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A year ago my wife took leave from teaching middle school to enter a graduate program in school administration. I soon noticed that she and her colleagues were being assigned lots of reading on the topic of leadership, especially on the role of a leader in times of institutional change. A fair amount of this material was literature to which I also had paid attention over the years, including the work of such scholars as James MacGregor Bums, Ronald Heifetz and Margaret Wheatley. One thing was clear: the directors of her program thought that leadership mattered -- that a principal made a difference in a school.

I don't see much evidence that churches take a similarly high view of leadership. I don't see material on leadership being read or discussed by clergy, denominational executives or seminary teachers. More ominous is the fact that church leaders often seem ambivalent about leadership itself, uncertain whether it is even appropriate to speak of leaders and leadership.

Why this silence on leadership? I know some of the reasons. Many people are suspicious of leadership because they are suspicious of power and the way it has been abused in the church. But abuse does not rule out proper use.

Another reason is that mainline seminaries and churches have emphasized the minister as an enabler or facilitator. In its extreme form, this approach calls for clergy who claim to have no ideas or direction of their own. "I am here only to facilitate what you want to do." Of course, a leader does serve as facilitator and enabler, allowing and encouraging others to realize their gifts and leadership capacities. But the enabler-facilitator model can also be a smokescreen for a deficit of leadership.

A third factor contributing to silence or ambivalence about leadership is suggested by this cryptic observation of a friend: "You only need leaders if you are trying to accomplish something." The implication of this remark is that church leaders are not flourishing because churches are no longer trying to accomplish much -- except, perhaps, survive.

My own modest reading in the area of leadership theory and practice has provided some insights that are applicable to church life. One seminal work is James MacGregor Burns's 1978 study, Leadership. Burns, a scholar of the presidency, brings the tools of the political scientist and the historian to the subject.

Burns distinguishes between transactional and transformational styles of leadership. "The relations of most leaders and followers," Burns writes, "are transactional -- leaders approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, subsidies for campaign contributions." It's the old quid pro quo.

Transforming leadership, on the other hand, is more potent. "The transforming leader recognizes and exploits an existing need or demand of a potential follower. But, beyond that, the transformational leader looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the fuller person of the follower." The result of transformational leadership is the elevation of aspiration, the conversion of followers into leaders and leaders into moral agents.

Burns's vocabulary helps us name something that goes on in churches. While Burns tends to attach moral values to these two styles of leadership, it is an oversimplification to label one bad and the other good, or to suggest that one must choose between the two styles. Most leaders offer a blend of the two. Most congregations, for example, have legitimate expectations of pastoral leaders -- that pastoral and hospital calls will be made, staff supervised, stewardship campaigns led or supported, worship services planned and sermons preached. When they call a new pastor, many congregations have a specific list of needs and priorities. They may need leadership for a building campaign, or help in resolving a festering conflict. They may want a new minister to hire a capable youth leader, or to revitalize a pastoral calling program. Clergy are usually well advised to attend to these expressed needs. By responding to them effectively, trust is established and a minister gains a base of support upon which to build.

However, ministry that operates only at the transactional level -- meeting expressed needs -- may fail to touch the deepest needs of congregations and of the people who make them up: the need for transformation, for personal and institutional change in light of the vision and values of the gospel. Clergy who operate only at the transactional level are in danger of allowing the congregation to become an audience or clientele for goods and services. The priesthood of all believers becomes the gathering of religious consumers.

The apostle Paul models ministry that is a lively blend of the transactional and transformational. In many of his letters, Paul responds to specific needs, questions and concerns of congregations. Members of these early Christian communities find themselves struggling with an array of questions -- questions about diet, about relations with distant congregations, about the meaning and celebration of the Lord's Supper, or about marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian. Paul does not hesitate to respond to particular concerns. Yet in doing so he almost always pushes beyond the immediate problems to deeper issues. All food is acceptable, but let's consider the nature of Christian community and how to relate to people who are not so liberated as we are. "Discerning the body" in the celebration of the sacrament includes awareness of the needs of others and of their inclusion.

In this way, Paul responds to felt needs, but he transforms and reframes them as well. He exercises what Bums calls "the elevating power of leadership." He invites people to become more than they are and truer to their professed calling and grace-given identity.

Burns's distinction between transactional and transformational leaders reminds a pastor to take seriously the hopes, needs and agendas of individuals and of a congregation, and yet not be trapped or driven by them. There is a larger purpose, a higher calling, a new creation to be put before both pastor and people and in response to which both may be transformed.

Edwin H. Friedman's book, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, is not strictly speaking, about leadership. His primary concern is to bring the insights of family systems therapy to congregations. Yet sprinkled throughout Friedman's work are insights into the role and nature of leadership. Some of the best are tucked into the introduction, where Friedman discusses the difference between leadership defined as expertise and leadership understood as self-definition.

