A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 9 – A Different Future

1.  Steinke begins with a laundry list…“responses that proved beneficial to congregations in the throes of change.”  Laundry, he says, is everywhere.  At the top of his laundry list is “the need for mature and motivated leaders in the congregation.”  Such leadership relies on differentiation…“a process in which a person’s functioning is guided by a direction, supported by beliefs and values, and monitored by thoughtful behaviors rather than emotional reactivity.” 

Edwin Friedman “believed that mature functioning in a leader incites reactivity in the least mature. It is simply not possible to lead successfully through self-differentiation without inciting reactivity. The capacity of a leader to be aware of, to reflect upon, and to work through people’s reactivity may be the most important aspect of leadership. It is ‘the key to the kingdom.’”  “The challenge of change for leaders is to keep one’s eye on the ball (stay focused), take the heat (remain nonreactive), stay connected (talk and listen), and get a good night’s sleep.”

Well, now…that can’t be so hard!  But why is it?  What support can congregations offer its leaders to maintain healthy self-differentiation?

2.  Change is difficult.  “Today’s church should not be looking outside itself or seeking the quick fix. First, a massive educational task is at hand. What do I mean? Church leaders have to reeducate people as to the purpose of the church. The purpose of the local church is not primarily to be one’s church home or extended family, though it can be at times. And it is not to survive by obtaining more people for its support base. Its purpose is to invite people to be part of the true mission of the church. Reception into the church is only a threshold to involvement in its mission. The task of the church is not to accumulate attendees. The church is a school for developing agents of the new creation from among those who are the beneficiaries of God’s grace.”

What do you see as St. Mark’s primary purpose?  What is your role in clarifying and carrying out that role?

3.  Steinke believes change comes from the ground up and by reframing the issues at hand in congregations.  He draws from Jim Collin’s business background.  “Business, he claims, is focused on profit; the social sector, on the other hand, is based on service. Performance assessment in the social realm, therefore, is not dependent on financial returns or resources. The question for those in the social sector is, ‘How effectively do we deliver on our mission and make a distinctive impact?’ To make a special impact, Collins says, social organizations must reframe; that is, they must focus on outputs (services), not inputs (receipts).”  “I think congregations encounter an emotional barrier in highlighting the inputs as what really counts and regarding the outputs as secondary or optional.”

How do we discern an appropriate and healthy balance of outputs and inputs?  How do we define each of these today?

4.  “Churches have a strong tendency to keep difficult things under the table. Little changes because conflict-laden things are hidden. Of course, then, some laundry never gets done.”  Steinke illustrates this with Kohlrieser’s story of the fishermen in Sicily, whose instructions were, “Put the fish on the table.”  That’s the difficult, but necessary, starting place for addressing change. 

“As with the Jews, Christians base their hope through a memory system. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead” (2 Tim. 2:8a). Hope is grounded in God’s faithfulness and promises. With hope grounded in the expectation of a new world when all is forgiven, all is set free, all is restored, the future is different.”

As we “put our fish on the table” before God, we receive forgiveness and share in the hope of the resurrection.  How does this Christian hope transform our present and shape our future?  How does it create “a door set open” so that you and I can make a difference?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 8 – Where to Touch the Elephant

1.  Steinke asks, “Let’s probe the elephant-touch dilemma as it affects the life of today’s church: If we think of the elephant as representing the congregation’s mission, do all touches have the same value? Is there a place we all must touch? Finally, can we touch the mission in different places, disagree, and still work together?” 

Please offer your responses to these questions.

2.  “Tikkun olam (to mend the world) embraces small gifts and large ones. Your response of mercy, generous offerings, or shared witness makes a difference. In no way is God’s future dependent on our offerings, but the new creation is open to all gifts of our hands and hearts. We are part of God’s creative scheme when we care for something larger than ourselves.” 

How do you see yourself as a participant in “tikkun olam?”

What opportunities are before us as individuals and as a congregation to “repair that which is broken” in our communities and beyond?

3.  “From a biblical perspective, the kingdom of God gives special attention to the poor. The term poor as used in the Scriptures does not necessarily indicate economic deprivation.”

“God is active in behalf of the well being of the world, especially those whose well-being is most tenuous. The God–neighbor relationship is elemental to mission.”

Who are the poor among us today?  What opportunities is God offering us to witness to and serve the poor?

4.  “Next, we will consider what happens when we touch different parts and disagree about the nature of mission. Which part of the elephant best represents the elephant? In our society, we are increasingly clustering into like-minded groups.

The big tent where people could openly express diverse views is giving way to small groups of like-mindedness. People are herded into the cramped space of special interests or value issues or partisan positions. Then, too often, we handle our disagreements aggressively, even viciously.”  “To their misfortune, churches are imitating the wider society and resorting to the ideologue’s frame of reference – either or, this or that, and black or white - which is in reality an emotional reaction.”  Steinke illustrates this with the case study involving Pastor Rex and Valley Church…a sad, but realistic, example.  “Situations like this give the church a magnificent opportunity to disagree profoundly over matters without turning away from one another or turning against one another.”

