I traveled
with the young adult intern in our office this summer to speak at an
end-of-the-unofficial-church-year dinner this week. Everything was wonderfully traditional and
comfortable in every sense of being Methodist:
great people, food, singing, and prayer all in the cozy basement
fellowship hall. When the hymnals were
passed out, my intern made the statement that they looked like the “Methodist
Hymnal” in the pew racks at his home church, but they were much older. Since I’m always curious about the variety of
hymnals we have in our pew racks – from the original “Cokesbury” to none, I
questioned him with “Do you have the ‘Methodist Hymnal’ or the ‘United
Methodist Hymnal’?” He responded back
with a statement that led to a little history lesson about how we became
“United” on our way back home.
I’m in that
unique category of having been baptized into the Methodist Church and confirmed
as a member of The United Methodist Church.
I don’t remember much about that historic union of the Methodists and Evangelical
United Brethren except for replacing the hymnal. You can see where my interest was at the time
– singing, not church polity. Believe
me, I could belt out “When We All Get to Heaven” which was our first song the
other night, but it was totally unfamiliar to the young adult sitting beside
me.
It was the spring
of 1972 when I became a member of The UMC.
Some of what was happening then seems strangely familiar to events
around our world today….
·
In
early 1972, OPEC as the history books state, began to “assert power and raise
prices in response to the falling US dollar.”
Gas was at its highest price ever - about $.35/gallon. That would have gotten me about a tenth of a
gallon when I filled up my tank yesterday.
·
Hewlett
Packard introduced the first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) for $395. Now,
just what will that 16 GB iPad Mini do for $329 if I go buy it this afternoon?
·
Hank
Aaron received Major League Baseball’s highest contract – signing for $200,000
a year. None of you Yankee fans can respond, but is A-Rod who has been in the
news again this week for his off the field actions and isn’t even playing right
now really worth $27,500,000 this
year?
·
North
Vietnamese troops entered South Vietnam. The
news tonight will probably mention the Korean Peninsula, Nigeria, Afghanistan,
and Syria.
·
The
USA, USSR, and 70 other nations agreed to ban biological weapons. I just got 7,730,000
results when I googled “biological weapons.”
And in 1972, who would have imagined I would be using “googled” as a
verb.
Sadly, our
world is facing the same turmoil in many ways today that it did in 1972. Sadder still: many of the leaders in our
churches are trying to lead in the same way, under the same organizational
structures, with the same tools that we had in 1972. But the world has changed.
I am
extremely grateful for all those who gave leadership to The Methodist and the
Evangelical United Brethren Churches when a new denomination was birthed at the
General Conference in Dallas on April 23, 1968 with the words, “Lord the
Church, we are united in Thee, in Thy Church, and now The United Methodist
Church.” I am even more grateful to all
those lay and clergy leaders in our local churches who realize there is much to
learn about how we become vital congregations in today’s world, how we support
the disciples in our midst and how we nurture those who will decide to become
followers of Jesus Christ because of what they see in us. I want us all to become the leaders who can
sing “When We All Get to Heaven” with our hearts warmed by the memories of
great times of growth and prosperity in our churches but recognize that we have
much to learn about the songs that will touch new believers.
Whether you
call it authentic, adaptive, or transformative leadership, we need leaders who
are mission-driven (…to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation
of the world), willing to take risks and ask hard questions, committed to
mentoring new leaders, and always open to new possibilities. Travis
Bradberry, one of the authors of the book, Leadership 2.0, states that: “The moment leaders think they have nothing
more to learn and have no obligation to help develop those they lead is the
moment they ensure they’ll never know their true potential.” (11/09/2012
article for Forbes Magazine: http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2012/11/09/leadership-2-0-are-you-an-adaptive-leader/
)
May
the Holy Spirit equip us to know our true potential – as individuals, as church
leaders, as world-changing disciples.
FYI:
If you need a musical reminder of adaptive leadership, you might like to view
the YouTube video of pianist Anthony Burger playing “When We All Get to Heaven”
in a variety of different styles. Burger died at age 44 in February, 2006. Who
knows….if Burger was still with us, he might even add a hip-hop or electronic
style to the options. Are we willing to
stretch our styles? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUzfaOIr7rE
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