The Art of Leading Change

Ten Perspectives on the Messiness of Ministry

Mike Bonem

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781506485065
• eBook ISBN: 9781506485072
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

In The Art of Leading Change, author Mike Bonem asks: What is the primary distinction between the science and the art of change leadership? His answer: People! And leading people in churches and ministries is messy. The science of change leadership doesn't ignore the human element, but it tends to overlook the differences between people and the significant impact those differences have on how to best lead change. The art of leading change is all about people. We can't do the work God has called us to do without people, yet each individual--and each collection of individuals--is unique. This resource is a guide to better understand and practice the art of leading people through change.

The heart of the book describes ten perspectives on leading change. Each perspective is captured in a memorable phrase that underscores an important principle, such as "Lead with trust" and "Resisters are not the enemy." The ten perspectives are bookended by two other essential insights: "The Challenge of Leading Change" examines the contours and underlying factors that make change so difficult in ministry settings. "The Courage for Change, " at the book's conclusion, explores the conviction and fortitude leaders will need for the change journey.

Leading change in a church has never been easy. It has become far more difficult as our society has become increasingly complex, fractured, and secular. Even though change is challenging, pastors and ministry leaders cannot be satisfied with maintaining the status quo. Whether you're leading from the first chair or some other role, and whether the changes you face are big or small, The Art of Leading Change will be a valuable addition to your leadership toolkit.

Perspective 1

Lead with Trust

You have probably heard quotable sayings about leaders and followers such as “He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is just taking a walk.”1 It is true that you can’t be a leader if people are not following. We could debate whether the leader should be in front, or alongside, or even in a less-than-visible role behind followers. You may even prefer a different word than follower. But the real shortcoming with this and similar sayings is they paint a picture of someone who has already become a leader. They don’t explain what prompts people to follow in the first place.

The purpose of followers is not to stoke a leader’s ego. (“Look how many people are following me.”) Instead, followers form the critical mass to propel a change forward. A church may be full of faithful members, but members don’t make change happen. Followers believe in the vision for change, and they demonstrate their belief by doing their part to turn the vision into reality. If followers are missing, it will become painfully obvious when the hard work of implementation begins.

But what prompts people to become committed followers who will support a major change? Belief in the vision is important and will be discussed in perspective 3. But if you want to turn members into followers, the prerequisite that is most important and most frequently overlooked is trust.

What Is Leadership Trust?

In Canoeing the Mountains, Tod Bolsinger accurately describes change as a journey into uncharted territory. He then offers this simple but profound observation: “In uncharted territory, trust is as essential as the air we breathe. If trust is lost, the journey is over.”2

Why is trust overlooked so often? Two reasons stand out. First, the nature of their vocation causes ministry leaders to believe they should be seen as trustworthy. After all, pastors answer to a higher authority. A prohibition against lying is one of the Ten Commandments. Ministry leaders often become indignant if someone suggests they can’t be trusted.

The second reason is that trust is viewed as bimodal. You either trust someone or you don’t. And since ministry leaders are clearly not in the same category as cheaters and habitual liars, the logical conclusion should be to trust them at all times and in all things. Right?

Only it is not this simple. Trust is expressed in many forms and at many levels. My wife might trust me to pick up something from the grocery store, which only speaks to my dependability or memory. If I give a friend a $20 bill to get a latte for me when they go out for coffee, I trust them to bring back change. But would I trust the same person with a much larger sum of money?

These examples are the ground floor of trust. They are focused on ability (the knowledge and skills to do something), dependability, and accurately representing facts. While these attributes are important, no leader will succeed solely with this level of trust.

When our kids were young, our church’s youth group had a great group of teens. We liked all of them and would trust any of them with simple tasks. But only a few were trusted enough to babysit our children. They repeatedly demonstrated that the things on earth we treasured most—our children—were safe in their care. They loved our children and would have put themselves in harm’s way to protect our kids.

Effective ministry leaders achieve this higher level of trust. It’s the kind of trust where a follower is willing to take a risk or make a sacrifice, like standing firm when fellow church members oppose a new initiative. This is not the blind trust that we sometimes see with highly charismatic leaders. Rather, it is the hard-won trust that grows out of the accumulation of the everyday moments of leadership.

After three years as pastor of Highpoint Church, Ryan and the leadership team were frustrated by the lack of fruit in their discipleship ministry. Too many of the small groups existed primarily as social clubs rather than places that spurred spiritual growth. Newcomers to the church had difficulty breaking into groups because the relationships were so tight. Ryan had tried to nudge the groups toward different patterns, but his efforts had been unsuccessful. So as planning began for the new ministry year, Ryan and the leadership team were considering a proposal to revamp discipleship completely by eliminating most of the existing groups and starting new ones with a fresh mix of participants and a different meeting format.

