As One with Authority, Second Edition

Reflective Leadership in Ministry

Jackson W. Carroll

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781608997374
  9781498212885
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621892885
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Congregations today face both old and often new, unprecedented challenges--spiritual, moral, technological, and economic--for which there are no easy solutions. Facing such challenges calls for pastors able to lead with authority in ways at the same time faithful to the gospel and appropriate to the congregation's setting and the issues at hand. Yet many pastors are unsure of their authority, often experiencing conflict as they attempt to lead. Others have abused their authority and brought mistrust and suspicion to ordained ministry, making it difficult for other clergy to lead. In this book, a new and revised edition of his earlier, highly regarded work on pastoral authority and leadership, Jackson Carroll brings together theological and sociological perspectives to provide an interpretation of pastoral authority as reflective leadership, a style of leadership that involves vision and discernment, and that is appropriate for the many roles in which pastors engage--preaching, worship leadership, teaching, counseling, and shaping the congregation's corporate life. In this new edition Carroll draws on what he has learned from many conversations with pastors and lay leaders since the book's initial publication as well as insights from others. He also introduces helpful new case material from practicing pastors and incorporates the perspectives of several recent leadership theorists and practitioners to deepen and enhance the discussion of pastoral authority as reflective leadership.

1

As One without Authority?

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. —Matthew 7:28–29

“Question Authority” —popular 1960s bumper sticker

The bumper sticker “Question Authority” became popular as a reflection of the intense questioning of all forms of authority by the late 1960s counterculture. It was an exhortation, not a call to self-doubt. Yet, even today, almost a half century, later that is what it has come to be for many clergy who, for a host of reasons, are unsure of their authority as leaders in the church. In contrast to the way the crowds experienced Jesus, many clergy experience themselves “as one[s] without authority,” the title of a book on preaching (Craddock 1979, emphasis added). This is far from the “awesome powers” that the early Puritan preachers exercised in their congregations and New England towns. As Harry Stout has written in his history of preaching and religious culture in colonial New England, “their sermons were the only voice of authority that congregations were pledged to obey unconditionally” (1986: 19).

The authority to lead is the right to do so in a particular group or institution, based upon a combination of qualities, characteristics, or expertise that the leader has or that followers believe their leader has. To exercise authority involves influencing, coordinating, or otherwise guiding the thoughts and behavior of persons and groups in ways that they consider legitimate. This is what clergy are called to do as they lead their congregations, and it is my purpose in this book to examine authority as it applies to clergy as they lead their congregations. Let me be clear that authority and leadership are not synonymous. One can lead without the authority to do so, and this is often important in church life as elsewhere;1 however, my primary concern is with the task of leadership for which clergy are authorized in their ordination vows.

Elsewhere (Carroll 2006) I have described clergy as “producers of culture” as they lead their congregations. They are potters—“God’s potters”—authorized and charged with the task of shaping and forming their congregational “clay jars” (2 Corinthians 4:7) so that the extraordinary power of God may be experienced in the congregation’s life and work in the world. In the Christian tradition, clergy authority, granted in ordination, includes proclaiming the word of God through preaching and teaching, administering the sacraments, exercising pastoral care and oversight of the congregation, and, in general, equipping the laity for ministry. Denominations use different rubrics for ordination and interpret it differently, but as we shall see, these are the charter or core functions for which most churches grant authority to clergy in their ordination. Broadly conceived, each of these tasks is a way that a pastor leads, shaping her or his congregation so that it reveals, rather than hides, God’s transcendent purposes. While others may question the clergy’s authority in the exercise of these tasks, it is also the case that many clergy come to “question authority”—their own—as they face the challenges of leading their congregations.

Let me be autobiographical. When a Methodist bishop laid his hands on my head in an ordination service, speaking for the church he authorized me to fulfill these charter functions of ministry. As a parish and campus minister for nine years, I attempted to do so as faithfully and effectively as I could. Along the way, I encountered more or less routine challenges to my authority to lead: mild disagreements over procedures, reminders that my predecessors had done things differently, occasional questioning of sermon content and (especially) hymn selection, and initial opposition to building a new educational wing to the church. The first and major challenge to my authority came over racial justice issues. Members questioned and sharply criticized both my preaching and public activities as I tried to give leadership in these then-explosive issues. I survived these challenges primarily because of the support of my district superintendent and the positive relationships I had developed with parishioners over the years that I had served as their pastor. They had come to care for me even when they sharply disagreed with my sermons and activities. Still, I discovered that the “bloom was off the roses”: My authority to preach, teach, and lead had been sorely tested. Some of the laity questioned it, and I was also unsure myself.

