You may print this article, a more complete version of the article published in the February 2001 Net Results, for use in your congregation or your regional or national church organization.

Conversations with Church Leaders:Leith Anderson

There is an important conversation happening right now among church leaders. Where is the church going, and where should it be going? What's working, and what isn't working anymore? How can we tell the difference between what is really sacred and what is just a sacred cow?

This conversation focuses on future faithfulness in the church. Let's listen in . . .

-Thomas Bandy, Net Results Senior Editor

 

Tom: Leith, it's really good to talk with you.

Leith: I'm glad to be able to be available.

Tom: In Leonard Sweet's book AquaChurch, Len has described your congregation as an "AquaChurch," and a lot of clergy and lay leaders have found that a provocative and interesting metaphor. But every time I talk to people they interpret it in different ways. If you were to apply the word "AquaChurch" to your congregation, how would you do it? What would it mean?

Leith: Well, I think the two things that characterize Wooddale Church that have been helpful in the context which Len Sweet describes are that Wooddale simultaneously has both stability and mobility. And those are two wonderful characteristics. Stability in the sense that it's a congregation more than a half-century old and has roots and strength and, you know, a certain amount of predictability, like the Rock of Gibraltar. But at the same time it has proven to be highly mobile and able to change. And churches sometimes have one or the other but not both.

Tom: It is true that one of the things that people note about Wooddale is the ability to seize opportunities fairly rapidly and with great integrity. It tends to make some very creative missions happen out of those opportunities. Is that what you mean by some of the fluidity, some of the mobility, that you're talking about as a congregation?

Leith: Yeah. An interesting example is we regularly start new churches potentially designed to be very large churches and we have done that now cross-denominationally. So we've started churches for other denominations, which is most unusual. And that's a very mobile, creative, daring thing to do. But we're able to do it because we have strength and stability and credibility and resources. So we're using the stability to do those other things.

Tom: And you have a very clear values and faith statement which, of course, is on the website [www.wooddale.org]. It really enables other denominational groups to know whom they're working with and the shared foundation and assumptions you bring. Isn't one of the recent churches that you birthed a Reformed church?

Leith: Christian Reformed. A year ago we started a Christian Reformed church, and then this year we planted a Southern Baptist church. So those are kind of different denominations.

Tom: Yep, very different, very different. Have you found a partnership on a congregational basis most effective? Or have you also worked with their judicatories and area officers?

Leith: It's not so much a judicatory in the sense of like a classis or a diocese. It's normally their national group. However, with the Southern Baptists it's their Minnesota/Wisconsin association or district or something. And with the Christian Reformed, it was with their Home Missions Board out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Tom: In the AquaChurch chapter where your congregation is mentioned, Len Sweet's talking about what he calls the double-ring experience of postmodern life and double-ring Christian disciples. And I gather what he means by that is the ability to pull together both the extremes of contemporary living, teaming opposites and contradictions, and then birth some insight or ministry that is a positive thing and clearly in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Do you see yourself and the congregation in that double-ring metaphor?

Leith: If I understand what you're asking as far as we are concerned, I do think that at Wooddale, we would express it differently. I think he's describing it more as a tension or a dialectic.

Tom: Yes. Len, for example, talks about how it's the best of times, it's the worst of times, and dynamic Christian leadership seems to be able to pull together the best and the worst and create something new that's positive and life giving and Christian.

Leith: I think that we would describe it by saying that there is great variety in where people are and we are committed to meeting them where they are. And that may be not only different but seemingly contradictory with different individuals. But we feel very comfortable doing that within the context of one church, of one faith community.

Tom: I think that's very helpful. One of the things that personally excites me and I know has excited other people about your ministry is that you're very clear about your purpose as a church: To honor God by making more disciples for Jesus Christ.

I'm always curious to ask leaders: When you look out at what people describe as the postmodern world, what does a true disciple of Christ look like now? Whether it's in terms of faith, lifestyle, mission, or whatever it might be?