No one on Highpoint’s leadership team questioned the need for a change in their discipleship strategy. But as they continued to discuss the proposed revamp, the questions on everyone’s minds were, Will this work? Will our small group leaders support it? Then one of the leaders said, “Ryan, you’ve been a breath of fresh air after all we went through with our last pastor. Everyone loves you and is glad you’re here. But this is a big change. The real question is whether they trust you and the rest of us enough to make the sacrifices that will be required.”

Sometimes leaders walk into an environment in which high levels of trust are bestowed upon them. Sometimes they start at rock bottom through no fault of their own. You have no control over how much trust you inherit, but you can shape the trajectory of trust. Your words and actions—big and small—can expand trust or erode it. Before examining how to build this kind of deeper trust, let’s take a closer look at why it is lacking.

Why Is Trust Lacking?

“This is a great church. The people love God and are ready for the next pastor to lead them into the future.” Countless new pastors have heard statements like this. And countless pastors have been frustrated in their first few months by the amount of resistance they encounter when they try to lead.

One of the reasons for this resistance has nothing to do with the current pastor and has everything to do with prior pastors. If “the past is always present,” then previous breaches of trust will live for many years in a congregation’s memory.

Trust can be broken in many different ways. Some are obvious, including moral failures or outright lying to the congregation. Before Ryan arrived as pastor, Highpoint had been in a virtual free fall. The previous pastor was forced to leave after an affair with a church member, and a two-year interim period followed. Attendance and giving had declined dramatically during that time, and the discipleship ministry had been largely ignored. When Ryan arrived, he knew that reestablishing trust, rather than a quick-fix program, was what the church most needed.

Major trust-busting moments like the earlier one at Highpoint make the headlines, but the losses of trust that are less glaring and more common can be just as damaging. Examples might include a pastor who says she hopes to spend the rest of her career at the church and then leaves after just three years. It may be a hiring process that seemed skewed to favor a personal acquaintance. It may happen when a leader verbalizes a commitment to support a new mission partnership but doesn’t follow through.

These seem like small examples. In fact, pastors in cases like these may have had good intentions. The call to serve another church may have come out of nowhere. A leader may have believed that adding the mission partnership into the budget was sufficient “support.” But perceptions are reality, and if the congregation perceives that a previous pastor was not trustworthy, the memory lingers far longer than the incident. When a new pastor arrives, those past experiences directly shape how much trust they inherit.

At a minimum, new ministry leaders need to understand the history of their organizations. As you construct the timeline and understand the key events, look for the evidence of effective or ineffective leadership. Listen for indicators that previous leaders were or were not trusted. Pay particular attention to stories that are filled with negative emotions such as sadness, anger, or bitterness. In what ways were past leaders perceived as not being trustworthy?

Of course, this is not just a lesson for new leaders who are trying to understand their predecessors. You may have been the one who eroded trust by not supporting the mission partnership or by pushing to hire a friend rather than another qualified candidate. You may think, “That was long ago, and I admitted to the board that I should have handled it differently.” While admitting mistakes is an important step, it doesn’t erase the memory.

Understanding the history of a church or ministry can help you understand the contours in which you are leading. Reflecting on your own leadership tendencies may highlight small ways that you are eroding trust. Do you avoid conflict and seem to agree with whoever you are talking to, or is your message consistent? Do you seem to exaggerate the positives and downplay any concerns, or do you give a balanced assessment? If a new initiative is ultimately unsuccessful, do you take ownership for the “failure”? And if it is successful, do you generously share the credit with the whole team, or do you appear to enjoy the spotlight a little too much? Each of these questions points to small instances when trust is either strengthened or weakened.

The erosion of earthen dams is one of the national infrastructure concerns that has become more prominent in recent years. These dams have been mostly ignored in the 50 or more years since their construction. They are much less noticeable than their larger concrete counterparts that form large lakes and provide electricity for entire cities. And yet the failure of a “small” earthen dam can be spectacular and catastrophic. While the failure happens in a flash, the erosion that leads to a failure occurs slowly and almost invisibly over many years.

In the same way, most of the problems with leadership trust are the results of slow erosion over time. The evidence of trust erosion may be sudden and dramatic—a disappointing capital campaign, a split vote on a major decision, low response to a church-wide initiative—but the underlying causes are like the many small drips that weaken that earthen dam.

How Is Trust Built?

Unlike the natural forces that cause physical erosion, the erosion of trust is not inevitable, unstoppable, or irreversible. Pastors and ministry leaders can and should be ever mindful of the ways in which they can build trust. How is this done?

