Ann Arbor District
Leadership Training
February 25, 2017
I
am really pleased to be here with you today.
I think this is my first official visit to the Ann Arbor District as
your bishop, though I have been in the district for a couple of events – a
chicken dinner, and a Trustees meeting at Adrian College. I am grateful to your district
superintendent, Mark Spaw, for inviting me.
In
issuing this invitation, Mark did not give me a specific topic to speak about,
except to tell me that the day was about relationships - building relationships
that build churches. You have a
wonderful selection of workshops to follow.
In this keynote address I want to speak about relationships, focusing on
the capacities important for building relationships of all kinds – within our
congregations, with those who are unchurched or de-churched, with those whose
backgrounds are different from ours. Not
knowing what is to follow, I may repeat some of what my fellow presenters are
also sharing, but that is o.k.
I
like to find titles for sermons and presentations, and this is more a presentation
than a sermon, by creatively appropriate phrases from popular culture. Now that I am in my later fifties (57) I have
come to realize that many of my popular culture references are dated, and
partly that’s just because I’ve lived with some songs or movies or television
shows longer than I have with others. I
remember “Book ‘em Danno” from Hawaii Five-O from the 1970s. I have not seen its recent incarnation.
All
that is a long way of getting to the title of my remarks today: “And a rock
feels no pain.” Anyone know where that
comes from? It is a Paul Simon song, recorded
by Simon and Garfunkel, “I Am a Rock.”
It is a wonderful song that you can probably find on Spotify, Pandora,
Amazon Prime, Apple Music, etc. I still
have a vinyl copy! The song gets me
thinking about emotions, about feelings.
The singer suggests that we can avoid painful feelings by walling
ourselves off from emotions. It
highlights an important truth, working with emotions can be difficult. I want to acknowledge that. I also want to say that working with emotions
is critical to building the kind of relationships that build churches. We call it emotional intelligence and that’s
what I want to speak about this morning, emotional intelligence for church
leaders who want to build relationships that build churches.
When
I was elected a bishop last summer I had just begun my twelfth year as pastor
of First United Methodist Church in Duluth, Minnesota. I began my ministry there like most of us
United Methodist pastors do in the middle of the summer. When I arrived at First UMC, Duluth they had
a summer worship schedule, 10 a.m. Sunday morning worship. The pattern, though, was that come September,
the church would return to two worship services – one more traditional and one
more contemporary. Within my first few
days at the church I was asked what our fall worship schedule would be
like. Would we return to two worship
services or have only one? There were people with opinions on both sides. After speaking with staff and some key
leaders, thinking and praying, it seemed to me that the wise decision was to
continue with two worship services come September. I wrote a newsletter piece explaining my
reasoning. The Sunday following the
publication of that newsletter, a woman named Dorothy, since deceased but then
a long-time member of the congregation approached me in the greeting line
following worship, shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye, and shared her
disappointment about my decision. She
ended by saying “I thought you were going to unite us.” I can still feel the mixture of sadness and
anxiety I felt that morning as I tell the story. I listened and thanked Dorothy for sharing
her view.
Hear
this story: 2 Early in the morning he came again to the
temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach
them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a
woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of
them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was
caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now
in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They
said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against
him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When
they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone
among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And
once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When
they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus
was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus
straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned
you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” And
Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin
again.” (John 8)
Jesus’
dilemma is more fraught than mine. I may
have felt like a rock had been thrown at me that August Sunday morning as
Dorothy left church, but no one was going to lose their life. Jesus is put in an anxious situation. He takes time, bending to write on the
ground. He reads some of the
undercurrent, that some folks want to put him in a corner. He responds non-anxiously and defuses the
situation.
A
rock feels no pain, but human beings do, and if we are to be fully human, and
if we are to build relationships that build churches, we need to care for our
emotions with intelligence. Emotional
intelligence is crucial for building relationships that build churches. I want to say a word about that
connection between relationships and mission. Sometimes I hear voices in
the church speak as if there is a dichotomy between relationships and
mission. We hear people say that the
problem with the church is that we are too inwardly focused and the answer is
to be more missionally focused. There is
truth in that critique, but we need to take great care. In some work I did a few years ago on
conflict style, I was given an inventory to help me understand my own conflict
style in terms of task and relationship.
Was I a more task-oriented person, we might say “mission-focused,” or a
more relationship-oriented person? I was
smack dab in the middle, and I happen to think that’s not a bad place to be.
