I've not felt the greatest today, so, I decided to spend the bulk of the day reading through the many pages of material that we are supposed to have read before our January gathering of our Advanced Foundations of Church Leadership Cohort group in California. The first thing I finished was a book called "Leadership for a Changing Church: Charting the Shape of the River" by Robert Dale.
Near the end of the book, Dale says something that caught my attention..."When any church feels it has arrived, it takes on an establishment mind-set. The "establishment church" is convinced that it has a heritage worth protecting and invests more emotionally in the past than in the future. Since the church is, by definition a conserving institution, it's too easy and too natural for congregations to adopt a backward direction. But preserving and conserving aren't the same as serving. "Establishment churches" subtly shift our energy from leading the movement to tending the monument - a risky, if not deadly stewardship of energy. The tragic risk in protecting our past is that we may, in the process forfeit our future."
I realize that as we move farther and farther away from the initial purchase of our building, we are slipping more and more into this reality. Fighting the established church mentality is hard. Not quite sure how to break out of it either. I don't think it must be a given either.
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