Tag: Henri Nouwen

Christian Leadership & Hope Amidst Choas

A brief reflection on the difficulty of Christian leadership, of sustaining hope while caught up in the chaotic whirlwinds of life these days, inspired by the life and writings of Henri Nouwen, who writes: a Christian leader is a man of hope amidst chaos, a woman whose strength in the final analysis is based neither on self-confidence derived from his personality nor on her specific expectations for the future, but on a promise given by Christ Jesus.

Indeed the paradox of Christian leadership is that the way out is the way in, that only by entering into communion with the suffering Christ and the chaos of hurting humanity in your midst, can hope and any sense of relief be found.

adapted from Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, p77

In the YMCA, in the church, in the community, there is a great need for leaders who can sustain hope, goodness and solidarity amidst the upheavals, violence and even abuse throughout the world.

But it gets tiring, there is too much information to process, too many people to help, too much complexity and ambiguity in each situation. How to do what is right, how to make a difference for the better, how to help heal when so much is uncertain, shaky and even dark?

Henri Nouwen’s little book The Wounded Healer, is a continual fount of wisdom and encouragement in these difficult days of leading and serving.

May these quotes from his chapter on “Ministry To A Hopeless Man: Waiting For Tomorrow” provide some needed perspective on how to be a Christian leader of hope amidst chaos.

For hope makes it possible to look beyond the fulfillment of urgent wishes and pressing desires and offers a vision beyond human suffering and death.

Nouwen, Wounded Healer, 76

A Christian leader is a man of hope amidst chaos, a woman whose strength in the final analysis is based neither on self-confidence derived from his personality nor on her specific expectations for the future, but on a promise given by Christ Jesus.

This promise not only made Abraham travel to unknown territory; it not only inspired Moses to lead his people out of slavery; it is also the guiding motive for any Christian who keeps leading in hope towards new life even in the face of chaos, corruption and death

adapted from Nouwen, Wounded Healer, 76

Leadership is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light in the other side of darkness.

Nouwen, Wounded Healer, 76

Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership.

Many ministers, priests, and Christian workers have become disillusioned, bitter, and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished.

Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts.

Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter the unknown and fearful territory.

It is an act of discipleship in which we follow the hard road of Christ, who enters death with nothing but bare hop.

Nouwen, Wounded Healer, 76-77

…it has become clear that Christian leadership is accomplished only through service.

This service requires the willingness to enter into a situation, with all the human vulnerabilities a human has to share with one another.

This is a painful and self-denying experience, but an experience which can lead a woman out of her prison of confusion, a man from his chains of fear.

adapted from Nouwen, Wounded Healer, 77

For me, in navigating changes in my home, the constant changes in my work, the turmoil of our culture and violence throughout the nation and world, it is easy to despair, to give in to the belief that it is all cause and effect, that the forces out there are too powerful, there is not much we can do about “it” and we are just pawns, and that we are only standing in shifting sand when we try to make a difference for the better.

These quotes of Nouwen are timely, disturbing, and refreshing- it may not alter the reality “out there” but I am encouraged in my spirit, to trust in the presence of the suffering and strong Christ, who is with me, with us, and at work to restore and reconcile all things, in his time and way.

In whatever way I am called to lead, care and serve, I am striving to be attuned to Christ’s brilliant, persevering, and merciful work in the world he loves and holds together.

This is a way my hope as a Christian leader is sustained amidst the suffering and chaos within and around me.

YMCA & Wounded Healers: a meditation on the weekend of Father’s Day, Juneteenth and World Refugee Day

As Christ Jesus is a wounded healer to you, may you in your leadership and ministry be a wounded healer to those the Lord has brought into your life. May this weekend of Father’s Day, Juneteenth, and World Refugee Day be one of grace, truth and peace.

A wonderful legacy of the YMCA is it’s participation in supporting the creation of Father’s Day, a way to build up the family and the young men they serve.

Through the work of the brilliant Rev. Anthony Bowen, a freed slave, he founded a YMCA in Washington D.C. in 1853, a work which became crucial to creating a safe space for young black men to become fathers of liberation, justice and peace.

