.  …Factors external to the individual will play a curcial role in the account.” (195).  So the more congregations entertain the more challenging  external factors… the more they engage complex relationships and bring together diverse dimensions of life, the more prepared they are to be conduits of  divine action.  The integrated person (discussed above)  is the person who has engaged the challenges of harmony as defined above.  Perhaps we can expand Clayton’s notion of the integrated person to the integrated congregation.  The integrated congregation may have increased integrity when they declare God to be working through them.   But the call to harmony can wear a congregation out.  Perhaps their sustenance can be found in the observant leader who tells the story that emerges.  Well told stories have a great popensity to lead to reflection and action. 

Can pastors be provocative at one end and spiritual reporters on the other end?

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Consumptive Leadership

I have just read a most excellent edition of the Presbyterian Outlook (vol. 192) that focuses on Adventurous Leadership.  Alongside a wonderful article by Michael Jenkins about anxious leadership, there is also a great article by Harry Heintz entitled “How the Mighty Fall” taken from the book How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins (2009).  Collins book focuses on how the business and corporations that have fallen from pinnacles of performance.  Heintz suggests that Collin’s work is transferrable to churches.  Here are the five steps. 

1.  Stage one:  Hubris born of Success

Ignoring signs of change or decline, leaders come to believe that great track records mean that they can do no wrong.  Early signs of decline are ignored or denied.

2.  Undisciplined Pursuit of More

Moving away from the areas of focus that gave them their success in the first place, leaders make “undisciplined leaps” into efforts where greatness is not possible.  It is noted that growth, in and of itself is not a legitimate goal.

3.  Denial of Risk and Peril

Very simply, leaders blame external events for limited success or failures rather than assuming a responsiblity and an intent to learn from the external environment.

4.  Grasping for Quick Fixes

Leaders that respond by stretching for silver bullets rather than engaging a process that allows God to work in people’s lives. 

5.   Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Financial strength and individual spirit can be eroded by failed silver bullets to the extent that hope runs out. 

An alternative to these five steps can be found in the call to adventure that is creatively articulated in Michael Jenkin’s article.  I commend the issue of Outlook to all who are interested in staying mindful of congregational life and leadership.

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Chapter Four- Emergence and Mind: Clayton’s Mind and Emergence

In this most important chapter, Clayton selects and presents a summary of brain/mind research in order to bring his argument for strong emergence into the arena of consciousness.  In brain research, he notes Daniel Dennett’s findings that there is no separate place in the brain for long term and working memory.  Those functions happen in shared workspace.   Clayton notes that such integration has a great deal in common with “emergence predictions”. (119).  

Clayton notes that there are easy questions of consciousness such as:  why we discriminate; how we integrate information; the reportability of mental states; ability of a system to access its own internal states; focus of attention; deliberate control of behavior; difference between wakefulness and sleep.  The more difficult question of consciousness is “what is consciousness and what does it do?

Clayton, then,  walks the reader through options to the emergent point of view.  Finding them inadequate, he recognizes his challenge.  “…can an emergentist theory of mind be formulated which is sufficiently attuned to the power of neuroscientific explanations, yet which addresses the hard problem:  the distinctive nature of the causal influence of mental states?  There is a certain dynamic to the quest for such a theory that is somewhat akin to riding a see-saw.  If you push off too hard from the mental side, you descend into the morasses of neurophysiological detail and no mental causes are to be found.  If however, you puss off too hard from the physical side, you end up in the world of purely mental terms and no connection with the brain remains.  The balance we seek conceives mind as a type of property that emerges from the brain which though different from remains continually dependent on its subvenient (one level or property dependent upon another) base” (128).  In other words, Clayton is looking for a theory that will not abandon the idea that mental events have goals and drive our behavior.  This theory would also not invalidate the work of scientific study upon the human brain. 

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that in order for this book to inform the congregational life, there is a necessary stretch from the individual person with an individul brain and a specific matrix of consciousness to a community in which the consciousness matrix is, perhaps, exponentially more complex.  Still, Clayton’s caution can be taken up that the communal mind is not a physical reality though it is dependent upon us ‘putting our heads together’ so to speak. 

This increases the need for congregational change studies that will differentiate between structural change (programmatic and building changes that have a heavy physicalist assumption and explanation) and the more fundamental procedural changes (changes in relationships and self understanding that are perhaps more related to the consciousness and mind). 

Though there is work to be done, Clayton’s work may powerfully inform institutes such as Alban that try to understand the emergence of congregations and congregational life.

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The Heart of Spiritual Leadership has dimension

Leading through any organizational change means a Spiritual Engagement.  This is applicable for pastoral leaders within the church and for the Christian person striving for faithfulness in their work aday world.  The full spiritual engagements suggested in the venn diagram link above, contains three components: 

1.  The understanding of an organization as a  circulatory system that thrives in the exchange between exertion and reception.  This is an alternative to territory and control toward which we are tempted when change and adaptive challenges strain our working environments or organizational efforts.  As the circulatory system is challenged to reoxygenate by drawing in from the outside – so healthy organizations are challenged to stay open and fluid.

