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Have You Met Your New
Director?
By John
Ashmen
Jim
Harriger from Springfield Victory Mission stopped at the AGRM office
recently. In the course of our conversation, he shared with me a
statement he had heard a speaker make to an assembly of clergy: “Five
years from now, your church will need a different pastor than the one it
currently has. You can either become that pastor or your congregation
will get a new one.”
Hearing something like that
makes traditionalists reach for the Rolaids and tug at their tightly
buttoned collars.
As we look at the faith-based
landscape, we see unprecedented changes taking place in all areas of
culture, secular as well as Christian. One has to believe that the
statement made to clergy also applies to the CEOs of ministry
organizations, including rescue missions—or maybe I should say particularly rescue
missions.
There’s a great line in Scott Rodin’s new
book (mentioned further down) that punctuates the importance of
constantly reviewing operations and generating relevant programs. Rodin
says, “This is a bad time to get good at doing old things.”
Here are just a few of the areas in which things are
rapidly changing before our eyes. The underlying issues are what demand
“new” directors step in.
Changes in public
attitude
It used to be that godly values were
embraced by all, and then they were tolerated most, and now they are
opposed outright by many. Public opinion on the things that we hold dear
is at the mercy of popular politicians, entertainers, and business
leaders who know how to manipulate news media or have mastered social
media.
Andy Bales from Union Rescue Mission (URM) in
Los Angeles just sent me a link to some of the stuff he’s
dealing with. Basically, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
(LAHSA)—a county-city joint government agency that oversees
multi-millions in federal funds for emergency shelter and
housing—apparently does not want the URM to take homeless families in
from off the street. LAHSA Executive Director Michael Arnold said the
authority wants homeless families to stay on the streets in their
communities, so the communities will become aware of their need. In
fact, LAHSA has blamed URM for adding to the homeless problem in Los
Angeles County.
Like many of you, Andy has new
issues that won’t be solved with old PR methods. He has to become that
“new” director his mission needs. (Judging by what Andy does with social
media alone, he is moving that way very
quickly.)
Changes in politics
We received good news last week that President Obama will
likely defend religious hiring. Caps on charitable deductions are
another story.
On my desk is a summary of the oral
argument Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund made two weeks ago before the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the Boise Rescue Mission.
What’s at stake is whether a homeless shelter (i.e., mission) should be
considered a residence and thus have to comply with the mandates of the
Fair Housing Act.
Yes, there have been legal hurdles
in the past that mission CEOs have had to leap, but AGRM Government
Liaison Rhett Butler will tell you that never before have the hurdles
been so high and so close together.
Bill Roscoe at
Boise Rescue Mission is having to become that “new” director who is
legally astute and politically savvy. And many of his colleagues, like
you, will have to navigate similar waters.
Changes in
evangelicalism
Marcie
Pally, who spoke at the last City Mission World Association conference,
just wrote America’s New
Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good
(Eerdmans, 2011), which will be available this fall. The publisher
writes, “Hardly a day goes by when religion is not in the news, often
associated with oppression and terrorism. In this book, Marcia Pally
rebuts this bleak and superficial view by offering the first in-depth
look at ‘new evangelicals’—those who have moved away from the Religious
Right toward a broadened focus on economic justice, environmental care,
and democracy. The far-reaching effects of this shift—in the U.S. and
abroad—ask us to reconsider religious stereotypes and refine our
political thinking.”
A lot of people don’t want to
hear about this because they think evangelicals focusing on social work
and social justice threatens the traditions that represent their faith.
But as my octogenarian friend Lloyd Mattson says, “God is perfectly
capable of taking care of himself. Might be there is light and fresh air
beyond our trusted traditions.”
I’ve always been a
proponent of reading the times and understanding where things are going.
The “new” directors of rescue missions need to know how God is changing
the hearts of many who are called by Jesus: They have repented, taken
up their crosses and headed after Him in a direction that seems to some
to be off course. “New” directors are noticing, tracking, and making
adjustments in their missions to coincide with this interesting
orthopraxy. I could name many of you who have become “new” directors in
this regard.
If we had time, we could talk about the
changes in fund raising and stewardship, emerging leaders and personnel
management, technology and communications, and on and on. If you’re not
seeing them, you might not even have five years.
As I
travel around to rescue missions, I encounter many leaders who are
quite proud that their organizations are still doing things the way they
were done back in 30s, 40s, or 50s, when the ministries were founded.
One leader told me, “Jesus doesn’t change; He’s the same yesterday,
today and forever. And I don’t see any problem with our mission
following His example.” Talk about misplaced
piety!
Indeed, the gospel message doesn’t change, but
our methods must. “New” directors know this to be
true.
I just finished teaching a Christian Leadership
Alliance webinar, attended by more than 130 organizations (with
multiple people listening in at each organization). It ended with a
question and answer session, but participants were told to email
questions to me if theirs didn’t get read during the webinar. One that I
just received and answered was this: “The director of my organization
is in his late 50s. I am one of eight [people] on his team who are under
age 35. There are several amazing opportunities we have that could
powerfully change the direction of this ministry, but [our director] is
reluctant to pursue them. He says it’s too much of a risk. I think what
he means is that it is too much of a change from what we have been doing
for so many years.”
The questioner went on to say
that he was torn between being loyal to a godly leader and seeing the
longstanding ministry marginalized, or stepping away and forming a group
of people to take advantage of the opportunities and make a significant
impact in the local population. (If you want to know what I told him,
send me an email.)
His is an organization that needs a
“new” director. I’m not saying it needs a new person…unless the one in
charge is unable or unwilling to read the culture and adjust to today.
A roster of the people joining David’s army can be
found in 1 Chronicles 12. Verse 32 lists one band and adds an
interesting descriptor that the others did not get. It says: “From the
tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their
relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the
best course for Israel to take” (NLT). They were “new”
leaders.
Have you met your new director yet? Is he or
she you?
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