Reset: Leading through Transformation

Faith+Lead‘s Rev. Lee Ann Pomrenke offers some helpful tips for A Hard Factory Reset – both personal and congregational. Her ideas will almost certainly spark additional ones as conversations unfold.

Basically, Pomrenke suggests that congregational leaders willing to access and engage those amongst their membership and their community who have made significant life changes over the course of the past year, have a wealth of wisdom and experience – in transitioning, transformation, change, decision-making, and experiencing the deep grace and spiritual gift of clarity or peace of mind – at their disposal.

The implications are numerous: worship, in-house ministries of all kinds, community engagement with justice work, even vision and hopes for the congregation’s futures. Let the folks who have made significant changes in their personal lives inform the process and the spiritual discipline of how the congregation makes big decisions about life in the wake of global pandemics.

Convergence offers several online learning opportunities that address many of these same areas of decision-making. Courageous Church dives into leading questions on vision, identity, leadership, and hope; Brian McLaren’s From Organized Religion to Organizing Religion invites leaders to “develop a vision and a plan for organizing your congregation to be a community of spiritual activists”. See Convergence’s extensive list of other leadership development opportunities for further ideas and insights.

A little closer to home, check out LeaderWise’s Confidence in Conflict: Navigating the Struggle, a zoom workshop for the whole leadership team to have a healthier understanding of conflict, understand conflict styles and personal default tendencies, and develop skills in different styles of conflict resolution.

Or, develop your own leadership development opportunities. We share lots of resources for just that in our Congregational Life: Leadership: Leading through Change/Conflict lib guide; and our Reimagining Church: Restructuring Church or Post-Covid Church lib guides.

And, of course, we are always here to partner with you: invite Rev. Emily Meyer to join your council or committees to facilitate and consult on the tough decisions you are facing. Consultations are free and unlimited for all member congregations!