Culture

The Challenges of Social Media

I’m not sure why, but I vividly remember the first time I ever heard the word “Twitter.”  At first I thought about the oddity of the word, a word that elicits all kinds of sarcastic comments, comments I was quick to offer. I was also skeptical that this “new” social media tool could ever be of any benefit.  Whatever the reason, I remember the day.

It was in October 2008 while sitting in a class entitled “Missional Ecclesiology.” On the first day of class the professor not only introduced us to Twitter, but also forced us to create an account so that we could utilize Twitter for class interactions.  He actually waited for the first ten minutes of class while we begrudgingly created our accounts and posted our first tweets.  It was obvious that we were all thinking the same thing: “This is stupid!” 

“Red and Yellow, Black and White”

Randy, you pastor an unusual congregation. It is genuinely multi-cultural and is a vibrant, growing church in a diverse community. Would you describe your church and community for us?

It is a church you cannot easily label or easily compare to another. This church is celebrating its 97^th birthday and God has essentially recreated it before our very eyes.

The church had typically humble beginnings. Chicago Heights was a progressive middle-class Italian community, perhaps best known for being the weekend "getaway" home of the infamous Al Capone. During the 70's and 80's, Chicago Heights began to decline economically. Businesses began to close down. What growth there was in Chicago's southern suburbs was moving east and west of Chicago Heights. There was obviously a temptation for the church to do what most traditional churches have historically done under similar circumstances. Abandon, sell and relocate.

Kingdom (Culture) Builders

Pastoral leadership is about creating and nurturing culture - Kingdom culture. It isn't essentially about growing the church or even wining people to Christ (though both of those are important facets of the work of the church). It should be centrally concerned with transforming the patterns of value and relations of this world's culture into patterns of living and community that express the embodied and practiced character of the Kingdom of God. Effective pastoral leaders are Kingdom culture builders.

We have been too easily seduced by a production culture. The church becomes a means of producing a desired end. A secular Management by Objective mentality forms the life and directs the energy of the church. We identify an outcome goal - worship attendance growth, new members, etc - and work "backwards" to determine how we can achieve that goal. The measure of our success is our ability to produce that result.

My objection is not to intentional planning, or even to identifying significant outcomes we want to achieve. My objection is to the adequacy of that kind of thinking to express and reflect the full measure of the message of the Good News - that the Kingdom of God is at hand. The point is not  that we shouldn't plan purposefully (even using MBO strategic thinking) but that these tools should serve a higher vision of the work of the church. That vision needs to focus on the Kingdom of God breaking in to transform persons and the life of community to reflect the life and character of God.

One aspect of rethinking leadership in light of the project of Kingdom building is recognition of the critical importance of leadership as culture forming. Strangely, the business world has been more keenly interested in this than the church. Over the last 30 years the business world has engaged in an active conversation about the importance of leadership and culture creation. It has recognized the power of culture, its impact on productivity and effectiveness. Formal structures, policies, and leadership initiatives are forever interacting with informally expressed values, practiced patterns, and implicit definitions of identity.

Writing History From The "Now" Perspective

I recently spent a few days in New York City, the most populated city in the United States. What makes their population figures even more staggering is their small land mass. The City of New York is the most densely populated city in these United States with nearly nine million city dwellers. By contrast, Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city of square miles in the lower forty-eight states, but only ranks thirteenth in population with 1.3 million inhabitants. By the way, if these New York numbers make you feel your personal space is shrinking, maybe you should relocate to Sitka, Alaska where this polar town occupies 2,874 miles but a population below ten thousand!

New York has a lot of history. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, a subway system with a one hundred year history,