For those of you who are aware of my involvement with ACOM, I’d like to update you on the fact that as of December 31, 2008, I have stepped aside from a formal role with the college.
For the past couple of years, I have been assisting the college as the Regional Director for WA. I stepped into that role primarily to help reconnect the college with some of its historical main constituents here, and I think my long history with ACOM allowed me to assist in the transition from the previous Regional Director, Scott Vawser.
It’s been a busy couple of years with this extra load on top of my primary leadership role at Warnbro Church, and it became very apparent to me at the beginning of 2008 that the RD role was mostly an administrative position, something which I was keen to shift on because admin is not my passion or strength, and I am at a point in my life where I am becoming a lot more ruthless about ditching things which are not my passion or strength. Life is too short.
For me, this was always only a transitional role, so I’m glad to be moving on to the next thing. It’s actually been quite an interesting time, in many respects, and I have learnt a handful of very important things I take with me:
1. I am more convinced than ever that administrative/management/maintenance stuff is not my schtick, and need to remain vigilant about getting involved in such things. I can do them well when I have to but I’d rather not have to. I think I have other contributions to make.
2. There is a massive (and I can’t over-emphasize this point) dearth of excellent young leaders coming through, and there is a huge systemic problem with the identification, recruitment and nurture of future leaders for the church. Many colleges (ACOM included) are suffering the consequences of a much deeper problem in our churches.
3. I have been reminded over the past year how much I love teaching. I specifically spent my seminary time preparing to teach, something which has only been a side-light in my ministry to this point. I’d love to actually do more.
I am not entirely sure what ACOM’s plans are here in WA at this point. I have not really been part of the transitional discussions, mostly because I’m on annual leave until late January.
8 comments ↓
Mark, from my experience – there is no shortage of excellent young leaders out there at the moment – incredibly sharp thinkers, curious adventurers, daring questioners, and energetic explorers.
As a church we have to seriously reconsider how we to engage with these incredible young people. Our current modus operandi of remove, indoctrinate and command, seeking total submission and widespread uniformity successfully renders them socially impotent and culturally irrelevant (and more often than not, boring as bat shite). And i reckon this “dearth of excellent young leaders coming through” may reveal a deep discernment on their behalf – recognising that no matter how we dress up BS and call it something else, they can smell it a mile away – good on ‘em, i reckon – time for us “older, wiser” ones to do some changing (for a change). ;-)
I agree with otherendup. Maybe the main problem is that churches aren’t good at recognising the young leaders.
Churches are looking for the leaders who will become pastors of the same churches that exist today. Whereas the leaders coming through aren’t looking at that.
I’ve seen this first hand, as I consider myself to be one of the up and coming leaders. Yet from a denominational point of view nothing was done to encourage me.
i think you guys misunderstand me… i agree with you entirely… i don’t think this is a case of there not being anyone out there. the issue lies in the poor way in which the church is identifying and nurturing future leaders. this is a massive systemic failure which is going to unravel on us in the next decade.
with respect to your comments, matt… wow! they seem to be particularly cynical and bitter, and i guess i would say that my personal experience in leadership was not one that reflected “remove, indoctrinate and command, seeking total submission and widespread uniformity”… far from it! i think i was very fortunate and blessed to have people who saw the potential in me, spoke light into my ignorance, mentored and developed me, all sprinkled with lots of encouragement and support. mate, i think when you speak of “the church”, it seems to me you mostly mean “whitford church” and i’m not sure that accurately reflects “the church” in a broader sense. perhaps i’m wrong, but you seem particularly negative. my personal experience of “the church” has not always been a positive one, but it certainly hasn’t been the kind of thing you often speak about.
also, i do think that although there are a lot of young, vibrant and extremely gifted leaders out there, it’s a curious thing that the bulk of them are not drawn to the church. now, this may have a lot to do with the church (this i grant), but i also wonder how much of it has to do with the particularly self-centred and consumeristic mindset that this current generational group has which generally does not find public service and sacrifice an attractive ideal at all.
barack obama’s focus leading up to and including his inauguration has centred around inspiring people to serve, and although i think he’s onto a very big idea here, i think this is going to be a tough sell. incidentally, his chief of staff, the legendary rahm emanuel, also put a book a year or two ago which advocated involving young people in public service and an attempt to create structures to enable this. but, in my theological understanding, sin is often expressed in self and self-centredness, and inviting people to sacrifice themselves and serve others is not a cool idea to a group of people used to having whatever they want. just a thought…
sorry Mark – my comments weren’t meant to come across as bitter and twisted ;-) You are right – they are a reflection of what I have experienced personally. BUT they are also a reflection of what others have continued to experience in church leadership teams all over Perth.
I tend to think, and this isn’t meant as “tit for tat”, but maybe your personal experience and current leadership position has resulted in a disconnection from what is real for many people when it comes to their experience of the current practice of many church leaderships. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – maybe things at Wanbrow are simply all good – that is truly awesome for you and your congregation.