Leith: Well, the basis for that is Matthew 28:19-20 in the Great Commission, where the only imperative mode that's used in the Greek text is to make disciples. And a disciple is defined as someone who obeys all that Christ has commanded. So I would see a disciple as someone who is committed to Jesus Christ and what he wants but recognizes that it's a lifelong process of knowing all that Christ has commanded. I think that's a very different approach than what has sometimes been assumed. And what has been assumed is almost the exact opposite: that we can clearly define all that Christ has commanded and it's a lifelong process of deciding whether or not we're going to obey. But to me a disciple is someone who is committed to Jesus Christ and then spends the duration of life figuring out how to do that. That's very much in with Grace rather than Law.

Tom: Yes, I can understand why you say that.

Currently as you travel all over the place, are there any particular emerging trends that you're noticing? Either locally or globally, are there trends in American life or postmodern culture that have you thinking and your congregational leaders thinking about adjusting mission and ministry to address them in new ways?

Leith: On the very concrete level, I would contend that the busyness of people's lives and schedules is transforming the church--probably to the same extent that the automobile transformed the church fifty years ago. Lyle Schaller says that there are still churches that haven't figured out that people have cars and can go wherever they want. They don't have to go to a close church. What I think we need to understand is people's schedules are extremely full with multiple wage earners in the family. And that does not mean that they are less committed to God.

There are those who would assume that because people don't come to weeknight activities or Sunday night activities or because they are pressed in terms of volunteering that they love God less and they are less committed as Christians. That may not be so. It may just be that they are stewarding their time in a different way than they did in the past. And I think that within the church we need to understand that and say, "How can we best enable people to be disciples within the reality of their schedules and their lives?"

Tom: What other things are you noticing?

Leith: Well, it's interesting when you talk about postmodernism. I'm not sure, but it sounds as if you are assuming that we are already there and that everyone is a postmodern. Postmodernism is varied and eclectic, and in reality there are people who are deeply committed to modernity and are living other than postmodern lifestyles in many ways. So postmodernism is in a sense itself a segment.

I just read an article this past week from the New York Times about families in New York State and New England who are living basically late nineteenth-century lifestyles with their families. And it isn't that they have abandoned modern inventions. They have abandoned modern philosophies. One guy that was cited in this article is an American Airlines pilot but they homeschool their children. They're doing many things that are highly countercultural. So there are postmodernists, and then next to them in the same block are people who do not adopt that philosophy.

Tom: In the back of my mind is the awareness that postmodern isn't so much an "ism" for me as just an experience of speed and diversity and change. And people are reacting to it in some rather unique ways. Sometimes going backward in time and sometimes going forward in time. But they're not reacting to this in the same ways that have been common in the twentieth century. That's what I'm thinking.

Leith: Yeah. I guess what concerns me though . . . I think that there is an assumption that on one specific day in the 1990s we went from modernity to postmodernity. That's not the way the world works. We didn't go from linear to nonlinear at midnight one night. These changes are incremental; they're uneven; they're varied.

Anyway, you were asking about other trends. I think that the move to larger institutions is clearly a reality. Also the economic factors in the life of a church are perhaps greater than they have ever been. I was in San Diego yesterday, and what is controlling the future of churches there is the lack of the availability or affordability of land. So economic issues are significantly driving larger numbers of churches and how they do ministry.

The growing complexity of large institutions is another challenging trend. The shortage of senior pastor candidates for large, complex organizations is a major forthcoming crisis.

Tom: That's very helpful. We've been trying to draw some contextual issues for a lot of
Net Results readers and focus some thinking on key issues on the horizon that they and their people need to be pondering, thinking about how they're going to address those in the next ten years.

Leith: Let me mention one other trend that crosses my mind. If we think back, let's say forty years, ecumenism was very important to denominational leaders but resisted by the grass roots. What we have at the beginning of the twenty-first century is grass-roots ecumenism everywhere you look, but it is increasingly resisted by denominational leaders. And in neighborhoods people who are Catholic and Presbyterian and Lutheran are praying together. They go to Bible studies together. And an amalgam of all kinds of religious ideas has taken hold of the grass roots. Whereas denominational leaders are increasingly saying, "Well, we've got to stand for our distinctives." It's a reversal of what we had a while back. And that's, I think, significantly impacting churches.

