Bob Dale, assistant executive director of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and director of the Ray and Ann Spence Network for Congregational Leadership, is author of the recently-published Seeds for the Future: Growing Organic Leaders for Living Churches, available at www.lakehickoryresources.com. John Chandler, team leader of the Mission Board's courageous churches team, recently interviewed Dale.
John Chandler: Bob, you begin your book by saying, “I was wrong. Dead wrong. But I've repented and tried to start over again.” What were you wrong about?
Bob Dale: That statement refers to the old mechanical mindset that we were all born, bred and steeped in because of the Industrial Revolution. We have now, for about 400 years, really leaned on mechanical models and approaches to all kinds of things, including leadership. And I grew up in that. I started college in engineering school; I was going to become an Air Force jet pilot. But as time has gone along, I am more aware of those mechanical mindsets, and by becoming more aware of them, realized that a lot of the biblical imagery about living things had been lost. The key living thing that had been lost was a practical living out of the idea that the church of Jesus Christ is alive.
When I was really hit with that a few years back, I found that there were two sources of challenge that were critical to me. One was the New Testament challenge of images of the church, and the fact that they are about bodies and flocks and vines and all kinds of living things. The other stream was the more contemporary, postmodern points of view that are really, in some ways, reactions to the mechanical mindsets. The first line out of the book was about that.
Chandler: Your experience of studying the Bible and studying the waning of a high-modern culture led you to be dissatisfied with an “engineering” form of leadership.
Dale:Those things, plus the observation of how many times a “mechanical” leader breaks churches. If you treat churches like machines that can be started, stopped, tuned and turned, it sometimes creates a situation where a living thing gets bruised or broken.
Chandler: Would you say that mechanical leadership may not only contribute to the breaking of a church, but also the breaking of a leader?
Dale: I think it does work both ways. There is a contrast between what I call “pry and push” leadership and “sow and grow” leadership. “Pry and push” builds on scientific images of the Industrial Revolution. When the Industrial Age began, “pry” levers were in the mainstream, and by the time that age started to wane, hydraulics (“push”) was emerging. When you look at behavioral and management sciences and the changing of leadership theory, you see all of those mechanical images in the background. But when you begin to think of the church as a living thing, you are hard-pressed to use “pry and push” with a good conscience.
Chandler: What are the key leadership competencies of an organic, “sow and grow” church leader?
Dale: I think one of them is a good eye toward what God did in creation. If you look at the way nature changes itself, you get some good change theories. If you look at the way nature structures itself, you get good organizational pointers. There's a secular book called Biomimicry. The primary point is that leaders ought to mimic creation-ought to look at life and be mentored by what you see there. I think that's a key competency. Another is a passion for planting and growing. That begins with the leader being a growing person. But the passion to plant things, cultivate them, and move them toward harvest-to look at life seasonally-is another key competency.
Chandler:You talk about “courage” at many places in the book. Would “courage” be the willingness to plant, to break new ground and to cultivate new fields?
Dale: Yes. Several years ago, my wife, Carrie, gave me a bonsai kit for Christmas. It amounted to a half-dozen seeds with directions about how to plant and germinate. You put them on a moistened paper towel in a refrigerator and wait about a week. Then you plant the ones that sprout. It was really instructive that of the six seeds, only two sprouted. Of the two that I put in the ground, only one survived. It pushed me to think about how many seeds God plants in order to get a result. I've really taken that to heart. I encourage people not to put all their eggs in one basket and risk everything on one program. To plant broadly and see what God germinates. And then take care of those fragile plants until they can reproduce and yield something.
Chandler: So courage for some leaders might mean the willingness to plant some seeds that probably aren't going to make it-and the willingness to live with that risk.
Dale: Yeah! I think Christians are research and development specialists at points. Being faithful means we are risk-takers. One point I make about courage in the book: for years, I was one of those people who preached, “Vision, vision, vision!” As critical as vision is, I realized that there were way too many churches that were clear about what they wanted or needed to do, but didn't have the will or nerve to risk doing it. That made me take a long look at the element of “courage” in leadership: the willingness to risk.
Chandler: Courage is the will to see your obedience match your information or vision.
Dale: Yes, yes.
Chandler: How have you grown into a more organic leader?
Dale: Well, I've had the good fortune to think about leadership issues full-time for almost a third of a century. When I started, nearly all of my models were business models or military models; that was my background. I realized that those models didn't fit or work well in a volunteer organization like a local congregation. But I still tried them. I still worked that way.
I guess an emphasis on planting, on growing, on maturing, on patience-which is what you often see in creation-I've tried to deepen all of those. I've also gained a new appreciation from the plant world of perennials. The gardening I had done typically was annuals. I went to the plant store, planted in the spring, and then watch them die off in the fall. I'm much more interested now in things that live on into multiple season.
Courage plays out when you're not looking for short-term gains but long-term, ongoing, season-after-season transformation.
Chandler:With at least a half-dozen cultures in Virginia and in Virginia Baptist life, I can imagine this thinking resonating in more rural areas. How will these models of organic models of leadership connect with Virginia Baptists who are not in rural settings?
Dale: I think you've drawn a good contrast. We do have, especially in our urban areas, a large contingent of government and military people. In those settings, you typically get high structure. But even in those cultures, the number one hobby for people is gardening-trying to grow things. And my suspicion is that when people begin to take organic leadership seriously, they'll realize that they already know how to do it, because they've raised children, taken care of pets, nurtured friendship, watched parents and older people age.
So we have all kinds of ways we've plugged into the more organic approach. I do think that some folk in rural or farming areas may have a little easier time of it, because their culture may not have been quite as mechanized. But I doubt that there's a huge difference there. On the radio, I recently heard of Illinois farmers watching weather patterns in Argentina to see how it would affect the markets for their wheat. So I think there's a sense in which technology has really shrunk our world.
My guess is that where people will struggle with the organic mindset is just getting clear about how completely most of us have been shaped by the mechanical mindset.
Chandler: So if you want to become a more organic leader, then buy a pet, have a child, plant a garden-get a life!
Dale: Anything to become more aware of living things. Children and grandchildren, pets and plants-you begin to realize how everything is alive.
Special to the Herald