A second major challenge to my authority during those years was more an internal one, though it was triggered by the university context in which I ministered. As a campus minister, I struggled to preach and teach the gospel in a setting whose epistemological assumptions challenged the ultimate basis of my authority: God and God’s action in history, to which I was called to bear witness. I became acutely aware of the gulf that exists between certainty of belief in a transcendent God who acts in history and a perspective that rules out all knowledge that one cannot verify empirically. Granted that many in the university shared my unease, nevertheless, for me it raised questions about my authority for ministry with which I had to come to terms. I became existentially aware of the truth of the Apostle Paul’s words that “now we see in a mirror, dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Also during these nine years, we were challenged by the complex issues facing our society: persistent racism, an awakened awareness of sexism, the Vietnam War, fear of nuclear destruction, affluence and poverty, and the growth and challenge of technological change. I wondered whether there were any ways to address these issues that would make any difference. Even if my calling and ordination gave me authority to attempt to address them, what possible impact could I or the church have?

How much those experiences led me away from the parish to exercise my ministry in a teaching role as a sociologist in a theological school I cannot say. They did not, however, diminish my interest in ordained ministry or my commitment to the ministry of God’s people, and they have made me especially aware of issues of authority and leadership faced by clergy whom I have taught and observed, and with whom I have interacted in congregational and other settings. For many of these clergy, questioning their authority to lead has not diminished; if anything, it has increased. Consider the following vignettes, which reflect typical—and real—experiences that pastors face:

• A pastor in a church with a congregational polity wants his congregation to participate in an ecumenical program to address persisting racism in the community. Sadly, however, he confesses that he must decline because it would risk alienating too many members. He adds sardonically, “It’s a matter of tiptoeing through the tithers.”
• A young pastor, four years out of seminary, is confronted with a series of difficult pastoral problems, especially a major conflict that has erupted in his parish council. He discovers that he is ill prepared to deal with these and other parish problems. He becomes disillusioned and angry at the failure of his seminary education and considers leaving the pastorate.
• Seeking to emulate the style of ministry of several well-known megachurches, the pastor of an urban church introduces contemporary worship practices into the Sunday morning service; he focuses his sermons on themes of personal fulfillment and successful living and avoids controversial topics; he initiates a number of small groups aimed at meeting the needs of young couples and singles in the surrounding area, creating what he calls a shopping mall of programs. He is, however, somewhat uncomfortable with these choices. “I sometimes feel like we’re just scratching members where they itch rather than being faithful to the gospel,” he says with some embarrassment to a group of clergy colleagues.
• A pastor prides herself on a well-run church. She keeps herself busy with administrative duties, attends meetings faithfully, and visits parishioners in need. Her worship services are well planned and carried out. Why then do some of her lay members complain that something is missing from the church? They sense a lack of spiritual depth. Some say, “She knows about God, but she doesn’t seem to know God personally.”
• A Catholic priest, now well along in years, expresses frustration and some bitterness over parishioner resistance to a leadership style that served him well for so long. For years, laity allowed him—no, expected him—to call the shots in parish affairs. Why now do they so often resist his decisions, insisting on having a voice in setting directions for the parish? His counterpart in a black Protestant congregation expresses a similar frustration as once pliant laity ask for a share in decision making.
• In contrast a new seminary graduate, imbued with an egalitarian theology of a shared ministry of clergy and laity, is surprised, frustrated, disappointed, even somewhat embittered, when he discovers that laity expect him to lead, to be directive. They treat him as an expert; he wants to be an enabler.
• A priest assigned to a new parish discovers a web of suspicion on the part of lay members: fallout from the tragic pedophilia scandal that has cast its shadow on all Catholic priests and eroded the bonds of trust essential for effective leadership.
• A college senior who has an outstanding record as a student and campus leader feels called to the ordained ministry. As she wrestles with the decision, she wonders whether a congregation is the most effective setting in which to exercise her gifts of leadership. “Isn’t the church marginal to where important decisions are made in our society?” she muses. “Can I make a more important contribution elsewhere?” She chooses to go to law school instead.

Despite their diversity, each of these vignettes reflects experiences of real-life clergy. Moreover, whether it is immediately apparent or not, each reflects issues of authority and leadership: fear of alienating influential members; inability to make sense of the complex messes one finds in many parishes; resistance to authoritarian leadership, on the one hand, and demands for expertise on the other; uncritically accommodating the Christian gospel to the culture; mistrust that must be overcome before leadership is possible, managing well but lacking religious authenticity; wondering whether being an ordained minister is the best way to make a difference. The list could be expanded.