But your original reflections were on the inability of institutions like ACOM to identify and connect with the upcoming leaders of the younger generation. I believe my point was simply to identify what I believe are some very real problems in the way many of these institutions seek to engage and mould these young people. This is important because most churches these days are “developing” their own leadership training schools/systems which means most young people will never get within a coo-ee of organisations like ACOM.
So, I stand by what i said, many churches practice the “removal” of young people from the world around them – creating for them a make-believe Never Never Land, where they are often kept totally occupied in the life of the church and its ministries. This works well to keep them “cleanish” from outside infection, but ultimately sets them up to be totally ill-prepared for life outside of the church’s walls, which the vast majority will sooner or later leave (normally early on in their young adult life). This may have more to do with our failure to engage with young adults than with our youth.
The “indoctrination” comes from an inability of many churches to effectively disciple young people in the Way of Jesus. Instead they are fed on a diet of leadership euphemisms from “key” leaders in Churchtopia; they are taught mission statements and core value principles. However, in the mist of this teaching, they soon learn from experience that most relationships in church are implicitly tied to their willingness/ability to maintain their role within the church leadership structure.
And the “command” part of my statement – well, many young leaders leave the church today because they are simply “growing up”, and part of this growing up involves stretching/ reimagining their understanding/world view. Unfortunately for many church systems, an inability to accommodate this stage of transition, change, exploration results in young leaders feeling disconnected and unable to be truly authentic within view of what they may deem to be a judgmental, inflexible and ever-increasingly archaic institution.
Sorry mate, but i think until you are able to step outside of the system you are entrenched within (not simply Wanbrow – but churchtopia as a whole), or until you can truly engage with those “outside the walls” without receiving their critiques as bitter and twisted (even if it is ;-) ), your solutions are going to continue to appear to come from a leadership mindset that locates the “other” as the problem-bearer. And this will mean that the “other” is rarely granted the possibility of being the bearer of “good news”. And I reckon that’d be a shame for all of us.
anyhoo – all the best with your endeavours in the new year. Matt
i feel like we’re in a “matrix” moment… what “system” am i caught up in?! frankly, there are days when i would love a system to get caught up in! there is no system… just chaos.
i think this sort of talk of a “system” is a nice device to theorize on, but i just don’t think it’s that simple. you are as much a part of the system of “churchtopia” as much as i am, if it exists as a system (which I doubt)… the church is this wide myriad of experiences and relationships that is not easily wrapped up as a system.
i recall my life in the US as a Southern Baptist, and it was always very funny to me because people tended to speak of Southern Baptists as this grand, huge movement, a massive “system” (perhaps), and yet the reality was that for 51 weeks of the year there was little that would define these guys as a system. for 1 week of the year they met together at a convention where there would be all kinds of disagreements and discussions, probably the closest they came to being a system, but my viewpoint as an outsider was that it wasn’t much of a movement actually… just a large umbrella for a bunch of folks looking for shelter together.
regardless of all that, i do definitely come from a “leadership mindset” because i think it is biblical, real and necessary for us all (me included). authority structures are everywhere in the bible, and i do think that people who struggle with authority reflect not only the issues of sin (and its attendant desire for autonomy) in their lives, but will also never rise to become all that God intended. i know we disagree on this (based on previous discussions), but it just seems so obvious to me from absolutely every angle. it’s the reason why the inauguration of a single person in the US (a nation of hundred of millions) makes a profound difference. leadership matters. unaccountable leadership that itself does not recognize the authority that binds it is a problem too.
and, yes, you’re right… as i noted before, the issues are not specifically ACOM’s… it is very much about the church being what it is meant to be and taking up its core role in raising up new leaders for the next generation. we aren’t good at that, and much of that does stem from poor leadership in the current generation.
and, might i say, as a final comment on already too many words (!), as much as i personally sometimes lament the nature of this “judgmental, inflexible and ever-increasingly archaic institution” (as you put it), i’m constantly surprised by the way God is able to use stupid sinners to bring about transformation and healing and life in something that seems so inept and irrelevant (and sometimes downright whacky). so, bottom line is that i don’t really care what you’re doing and what shape you have as a church, so long as you’re introducing people to Jesus, baptising them, and helping them to grow in Christ by teaching them all that he taught us. that’s the only measure of success i hold us to at warnbro, and for anyone else. let us celebrate that together.
blessings, mate. keep following jesus closely!
how can there be a “massive systemic failure”, but “no system”? ;-)
it’s what i said… chaos… :-)
just for the record, i have great hope for the future of the church and for the young leaders of the future. i tend to agree with Gaz though – I think the church of the future that these young people will be a part of, won’t look much like the church we see today.
peace for the road ahead bruthah, Matt