The
mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the
transformation of the world. In their
book The Emotional Intelligence of Jesus, Roy Oswald and Arland
Jacobson, with whom it has been my privilege to be in workshops with over the
years, write, “the end product needs to remain the spiritual transformation of
members” (126). We must never lose sight
of our mission, and it is true that sometimes we do just that. It is also true that sometimes that focus on
mission will mean letting some people go, wishing them well as they look for
another faith community that helps them along better. That is often painful. Yet mission is also about relationships,
about people. Making disciples of Jesus
Christ is about creating the kind of community with its web of relationships
that fosters deep transformation of persons in the love of God and by the power
of the Spirit. Oswald and Jacobson are
right when they say: Transformed people
naturally seek justice, mercy and peace in the world. They live by forgiveness and are able to
forgive others. They continually work at
loving their enemies. (126-127) I
think they are also right when they say: Without
a positive relational climate within a congregation, a superior theology or
dynamic vision will produce few results.
Once members of a congregation create a warm, supportive, and caring
climate, however, they can effectively develop a common understanding of who
they are as Christians and embrace an exciting vision of where they ought to go
next (105). I would only caution
that all three of these things need to be worked on simultaneously – relational
climate, theology, vision.
Relationships
matter, and they matter to the mission of the church. Emotional intelligence is critical for
creating healthy relationships. I want
to spend the next few minutes exploring in more depth some of the dimensions of
emotional intelligence as crucial for relationships. I will do that by linking stories, Scriptures
and citations. Allow me, though, just a
couple of words about bringing the idea of emotional intelligence into the
conversation about the church. I first
encountered the concept of emotional intelligence through the work of Harvard
psychologist and author Daniel Goleman.
He was not writing for a church context, but what he wrote about
emotional intelligence has implications not only for leadership, but for
spirituality. While a district
superintendent, I attended a workshop lead by Roy Oswald on emotional intelligence
and church leadership. Again, I was
impressed by the spiritual dimensions.
Oswald and Jacobson make a strong case in their book The Emotional
Intelligence of Jesus: relational smarts for religious leaders that Jesus’
teaching and ministry resonates with this more recent work on emotional intelligence. Jesus responds non-anxiously to critics. Jesus evokes faith in people, leading to
their healing. Jesus reads emotionally
fraught situations well. Jesus is able
to manage his own inner feelings and makes time for retreat. Jesus’ teaching on caring, forgiveness, and
loving even one’s enemies have deep dimensions of emotional intelligence.
So
what’s emotional intelligence about?
Among other things it is about self-awareness, self-management, social
awareness, and relationship management.
Self
–Awareness. 7 “Do not judge, so
that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment
you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you
get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your
neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or
how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’
while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite,
first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take
the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
(Matthew 7) This is a strong
call for self-awareness, the core of emotional intelligence. If we are not aware of our own inner lives,
our own emotional lives, how can we manage them? How can we be wisely aware of the emotions
around us?
When
Dorothy said to me, ‘I thought you came to unite us,” it felt pretty awful. Often, defense responses kick in pretty
quickly, and I know how to “defend” myself.
At that moment, though, I was able to feel what was going on inside of
me, and simply stay connected. There
were others in the congregation who had really been connected with my
predecessor. They had developed a warm
relationship with him. He was someone
who was good at preaching about contemporary issues in light of the
Gospel. I often make those same
connections, as you may have seen if you read my essay on immigration and
refugees. I come at things in my own
way. I am a trained ethicist with a
Ph.D. My dissertation was on Christian
social ethics. My way was different, and
some of the folks at First UMC Duluth were disappointed, and I sometimes heard
about that through the grapevine. It did
not feel very good.
A
rock feels no pain, but if we are to be more fully human, we not only feel, but
we are aware of those feelings, even when they are painful. The cornerstone of emotional intelligence is
self-awareness, being aware of the ache, the sorrow, the grief, the joy, the
delight that is in our hearts and souls.
There are many spiritual disciplines in our faith tradition that
encourage such self-awareness: contemplative prayer, lectio divina, spiritual
journaling. Often we affirm that as we
are clearer about listening within, we are also better able to discern the
movement of God’s Spirit within.
Emotional
intelligence begins with self-awareness, but it does not end there. Knowing what we are feeling does not
automatically tell us what to do with our feelings. Working with those feelings is also a part of
emotional intelligence – self-management.
When Dorothy offered her criticism, I was able to hang in there, even
though I was feeling anxious and hurt, and just listen. Over time, Dorothy, who could be a rather
difficult woman, Dorothy and I developed a caring relationship. Dorothy eventually lost her sight, a
tremendous blow to a very bright woman who loved to read and think and
discuss. We were able to have some deep
conversations about why she was still around, because she wondered that. When Dorothy died, I officiated at her
funeral and told the story of our early encounter and of how we had worked
through that initial bump in our relationship.
With others at First UMC, Duluth who may not have always been delighted
with how I was their pastor, at least at first, I was able, though hurt by what
I heard, to hang in there with them.