Since the founding of the YMCA in London England, 1844 refugees have been a core of our mission, as it still is today across the world, as you can see from this 2021 conference.

As a minister who is a father, and whose father was a minister, Father’s Day is a time when I reflect on ministers and fathers in my life and the difficulties they endure, their hopes and aspirations, their flaws and failures.

The YMCA has been built up by ministers and fathers – Rev. Anthony Bowen, Marine Missionary Thomas Sullivan, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Ecumenical Leader John Mott, and many, many more.

Being a minister and father now with the YMCA, amidst the chaos and turmoil of our generation, I found the writings of the priest Henri Nouwen to be particularly poignant, especially as it relates to being a Christian minister and leader in our culture still struggling towards racial equity and welcoming refugees.

This morning I was re-reading parts of the classic meditation by Nouwen called The Wounded Healer. The last chapter is called “Ministry By A Lonely Minister”; brilliant, compassionate, prophetic, honest reflections that resonate with me in my work in the world, my community and the Y.

For you, as you strive to do your part to lead, love, care and serve (minister) in the Y and our hurting world, may Nouwen be an encouraging guide, especially this weekend as we remember our fathers, our emancipated neighbors, and refugees searching for a welcoming home.

We live in a society in which loneliness has become one of the most painful human wounds.

The growing competition and rivalry which pervade our lives from birth have created in us an acute awareness of our isolation.

This awareness has in turn left many with a heightened anxiety and an intense search for the experience of unity and community.

It has also led people to ask anew how love, friendship, brotherhood and sisterhood can free them from isolation and offer them a sense of intimacy and belonging.

…the more I think about loneliness, the more I think the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon – a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.

Therefore, I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects it and cherishes it as a precious gift.

Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness, and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief.

But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence.

The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for him who can tolerate its sweet pain.

When we are impatient, when we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, too soon, we easily relate to our human world with devastating expectations.

We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge – that no love, no friendship, not intimate embrace or tender kiss, not community, commune or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely conditions.

When the minister lives with these false expectations and illusions he prevents himself from claiming his own loneliness as a source of human understanding and is unable to offer any real service to the many who do not understand their own suffering.

Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, pgs 83-85

The wound of our loneliness is indeed deep. Maybe we had forgotten it, since there are many distractions.

But our failure to change the world with our good intentions and sincere actions and our undesired displacement to the edges of life have made us aware that the wound is still there.

…a deep understanding of his own pain makes it possible for him to convert his weakness into strength and to offer his own experience as a source of healing to those who are often lost in the darkness of their own misunderstood sufferings.

This is a very hard call, because for a minister who is committed to forming a community of faith, loneliness is a very painful wound which is easily subject to denial and neglect.

But once the pain is accepted and understood, a denial is no longer necessary, and ministry can become a healing service.

Making one’s own wounds a source of healing…does not call for a sharing of superficial personal pains but for a constant willingness to see one’s own pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share.

A Christian community is therefore a healing community, not because wounds are cured and pains alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision.

Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weaknesses becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength.

When loneliness is among the chief wounds of the minister, hospitality can convert that wound into a source of healing.

Concentration prevents the minister from burdening others with his pain and allows him to accept his wounds as helpful teachers of his own and his neighbors condition.

Community arises where the sharing of pain takes place, not as a stifling form of self-complaint, but as a recognition of God’s saving promises.

Thus, ministry can indeed be a witness to the living truth that the wound, which causes us to suffer now, will be revealed to us later as the place where God intimated his new creation.

Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, pgs 87-96
Selfie with Father Joseph and the infant Jesus with his mother, remembering the message of new creation of liberation and emancipation God the Father would bring through the Son; the Holy Family would soon be refugees in Egypt escaping state-sanctioned infanticide.

As Christ Jesus is a wounded healer to you, may you in your leadership and ministry be a wounded healer to those the Lord has brought into your life.

