About a dozen years ago I started reading books about fresh ways to understand the identity of the church. Reading thinkers such as Darrell Guder, Lesslie Newbigin, and Alan Hirsch convinced me of the church's need for a fresh expression of the gospel in Western culture. I helped start a few ministries in communities that had little exposure to Christianity and had seen God do some incredible things. But through my experiences and my reading, I became that annoying 20-something leader who believes the church is overdue for radical change, and that he is just the guy to lead it.
Skeptical that "traditional" churches could make the kind of changes I longed to see, I gravitated toward church planting. The only way to see radical change, I believed, was to start fresh.
When we started Mill City Church in Northeast Minneapolis, we used all the language you might expect from young leaders out to change the church. We were about serving, not Sundays; we were about people, not programs; we were about being present rather than performing. I still believe many of these correctives are needed correctives, and I'm proud of the team that took the leap to start a church based on some fresh thinking.
To help lead change in the church, I needed to be aware of the expectations people had of me as a leader.
It wasn't long, though, before the realities of leadership started to sink in. As more people joined our community, more organization became a necessity. When we began to worship together regularly on Sundays, all sorts of decisions had to be made about how we would do things in a way that would honor our convictions. When people from our neighborhood started to join us, they brought their own expectations from a diversity of spiritual backgrounds.
Unavoidable Expectations
Though we were a new church, we all came with certain expectations about what a church should be and how it should be led. We were discovering what any seasoned pastor knows: regardless of what sort of church you lead, people have expectations for you as a leader. And the fact that we were overturning some traditional ways of doing church only compounded the problem. During that time a central question for me became, How do I manage people's expectations while leading them in new ways of being the church?
I was beginning to realize that it's not enough to have a compelling vision for your community. To help lead change in the church, I needed to be aware of the expectations people had of me as a leader. Some of these expectations weren't fair, but that doesn't mean I could ignore them. Leading change in the church demanded I learn to manage people's expectations.
Change is Hard
Change is hard for everyone, and when we ask people to try new things and take risks they need to be able to depend on other parts of their life remaining stable and predictable. This means being intentional about how and when we challenge people's expectations. Or, to quote leadership writers Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, "exercising leadership might be understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb." The same principle applies in ministry. Leading change in the church requires we learn how to fail people's expectations at a rate they can stand.
I've realized how important it is to meet some of the expectations of those you lead. Meeting common expectations people have doesn't mean you are selling out on the changes you believe need to happen. It turns out Sunday is not the enemy of serving, and programs/organization can help foster real relational community.
Leading people in new directions means disappointing them in some ways.
Much of what people come to expect from a church is a necessary part of a healthy community. Providing environments where people can participate in worship, where their kids can gain an understanding of the love God has for them in Jesus, and where people develop meaningful friendships that help them pursue God in their life are all reasonable expectations for any church community. Investing in people personally by sharing your life with them and modeling a way of following Jesus helps people trust the leaders of their church community. Meeting some of these expectations as a leader is what affords you the opportunity to fail other expectations at a rate people can stand.
Change Comes Slowly
I remember sitting in a coffee shop with a close friend who had been integral in helping our church get started. He had given so much of his time and energy to serving, forming groups, and meeting needs in our community. As we sat together, he expressed disappointment with how absent I had been in his life over the past several years. He felt I had failed to care for him and his family as their pastor. It was heart wrenching and frustrating. I felt defensive, thinking of all the reasons why I couldn't possibly live up to his expectations. But in the end, I knew there was a significant element of truth to what he was telling me; I hadn't served him well as a pastor. I had been so focused on the demands of starting a new church that I had lost sight of him as a person. This was hard to admit.
You probably have similar stories about how you have disappointed people you have led. I think it is inevitable that we will disappoint people as leaders, despite our best efforts. But there's a different kind of disappointment. Sometimes you have to make decisions not to meet known expectations people have because you know that meeting those expectations is not going to lead your people where God wants them to go. Leading people in new directions means disappointing them in some ways. But you have to disappoint people at a rate they can stand, so that they can accept the changes God wants to introduce into your life as a community.
Just a couple years into our life as a new church community, I started to realize that the structure of our church's life (Sunday worship, small group, service projects) did not fit our vision of helping people participate in God's mission in their local neighborhood. I realized someone could be coming to worship, going to small group, and serving at the food shelf or school without necessarily having to engage with anyone from Northeast Minneapolis that wasn't already a part of our church. It became clear we needed a different structure for the life of our church if we were really going to equip people to "love our community in the name of Jesus."
We began to explore the idea of creating "missional communities," groups of 20-40 people who would see themselves primarily as missionaries to a particular neighborhood or group of people. This model seemed to create an environment where engaging with people outside our church was not optional but a necessary part of participating in the life of the group.
There was just one problem. We had a lot of people participating in small groups. We decided that killing our small groups and asking everyone to form missional communities would have been too drastic of a change. Instead we piloted one missional community and discipled leaders who could help lead future missional communities, while still supporting small groups. People sensed the change and there was some resistance to it, but the disappointment came at a reasonable rate. We spent two years in this experimental phase before we were ready to offer more people the opportunity to participate in these missional communities. Those two years felt like an eternity, especially for a young church. But it was really a relatively short period of time to make such a significant change. And because we advanced at a slower pace, we were able to make the transition without minimal disappointment and resistance.
On the other hand, there have been times when we have intentionally failed to meet some expectations people have had of our church. We try not to create any ministry that already exists in our local area, encouraging people to join the work of non-profits and other churches who are already doing work our people want to be involved in. When you come to worship on a Sunday morning, you aren't sure who you will be preaching because we have about five speakers who share the preaching ministry. This is unsettling to many people, but reinforces our conviction that hearing from multiple and diverse voices is important for the maturity of the church. We meet on Sunday's in a public school, like many new churches. Despite the expectation of many that we will move into a worship space we own, we have decided to stay in the school for as long as we can because of the relationship it fosters between the church community and the school. This means forfeiting the comforts of our own space for the sake of relationship.
Jesus constantly failed the expectations of those he led. Almost everyone Jesus encountered had some set of expectations for him as a healer, a leader, a savior, a revolutionary, and as the Messiah. In fact, it was rare for Jesus to leave a group of people where he did not disappoint someone's expectations of him. Whether it was the rich young ruler who wanted Jesus to affirm that he was doing the right things with his life and his wealth, or religious leaders who wanted Jesus to affirm their authority, Jesus regularly failed their expectations. Occasionally, we get glimpses of times when Jesus wonders if he has pushed the envelope so far that even his closest followers might desert him. After one incredibly challenging teaching moment recorded in John 6, Jesus asks the twelve disciples, "You do not want to leave too, do you?"
Despite the clear challenge that Jesus presented to the established order of his day, he also attended to the needs of those he was leading and investing in. He regularly took time to explain to his closest disciples the meaning of some of his parables and teachings. He spent time away from the crowds with them, modeling and teaching a rhythm of rest and prayer. He gave them space to ask questions and enjoy their friendship with him. In these ways, he met some the expectations they had of him as their Rabbi and Lord. Because he met these expectations, he could fail other expectations at a rate the disciples could stand.
What are the expectations people have of leaders in your church? Which of these expectations should you strive to meet? Which expectations should you learn to fail at a rate people can accept?
Looking back on the last 10 years of ministry, I see growth from my "blow it up and start over" phase. I'm still passionate about the need for the church in North America to embrace a missionary identity in our increasingly post-Christian context. But I'm realizing that the way God is leading us into that future is through a combination of meeting our needs for affirmation and presence while at the same time challenging us to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit into some unfamiliar places. This requires us as leaders to both meet and fail the expectations of those we lead.
Maybe just as important as learning to manage the expectations of others, is learning to manage the expectations you have of yourself. There have been many ways I've failed what I hoped to accomplish as a leader. There are many times when I have failed to remember that Jesus is the primary actor in leading the church, not me. Part of leading well is learning to fail my own expectations at a rate I can stand, and receiving God's grace in the same way I try and teach others to do.
Michael Binder is co-pastor of Mill City Church in Northeast Minneapolis.
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