Hudson River

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Hudson River Presbytery
March 8, 2008 Address by Rick Barger
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CenteringJohn 1117-45
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• Adaptive Leadership
• for a
• Converted Church

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Adaptive Leadership is

• Not descriptive of a leader who can easily adapt
  to changing situations.
• Mediating a change of worldviews.
• Re-Storying people and communities.
• Perilous!
• Never more needful for the church than NOW!

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What is meant by converted?

• Hang on.

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Core Orientation
The Thesis of A New and Right Spirit
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• Congregational authenticity and its capacity
  to be the transformational community God desires
  are not about tactics, strategies, programs, and
  the like but is rather about

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Clear and courageous identity and calling as a
contrast community and sign of Gods mission in
the world, grounded in the death and resurrection
of Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
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Mission

• Mission is not something that the church does.
• Mission is what the church IS.
• The church does not exist to meet your needs.
• It exists to meet Gods needs.

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Mission

• The church is Gods mission for the world.
• The church is Gods.
• The missional church is a redundancy.

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We are living in historic times.

• We can no longer be just students of history.
• We are history makers.
• Never has the church faced the challenges that
  the North American church faces today The
  Perfect Storm.

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Historic Times

• At the same time, never in the last few centuries
  has there been a deep spiritual hunger as exists
  today.
• It would be hard to find a time when the stakes
  were higher.
• You can name the stakes.

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More

• On top of the narcissistic, self-absorbed, and
  individualistic culture of entitlement, we have
  become people of fear.
• We organize ourselves around the forces of death.
  Death is Lord.
• We are chronically anxious and regressive as a
  culture - evolution in reverse.

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The Impact of Regression

• Rather that address the cause of anxiety we focus
  on symptoms or issues.
• i.e. Why cant we get our youth involved?
• We step up the treadmill of trying harder.
• Quick-fixes become attractive.
• Maybe we need better management.

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The Impact of Regression

• The quick-fix fails and the treadmill starts
  running faster.
• Emotional gridlock and the absence of the
  imaginative.
• Name just about any high stakes issue and with it
  is emotional gridlock and the absence of the
  imaginative.

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We need a different kind of church and it
demands a different kind of leader.
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God has some serious business to do with the
world that God loves.
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The business that God has with the world demands
GREAT leaders.
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?a????
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A Change in the Field of Vision

• From Reformation.
• To Revolution.

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The Revolution Recognizes that

• The problem is not the fundies.
• The problem is not postmodernism.
• The problem is not the prosperity gospel.
• The problem is not religious extremism.

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The Revolution Recognizes that

• The problem is us.
• WE are the problem.
• We struggle to get out of our own way.
• We really are in Gods way.

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• Four Concepts

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• One
• Authentic Servant-Leadership is the capacity to
  influence others through visionary
  self-definition that inherently inspires because
  of passion for a mission, and, at the same time,
  stresses because of its mature self-definition.

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• Key words
• Capacity
• Influence
• Visionary Mature Self- Definition
• Inspires
• Passion
• Mission
• Stresses

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• Authentic-Servant Leaders
• Are clear in their identity and calling of self.
• Are clear in the identity and calling of the
  system they lead.
• Are mature and evolutionary.
• Are visionary and revolutionary.

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• Authentic Servant-Leaders
• Inspire rather than manipulate.
• Deploy people rather than employ people.
• Invest in people rather than manage them.

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• Authentic Servant-Leaders
• Choose transformational leadership over
  transactional leadership.
• Unleash people rather than control people.
• Stress people rather than fix people.
• Understand that pain and death is necessary for
  conversion and new life.
• Are slaves to their mission-generated passion.

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• Two
• Humanitys dilemma
• is rooted
• in an identity crisis.
• See Genesis 1-3.
• No other creature
• has this crisis.

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This is the crisis of the church.
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• Three
• The most difficult
• project in the world is the
• reconstruction of the human
• mind.
• - Myles Munroe

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• We are the sum total of what
• we have been conditioned
• to think.
• We are what we think.
• It is not what we are that
• holds us back. It is what we
• think we are not.

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• Matthew and Mark
• and the first words
• out of Jesus mouth
• REPENT!