Friedman notes that our society, enamored as it is of expertise, often understands a leader as the expert, the one who has mastery over all the relevant knowledge or technique. Yet in social systems such as families, churches and synagogues, such expertise is not only elusive but may even prove counterproductive. "If we must conceive of leadership in terms of expertise," writes Friedman, "none of us will ever feel adequately prepared."

Instead of urging leaders to be experts, Friedman recommends that leaders develop the capacity for self-definition, the ability "to define his or her own goals or values while trying to maintain a nonanxious presence within the system." He further observes, "There is an intrinsic relationship between our capacity to put families together and ability to put ourselves together."

This is not to say that a glib focus on self or one's own issues is substituted for necessary knowledge. Some forms of expertise and a command of some areas of knowledge are necessary for pastoral leaders. We should have some mastery of the tools of exegesis, homiletics, liturgical planning and pastoral care and counseling. But our greatest strength as leaders lies not in the accumulation of information or technique, but in knowing ourselves and being able to articulate and act upon goals and values that are central to us and which are rooted in our faith.

Friedman's call to self-definition brings to mind the temptation story in Matthew and Luke, which shows Jesus resisting the pressure to define himself in response to others' expectations. The devil tries to evoke Jesus' anxiety and sense of inadequacy. The devil urges Jesus to resort to the application of technique or expertise and to fulfill others' definition of his role. "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread." Giving way to these pressures would be to betray his own self-understanding and vocation. Jesus rejects such an understanding of leadership. He defines his goals and values with relentless consistency: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve God only."

Later in his ministry the pattern continues in a host of exchanges between Jesus and the religious leaders and authorities. They often want to paint him as an expert and then challenge his expertise. One thinks of the story in Matthew 22 where the Pharisees first build Jesus up as an expert and then try to trap him with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Not only does Jesus elude the polarized alternatives into which they would entrap him, but he manages to be faithful in exercising his ministry by putting the question back into their laps. "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's."

Drawing on Friedman's framework, one might describe Jesus' entire ministry as that of defining his goals and vision in the face of pressures from all quarters to betray or deny them.

An understanding of leadership as self-definition provides a helpful alternative to the path of domination on the one hand or facilitation on the other. Friedman suggests that it is possible to say to a congregation or a church council: "This is what I care deeply about and this is what I understand myself as called to be and do," without imposing one's will on others. By being direct and open in this way a leader avoids either will-lessness or willfulness in favor of clarity and conviction. Self-definition allows members of a congregation a sense of direction without imposing that same sense of direction.

Self-definition may sound easy, but it is not, It calls upon leaders to know their own minds, to be steady and consistent in their convictions, and to have the courage of their convictions by being forthright. This is often a great gift to a congregation, for it is a model of integrity that encourages others to act out of their own deeply held convictions. Furthermore, when a leader consistently articulates his or her goals and values, potential allies are enabled to step forward and become real allies. If the flag is flying, it becomes possible to follow it.

A third author whose work holds particular value for church leaders is Ronald Heifetz of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In Leadership Without Easy Answers, Heifetz addresses the nature and challenge of leadership when there are no easy answers or ready solutions. Heifetz distinguishes between "technical" and "adaptive" work. Drawing on medical examples, Heifetz says technical work might involve a physician diagnosing an illness and prescribing a shot or a week of pills which fix or solve the problem. Both problem and solution are clearly definable.

Adaptive work is different. There are two kinds of adaptive work. In one case, the problem is definable, but discovery and implementation of the solution require learning. Heart disease, for example, may require that a patient not only consider and choose among various treatment options but also make appropriate life changes. The second type of adaptive work is even more complex. Here the problem itself is not clearly defined. Simply to understand the nature of the problem requires learning. Chronic illness or impending death often requires this kind of adaptive work.

As the era of American Christendom has ended, and the mainline churches have lost their established status, we face an adaptive change which requires enormous learning to define the problems, much less to locate and implement solutions, Churches may try to approach their challenges as if they were of a technical nature. The problem is defined as "membership loss," and the solution is church growth techniques. But our situation is a great deal more challenging than that. The skills and knowledge, the ways of being the church, that were appropriate and served us well in the establishment era no longer fit the new realities of a much more secular and religiously pluralistic society.

We can see an illustration of adaptive leadership in Moses, who over the long stretch of the Exodus and wilderness journey was engaged in helping the former slaves make a transition from one reality, slavery, to a new one, that of being a people in covenant with Yahweh, a people who are free and responsible in a particular way. The change is a long and labored one, filled with difficult learning for all concerned.

Time and again, Moses is confronted in the years of the wilderness sojourn by those who want a quick fix, a technical solution. "Give us bread," they demand. Manna is provided, but it only points to a deeper source of provision and to the new reality emerging. As in adaptive work, the problem that Moses and his people face is not clearly known or defined at the outset. It requires learning. Nor is there any readily apparent and applicable solution. The solution, such as it is, lies in making the journey, living into the new reality in the midst of an uncertain situation. Heifetz describes the leader's task as "mobilizing adaptive work." Moses mobilized adaptive work in a most literal way, leading people on a journey of learning and transformation.

In many ways, the task facing leaders of mainline denominations and congregations today is to mobilize people for adaptive work -- that is, to help people understand the social and religious changes occurring in our time and to enter into new ways of being the church, knowing as we do that we are far from fully understanding our situation or knowing the particular ways we are called to respond. To mobilize people for adaptive work is to help them enter into that zone of risk where new learning and new self-understandings, as well as new ways of acting, can be discerned. This is not easy work. Most of us would prefer to take a regimen of pills rather than face death and resurrection. But it is promising work for which our faith, scriptures and varied ecclesial traditions provide rich resources. •

Lessons in Leadership

Among the congregations I know, two challenges loom especially large for leaders: maintaining a clear focus amid competing agendas, and bringing about needed change when people are resistant, or at best ambivalent about change. With that context in mind, here are ten rules of leadership, more or less in the order in which I learned them..

1) Give responsibility back: Early in my ministry I would listen closely when people said, "The church should be doing this," or "The church ought to do that," and I would immediately put the idea in my pastoral backpack. After a while the load became so heavy that I collapsed. I began to learn to give responsibility back. I found myself learning to say things like, "That's an important need all right. How do you think you can respond to it?" If I wanted to be even more blunt, I would say, "I am not especially interested in hearing what you think the church should be doing, but I am very interested in hearing what you believe God is calling you to do."

2) Expect trouble: I found myself puzzled that new ideas or challenges to the status quo proved so upsetting to some people. I thought, "Gosh, I'm not an evil person. Why are some people so angry, even vicious?" I laid my complaint before a friend, who said, "If you aren't making some enemies, you're probably not doing your job."

Most clergy want to be liked. But if we make being liked the overriding rule for our ministry, not much is likely to happen. This is not to indulge a persecution complex or to delight in opposition. It is to recognize the paradoxical wisdom of the aphorism, "No good deed goes unpunished." It

is to recognize that in the church, just as in the world, power is zealously guarded, and not all that glitters is gold.

3) Value small steps: The long-term vision may be one of fundamental change, but you get there by looking for and valuing small steps along the way. Sometimes very small steps. For example, you may hope to see your congregation develop a full-orbed teaching ministry for adults, giving as much or more emphasis to adult education as to the Sunday school for children. Keep the vision dive, but look for small steps -- for example, the church board studying a relevant book, key leaders beginning to share the vision, a special task force grappling with the ideas, and individuals in the congregation who long for serious biblical study openly articulating their hope. The Exodus did not just happen one day. There were a host of steps, over a number of years, that built toward it.

4) Plan: Both long-range, strategic planning and an annual calendar planning can help a congregation as well as clergy to focus energies and avoid getting distracted. Planning that is done well will begin with the question, What are we trying to accomplish? Periodic strategic planning (every five years is about right,) followed by action and accomplishment, heightens congregational energy and self-confidence. On the other hand, nothing dissipates congregational energy more than discussing an issue year after rear without taking action.

5) Identify the vital few: Part of good planning is asking the question," What are the vital few things we must do in order to get the job done? Often congregations try to do too much and resist asking, What is really critical? What are the vital few things we must do if we are to be a faithful Christian congregation? The "vital few" question can be employed with boards and staff, as well as with the congregation as a whole. It helps to sort out the major from the minor, to create a sense of being mission-driven. Most groups and congregations are better off trying to do less and doing that well than trying to do a lot and doing it poorly.

6) Don't overvalue consensus: Many people take great pride in saying, We do everything by consensus here. That often means, We never take a vote. Sometimes consensus is the best way to operate and really does occur. More often, it ends up meaning that the long-winded win, or that veto power is held by those who resist change. Not every decision requires or should be made by a vote. But voting does help a group move forward. Waiting for consensus means disempowering those who are willing to take risks, who in many cases are precisely the people you want to encourage, not discourage. After a vote is taken, leaders need to work for cohesion, reminding all parties of a unity and identity that transcend the particular issue.

7) Count the yes votes: This strategy is another way of empowering the risk-takers. Sometimes there is not a need to take an up-or-down vote on an issue. Simply let the interested and enthusiastic go ahead -- that is, count the yes votes. Barely will a majority take part in a new ministry at the outset. Counting the yes votes enables the creative minority to take action.