Tom: I think that's really true. My experience in Canada has verified that. It would appear that denominations that were on fire in the 1920s and led the drive toward ecumenical conversation and even institutional unity had not only cooled off by the 1990s but the denominational offices are actually now investing all their budgets and energies in creating distinct hymnbooks and distinct judicatory polities. It's the local people who are in a fever of cooperation, not the judicatory leaders themselves.

Leith: Right! Well, those denominational leaders are going down the wrong path!

Tom: That's very helpful to say. I'm particularly alarmed, of course, that in Canada the pace of secularity in some ways is more visible and even faster, and yet the church seems to be going even faster in the wrong direction that you've described.

Leith: Well, if you'll recall the McLean's magazine survey of religion in Canada from a few years ago . . .

Tom: In 1998.

Leith: Yeah . . . the people of Canada actually are amazingly predisposed to believe the Bible, to believe in God, to believe in prayer. They just aren't very enamored with the institutional church.

Tom: That's right!

Well, let me turn to some practical questions that the readers of Net Results are very interested in now. One of them relates to leadership development and preparation. And I'm thinking how you as a leader help coach and guide your staff in the congregation. Can you offer any reflections on how you prepare yourselves as leaders and leadership teams for daily ministry but also for the long haul of mission? How do you go about refreshing yourselves, keeping yourselves focused, equipping yourselves?

Leith: At Wooddale Church we're seriously committed to systemic processes. One of the things that we have largely done is deemphasize leadership, especially in terms of title and position. And we strongly emphasize ministry. So the focus is not on the position you hold but on the ministry which you accomplish. Another way of saying it is that we encourage people to identify what needs to be done and then do it. On a very practical level, that means a few years ago we did away with virtually every committee in the church. We have a board of elders that's ten people. That's it! And the rest of it is ministry teams.

My guess is that 98 percent of the people in the church wouldn't have any idea who the elders are and many of them wouldn't even know who many of the pastors are. Nor would they care. What they're concerned about is ministry. And that in itself invigorates people. People are together, they're praying together, they are functioning around a task. They are seeking the supernatural in what they are about. And that does it. That develops leaders. But it's not leadership for leadership's sake. It's leadership for ministry's sake.

Tom: When someone first connects with the church in some way for whatever reason, how would you articulate the process? How would you envision how you hope the church will sweep them into a deeper relationship with Christ that might then bear fruit in their becoming involved in ministry or ministries? How would you describe that process, that flow?

Leith: We have deliberately chosen not to have a formula-fits-all approach. Instead we have chosen to operate on several assumptions. One is that people will grow when they are ready to grow. It's like babies and flowers. They are born and bloom on the date of their choosing--not the date of the obstetrician's or gardener's choosing. And what we need to do is to offer the opportunities to encourage that growth and to accelerate that growth, but not on a prescribed course. Churches will then have people who are unchurched and irreligious who will connect. We almost always see this happen through someone who is already in the church.

People of Wooddale Church are very generous in inviting others to come. And these guests then experience community; they hear the Bible taught; they have a positive experience. And very often people will then come to Christian faith, typically after about six months. And then they will be exposed to an array of opportunities. These may be classes like Christianity 101 or maybe individual mentoring or discipling, or if they're getting married it may be through a premarital seminar. Or it could be any one of a whole variety of choices that are offered to them. But they're choosing how to do it; we're not choosing it for them.

Tom: Right. So they're pursuing their growth, their depth, their ministry at their own pace, in their own direction, as they feel called?

Leith: They're continually, gently prodded toward growth and maturity. This is very different from a baseball-diamond model. You start here and then you go there and then you go someplace else. In fact, my guess is that many of the formulas don't actually work. They are organizational self-perceptions that are imposed upon the reality of what is happening.

