LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS JULY 2001 Paul Arnott

This month a review of a new book called Hard to be Holy, which the director of the National Church Life Survey, Peter Kaldor describes as a "must read for all those in leadership and congregations in a changing Australia." Also a fascinating interview with Brian McLaren, who has just written a book called A New Kind Of Christian, which helps to explain the growing disillusion with church of a number of Christians.

Hard to be Holy Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of North America's largest church Willow Creek, asserts that leading a local church is the hardest job in the world. Those of us currently doing so won't challenge that assertion. While church leadership is rewarding and fulfilling, it is also very demanding and stretching. Not only do we work with volunteers, but the societal ground is shifting fast. Most of us have one foot in the modern world and the other in the post-modern. So Paul and Libby Whetham's new book Hard to be Holy is timely (Open Book Publishers, 2000, 144pp, RRP $16.95).

The book, written from an Australian perspective and drawing on data from the National Church Life Survey, seeks to "unravel the roles and relationships of church leaders." Hard to be Holy reveals that many church leaders are struggling to have meaningful relationships, which is ironic because such relationships are the key to both healthy clergy and healthy ministry. However, many church leaders are too busy to find time for meaningful relationships. (p.30). The lack of effective mentoring and thus accountability and the lack of boundaries are identified as the causes of a great deal of stress for clergy. Loneliness is also pinpointed as the common experience of many clergy. Often clergy are so busy they fail to maintain their relationship even with God, which can have disastrous consequences in the long term. The abuse of power to fulfil personal needs is dealt with. The growing number of sexual abuse cases being dragged through the newspapers is able evidence of the dangers of clergy abuse of power. Despite the diminution of clergy status over the past 20 years, clergy still have a great deal of power in the local church, which must be handled with integrity.

However, this book does far more than simply identify the problems. It provides a framework for helping clergy to develop meaning-full relationships. The research in this book directly contradicts what I was told when first ordained 15 years ago: "Never try to make friends with church members, because it will make other parishioners jealous!" The research indicates that healthy supportive relationships with church members are crucial to the emotional well-being of clergy. In fact, clergy who shared some of their struggles and problems with people in their congregation/s experienced significantly lower levels of stress and burnout (p.93).

Hard to be Holy offers a number of avenues of effectively nurturing two-way relationships with God, family and members of the congregation in ways that enable them to thrive and grow. Developing far more effective time management skills are key to healthy and balanced ministry. The Whetham's suggest that one of the most pressing tasks in church life in Australia today is for leaders and congregations to recapture an understanding of the church as body of Christ and team (p.127). There is also a very helpful corrective to the kind of driven-ness that all clergy and clergy families can be tempted to become caught up in: "Church is important but it is not everything.The real test for any Christian is living out our faith in truth and love in the world outside." (p.129).

A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIAN

BMc: The good news is such a fascinating category. It's the good news and news is not an argument. News is an announcement. An announcement is a totally different form of communication than an argument; but in the modern world, the good news became an argument. It stopped being an announcement and became a sales pitch. I think the big question that people have in their minds right now is not the question we Christians are answering. We are answering the question, "Is Christianity true?" They are asking "Is Christianity good?" "Will Christianity make me a better person or a worse person?" "Will Christianity save the world or will Christianity destroy the world?" So, before people can hear our message, they have to determine whether we're the kind of people to save the world or destroy the world and are we the kind of people who influence others to become better people or worse people?

BMc: People want to see if we're listening to them. They also want to see if we're telling them that they're wrong. If we just go ahead and tell them they're wrong, they say to us, "You are just argumentative." They want to see if we can accept that. They almost seem to have a better instinct of what a good Christian ought to be than we do. They know anybody who claims to follow Jesus shouldn't be going around judging people. In an interesting way they are asking us to be more in sync with the teachings of Jesus than we ourselves ask. Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them; and we want to say that by their arguments you shall know them.

BMc: Our theology has been defined by answering the questions that modernity posed and now that we're moving beyond the modern era, we are asking questions in a different way. We are looking for a different kind of coherence to our faith. I think there are two problems with an emerging post-modern theology. First, it's largely not in words. Second, I don't think we've gone very far in articulating it because we're still so trapped in modern systems that we spend most of our time complaining about how bad the modern systems are. We have lived in a holistic world where you are either evangelical or liberal; but I think we are moving into a world where evangelical and liberal are outdated categories. Evangelical people worry that we will become less biblical, but one thing that people will see about the emerging post-modern theology is that it will be more reflective of scripture. I think it will pay scripture the ultimate compliment of saying let's accept scripture on the terms it's given to us. In modernity, we wanted scripture to come to us like a textbook or a book of rules.

BMc: Exactly. It is a set of stories and literature gathered over a long period of time and if we can accept it the way it is, it's even more wonderful than if we try to squeeze it into our modern pigeonholes. A friend reminded me that the Celtic Christian movement never had a written theology. They expressed their theology in cooking, in baths, in community, in holidays, and in daily rituals. They had a very vibrant Christian life, but it wasn't expressed in an intellectual system. It was expressed in a social system and religious practice, spiritual practice. I think we are moving into an era that will be more like that ancient time. We'll express our theology through spiritual practices - prayer, contemplation, creeds, communion, fasting, and I hope through action, loving our neighbours, serving the poor, and through worship and studying the scriptures and other things.

"Used with permission of Leadership Network, 800-765-5323, http://www.leadnet.org"