Let’s start by naming two common misconceptions about building trust. It does not happen by standing in front of a crowd and announcing, “You can trust me!” No matter how passionate or sincere you may be, public pronouncements do not increase trust. Nor is outward success the basis for building trust. Professional competence is important, but people have been disappointed too many times by leaders who had great track records and deceitful hearts.

Instead of big, flashy moments, trust is built on a foundation of relationships, consistency, and integrity. We may talk about whether a church trusts its pastor, but that is misleading. The real question is whether the people of the church trust their pastor. And the people want to know: Does the pastor genuinely care about me? Does she really mean what she said? Does his walk match his talk? When enough individuals answer yes to these questions, it coalesces into a collective expression of trust.

Relationships matter. The old adage is true: people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. People are simply more likely to trust a leader who cares about them. The care must be genuine; if they sense an ulterior motive, the opportunity to build trust goes out the window. Even if you may feel an urgency to make something happen quickly, you still need to make the time to develop relationships. In the long run, these relationships can make the difference in the success or failure of a change initiative.

A few weeks after Ryan arrived at Highpoint, he shared an insight with his wife: “Before we got here, I thought I knew what this church needed. I had three different ministry priorities that I was convinced would turn things around. But I’ve realized none of those ideas are what they need right now. There is only one priority—loving the people by listening to their stories and caring for the hurt they’ve experienced the last few years.” So that is what Ryan did for much of his first two years. This period of building relationships stabilized the church. But more importantly, it built a strong foundation of trust that paved the way for the leadership team to consider significant changes like the discipleship revamp.

The importance of relationships may be obvious, but the challenge with consistency is more subtle. Many leaders don’t realize the impact of their words. They may not think anything of declaring, “Missions is our number-one priority” one day and the next day emphasizing, “We have to focus on discipleship.” They may not even remember having told one person that this is the year to hold the line on spending, so they readily support someone else’s request to increase the budget for youth. The leader may not think about this, but church members do. And these small inconsistencies can quickly erode trust. Trusted leaders are always mindful of what comes out of their mouths.

Early in his career, Ryan had been an associate pastor at a church where the senior pastor had a deep aversion to disappointing anyone in the congregation. As a result, the senior pastor tended to agree with whatever church member he was talking to in the moment, a practice that eroded their confidence in his leadership. At Highpoint, Ryan often prefaced his ideas by saying, “This is just a brainstorm. I’m not ready for us to act on it yet.” In the same way, he gladly listened to proposals from church members, but he was careful to only make commitments he could keep.

A leader’s words may be consistent, but integrity requires the leader’s actions and words to match. Unfortunately, the broader society has learned that many leaders and public figures fall short of this standard. Politicians, business executives, and ministry leaders have frequently been caught doing the very things that they have insisted should not be done by their followers. Because this happens so often, the public has little tolerance for excuses, even in cases where the explanation is legitimate. It may not seem fair to be held to such a high standard, but pastors who want to build trust pay careful attention to the optics of their actions.

As Ryan prepared to talk to the leadership team about the discipleship revamp at Highpoint, he also prepared himself for the personal cost. The small group Ryan and his wife were in had been a life-giving refuge during their first three years, and the members had become some of their closest friends. He wanted to keep his group intact, but he knew he would lose credibility and undermine the revamp process if he did that.

The common thread that connects the trust building of relationships, consistency, and integrity is time. None of these happens overnight. All require the leader to take a long-term perspective. If you’re stepping into a new role in a healthy church or ministry, plan on at least six months of intentional work to build trust. In a complex organization, or one where trust is low because of past issues, trust building will take at least a year and probably longer. And in either case, leaders should remember that the hard work of maintaining trust never ends.

Do They Actually Trust You?

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Challenge of Change
• Perspectives for Leading People through Change
• An Artist’s Perspective: Art Is Messy
• Perspective 1: Lead with Trust
• Perspective 2: Dig Beneath the Surface
• An Artist’s Perspective: The Purpose Behind the Art
• Perspective 3: Take the Right Next Step
• Perspective 4: Heavy Loads Require Strong Teams
• An Artist’s Perspective: The Science Behind the Art
• Perspective 5: You Can’t Please Everyone
• Perspective 6: Resisters Are Not the Enemy
• An Artist’s Perspective: The Creative Process
• Perspective 7: Momentum Is Your Friend
• Perspective 8: What They Heard, Not What You Said
• An Artist’s Perspective: The Power of Perception
• Perspective 9: Who Is Not in the Room?
• Perspective 10: Look Up Before You Look Ahead
• An Artist’s Perspective: When Is a Work of Art Finished?
• The Courage for Change
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography