Seeing into the Future

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Driving around Louisville yesterday I remembered the fun of finding my way back to places I'd been years before. In the 1960's I was a student here and had a fondness for places like Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church. When I came back to live here six years ago, I enjoyed driving around to find my way back, relying on the way coded deeply into my memories to guide my driving. It's fun. That's one way of finding our way around this world--following our memories.

A second way of finding our way is by using the encoded memories of others who have charted out the path ahead of us. We call them "maps"--printed on paper for those of us who remember them before the age of Google maps and GPS. Being able to read a map and orient oneself to them is a useful skill in negotiating a way around the world as it is known.

But I'm more fascinated by a third way of finding our way around. That is learning to move into an unknown future where our memories and our maps are not as helpful. If we truly believe that the cosmos is on a trajectory of transformation, then the future "ain't what it used to be." Simply downloading our memories and the guide-maps of the past and the present will only keep us stuck in the past or the present.

I like to pull from the insights of the behavioral and managerial sciences to inform my understanding of human nature, and for this question I look to the work of Gary Klein on intuition (Klein, Gary. The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work. New York, Currency/Doubleday, 2003.) When new situations present themselves, our intuition pulls in our previous experiences and helps us transform them by imagination into possible scenarios for the new situation as it might unfold. Those quick choices of scenarios can inform quick action in a crisis situation.

If there's time for a more leisurely movement into the future, the spiritual concept of discernment comes to mind in which one quiets other voices and tunes into the deeper seated voice of God. A current source for understanding discernment in an organizational setting is Otto Scharmer's Theory U (Boston: Society for Organizational Learning, 2006). It's a discernment and systems thinking model that takes change into account for what he calls "leading from the future." I also go back to Jane Kise and David Stark's work in Life Directions (Bethany House, 1999) in which they help us identify our gifts, our passions and our values as part of the holy design for our lives that are part of of the guidance system. It is through these realities of our personal or corporate identity that we can build scenarios for the future that are true to ourselves and open to the future.

Finally, I like to invoke the notion of desire. If we can place in abeyance our own smaller agendas and fears and put our own desires in the context of what we understand of the Divine, we pray that our desires and the desires of the Holy One can be one. It's a future desiring, not for our own comfort and convenience, not to revisit the old familiar places, or even to impose the maps of others on the future, but to hope for something new that suits a new humanity in a new world.

How do you move into the future?.

New Lay Academy in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery

Called to Lead is a new program of theological education for congregational leaders offered in partnership by Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. Focused primarily toward Elders, but open to all, this two-year program will engage leaders in Bible study and theological reflection, as well as equipping them to serve their congregations with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.[1] A third component of small group coaching and mentoring is available to Elders who wish to further their study in preparation for becoming a Commission Lay Pastor under the care and authority of the Committee on Ministry (or Committee for Preparation for Ministry?) of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery.

Participants will meet one Saturday each month (except summer & December), for 8 hours. The fee of $30.00 includes lunch, handouts and instruction. In addition, participants will be responsible for purchasing required textbooks. Although participants are encouraged to commit to all classes, one may register on a monthly basis. However, those intending to complete the Commissioned Lay Pastor program must successfully complete all classes and any additional requirements for the CLP diploma. Costs for CLP component will be determined by the number of participants and will include other expenses for additional program requirements. *

Persons interested in participating in Called to Lead should complete the attached application, and send it, along with payment, to Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, 425 South 2nd Street, Suite 301, Louisville, Kentucky 40202. The application is also available on-line at http://www.midkentuckypresbytery.org/. Questions concerning the program should be directed to Rev. Peggy Owens, 502-561-8300 or owens987@bellsouth.net.


*Candidates for Commissioned Lay Pastors will attend additional small group coaching sessions and work closely with a pastor- mentor. Extra reading and written assignments will be required, along with psychological/vocational assessment and a final examination. The CLP component will be administered by the COM (or CPM?), which will have the responsibility of determining the fitness for commissioning. Participation in the program does not guarantee one a call to commissioned ministry.
For more information on CLP’s see Book of Order reference G-14.0800 or call the Presbytery office.

The Error of Church Unity

At the end of the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted in the New York Times (August 4, 2008) as saying he was hopeful the expected covenant would help avoid schism. If he is quoted correctly, he said that everyone would be moving along "in step" and the church would be acting more like a church.