May this weekend of Father’s Day, Juneteenth, and World Refugee Day be one of grace, truth and peace.

Leadership = Relationships + Credibility

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state! Especially with all of those hills! I spent the last two days in the Harrisburg area to teach a Leadership & Management class with Evangelical Seminary as an adjunct professor.

It’s an innovative 14 week online class with a week-long residency in the middle, crafted and implemented by a team of two lead professors and four contributing professors. It brings together practical experience, professional reflection, and focused academic instruction. I’m glad to be part of the team!

I just wish I would have more time to hike those hills after class on Tuesday!

My portion with the students was to take the last four hours of the class and help them synthesize what they’ve been learning to integrate into their current leadership and management situations. We reviewed some great literature, which I will list below. Each student is in an interesting leadership opportunity, as are most people working with a team to get things done!

Here are a few takeaways I have from the time with students and this class, leadership reflections that will help me grow as a leader, and hopefully you as well.

  • Leadership and management at its best matures relationships while increasing credibility. Credibility is tied to – will you do what you say you will do, and will you do it well and in such a way that we are better off as a people for having done it?
  • Leadership is required because of the constant changes we experience in our culture, communities, and workplaces.
  • Leadership is more than just problem-solving in reaction to big and small changes, it’s helping people manage the transitions required to adapt and thrive amidst the change.
  • Change implies loss, and loss must be acknowledged, empathized with, and honored. Grief of some form accompanies most change and transitions we face in life -whether in our business or homes. Leaders care for their people amidst change by helping them through their loss and transitions.
  • People don’t like endings. We like the status quo. And we are nervous about new beginnings. Remember that if you are a leader.
  • Many people don’t want to be a leader. Reluctant leaders are often the best kind, though! Connect them to a passion, empower them to act on a desire they have that will bring about a positive change, and support them as they grow as a leader!
  • Leading is first about action, eventually it is about position. The credibility of the position is fundamentally tied to the quality of the action. And it is ultimately connected to the use of power to help people grow  – so don’t advantage of them! Never use your position to enrich yourself at the expense of others.
  • Beware leaders who are always seeking to be relevant, famous, and powerful. Instead support leaders who listen well, care for people, and help you get important stuff done for others.
  • The strength of a leader is their weakness. Most of our limps as a leader come from our success. What works well in one moment, may not be the wisest course in the next. As circumstances change, what is needed from us changes – sometimes our strength is exactly what this crisis needs, and other times our strength is the worst thing. That should keep leaders humble!
  • Christian leaders ground their identity and mission in Christ Jesus. Through the powerful love of God they wisely work to mature relationships and increase credibility to further God’s mission in the world – which is for the restoration of all creation and the arrival of the kingdom of peace.
  • We ought to lead others in the way Christ leads us: humbly, mercifully, and justly – for the means produce the ends we desire.

What you have learned along the way about leadership and management? What would your advice be to students?

 

Here are some of the resources we used that I highly recommend for you:

Henri Nouwen: In the Name of Jesus – Reflections on Christian Leadership by a brilliant Harvard educator and Catholic priest who retired to serve at L’Arche Community.

William Bridges: Managing Transitions – Making the Most of Change is a fascinating read on helping people deal with the loss that comes from change and transition. A very personal, applicable guide for business, non-profit, government, church and community leaders.

Action Trumps Everything helps over-analyzers like me get to work in smart experiments to create new opportunities and keep learning and moving forward when change is constant.

Dan Allender in Leading with a Limp – Turning Your Struggles into Strengths provides a unique and provocative insight into the souls of leaders, our complexity, the chaos we lead in, and the darkness that can emerge if we don’t learn to lead with our limp.

The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk gives intense practical ways forward for congregations seeking to thrive amidst discontinuous change. It brings together the latest in philosophy, theology, business, and other disciplines to help leaders deal with reality and join God in his mission.

One of the best overviews on leadership in the United States, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner is easy to read, easy to integrate, grounded in practical research, and loaded with great examples. It shaped me twenty years ago, and I want it to affect the next forty.