8) Create a new working group for a new job: Five years ago the church I serve began the groundwork for a sanctuary renovation project. If this project had been sent to the administration, property, finance, worship or other established board, it would have languished and died. When it comes to significant new directions or coloring-outside-the-lines work, established boards are good at saying no. If you want the idea to live, create a special task force or committee. It is likely to be more invested in the work than an existing board would be and much more likely to bring the project to fruition.

9) Change by addition, not subtraction: It is always easier to get support for adding a project than for eliminating one. Even the most moribund program will have its loyalists. If you try to kill it off, you will mobilize the supporters and sap energy from new ventures. You'll get where you want to go more quickly by focusing on the new project. If and when the new ministry takes off, people will gradually gravitate toward it, and in time the need for the old forms will cease to exist. People are much more likely to let go of the old when they have something new to embrace.

10) Be persistent: Change, no matter how much needed or how valid the motivation, happens slowly and engenders resistance. Those called to leadership should expect conflict and resistance; be prepared to value it and to learn from it, and to persist as gracefully as possible in the face of it. When it is clear that the leader will be persistent, the dynamics do change. Don't give up too soon. It takes about five years for a new pastor to be trusted and accepted as the pastor of the church, and seven to eight years before his or her efforts begin to bear fruit. If your time line is a lot shorter than that, congregational leadership will prove to be a disappointing line of work.

These ten lessons have been brought home to me. Other ministers will have a different set. What is urgent is that clergy think of themselves as leaders and share with one another what they are learning as they lead and are led.

What happens when power is seen as inherently suspect and even evil? What happens when power in the church is viewed as bad? What are the implications for the church when its leaders eschew power and influence and consider them qualities or capacities to be avoided?

This past summer I taught a course at a seminary in Canada. Forty people showed up for "Pastoral Leadership for Congregational Transformation," Most were pastors of the United Church of Canada, with a little leaven from other church bodies, including Anglican and Lutheran.

Early in the week I asked participants to complete an exercise that explores motivation. Why do we do what we do? What ‘gets our engines going’? What activities give us the greatest satisfaction? As they answered these questions, people found themselves in one of three groups. They learned that their prime motivator was one of three factors: affiliation, achievement, or power and influence.

The first of these, the affiliators, focus on relationships, feelings, and how they can help with the process. They specialize in sensing the "temperature of the room," and in seeing that everyone feels welcome and included. The achievers, in the same situations, pay attention to outcomes, to the product and to what is being accomplished. They tend to focus on goals and how to achieve them, problems and how to solve them. The power or influence types are those concerned about impact, about changing people’s hearts and minds, and about leveraging social power. If one were to imagine a dinner party the affiliators would want to see that everyone felt welcome and comfortable; the achievers might be out in the kitchen concocting a gourmet feast; the power/influence types would be paying attention to who’s on the invitation list and to whether or not the dinnertime conversation is substantive and even inspirational. Clearly, a great dinner party needs all three types of people.

When the participants completed the exercise, we discovered that we had 23 affiliators, 15 achievers and only two people motivated by power influence. "What do you make of that?" I asked the group. Their initial comments were self-congratulatory. There was praise for the heavy bias toward people skills and affiliation as motivation, and for the apparent lack of interest in power among the assembled church leaders.

But one person challenged the consensus. "In the United Church of Canada," she said, "we’ve been told for so long now that power is bad, that power is suspect, that I’m not surprised that few of us acknowledged power or influence as a motivation." There was an uncomfortable silence as she continued, "I wonder if more people aren’t motivated by power rightly used and influence for the good than we’ve let on, only it’s been socialized out of us?"

Perhaps emboldened by that query, another chimed in, "When people label all exercise of power as inherently bad or suspect, power issues or needs don’t just go away. They go underground. They get expressed in all sorts of distorted and unhealthy ways. We’ve got plenty of that in our churches.

These comments generated a valuable discussion about power, leadership and the church. I noted that two vocations that attract people motivated by power and influence are teaching and politics, and that these are two of the more challenging and troubled callings. In our society today I shared my concern for any denomination in which only 5 percent of the clergy claim power and influence as a motivation or primary capability. What happens to a gospel and church that has historically sought to change the hearts and minds of people if we grow timid or disinterested in influencing others?

One can understand ambivalence about power in the church, given the stories of clergy abuse of power. In Canada, the church has been living with the sad and sordid story of "residential schools" for native peoples. Operated by churches in the last half of the 19^th and first half of the 20^th centuries, these schools have been the target of many allegations of cultural insensitivity and child and sexual abuse.

Is there anywhere that power is being exercised for the common good? Isn’t it important to openly address questions about power and its use so that power doesn’t go "underground" and become manifest in harmful ways? Shouldn’t we acknowledge that all persons have power, that organizations are reliant on the responsible use of power to fulfill their goals and mission, and that leaders who exercise power may in fact be servants and not simply in it for themselves or their group?

In sector after sector of life -- education, religion, politics, health care and policing -- we assume that we should distrust those in positions of power and assume that self-interest is their primary motivator. Not only is this not fair to many devoted leaders, it is also counterproductive for organizations and for society as a whole. It forces those called to leadership tasks to live in an unnecessarily harsh climate, one in which they pay dearly for any mistake. It also means that many who might be good leaders say, "Thanks, but no thanks," or "Who needs it?" And we do need them. Our churches, institutions and society need capable and dedicated leaders.

Power is one of the goods God created, blessed and pronounced good. Power is not God and ought not be divinized nor made into an idol. When it is absolutized it will, as Lord Acton remarked, "corrupt absolutely." And yet when power is in its place and directed toward appropriate ends, it has the potential for building and sustaining the fabric of life. If we demonize all power uncritically, we reject God’s creation and sap its potential.

The flip side of a bias against power and a suspicion of those entrusted with It is the tendency to automatically assign the moral high ground to those we deem to be powerless or "victims." Today the quickest and surest route to capture that high ground is by claiming to be a victim. Many today sentimentalize victimhood and locate goodness in the class of people called victims. As a result, almost everyone claims to be a victim.

In the fourth Gospel Jesus counters this tendency by denying that he is a victim. "I lay down my life. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again" (John 10:18), Jesus retained power even as he suffered, even as he died. He was nobody’s victim.

Yes, it is true that Jesus addressed and called those who had experienced victimization -- the poor, the meek, the grieving, the persecuted, those who suffer for righteousness’ sake. But he did not encourage a victim mentality. Rather he urged victims to claim and exercise power. "If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile." "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also" (Matt 5:39-40). This is not counsel in how to be a doormat. It is counsel in how to rise above those who persecute you and to exercise power that they would strip away.

There are at least two downsides of this tendency to claim victimhood. First, those who wrap themselves in the mantel of victim make a bargain. In order to be a victim, they surrender their own powers, their capacity for choice and responsibility. Someone else makes the decisions. Someone else is responsible. It’s "them," "they’re in control," "I am only a victim."

The other downside is that those who claim victimhood widen the divide between the good guys and the bad guys, and include as bad guys those who are in positions of power and responsibility. We are not well served by further dividing the world, the community or the church into good guys and bad guys, victims and victimizers. We are better served by figuring out how to "paddle together" in the boat that we all share when we try to solve common problems or face common challenges.

This is where we need good leaders, those whose primary task is to mobilize the rest of us. How can we see what we have in common and paddle together so that all of us get to shore? How can we avoid paddling in circles forever because the oars are working on only one side of the boat?

Jesus transcends our polarization of power and powerlessness, leader and follower, agent and victim. He had power to heal, to transform and to influence others. He also suffered at the hands of others and was victimized not only by the state and organized religion, but also by his closest comrades and friends, which ought to make us think before hastily designating people as good guys and bad guys. Jesus had power and he gave it away, which may finally be the most powerful and faithful exercise of power.

And what about us? Is it the task of the church to adjust to the world or to change it? If we seek to stand in the faithful line of those who would change the world, then we need to reclaim the positive potential of power as well as a modest but sure conviction of the gospel’s capacity to influence, to change lives and to renew communities.

Is leadership specifically pastoral leadership, a spiritual practice? Dorothy Bass has defined practices as "those shared activities that address fundamental human needs and that, woven together, form a way of life." Does leadership address a fundamental human need?

Effective leaders engage communities, congregations and institutions in addressing their most difficult and pressing problems, and mobilize those organizations to address their most important challenges. In these ways leadership does address a fundamental human need -- our need to respond to challenges. When no person or team of persons provides leadership, communities and congregations are disabled.

Craig Dykstra adds, "Practices are those cooperative human activities through which we, as individuals and cornmunifies, grow and develop in moral character and substance. If leadership is a practice, then it forms not only those who are led. hut also those who lead.

Pastoral leadership addresses fundamental human needs and shapes moral character. This kind of leadership is not easy; it’s a high-risk and often dangerous endeavor. As Ron Heifetz of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government observes, "You appear dangerous to people when you question their values, beliefs and habits of a lifetime. You place yourself on the line when you tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. Although you may see with clarity and passion a promising future of progress and gain, people will see with equal passion the losses you ask them to sustain."

As a naive voting pastor, I expected people to thank me for questioning their values, beliefs and habits, and I was perplexed by just how tough and dangerous that can be. Of course, one might observe, "Just what part of the cross did you not understand? Another way to frame this would be to say that I slowly came to see leadership as a spiritual practice. Leadership has a cruciform shape. But then we’ve heard this story before, haven’t we? Peter’s "No, this shall never happen to you, Lord!" only thinly veiled another protest, "No, this shall never happen to me."