Why are such scenarios becoming increasingly more prevalent?

How can we address such conflict when it arises?

5.  “We fail to be the agents of God’s mission because we do not know how to answer the blunt question: What more are you doing than others? What we forget is that a congregation’s public face is part of the mission. What do people see when we are at odds? When we are loaded with anxiety? Outside the community of faith, people don’t have a whole lot of interest in our mission statements, only our mission practices. We will from time to time touch the elephant in different places. Indeed, we can fight it out as we would in any other place. Perhaps a more mature response would be, ‘I don’t agree, but the mission takes precedence over my self-interests.’”

Let’s zero in on Steinke’s initial question: “What more are you doing than others?”

How does this question both intimidate and motivate us to be agents of God’s mission?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 7 – The People of the Way

1.  Steinke begins by noting that “movement” is connected to both learning and mission.  “Movement is a significant part of both biblical content and spiritual living.”  He illustrates this with examples from Old and New Testaments, as well as The Apostles’ Creed.  Citing Sydney Carter, “The resurrection narratives depict a God who is constantly on the move, energetic, revealing here, now.”  He stresses that we can live our Christian lives in one of three ways: inertly, reluctantly or freely.”

How have you experienced each of these three?  Where do you find yourself right now?

2.  “William Bridges, a consultant on transition management, says change is an event. Our experience of the change is transition. He cites three movements—endings, the neutral zone, and beginnings—in the transition experience:

“All we know is that periodically, some situation or event deflects us from the path that we thought we were on, and, in so doing, ends the life-chapter we were in. In order to continue our journey, we are forced to let go of the way we got that far. Having let go, we find ourselves in the wilderness for a time, and until we have lived out that time can we come back around to a new beginning.”

We face the temptations of avoiding change and adopting the “additive fallacy,” which copes by adding more of this or that to the equation. 

What makes it difficult for us to accept and navigate our “tumbling” through the neutral zone experiences of life?

3.  “The process of ripening may be as or more important than the outcome or production, such as data or numbers.

 Meaningful, lasting outcomes are the result of the journey and the learning that takes place. Maybe a word of caution should be stamped on all programs: “Not transferable.” Transition time, especially the neutral zone experience, is life’s curriculum. Being on the path opens new insight; being on the path, not the steps one takes, is the very condition necessary for learning. Tumbling is disruptive but equally instructive.

Steinke continues: “Churches need to remember that no handbook is available on freelancing mission. Only by going out, being there, and seeing from a fresh angle will the process lead to learning. Discovering how to respond to shifts and changes is the learning. Self-confidence is a byproduct. But growth is in the struggle, the push, and the journey. Churches in decline need to look beyond the BIG RESULT and become the people of the way—tumble and all.”

Where do you find yourself tumbling these days?  Where is St. Mark tumbling as people of the way…and how are we managing the journey?

4.  Finally, Steinke shares Friedman’s creation story involving survival versus adventure…stability versus mobility.  Movement favors one and not the other.  The door is set open.  Let’s conclude with Steinke’s final questions:

“Are we a people of the way or in the way?  Are you ready to explore the neighborhood?”

A Door Set Open, By Peter Seinke

A Door Set Open

Chapter 6 – Joining God’s New Creation

1.  Steinke’s introduction to this chapter is both humorous and quite serious…contrasting the wide gap between biblical and confessional understanding of resurrection with that of often-misguided popular religion.  Steinke wisely draws upon the guidance of N.T. Wright in such matters.

What does “the resurrection of the body” mean for us individually, as well as for creation itself?  How does a “soulectomy” completely miss the boat?

2.  By using Plato’s cave allegory, Steinke stresses that we’re in for a huge surprise…namely, that “the biblical final destination is…not merely heaven.  It is a new heaven and a new earth.  All creation has a future.”

What does this mean, not only for the ways we might experience new life in the future, but also for the ways we might experience new life right now?  How does such hope change and shape our present attitudes and agendas?

3.  Review & discuss the implications of these statements:

- With the resurrection of Jesus, everything changes.

- Easter’s grand promise is a newly embodied person in a renewed world.

- Easter is about God’s new creation and the calling of believers to be agents of the kingdom.  Christians are called to embody the hope that the God of promise offers.

- The Christian physicist John Polkinghorne remarked that hope is not a mood but a commitment to action.  Its character implies that whatever we hope for we will be prepared to work for, thus bringing it about as we are able.

