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Can You Rehearse for Church Leadership?
Leadership at church is like a live performance. Like performers, whether musical or theatrical, leaders can prepare and rehearse. But at the performance, we have to show up and live into the moment of performing as best we can. We can’t pause, rewind or edit our performance. We can’t fix it in post-production.
How do you rehearse as a leader? First and most important, spend time considering who you are as a leader and where you want to go with your ministry. Then, clarify what you think about a given situation on the table. That’s the big work, and it requires constant rehearsal.
Second, while you can’t write a script for a leadership encounter, whether it’s a conversation with an church member or a question-and-answer session with a large group, you can have options in mind. You can develop possible responses. The higher the anxiety, the more useful it is to think in advance about the response. We need to think about best and worst case scenarios, and how you might handle them.
Third, remember that ultimately, you can’t script all of your leadership. If you try, people, whether church staff or member, sense phoniness, and resent it. Even when you are prepared, you have to be as fully present as we can with the people we lead. You have to show up, breathe, look them in the eye, and say what you really believe.
Leadership is about how you say it, as well as what we say. When you are truly present with people, they know it. When you are on autopilot, they know that, too.
Fourth, leadership is not about getting the right technique, but about the relationship you have with those you lead. You learn their cues, and they learn yours. Over time a dynamic relationship develops, and trust develops. You are part of an ensemble cast, and the give and take contributes to the whole. They can’t do it without you, and you can’t do it without them. And none of us can do it without Christ as our ultimate head – reread I Cor. 12. No one person is indispensable, but the dynamism makes our efforts together possible. Leadership means you have to improvise sometimes. You can predict how you think people will react, but you never really know until it happens. You
have to be as free as possible and have a repertoire of responses.
Not many moments at church are ultimate performances; it’s the steady accumulation of the relationships within the ensemble that makes or breaks the show.
Rev. Margaret Marcuson works with churches that want to create ministries that last and clergy who want more impact on those they serve best. She is the author of Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury, 2009). She served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardner, Massachusetts for thirteen years. Get the free mini-course, "Five Ways to Avoid Burnout in Ministry" at http://margaretmarcuson.com/.
How do you rehearse as a leader? First and most important, spend time considering who you are as a leader and where you want to go with your ministry. Then, clarify what you think about a given situation on the table. That’s the big work, and it requires constant rehearsal.
Second, while you can’t write a script for a leadership encounter, whether it’s a conversation with an church member or a question-and-answer session with a large group, you can have options in mind. You can develop possible responses. The higher the anxiety, the more useful it is to think in advance about the response. We need to think about best and worst case scenarios, and how you might handle them.
Third, remember that ultimately, you can’t script all of your leadership. If you try, people, whether church staff or member, sense phoniness, and resent it. Even when you are prepared, you have to be as fully present as we can with the people we lead. You have to show up, breathe, look them in the eye, and say what you really believe.
Leadership is about how you say it, as well as what we say. When you are truly present with people, they know it. When you are on autopilot, they know that, too.
Fourth, leadership is not about getting the right technique, but about the relationship you have with those you lead. You learn their cues, and they learn yours. Over time a dynamic relationship develops, and trust develops. You are part of an ensemble cast, and the give and take contributes to the whole. They can’t do it without you, and you can’t do it without them. And none of us can do it without Christ as our ultimate head – reread I Cor. 12. No one person is indispensable, but the dynamism makes our efforts together possible. Leadership means you have to improvise sometimes. You can predict how you think people will react, but you never really know until it happens. You
have to be as free as possible and have a repertoire of responses.
Not many moments at church are ultimate performances; it’s the steady accumulation of the relationships within the ensemble that makes or breaks the show.
Rev. Margaret Marcuson works with churches that want to create ministries that last and clergy who want more impact on those they serve best. She is the author of Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury, 2009). She served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardner, Massachusetts for thirteen years. Get the free mini-course, "Five Ways to Avoid Burnout in Ministry" at http://margaretmarcuson.com/.
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Margaret Marcuson
Rev. Margaret Marcuson works with churches that want to create a ministry that lasts and clergy who want more impact on the people they serve best. She is the author of Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury, 2009). She served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardner, Massachusetts for thirteen years.