Tom: What you're describing is a little bit more of what I might describe as a kind of chaos, as people find their way with nurturing guides, leaders, mentors. In that type of process mistakes are made, almost expected. One of the things that a lot of people are asking about today is, if you know you're going to make mistakes anyway, how do you learn from your mistakes? How do you train your people? Or how do you, yourself, help the church discern and learn from any false moves or mistakes that they make?

Leith: Let me just back up on your premise for a moment. I would say that at Wooddale, there is in some areas extreme tolerance of mistakes and in other areas there is total intolerance of mistakes.

Tom: Okay, can you expand on that?

Leith: If somebody stumbles into a mistake in teaching, or falls back spiritually, or does something wrong at work or in marriage, we would have high level of tolerance for helping that person. On the other side, when it comes to childcare we require a police background check. We never allow an adult to be alone in a room with a child. In all preschool areas there are television monitors that tape everything that goes on. We have zero tolerance for somebody who potentially might molest a child. So there's a piece of the organization which is downright legalistic for protection of others. Another piece of the organization is very embracing of people who fail.

Now back to your question about how the organization learns from mistakes. Programmatically what Wooddale Church regularly does is use pilot programs and pilot projects. We currently have what we call traditional worship services and contemporary worship services. This November we will also begin a project with liturgical worship that will be very different from what we are currently doing. We have built a chapel and we have ordered the furniture and we have done a lot of the study and preparation, because we think that's an important opportunity for reaching and ministering to certain people. But we will not permanently launch an additional liturgical service. We will do it as an experiment. We'll do it as a pilot. And then we'll analyze it, we'll critique it, we'll evaluate it. Then we'll decide what mistakes were made on the micro level rather than on a macro level. And that's pretty much the corporate style here, which saves us from making really big mistakes.

Tom: What sort of timeline would you anticipate with an experiment or a pilot project like that, before you decide to make a dramatic shift, change, relocation, or even terminate the pilot project? Would you give it weeks, months, years?

Leith: Well, that would depend on what it is. For a new style of worship or a new program like that, we would typically run a four- to six-week experiment. It's been a long time since we have been in a position to do just exactly what I would describe here. But let's suppose we only had two services (actually we now have a lot more than that) and we were thinking about going to three services. We would run a four- to six-week experiment the weeks prior to and including Easter, and then discontinue it for the rest of the spring and summer. That would give us long enough to evaluate. If we decided we weren't going to continue it, we would declare the experiment a victory and success but not something to be perpetuated. If we needed to modify it we'd modify it. If we needed to just continue it, then we'd probably restart it the Sunday after Labor Day and make it permanent.

Tom: I think that's really helpful and the example is helpful, too. What advice would you give church leaders-whether pastors or lay-as they seek to leverage change, or to put it another way, to position their church to be more effective for mission today and tomorrow? When I look at your church's website for example, I learn there that part of the turnaround when you came to the congregation was to help people get a clear definition of the philosophy and direction of the church, to build competent lay and professional staff for equipping ministry (I'm just quoting from the website), and to make a major shift toward outreach. The last one is relocate to provide facilities for the future. But I'm sure you don't see that as a recipe for everybody. Nor maybe would you do the same things over again. But right now if you had some advice for church leaders to bring change and to position their church for effective mission tomorrow, what would you say?

Leith: I would tell them to beware of adopting a franchise model. There are too many who just look someplace else, to the denomination or another church, and then import it to their demise. I would encourage multiple mentors. They'll have more than one individual and more than one church to mentor them. I would encourage people to visit other churches and learn from them. I would tell them that leadership is based upon credibility and that credibility usually comes from a thousand good decisions and not one heroic act. So the thing to do is to pray for wisdom, and think things through, and be decisive in terms of a thousand good decisions. That's the way to lead.

Tom: Well, thank you. I really appreciate your insights. God bless you. I hope our paths will cross personally again as we travel. And I wish everyone in the congregation well as they fulfill their purpose. It sounds like everything is very exciting.

Leith: It is!

Anderson is the senior pastor of Wooddale Community Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota (www.wooddale.org), one of the largest and most creative congregations in North America. He is a noted speaker and mentor for effective church leadership and relevant Christian ministry today.

 


Copyright 2001 by Net Results

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