True leadership does not simply influence the community to follow the leader’s vision, but also enables the community to face its most critical challenges and to be what God calls and enables it to be. There is too much stress today on the leader as the person of vision. A vision is not imported from somewhere else, and it is not the idiosyncratic vision of one charismatic woman or man. A vision arises from a careful reading of the context and the work required by God of a particular people with a particular identity.

Moses exemplifies this kind of work when he mobilizes a people to engage its most pressing and difficult challenges. He led a journey of "adaptive change," to use Heifetz’s term -- a journey that involves loss and risk, change of hearts and minds, loss of known worlds and ways, and an introduction to the unknown. The journey also requires trust in powers beyond ones own. The resulting transformation is intrinsically spiritual in nature: it requires spiritual leadership.

Leadership is not the same as expertise, although the two are often confused. Experts come equipped with a variety of technical fixes, new tools. These are fine as far as they go, but they don’t engage people in loss, risk and trust. In fact, people may try to avoid the challenge of the more difficult work by preoccupying themselves with the latest in tools and techniques. Experts do things for us; leaders go with us.

Moses had a few "technical tricks," expert moves like turning a staff into a serpent, doing that little number with his hand -- kind of a "now you see it, now you don’t" trick -- and turning the water from the Nile into blood. So do most pastoral and community leaders, whose expert moves may include a new technique for building small groups, the latest stewardship methodology, or the ability to preach without a manuscript ("Look, Ma, no hands!"), But these tricks will not sustain leaders in the long run.

This is not only because leaders eventually run out of tricks. It’s because the point of leadership is not to dazzle people but to challenge them, to assist them in growing and changing as they answer God’s call. Moses leads his people in a transformation from being "no people" to being "God’s people." There is no magic wand or four-step formula for that one.

Five episodes from the Moses story illustrate live different aspects of leadership as a spiritual practice. In several of these instances I draw upon Heifetz’s work to deepen our understanding as well as to name particular aspects of leadership as a spiritual practice.

"Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up" (Ex. 3:3). This, of course, is part of the story of Moses’ initial encounter with God at the burning bush and God’s call to him. Heifetz says that leaders need to "get to the balcony." Perhaps it seems a little pedestrian to describe the burning-bush moment as "getting to the balcony," but Heifetz means that Moses had to step away in order to get a better look at things. Moses had stepped away, far away, to Midian. In Exodus 3, he was summoned "to the balcony" for a better look at what was going on back in Egypt.

Congregational leaders who are caught up in the close encounter of congregational life need to step away in order to see more clearly what is really going on, including their role in things. Doing so is not without risk. Moses began to see what God was doing in and through what appeared an utterly hopeless situation.

And he was called to leadership. Moses had tried leadership before, jumping into the fray when he saw one of the Hebrew slaves being abused by an Egyptian overlord. But this brief and inglorious fling was leadership by his own power; it was of this world. Now Moses received authorization for his leadership. It lay not in himself, but in God and God’s call. This work was not his idea. Or as Jesus put it to his own disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you."

Five years into ministry I experienced a baffling and terrifying depression. Looking back, I would say that before this experience I had tried, for the most part, to do leadership in my own strength and by my own wits -- a recurring temptation. After coming through that dark-night experience, I learned that ministry is done, if at all, "in the strength of the Lord."

With the people mobilized and the Red Sea behind them, the real work began. "Moses said, ‘When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him -- what are we? Your complaint is not against us but against the Lord"’ (Ex. 16:8).

The people had complained against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have brought us out here to kill us." This was a wonderful moment, one that anyone leading change will recognize. Not only have we heard the complaint from our people, we have also spoken it ourselves, if only in our own hearts and minds. "Why not leave well enough alone?" "What if they’re right?"

Moses worked to keep the real issues before the people and to keep himself from becoming the issue. Another way to put this is to say that Moses did not internalize the struggle. The people wanted to make his leadership the issue. There are times, of course, when leaders are misguided or manipulative and need correction. But the real issue -- the adaptive work -- is learning to trust in God’s leading and God’s power to sustain God’s people. Again and again, Moses framed and named what was really at stake, and it wasn’t food or his leadership. It was learning faith and learning this God.

In Heifetz’s terms, Moses maintained "disciplined attention" and resisted the "work avoidance" of the murmuring people, the tried-and-true gambit of blaming the leader. Moses does not allow himself or them to fall into that trap, but named it, then drew attention to the real work and the real issues. "Your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord," he said. That language can, of course, be misused, either to stigmatize or to induce guilt. With those dangers in view, leaders must keep the greater issues before the group and not take murmuring personally, even when some want to make it personal. Moses did not internalize the conflict and resistance that came his way. It was not about him, but about God and God’s plan to create a people who know and serve God.