The point is that many clergy have serious questions about their authority to lead and difficulty knowing how to do so. Further, I believe that issues such as low morale, debilitating stress, burnout, and perhaps even some of the moral failures of clergy are also related to this questioning of authority. Self-questioning is often triggered by similar dilemmas and situations as those described in the vignettes. The opportunity that these predicaments present is that of rethinking issues of authority for ministry and discovering ways of exercising one’s authority to lead that are faithful to the gospel and appropriate to the church’s life and ministry in the early years of the twenty-first century. That is my purpose in this book. Though I will not address one by one each of the issues that the vignettes raise, I attempt to provide a perspective on authority and how it can be exercised through what I call reflective leadership, which will help clergy who experience the frustrations over authority that the vignettes highlight.

To what extent are questions of authority and leadership new? Aren’t the examples sketched in the vignettes ones of long standing? The answer, in one sense, is clearly yes. A recent history of pastoral ministry in America (Holifield 2007) makes clear that questions of clergy authority have been a common thread in American church life from the earliest days down to the present. And the abuse of their authority by pastors—whether sexual, financial, or familial—is not new. But the substance of these issues has often differed over time, and each generation has had to find its own ways of addressing them. “New occasions teach new duties,” as the old hymn expresses it. The present is no exception. It provides its own special challenges to clergy and laity for understanding and exercising authority.

What This Book Is About

Although my focus is on authority for ministry and its meaning for pastoral leadership, I try to place this focus in a larger perspective. My aim is to locate pastoral authority in relation to the purpose of the church and to the social and cultural context in which we find ourselves early in the twenty-first century. These are the twin poles between which pastors and lay members live and engage together in ministry, and both are crucial for shaping the way that pastors exercise their authority in leading their congregations in ministry. Let me say more about this overall perspective by way of introducing themes that I will repeat and elaborate much more fully later in the book.

First, the purpose of the church: As I will discuss at greater length in chapter 4, I take a narrative perspective on the church. The church, the body of Christ, finds its identity and purpose in the story of Jesus Christ and the broader context of the story of the people of Israel. The character and calling of the church as Christ’s body—and thus also the character and calling of its members and leaders—are defined by this story, by Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. When the church is faithful to its calling, Jesus’s story shapes what it believes and what it practices; likewise it shapes the exercise of authority and leadership in the church.

Although this story gives shape to the life and practices of church in differing times and places, it is not a blueprint to be followed in every detail. Rather, the history of the church from its earliest days is the history of the efforts of its leaders and members to discover what it means to be Christ’s body at particular times and places and in the face of widely differing challenges. What should it say, be, and do to be faithful as the people of God? Thus, as Karl Barth (1962: 739) wrote, “To the distinctiveness of its calling and commission, and therefore to the form of its existence as the people of God in [the] world . . . there does not correspond in the first instance or intrinsically any absolutely distinctive social form [of the church].” Instead, the challenge to leaders and followers alike is to discover what it means for them to be faithful to Jesus’s story in the time and place where they currently live. Barth’s oft-repeated comment that we must keep the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other is another way of making this point.

This means then that if Jesus’s story is one pole between which pastors and lay members live today, the other is the society and culture in which we now live—a society and culture vastly different from first-century Palestine and the Roman Empire in which the church first took root and from other periods of the church’s history. It is also in many ways quite different from the social and cultural context at the time that I was ordained as a pastor in the late 1950s. It is now commonplace to refer to the present era as postmodern, though there is little consensus about the meaning of the term, and there is also debate as to whether it is an entirely accurate description. Have we truly moved beyond modernity with its individualism and its trust in reason and science, or are we not more accurately in a period of late or high modernity, as some have argued?2 I have no need to weigh into this debate; rather my interest lies in the characteristics of the present era, by whatever name it is called. Later in this chapter, I will discuss several characteristics in greater detail, including: (1) a crisis of belief that reflects the radical doubt that views all knowledge, including scientific knowledge as well as our basic beliefs about God, as relative and provisional; (2) the growth of large-sca...

Table of contents

• As One with Authority
• Preface
• 1 As One without Authority?
• 2 Authority Is Not a Four-Letter Word
• 3 The Relational Dimension of Authority
• 4 Authority for What?
• 5 The Central Tasks of Church Leadership
• 6 Leading with Authority: The Dynamics of Reflective Leadership
• 7 Elements of Reflective Leadership
• 8 Representing the Sacred and Reflective Leadership
• Works Cited
• Index