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• Repent means to rethink
• everything.
• Unlearn
• Relearn

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This is hard!

• Its the most difficult project
• Adaptive leadership is a courageous kind of
  leadership.
• Great spirits have always encountered violent
  opposition from mediocre minds. - Einstein

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• Four.
• Information does not bring about transformation.
  
• Conversion does.

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Being Clear about Conversion

• Not the naïve one-time conversion experience.
• Jesus call convert and follow.
• Jesus path towards conversion Matthew 621.

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Being Clear about Conversion

• Jesus commission Matthew 2816-20 or Acts 18.
• Its in the being and doing that transformation
  happens.
• NEVER does Jesus ask or expect us to have it all
  figured out.

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A Brutal Reality

• We function in an un-converted church,
• Mostly led by un-converted people
• Not just running the wrong offense or having the
  wrong recipe.

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A Brutal Reality

• Yet, it is blind to its un-conversion because of
  its rhetoric, rituals, and symbols.
• Thus, it rarely imagines or thinks like Jesus,
• Is both in the world and of the world,
• And is emotionally and missionally stuck.

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The Unconverted Church asks the wrong questions.

• Why cant we get our youth more involved?
• Why cant we get people to give more?
• Why is the church always asking the same people
  to step up?

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The Unconverted Church asks the wrong questions.

• How can I possibly do any more?
• How can we protect ourselves from the church down
  the road?
• Why ?

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Symptoms of an Unconverted Church

• The church is supposed to meet my needs.
• Functional atheism.
• We really dont believe the promises of the
  gospel nor its claims on us.
• Our lifestyles and idols are counter to the
  gospel and kingdom living.

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Symptoms of an Unconverted Church

• We generally operate out of fear rather than
  faith or hope.
• We spin the success of other churches from a
  position of elitism or theological arrogance.
• We eat our own see Ed Friedman.

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Symptoms of an Unconverted Church

• We focus on pathologies rather than on strength.
• We would rather not anger people than have a
  spine and be clear.
• As an adaptive leader, peoples problems are
  generally not with you but with Jesus.
• The voices of club loyalty are loud. More
  loyal to the tribe than to God.
• Operate out of an ethic of scarcity than an ethic
  of abundance.

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Symptoms of an Unconverted Church

• Fascination with endowments and hoarding.
• Fascinated with more studies, more information,
  the next solid program.
• Owned by Robert and his rules and the like.
• Cannot shake the Constantinian hangover..

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Symptoms of an Unconverted Church

• We resist true calls to model our lives under the
  authority of the kingdom of God.
• We have resisted taking the bold steps to take
  Jesus at his word and live under his lordship.
• Pastors and leaders have colluded in maintaining
  an unconverted culture and church because we
  ourselves do not lead converted lives.

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2.2
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Let that sink in.
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• Let that also sink in.

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What does this mean?

• For our congregations?
• For our councils or sessions?
• For our judicatory leaders?
• For our seminaries?
• For the church?
• For the world that God loves?

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An un-converted church

• Cannot give itself for the sake of the world
  Christ loves.
• Has very little in common with the Jesus who
  claims it in baptism and calls it to follow.
• Is shamefully under-potentialized.

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An un-converted church

• And really begs the question, What real value
  does such a church add to Gods vision for the
  world?
• Are you the one, or do we need to get another
  one?

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• Repeat
• Information does not bring about transformation.
  
• Conversion does.

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The Core Question for Conversion

• If we took with ultimate serious the claim that
  God has raised the crucified messiah from the
  dead and that we have been grasped by the spirit
  that raised Jesus, what would our life together
  look like?

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The Core Leads to These

• A RE-STORYING (This is adaptive leadership.)
• In what would we hope?
• What must we do?

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More Questions

• What is God up to in the world?
• How can we join God?
• What is God asking of us?
• What does God need us to be?
• What does God need for us to do?

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More Questions

• In this ask, what is God promising us?
• What is God expecting of me?
• What is God up to in our congregation?
• How can we make God proud?

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Ephesians 41-6

• I beg you

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• Questions? Discussion?

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Thank you!