That hit me right in the old ecclesiology! That might have worked in the earlier generations, but the church in the 21st century cannot flourish in a a lock-step unity. It's the same error being promoted in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Church leaders continue to hold out for unity as a primary value. The Presbyterians require a vow that church leaders will "further the peace, unity and purity of the church." I believe all three of those are off the mark as primary values. This post will deal with "unity."

I take my cues in this matter from an article by Arthur Dewey of Xavier University, "Ecclesial Techtonics" presented to the Westar Institute's National Jesus Seminar in 2004. In Section 11.7, Dewey writes:

• The sense of eccelesial unity ("one" [in the formula "one holy, catholic and apostolic church"]) can no longer be understood as a monolithic adherence to a propositional confession, nor reduced to a litmus test. The reality of human experience brings us to the recognition that unity is discovered in diversity, brought about by genuine human relations. Dialogue not dictate characterizes such unity in diversity. The hierarchical, pyramid of power collapses as a structural principle for church. This sense of inclusive unity agrees with the vision of the historical Jesus who trusted in a God that benefited good and evil, just and unjust. Paul also intimates this unity in the diversity through his understanding of the gifts of the Spirit to the community.

If we can have unity that promotes diversity (as illustrated in the table fellowship of Jesus), that celebrates difference, that allows freedom of choice in belief and practice, then I'm for unity. If unity is created through power, domination, coercion or force, or even through financial obligations, then I'm against it. If we have to sacrifice diversity for the sake of unity, unity has become an error. The church in the 21st century needs to focus on diversity and freedom over unity and purity.

And of course I value your opinion ESPECIALLY if you disagree with me--diversity, you know.

Adult Learning and Experiential Learning

Wedding something old, from way back in the middle of the 20th Century to something new--current brain research informing leadership theory and practice , Roy Oswald, following his 30 year luminous career at the Alban Institute, has created a Center for EQ-HR Skills. He brought his new creation to Louisville Seminary last week in a high energy, intensive week-long laboratory http://www.lpts.edu/Academic_Programs/Emotional_Intelligence_08.asp. Thirty two judicatory executives, ministers and students participated in a ground-breaking event, new to virtually all of them.

The "T-Group" ('T" for training) was created in the 1940's and flourished through the 1960's as a premier way of enhancing the interpersonal and group effectiveness of leaders in many fields. Kurt Lewin, shown here from NNBD.org, was the pioneer who discovered the power of open and unstructured interaction in small groups as a learning technique. We call it experiential eduction, by which we learn by doing first, then reflecting on the experience and then practicing what we've learned in the group. it is designed for adult learners who assume full responsibility for their actions and their learning in the group setting. The National Training Laboratories in Bethel Maine was established to promote this method (www.ntl.org). Due to a variety of historical factors, the T-group method faded away in the latter third of the 20th century, but it has been receiving new energy among a group of former leaders in the movement, crystallizing around Oswald's new venture.

Oswald's genius brought him to the conclusion that he could best teach the new brain-discoveries in multiple intelligences, particularly emotional and social intelligence, through the experiential t-group method. I am pleased that Louisville Seminary could be a part of this new movement at Roy's invitation. I myself participated in T-groups in the 60's and 70's, learning to learn and learning to lead such groups with my mentor Burney Overton and others, so Roy invited me to dust off my group skills and become a co-leader for one of the small groups. Four other experienced and skilled and wise facilitators were imported for the event, all veterans of the Mid Atlantic Training Committee, a church based training program from that same era.

I discovered I still could do it. Moreover, I discovered how much of my core educational philosophy is still shaped by the theory behind t-groups. The job of the educator is to provide a safe environment for a group to form and cohere, and offer particular insights and suggestions for ways the group could practice their inter-personal and intra-group skills. I believe that the spark of creativity is in each one of us, and that we long to be transformed by our experiences into the people God longs for us to become. I have seen many times how receiving information from trusted group members about how one is perceived (often called "feedback") can create a learning loop to re-adjusting my self-understanding, and then putting new ways of functioning into practice in the group for further feedback.

I have a diminishing commitment to the "banking method" of education by which a student arrives empty at the "school" and the teacher deposits into the student the knowledge needed or sought, which the student can withdraw later as needed. Yes, some learning needs to be rote memorization and gathering basic knowledge, but the really valuable knowledge, the practical wisdom, is gained by experience, reflection, action and further reflection. We still have a long way to go, however, in preparing ministers for church leadership in the 21st century to provide them with the opportunities to experience and practice the wisdom they'll need.