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 5 – The Making of a Mission Culture

1.   The church’s mission is a huge piece to digest…easier said than done!  Steinke initiates this discussion with the need to know what direction one is headed…to have a destination…an orientation.  He then moves into a discussion of “mission drift,” limping along without a focus…an apparent affliction of many congregations today.  Look again at Steinke’s list of drifting symptoms…

Can you recall examples where you felt the church was in the midst of such “drifting?”

2.  “Mission is the nature and purpose of the church, not some list of qualifiers.  Because God has a mission, a church arises.  Apart from mission, the church is meaningless.  The mission has churches.” 

How do these statements compare with the perception of the average church member today?  Where might there be agreement or disagreement? 

3.  Steinke notes how issues of survival challenge us to examine our self-understanding as people of God, asking:  Who are we?  What is God calling us to be? 

How has St. Mark changed over the past two decades, and how do we understand our mission today?

4.  “If the gospel isn’t transforming you,” N.T. Wright asks, “how do you know that it will transform anything else?”  “People who work for a clear mission in the church and for the wider world need to be experiencing transformation in their own lives.”

How do we learn to tend to this focus in fresh ways, especially when we’ve been a part of the church for so long?

5.  “Again and again, we have to explore why we come together.  Congregations need to continue to review who they are and how they will respond.”  Let’s try on Steinke’s follow-up questions for size:

What are we trying to be?  What is our calling at this time and in this place?  Can we make a difference?  Is there a purpose for our presence?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 4 – The Challenge of Change

1.  Steinke begins with a difficult and poignant question, “How will the church find leaders for emotional systems caught in a rising tide of change?”  He then discusses the relationship between change and emotionality, noting that, “Change will touch off a burst of emotional energy.”  “People in the church can make the same wrong assumptions as some economists…we think that if we make a few sensible changes, harmony will hold.  But animal spirits find their way into any system.”  Steinke illustrates these animal spirits with the example of the misguided senior pastor and the various reactions within the congregation.

Where did this pastor err grievously?  Where did the congregation err grievously?  (Yes, stuff like this really happens!)

2.  Change is hard for everyone, especially congregations. 

“Now, suddenly, with steep changes happening in our society, congregations have to ask themselves whether they are responding to a world that no longer exists and whether they have the sort of leadership required to shift to new understanding and practices. Surely, the priestly work is always needed, but now, especially now, clergy may need to become advocates for adaptive change.”

“Ask yourselves—does your congregation need a more prophetic ministry?  Do you need a more visionary type of ministry?”

3.  Rightly so, Steinke casts doubt upon the myriad invitations to participate in transformational leadership training seminars.  (I get several of these each week in the mail and promptly round-file them!)  “Transformation is a process. It may take five years, a generation, or perhaps even forty wilderness years to see its effects. Early in the process it isn’t possible to tell how transformed a church might become. So impatient and anxious, well-intended change agents turn a decade into an hour.”

Why is our religious culture so gullibly transfixed by such transformation magic…and what is the antidote?

4.  Steinke notes that the success rate for a turnaround church is about one in four.  “People can squelch urgency by dragging out possible negative results and impending doom. If leaders want to
implement change, they are placed under suspicion. With fear hovering in the community, the coalition of change agents that needs to develop doesn’t know how to get started, or they prefer add-ons rather than substantive changes. The challenge of change for a congregation on a steady downward slope is precisely to redefine and redirect its mission.”  As Kathleen Norris states, “Their challenge is to go on living thankfully, contributing liberally, and living graciously.”

How does this last statement serve to guide St. Mark and other congregations toward effective mission?  How does each of these three responses positively redirect our energy and efforts toward change?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 3 – So That You May Hope Again

1.  Steinke’s stated intention in this chapter is to “look at hope in the context of God’s people in exile, a time of dislocation and near despair, like ours.”  To that end, we receive an excellent, although truncated, biblical history lesson.  The Babylonian captivity is paramount to Jewish history, as demonstrated by the deep involvement of its prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. 

In review, what series of circumstances led to this predicament and how did the exiles learn to find hope in the midst of exile?

2.  Steinke points out the necessity of dialectical thinking here, citing Brueggemann that, “In a broken world, hope and lament are partners.  Hope does not need to silence the rumbling of crisis to be hope.”  Steinke adds that, “The paradoxical nature of faith as exile and homecoming defines the Christian in the world.”

How to you relate to these statements?

3.  Church leaders today likewise face the temptations of denial, despair, and magic.  Take time to examine how each of these temptations poses a threat to the health and vitality of today’s congregations and church leaders.

4.  “To many, religion is a good thing, as long as it provides personal comfort and meets individual needs. Consequently, they want the church to double the offer—to give them not only a message of salvation but also the elements of a benefits plan, such as self-improvement methods, life-coping skills, satisfaction enhancement, and stress reduction.” 

How does this “double offer” expectation lead to the dark side, namely…the three temptations of denial, despair, and magic?  How can the church communicate and extend genuine hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ in today’s shifting culture?