Sometimes issues were addressed directly, and sometimes I just kept on
caring and relating and the relationships grew.
Self-management
has to do with adaptability, positivity, assertiveness, and self-control. I
think it is about being able to be non-anxious, to be self-differentiated while
staying connected, to use the words of family systems theory. I am sharing some helpful stories with
you. You need to know that I continue to
grow here. I have my moments of
reactivity. In responding rather than reacting, there is a
spirituality here. Jesus, put in a
difficult situation where a woman has been caught in adultery, manages whatever
is going on inside, pauses before responding.
One of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is “self-control.” Such self-control is a spiritual discipline
all its own, strengthened as it is practiced.
A
favorite author of mine is Parker Palmer, and one of my favorite essays of his
is “Leading from Within” (Let Your Life Speak). We have
places of fear inside of us, but we have other places as well – places with
names like trust and hope and faith. We
can choose to lead from one of those places,
to stand on ground that is not riddled with the fault lines of fear, to move
toward others from a place of promise instead of anxiety (94). That speaks to me about self-management as part
of emotional intelligence.
Self-awareness
as the critical dimension of emotional intelligence, is also meant to help us
be more socially aware, to read the emotions in a group or in a room. Social awareness has to do with empathy and
also with awareness of group dynamics. I
know that the leadership author Edwin Friedman cautions against being too
empathetic as a leader. He would even
have us get rid of the word. His point
is well-taken, if exaggerated. As
leaders we need to understand the feelings of others, even when we know that
decisions that need to be made for the sake of the mission of the church will
be painful for some.
Social
awareness is gained through practice, through listening and reflecting with
others. Elements of it are also
strengthened through the discipline of reading.
A few months ago I was reading an essay in The New Yorker about leadership.
It mentioned all the kinds of workshops and books that were out there,
and how many trendy leadership ideas were not always helpful. Then the essay introduced a book by a woman
named Elizabeth Samet. She is a
professor of English at West Point, and her book is an anthology of writing on
leadership. Most of the essays or pieces
come not from the social sciences but from the humanities – essays, poems,
stories. John Wesley was a believer in
reading, and I think we have underestimated the power of literature to deepen
our capacities for empathy and understanding.
A
final dimension of emotional intelligence I want to touch on before wrapping up
is relationship management, which has to do with conflict transformation,
understanding influence, with team building and with developing resilience. Relationship management builds on the other
dimensions of emotional intelligence.
Let’s take conflict transformation.
We ask who am I and what am I feeling in this situation? What other feelings are present and what are
some of the dynamics? How can I best
work with my own feelings in this situation to move it forward, to build up the
relationships, to increase relational resiliency?
Over
the years, I have had the privilege to read about and reflect on leadership in
the church, even as I have practiced it.
I continue to be impressed by the overlap between various ideas about leadership,
the work that has been done on emotional intelligence, and Christian faith –
spirituality and theology. I want to
make some of those connections here.
There
is a great deal of discussion about adaptive leadership coming out of the work
of Ron Heifetz at Harvard. Adaptive
problems are issues that require learning both to help us understand the
problem and then respond to it. Heifetz
writes about the need to be learning leaders and the need for us, as leaders,
to create a holding environment where organizational learning can take
place. A helpful holding environment is
one in which we monitor the temperature, doing what we can to facilitate
learning, while not overwhelming people in the process. It seems to me that adaptive leadership
requires emotional intelligence – self-awareness, self-control,
social awareness, relationship management.
Other
works on leadership build directly on emotional intelligence research: primal
leadership and resonant leadership.
Moving organizations forward has much to do with the emotional
environment of the organization and the relational webs created.
There
are, for me, deep resonances between work on emotional intelligence,
relationships, leadership and Christian theology. The God we know in Jesus Christ is often
described in relational terms – as a God who loves, forgives, is compassionate,
merciful. We can engage in wonderful
theological debates about how such terms apply to God, but there is an important
core truth here about the God we worship and in whose service we find perfect
freedom. As human beings, created in the
image of God, we are created for relationship with God and with others. We have capacities for emotional
intelligence, and we can grow in those capacities.
Let
me conclude with a final quote from Oswald and Jacobson, and then we should
have time for some questions. While everyone wants churches to grow,
increase giving, and function more smoothly, the real goal of the church
experience is an on-going process of conversion toward a more deeply
interiorized, lived-out, compassionate, generous, grateful, and grace-filled
Christian life. When this is realized,
pastors are energized and congregations are energized. Such congregations matter in the lives of
their communities. (159)
When
we do the kind of spiritual work to build emotional intelligence and through
that deepen relationships, we can become more compassionate, generous, grateful
and grace-filled followers of Jesus Christ, disciples who transform the world
and who with joy invite others to this transformational journey.
Thank you.