{"id":3499,"date":"2014-09-05T08:49:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T14:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2014-09-05T08:49:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T14:49:05","slug":"the-rare-leadership-virtue-of-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2014\/09\/the-rare-leadership-virtue-of-patience.html","title":{"rendered":"The Rare Leadership Virtue of Patience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"patience\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe movement that Jesus begins is constituted by people who believe that they have all the time in the world, made possible by God\u2019s patience, to challenge the world\u2019s impatient violence by cross and resurrection.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u2014 Stanley Hauerwas<\/p>\n

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I have a theory that at least half\u00a0of what passes for leadership in the context of churches and ministries today could most accurately be described as: the frenetic activity of a leader who does not have the patience to wait on God to act<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I confess that patience has never been my strong suit. This\u00a0has often been encouraged by leadership gurus who rebrand impatience as a<\/em>\u00a0bias for action<\/em>, or the default mode\u00a0of an activator<\/em>, and recommending it as a virtue. But impatience is the default mode\u00a0of a people who have become bored with the hard work of faithfulness because\u00a0it doesn\u2019t produce the category\u00a0of\u00a0results they desire.<\/p>\n

Patient leaders are rare. These are the leaders who have learned to still their own hearts, and quiet their own fears, helping those around them to do the same. Patient leaders refuse to become embroiled in the day\u2019s drama, or stirred up by the pressing concerns of the moment. They know how to\u00a0be still and wait on God because they have had to practice that very posture for years. It takes practice to be patient, because patience is<\/em> a practice, not a possession. One does not possess patience like a good voice or blonde hair. One practices patience, or not, moment by moment, and day by day, as a conscious obedience to the\u00a0God who is patient.<\/p>\n

Impatient leadership is driven by our compulsion to have whatever we want, whenever we want it\u2013including the\u00a0kind of church we want to lead. Impatience has helped to produce some of the most impressive, innovative, organized, and\u00a0well known churches in North America\u2026 and still the overall church is shrinking.<\/p>\n

If the church has a future in our society, it will come through the leadership of those\u00a0who have learned the hard-won virtue of patience.<\/p>\n

When we force our internal bias for action to be disciplined and to wait, when we tell our inner activator to go sit in the corner and be quiet, then the miracle of patience can emerge. A new imagination can burst into being.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPragmatism is what we turn to when we don\u2019t know what to do next, and we don\u2019t possess the virtue necessary to simply be faithful and still in the tension, strain, and ambiguity.\u201d \u2013 Shrink<\/em>, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Only when we have the patience to walk out in the middle of nowhere and sit in the dark will we truly glimpse the wonder and awe of the night sky.\u00a0When you sit in the dark and stare at the stars, there is exactly nothing you can do to improve upon God\u2019s handiwork. The stars don\u2019t change, we do. When we pick up and go home after a stargazing session of patience quiet reflection, we\u00a0will often find that the imagination we were lacking is beginning to form deep within us. If we busy ourselves\u00a0putting up billboards and streetlights, stadiums and scoreboards, then we\u2019ll have plenty to do, and plenty to look at. But none of these things have the power to\u00a0change us for the better.<\/p>\n

If we are patient, if we will cultivate this practice of waiting on God, then we will get to see the miracle happen: something from nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The genesis of a new imagination does not come through brainstorming sessions, strategic planning, or high-cost consultants. New imagination comes via the patience of a leader who still believes we have all of the time in the world necessary to get things right; that getting things right depends not upon God\u2019s action, not ours.<\/p>\n

Patient leadership is not opposed to effective leadership, it just acknowledges that we don\u2019t always control the timetable. After all, if\u00a0leadership is merely defined in terms of timely effectiveness, then we would have to dismiss the leadership of\u00a0every\u00a0biblical prophet. In fact, prophetic leadership would cease to exist as a category, because it hardly ever works until everyone who was alive at the time of the prophet is already dead.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHave courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.\u201d -Victor Hugo<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Impatience is typically the door through which pragmatism gains entry into the church.\u00a0Pragmatism is what we turn to when we don\u2019t know what to do next, and we don\u2019t possess the virtue necessary to simply be faithful and still in the tension, strain, and ambiguity.\u00a0Stanley Hauerwas incites us to believe that we have all the time in the world,\u00a0that God is patient, so we can be patient. The move toward pragmatism\u00a0is an act of profound mis-trust. Not that leadership models, strategies, and techniques don\u2019t have their place. But they must alwa\u00a0subordinate to the disciplines\u00a0of\u00a0time and patience.<\/p>\n

Victor Hugo once wrote, \u201cHave courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.\u201d What I take from that is the conviction that the gospel can be called good news, in part, because it is not up to us. We cannot generate gospel. It\u2019s good because we could never have imagined God would come for us in the way God did. To live into\u00a0that story, believing that the story is enough, takes great patience. To gaze upon that story, to tell it in ever more creative ways, (not worrying, by the way, if it can be neatly packaged into 3\u00a0steps to a happy marriage, or 4\u00a0principles of financial freedom), will be the change agent we are looking for.<\/p>\n

This is the question for many\u00a0leaders. Do we believe the gospel is enough? Or do we think it needs a little marketing and a strategic plan. Those who believe the gospel is enough are content to simply tell the good news.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe movement that Jesus begins is constituted by people who believe that they have all the time in the world, made possible by God\u2019s patience, to challenge the world\u2019s impatient violence by cross and resurrection.\u201d\u00a0\u2014 Stanley Hauerwas \u00a0 I have a theory that at least half\u00a0of what passes for leadership in the context of churches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1129,615,12,1130,389],"class_list":["post-3499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-patience","tag-shrink","tag-stanley-hauerwas","tag-victor-hugo","tag-virtue"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rare Leadership Virtue of Patience<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""The movement that Jesus begins is constituted by people who believe that they have all the time in 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