Part One: What you didn't learn in seminary—and why it matters

By Jim Osterhaus

Editor's Note: The is the first part of a two-part series.

Seminaries in every religious tradition operate across this country and across the globe. Their stated objective is to raise up men and women who can effectively move forward those respective traditions while ministering to the needs – both spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical – of the audiences to whom they have been called.

Over the centuries, seminaries have crafted curricula that religious organizational leaders have judged to contain the essential elements for effective ministry – theology, hermeneutics, homiletics. More recently, courses in human psychology, counseling, culture, and organizational processes have crept into syllabuses to round out a core preparation. Even more recently, seminaries have begun to offer courses in leadership.

And yet, as I coach ministers across this country and across the traditional spectrum, I hear again and again the complaint that these pastors have been ill-prepared to face the realities that day-to-day ministering. And this inadequacy often appears when the newly minted minister first sits down in the church board meeting (whether it be elder, session, vestry, council, or what have you). Often the fearful thought emerges, I’m the leader. What do I do now? What’s important? What’s not? This is intensified the moment conflict begins to develop. And panic often ensues when that conflict devolves on the pastor.

David Gortner, the director of the doctor of ministry program at Virginia Theological Seminary, conducted a 15 year study of students transitioning from students to pastors. He writes: "I have found a consistent pattern among Episcopal clergy of what my colleagues and I call “talented but tenuous”: highly creative people nonetheless lacking in self-confidence and decisiveness, who can come up with wonderful ideas but have neither the skill nor the will (nor feel the permission) to help communities bring ideas to fruition. They are kind, dedicated, and full of ideal visions of what the church could be; but they are also conflict-averse, uncertain how to manage their own anxiety, and unclear about the nature of human systems and organizations."

Added to this is the fact that the vast majority of Christian churches focus ministry on the pastor rather than the community. This sets up the church in the consumer mentality, where congregants come to be ‘entertained,’ and when they feel they can get more entertainment in some over venue, they merely pull up stakes and move on the next venue. The pastor turns into an overworked functionary who bounces from one meeting to another because, “It doesn’t count if you’re not there.”

So let’s consider several lessons that should be essential to any seminary curriculum, but will undoubtedly be absent in the near future.

Lessons

Leadership isn’t a noun, it’s a verb. It’s not a person, it’s an activity. When people talk about “born leaders,” they are typically describing a particular style of leadership that takes on a command and control character. People feel most comfortable when a strong leader of this genre steps up and takes responsibility to lead people in some prescribed direction. These leaders clarify direction and are good at mobilizing people to move in that clarified direction. This activity of leadership, what we often describe as true leadership, is merely one activity that is effective in certain situations (e.g. when there is an emergency), and horrible in other situations (when the community must take responsibility to navigate tricky transitions).

Unfortunately, all too often people in positions of leadership have only one leadership activity in their minds. This brings up the old adage, If you only have a hammer in your toolbox, everything looks like a nail. Applying the same failed activity over and over in the wrong situation will only lead to failure and disillusionment. 

Effective leaders have learned to wield several key leadership activities, depending on the demands of the situation. A very helpful book with regards to what we consider the three different activities of leadership is The Leadership Triangle. The book details the three situations demanding leadership: Tactical, Strategic, and Transformational. Each of these situations demands a different response and posture in order that the leader be effective.

Conflict is absolutely necessary to healthy church functioning, and it will always bring anxiety with it. We’re not saying that all conflict is healthy and constructive. Quite the contrary. Much of conflict is destructive. And learning the difference between healthy (Blue Zone) and unhealthy (Red Zone) conflict is critical. But understanding conflict, and how it affects and provokes issues resident within myself is key to its successful management and utilization. That brings us to the issue of self-awareness.

Your greatest resource is yourself.  You may have already scanned the above points, and said to yourself, There’s no way I can do these things, especially the one about conflict. I’m totally conflict averse, and entertaining and nurturing conflict runs completely contrary to my nature. If you thought that, you’ve taken the first step to becoming more effective, i.e. knowing yourself. At least, at this point, you have a sense of what causes anxiety for you (conflict).

Keep in mind that the threats to your ministry are not external, but internal. It is our tendency to adapt to the surrounding immaturity we find everywhere. It is this immaturity that currently permeates our culture and virtually all its institutions that is so apparent and so destructive of progress forward. In the church, it is expressed by “Feed me! Nurture me! Take responsibility for me! (What Paul addresses in the first letter he writes to the messed up church in Corinth). This kind of emotional climate can only be dissipated by clear, decisive, well-defined leadership.

Dr. Jim Osterhaus, Ph.D, is a Senior Partner with TAG Consulting. He also serves as Vice President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic and is a member of Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax, VA.