In the very next chapter of Exodus, the people complained about the lack of water. Again, Moses directed their attention away from himself and toward God. And God responded by putting Moses on the spot.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink" (Ex. 17:6). In this story two related elements of leadership as a spiritual practice are evident: first, leaders lead. At some point and at some times, leaders must be willing to step ahead, to take risks and to lead. I have experienced this when I initiated new ministries, led capital-fund drives, started new churches and entered into community conflicts. In Exodus 17 we see Moses not only engaging in the risk of leadership, but also holding steady despite increasing resistance. What could be riskier than striking a stone in the desert with the expectation that water would flow from it?

This is a powerful metaphor for holding steady amid rising resistance. The value of persistence as a quality of leadership cannot be overestimated. Most social communities will test leaders to see if they mean what they say, to see if they will hold steady, not losing their nerve or their cool. When congregations and communities sense that a leader will persist, then something shifts and the next steps are possible.

Another quality of leadership as spiritual practice is suggested by Heifetz’s comment that leaders must "give responsibility back." As a young pastor I had a tendency to be overly responsible. I suspect this to be true of many who are called to ministry and to leadership. We are not reluctant to step up and say yes to responsibility. But this virtue can become the vice of needing to be in control and failing to give responsibility back.

When I heard members earnestly say that the church needed to do something, I tended to take the responsibility myself. Crazy, I know, but I as not entirely alone in thinking this way I had learned that many church members who said, "The church needs to do this," did not intend to put their own shoulders to the wheel. They were happy to have the pastor take on the task.

Eventually I learned to give responsibility back by offering to help people discern their own sense of calling in relation to what they thought needed to be done. This is an important and challenging part of the spiritual practice of leadership. What is fascinating in Exodus 33:16 is that Moses gave responsibility back not to the people (he did that elsewhere) but to God. This too is a good skill for pastors and part of the spiritual practice of leadership. More pastors should sit down on with a cup of coffee and remind God, "These are your people. This was your idea!"

In Exodus 33:16 Moses said to the Lord, "For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us?" Just prior to this, of course, the people had enjoyed the golden calf dance, after which God said, "That’s it, I’m outta here. I’m done with this stiff-necked rabble." At which point Moses said, "Consider that this nation is your people." The unspoken thought here is, "They aren’t my people; this wasn’t my idea."

If there is a time for giving responsibility back to the people, is there also a time for giving responsibility back to God, for letting God be God, for calling on God to be God? Is this audacious move also part of leadership as a spiritual practice?

At the end of Deuteronomy, after Moses’ long exhortation to the children of Israel at the boundary of the Promised Land, he climbed Mt. Nebo to see the Promised Land from a distance. That was as close as he would ever get. The text records, "Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day" (Deut. 34:6).

What a strange and haunting ending to such a long and glorious story! Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. But this gets to the very heart of leadership as a spiritual practice: it is not about the leader. We may lead for a chapter, but the story is God’s.

My early efforts at leadership were too much about me. I expect that this is not unusual. People are drawn to leadership roles, in part, because they hope for admiration, affection and attention, if not validation. If we do actually lead, however, we soon learn that this is not what we get. Leadership is, as Wendell Berry said about parenting, "a vexed privilege and a blessed trial."

It is in this way, however, that leadership is most of all a spiritual practice. Leadership requires a transformation, a dying to the self. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). It is not about you. It is about the work. And, for us, it is about God and God’s dream.

This is not to say that leaders are to be egoless. Leaders need strong egos (but not big egos; there is a difference). And the fact that leadership is not about you does not mean that you can be unaware of yourself, your needs or your emotions. Leaders must be keenly aware of themselves. Self-aware, but not self-absorbed.

As a spiritual practice, leadership is as demanding as any other, and yet as promising and transformative as well. It is important work. Leadership addresses a fundamental human need: the need of communities, congregations and institutions to address the pressing problems and challenges occasioned by change in the environment and culture. Leadership helps people to discern both new occasions and new duties. And leadership is a practice which can shape moral character and deepen personal substance. Leadership is good and godly work.

As I travel around the country visiting and consulting with congregations and clergy, I find that many are caught in vicious cycles. The vicious cycles seem more common than the virtuous ones. They are easily recognized by a chilly climate of anxiety, which these days seems to be more common than the common cold. Such anxiety, what Reinhold Niebuhr described as "the precondition of sin," is heightened by the mainline’s awareness of its institutional decline and vulnerability.

Members express this in statements such as "we must do more," "we must do better" and "we must work harder." There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these sentiments. We usually can do what we do a little better. But in the vicious cycle, this anxiety leads to a heightened level of activity that is without clear focus or sense of purpose. It gives rise to "strategic plans" that are not so much plans as laundry lists of everyone’s great ideas and particular interests. While most items on these lists have value, the attempts to accomplish everything on the lists result in congregations that are spread too thin.