2.  A leadership style that allows for the flow of the circulatory system.   There is a great deal of pressure on leaders to be right and to predict appropriate outcomes for “right products” or “right results”.  Chambered leadership attends to the processes of a company so that relationships can be sufficiently empowered so that all the company is making the discovery about what God is luring them toward.  “Right results”, then are preceded by best guesses and exploration that is affirmed and tolerated – not only for the building of the product but for the building up of the people who are investing in the product.  In this way – leadership serves as the chambers of the heart for the flow of the organization.

3.  At the deepest level of leadership, there is attention to what we hope never makes it to the office.  Ventricular spirituality symbolizes the low lying places of our psyche and humanity. These are the agitating moments previously spoken of in this blog.  They might be a sort of achilles heel and those events or people who really affect us in painful or infuriating ways.  Sometimes, taking time for worship or some other spiritual discipline that allows focused attention on the agitating moments is crucial in a busy life.  Ventricular spirituality requires a mindfulness that cannot be acheived with a slowing of the body and the breath without enough self awareness to name the need that we have within the agitating moment.  For this reason, the thesis attached to this blog suggests a daily discipline of yoga and periods of concept mapping in order to attend to distracting agitations. 

The heart of leadership pulses.  That pulse extends from the outlying, external environment that affects your organization, it regulates (or makes irregular) the many relationships in the workplace and it delves down into the heart and mind of the leader themself.

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Clayton – more than science reflections

Clayton’s more recent work includes a 2008 publication entitled Adventure in the Spirit:  God, World, Divine Action.  This book takes the topic of mind and emergence into the theological conversation of God’s agency.  Pastor Bob Cornwall reviewed this book a year ago.  It is quite extensive as far as I can tell.  His site, Ponderings on  Faith Journey is a link on this site.  July 16th, 2009 captures his comprehensive review

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Chapter three – Clayton’s Mind and Emergence – Congregations and Ant Colonies

In chapter three, Clayton continues his argument that emergence is about transitions between areas of scientific study.  Specifically he addresses evolution as an emergent process that “produces a variety of distinct levels of phenonmenon…”.  Through a carefully exampled argument which includes: computer simulations, evidence of neural networks and ant colonies, Clayton challenges the 2nd law of thermodynamics which states that all organization moves toward increasing chaos and entropy.  His question is “how is order produced in a system’s evolution when it is not present in the initial conditions?”  Before the 2nd law has its final say – what is going on in the life of the organism?

As previously, he refutes that the physics based explanation of behavior determined by the parts is sufficient to explain creation’s organizations.  He reports the way in which biology, for too long, has tried to adhere to the laws of physics while ignoring emergent realities. 

Here Clayton’s returns to the idea of purposiveness without purpose.  He suggests that there may be a theory of emergence in which a “series of middle instances between the chemical level and the conscious level.  Primitive organisms do not conscioulsy carry out purposes in the way an intentional agent does.  Yet the parts of an organism (or organ, cell or ecosystem) work together for its survival.” (97)  Eventually consciousness is acheived.

Clayton reminds us that there is no clear division between mind and body.   “Mind as we know it in humans has important precursors in creatures’ perception of environment and ‘other’ as ‘other’.  

Most accessible to me in this chapter was Clayton’s explanation of ant colonies by citing the work of Ant researcher Deborah Gordon.  Her research as found that individual ants give rise to complex and adapative colonies that have distinct personalities from other colonies  (some are more aggressive while others more passive).  So that even the explanation that Ant colonies are merely an aggreggate of individual ants does not sufficiently explain the organizational personalities.  She also finds that the life cycle of a colony emerges over about 10 years time even though individual members only live a year.

I think this example of emergence has interesting implications for our study of congregational life, our attention to individual members and organizational dynamics.  As pastors involved in congregational change, we often focus on the pieces and parts when considering the organizational development of the church.  Clayton suggests that development also happens at the macro level.   Leadership may have an opportunity to be observers of the micro occasions within a congregation as puzzle pieces that can be thought and prayed over.  In thought and prayer, micro occasions can be experimentally arranged as a hypothetical big picture.  Shared carefully,  these hypothetical scenarios can be shared with congregational members who might receive and respond to the scenario.  In light of an even hypothetical situation, individual behaviors can be affected.  In this very simple scenario, one can imagine a micro (individual members) participating toward the macro situation and then be affected by it in turn.  This may be the way that individual respond to the divine lure and manifest a unique expression of the Body of Christ. 

A more suscinct way to say this is that observant leadership may be able to  facilitate participation in the downard causation.  This has been attempted through efforts like vision statements in local congregations.  The problem with vision statements is that they are often more arbitrary than they are specific to the congregational aggregate.  The specifics of a congregation cannot predict the larger congregational life, however, they may be the starting place to discern emergence.    For every congregation is surely as unique as each ant colony.

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Jewels and Agitation

There is a persistence to agitating moments.  Agitating moments emerge from very specific circumstances/individuals.  They hang around the mind, gut and heart long after the conversation or non-verbal exchange is over.  It is not uncommon to attempt to release oneself from agitating moments through rationales that justify our own response/behavior or we attempt to release ourselves by declaring the circumstance/individual to be our enemy.    Truly agitating moments will not realease us until we honor their function which is to produce a jewel.   Remember how an oyster produces a pearl? 

