I am inviting you to join me on a journey of exploration for the next two years. My quest is to explore the notions of presencing and the theory of U as an approach to pastoral care and congregational leadership amid the complexity and interconnectedness of our emerging future.
I began this quest about two years ago as those of us on the board of the Society for the Advancement of Continuing Education for Ministry started asking questions about the future of lifelong learning for ministry: What learning needs do we anticipate? What changes are coming? What programming and delivery systems do we need to have in place? What priorities do we need to advocate? In the midst of our conversations, we explored Rex Miller’s book, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church (2004). Two key narratives emerged for me that have energized my continued exploration around cultural and congregational transitions. One is that the “medium is the worldview.” I was already well aware of the changes taking place in worldviews with the shifts from modern to postmodern, but the recognition of how the dominant media during our developmental years significantly shapes how we view the world and see reality was new to me. But it rings true to my experience with the adjustment to recognize that the influence is from the media that we gravitate to and which becomes the dominant for us. The other is the recognition of our unique experience in the history of human beings of currently having three major worldview perspectives in play today.
For several decades we have been aware of the worldview tensions between modern and postmodern perspectives. And we have studied intensely the last previous transition when two worldviews came into tension during the 16th century and we transitioned amid significant tumult from pre-modern to modern worldviews. This recognition of being in a major era of transition was underscored in Phyllis Tickle's recent book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (2008). And now we are looking at three: modern (flowing out of the print media era), postmodern (flowing out of the broadcast media era), and convergent (flowing out of the advent of the digital media era). The issue is not so much that we have five generations in single congregations, organizations, and work places, but that we have three eras and three worldviews present. With each of these worldviews are persons with different approaches to how we define meaning and authority, different perspectives on what it means to participate and belong, and different sets of preferences and expectations for ourselves and others.
In the midst of some of my conversations with colleagues to explore these observations and others regarding the rise of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, 2006)) and the first generation of native digitals, my friend and colleague from Louisville Seminary, Dr. David Sawyer, handed me a copy of Otto Scharmer’s new book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (2007), and told me that it was one I needed to read. Scharmer’s perspective is that many of the concerns we are called upon to address today are more complex and interconnected than even our best solutions from yesterday, so we would benefit more from an approach that spends time listening more deeply to discern an awareness of what is, what is emerging, and what direction our response might take rather than simply downloading and applying yesterday’s solutions. This perspective resonates with me and fits with my perspectives as a digital pioneer to being open to emerging narratives and sharing perspectives in a process of collaborative leadership. This took me back to reading through a new lens the lead in book, Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (2004); which reflects a compilation of emerging conversations by the authors: Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers. But it left me with questions as to what this means for pastoral leadership and pastoral care and counseling amid these highly transitional times.
As several of us talked about this in the context of SACEM's Annual Conference last year, there was a parallel conversation taking place around the presentations reporting on what was happening with various Clergy Peer Group projects. That conversation sparked among us the question of what might emerge if we pulled together a peer learning group seeking to join in a conversation similar to the conversation modeled in Presence to explore what Theory U might offer as an approach for sustaining congregational leaders and pastoral care and counseling providers amid current leadership challenges. We formed a group of six related to lifelong learning for ministry and denominational leadership, then applied for and received a two year College of Pastoral Leaders grant funded by the Lilly Foundation to pursue our conversation.
We met two weeks ago for the first of a series of offline gatherings to advance our conversation in this exploration of Theory U and pastoral excellence. We spent three days in conversation, sharing stories of experience, and exploring intuited insights. Two key insights emerging from this conversation are that we are seeking to “feel our way into thought” and that conversation is the best term for describing this process of exploration that we have undertaken. In between our offline gatherings we will continue our conversation online as we explore the work of Senge, Scharmer, and others associated with the Society for Organizational Learning.
My intentions for this column are to share part of my journey with that continuing conversation and to reflect some of my exploration of leading from an emerging future. I will post at least one column per month, but my goal is every two weeks. I don't know quite where this will take us nor all of what we will encounter along the way. I know that we will look at the transitions taking place around us and the perspectives of Theory U in greater detail as well as intersecting with the perspectives of several theologians, psychologists, digital pioneers, and others seeking to discern opportunities and possibilities in the world that is coming to be. It will be an adventure.
We are looking for authors addressing specific topics for upcoming Special Issues of the Oates Journal. Click here for topics that we are currently working on (and looking for authors for).
I am inviting you to join me on a journey of exploration for the next two years. My quest is to explore the notions of presencing and the theory of U as an approach to pastoral care and congregational leadership amid the complexity and interconnectedness of our emerging future.
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