A friend of mine dubs this the Pecos River Syndrome ("A mile wide but only a foot deep"), referring to a lack of effectiveness and success that further depresses the spirits of a congregation’s leaders and stakeholders. Being fatigued and scattered makes people even more vulnerable to the anxiety that sent them into a downward cycle -- anxiety leading to activity that results in more fatigue and anxiety. People feel they are getting nowhere; nothing changes or improves; clergy and lay leaders may throw up their hands and give up. Nothing I or we do makes any difference."

Psalm 127 speaks to a congregation experiencing sleepless nights and eating the "bread of anxious toil." Luke’s story of Martha and Mary is one case study of such a situation. "Martha, Martha, you are anxious about many things . . . Mary has chosen the better part," says Jesus, shining a bright and often disturbing light on the matter.

Perhaps the most extended reflection on the vicious and virtuous cycles is in the Letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews repeatedly juxtaposes the priests of the old rites with our new high priest, Jesus. The old priesthood is characterized by relentless, repetitive and ultimately ineffective activity. "Every priest stands day after day at his service offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins" (10:11). As the author tells it, the priests of the old cult are like rats on a wheel, constantly running faster and faster but getting nowhere. In contrast, "When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God."

The postures are telling. The old order priests stand at their work -- imagine legions of people running in place at modern fitness centers or rows of gamblers cranking the levers on "one-armed bandits" in casinos. They are constantly, relentlessly, at their same labors while Christ has completed his work and has sat down. He doesn’t keep on sacrificing for sin. He has done it once, for all, for all time.

This posture suggests the starting point for the alternative to the vicious cycle. Christ offered one sacrifice for sins and then sat down -- the same posture assumed by Mary, who "sat at the feet of the Lord." A church’s virtuous cycle begins here. By God’s grace in Christ, we have confidence to enter boldly into God’s presence. "Let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water." Virtuous cycles begin with a sense of confidence in what God has done and is doing, rather than in anxiety about what we must do.

This confidence in powers that are not our own can help clergy and congregations to focus on "the one thing" or the few things needful and central. Christ’s "once and for all" act does not mean that there is nothing left for us to do. Hebrews notes that his "enemies have not [yet] been made a stool beneath his feet." In other words, Christ has sat down, but we have work to do and our role to play -- Christ has not yet put his feet up! The choice is not between "It’s all up to us" and "It’s all up to the Lord." God’s grace calls forth and enables our response.

I ask congregations, "What are your vital few -- the vital few things that your board, your staff or your church must do and do well to be faithful and effective? How can the resources God has placed within and among you be channeled for the greatest effect?" Our trust in God’s work and grace leads us to focus. Or, as a successful microbrewery in Seattle says in its slogan, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

A clear focus tends to produce greater results. Focus on the one or the several things needful tends to lead not only to clarity but to confidence, The virtuous cycle repeats and deepens, and the congregation finds itself on a spiral up rather than down.

I visited a congregation that decided its focus would be "Sunday morning at Second Church." You wouldn’t think a church would need to plan to focus on Sunday morning, but when the congregation emphasized its two Sunday worship services, its teaching ministry for morning, they found themselves changed.

"We discovered," says the pastor, "that if we get Sunday morning right, everything else seems to take care of itself, or at least flow from that." She adds "I love Sunday mornings at Second! There’s so much joy." Her enthusiasm is infectious. The congregation is lively and everyone seemed reasonably clear, in board and committee meetings that I attended, about their focus. "It’s not that other things aren’t going on or being done, but they tend to spring from our Sunday morning emphasis, rather than competing with it," says the pastor.

The vicious-and-virtuous-cycle phenomenon rings true in personal lives and experience as well as in congregations. When high anxiety hovers around me like a toxic cloud, I am no longer creative or productive. I work faster and harder, but often the only thing I have to show for it is a case of simmering resentment. The biblical Martha articulates this resentment memorably "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!" In churches with a strong vicious-cycle pattern, one hears, or overhears, resentment. "So many people around here never do anything!" "A few of us do all the work!"

But in congregations where virtuous cycles are at work, there is a sense of shared ownership of the core goals. Because people are focused on a clear set of priorities, it’s easier for more people to buy in and to participate. Instead of hearing, "A few of us do all the work," one hears affirmation of the shared vision. "At Second Church, Sunday mornings are powerful." Or as the prophet Habakkuk said, "Write the vision, make it plain, so that even one who runs may see it."

Pastoral and congregational leaders may not need to come up with or import the right program or dazzling new technique. They may not need to work even longer hours and tell everyone how busy they are. They may need, however, to help their staffs and congregations discover virtuous cycles and the grace that is both their starting and their ending point.