Jewel is a key metaphor for Dr. Ramon Corrales and his work in the field of family systems and self mastery.   While his meptaphor is much larger than the jewel itself, suffice it to say that Dr. Corrales defines a jewel as the positive need that we have.  I want to suggest there is a jewel in our agitating moments and once we discover it, the agitating moment is relieved. 

For example when we are involved in a high conflict coversation in which our  good intentions and integrity are questioned, the moment may well agitate us until we consider the need we have in the situation.  When our inner dialogue sounds something like: “This really bothers me because I would like for people to understand my intentions to be honorable and trustworthy” this identifies our need and refines our future behavior.  We never have to go to the more defensive and unhelpful place of “I still can’t believe they did or said that to me.”  Attention to the agitating moment may be a very profound way to honor our immanent God.

In fact, it is remembered that Jesus encouraged us to love our neighbors, but then agitating moments get in the way – or do they have to?  What are your experiences with agitating moments?  Dealing with them is more fully considered in thesis which is attached to this page.

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Building Congregations – Chapter Two of Clayton’s Mind and Emergence

In Chapter two, Philip Clayton defines emergence as the evidence of distinct levels of organization or experience.  Further, emergence is the repetitive pattern that is at work in each of the levels.  He is careful to note that emergence is not a theory of how to transition between these levels.  It is about the existence of those levels.   None the less he returns to his argument for Strong Emergence or the downward caustion whereby “some whole has an active, non-additive causal influence on its parts” (49).

 The chapter brought to mind the biological/physical and social levels that make up a congregation.  Individuals who are cultivating a church habit will say things like:  “I just feel better when I go to church.”  or “I get fed when I go and when I miss, I am hungry all week.”  Often, individuals  who struggle to get into a church habit have the strange but common experience of feeling guilty.  Assuming that the guilt is more than a cultural script that one should do church, I wonder if individuals are really sensing that when they set aside time to think and to focus on sacred texts, pray and sing they are connected to a larger whole to which they inherently belong.  Perhaps there is some downward causation at work from the whole that is the Body of Christ as realized in a congregation who lives as an effective conduit of God’s lure upon individuals. 

In light of Clayton’s chapter, perhaps building congregations begins as a lure to belong to the larger whole…the Body of Christ.  This may be realized in distinct levels of experience.  For example, perhaps an initial level looks like the approach and participation i.e. a fledging membership in a congregation.  Here the individual is bound up in new experiences and associations.

Individuals then take part in the congregation in habitual and somewhat anticipated ways.  The tie that binds is no longer about introductions to practices or nascent associations.  Now the tie that binds is a sense of purpose and leadership.  What has been new takes on an enriched novelty as the individual realizes that they are integral to the life of the congregation and its ministry.  

Perhaps yet another level of membership in the Body of Christ can be discovered as individuals commitment is not only through newness and purposeful leadership but now in a desire to be open to those wandering and seeking in their own faith.  The openness may be to those who are socially marginalized or to those who are making entry to the congregation itself. 

What began as a lure to belong now becomes a lure to include.  But the emergent pattern, perhaps something like the tie that binds functions reiteratively at each level but with different rules and unanticipated outcomes.  

I hope in this example, the mind of the congregation can be seen in its various parts as emanating from a whole.  Perhaps this contrasts the notion of building a congregation from the ground up.   As Clayton says in his closing sentence “…the present view presupposes that upward and downward influences are operative.” (62) 

Have you seen evidence of downward causation in the life of your congregation?

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What sort of change are you pursuing?

Though change can be an ambiguous term, there is help for the church from the field of Organizational Development and Process theology.   From the field of Organizational Development research at least two types of change are obvious:  structural and relational.  Structural change in the church may be programmatic/ Sunday morning schedules, administration/staff, church organization or building changes.  What is interesting about Organizational Development’s research is their discovery that in order for structural changes to be effective, it needs to be informed by the relationships that the change may affect.  For example, before the institution of a second worship services, investigation and interest of how that second worship service will affect individual’s experience in the church may be essential.   This is a very different approach than assuming that some people will just have to “get over it”.  Most people want change in the church, they just do not want it at the cost of their meaningful relational experiences.  

Congregational change literature often anticipates resistance to structural changes.  OD would remind us that relationships are the infrastructure for more obvious changes.  Very often our investigation into how relationships might be affected can change and often improve our pursuit of structural changes within the church.  Two important works in this regard include:  Breaking the Code of Change by Micheal Beer and Nitin Nohria eds. (from Organizational Development) and Claiming New Life:  Process Church for the Future by Lisa Withrow Associate professor of Christian Leadership at Methodist Theological School in Ohio.  Withrow provides discussion questions in her book.  The books suggests scenario groups as a way to welcome the future.   Since the future and change are often terms used in similar circumstances, her book may be helpful to the subject. 

More detail on this subject is included in my thesis which is attached to this site.

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