Abstract
This article presents a leadership model called bridging that I continue to develop as I progressively acknowledge my embedded tendencies and tensions long-experienced at the intersections and margins of my multicultural self and in cross-cultural communities. From within this social location, I attempt to translate what has been a precarious leadership journey into an experiential model promoting intentional communities, interpretations, and activities with an overarching purpose of reframing tension for the work of transformation. My conceptualization of intentional communities has three descriptors: (1) multicultural, (2) value-driven, and (3) prophetic. I then invite leaders to consider their interpretations of three categories of common tensions: (1) tension among the community, (2) tension between reality and vision, and (3) tension residing within individual leaders. I posit that the practice of reinterpretation is crucial to the work of bridging. The praxis of bridging as a leadership model is then categorized into three interrelated activities: (1) bridge-crossing, (2) bridge-making, and (3) bridge-being. Each discussion is undergirded by a biblical exemplar and described as necessary for reframing destructive tension toward transformative tension. In the final section, I advocate that bridge-leaders commit to self-care through connectedness to what I explain as one’s spiritual home and core cultural home and as a crucial component in sustaining bridge leaders for their important role in helping communities reach their vision for personal, communal, and systemic change.
Introduction
There is an ever-present tension in the call of leadership.
Sometimes the tension is palpable,
such as in animated gatherings of people in shared spaces,
physical or virtual,
converging from a breadth of social locations
and shaped by a variety of considerable cares.
Other times the tension is intuited
from a pregnant silence swelling at the inevitable intersection
of opposing people
prepping pretentious platitudes and potshots.
In either instance, tension can lead to creative synergy,
constructing a new path on which
mutuality and appreciation among all
brings forth fresh and renewed possibilities.
Alternatively, tension can be the fuel
to deepen division and
quench any hope for shared purpose and vision.
Whatever the circumstance, those who lead,
in holding the tension with intentionality and skill,
can greatly affect the experiences of intersection
and the potential outcomes.
. . . and therein lies the internal struggle . . .
God of holy tension, align my will to yours, my might to your purpose, my sight to your glory.
As a response to the opening soliloquy, this article reflects my aim to process through the struggles encountered as a leader called to dwell in diverse contexts. What follows is an evolving leadership model of bridging with a particular appeal or invitation to those who value unity and mutuality across human diversity and who are compelled toward a vision in which personal and social ethics and behaviors are recognizable expressions of goodness. For me goodness is synonymous with the Trinitarian Divine Being whom I have come to know and claim: God the creator, Jesus Christ the connector, and Holy Spirit the innovative source. As much as what is presented in this article is shaped by people and publications, culture and context, and by experience and effort, the sustaining motivation, ultimate purpose, and refining fire is goodness.
Not emerging but developing
This privilege of an invitation to write on the topic of leadership is a great challenge when coming out of a season of leadership fatigue; yet, it is a practice of self-care. The past 2 years have felt like a winter in Narnia, lasting far beyond the predictable calculations of time, natural and human-made. Yet, I reflect on a particular moment within this season, at a leadership summit with at least 50 of some of the most diverse and talented leaders I personally know. A feature of the event was a presentation from a published author, a condensed yet helpful scan of the changing landscape of the U.S. American church, historically and presently. As the topic shifted to how to address current challenges, the presenter offered phrases such as “new thinking” and “new models of leadership” along with, what I interpreted as, a flat list of skills (i.e., tactics). I recall a tension rising within me.
I recognized at the time that the tension was pent-up frustration from the many times I have heard featured experts champion new leadership capacities that need to be learned. They note skills such as appreciative listening, facilitation, collaboration, shared ownership, creativity, contextualizing, and bridge-building; yet they hardly acknowledge or seem to assume that leaders in the room not only lead with these skills already, but also have them embedded into their very being after a lifelong existence as marginalized persons in the dominant society. Not to detract from this particular presenter’s expertise in the content of the earlier portion of his presentation, the latter part was another unfortunate example of “talking the talk” and not stepping aside to allow those who walk the walk to lead! Admittedly, to do something that is often subconscious because that is what you do and who you are is one thing. To present or describe what you do to instruct or benefit others is an entirely different thing. This endeavor, in itself, is a form of bridging: taking what is mundane, intuitive, porous from one perspective and offering it through an intellectually stimulating perspective, reasoned, and well-constructed, as formal presentations and scholarly writings are often set up to be. Yet bridging, as I describe in this article, is worth the tension and the possibilities that may come when seemingly disparate perspectives converge.
So, let me say, not as a disclaimer but as a self-care declaration, that this piece starts from a perspective of what has become normative for me as a person and as a leader. When I introduce my response to the introductory soliloquy as targeted to those leading within diverse contexts, who value unity and mutuality across human diversity, and who are compelled toward a vision in which personal and social ethics and behaviors are expressions of goodness, I am describing myself and that with which I have resonated almost my whole life’s journey. While the notion of bridging is not a leadership skill or style that is at all new or emerging for me, it is most certainly developing. I offer gratitude for all the opportunities to walk the walk, oftentimes clumsily and wearily, alongside many others who have and are doing the tense and transformative work of bridging between theory and praxis, academia and institutional church, church and public square, global and domestic, marginal and pinnacle, and the list goes on and on. What has become embedded within me has been informed, shaped, and sharpened by many persons and leaders, some noted and documented, yet many others who have been overlooked for far too long.
Introducing bridging as a model
This developing model of bridging is presented through three components—intentional communities, tensions, and activities—with each having additional subsections. In practicality, all of these components and subsections will rarely come together in a linear, compartmentalized, or easily identifiable fashion. The endeavor of bridging can be cyclical, progressive, regressive, tangential, and stagnant, sometimes all at the same time within the same diverse community. The attempt at organization, however, is intended to aid in the effort of intentionality, indispensable in the work of bridging. Because human community exists in many iterations, each necessitating particular leadership styles, I begin by defining intentional communities well-suited for a bridging leadership style with three descriptors: (1) multicultural, (2) value-driven, and (3) prophetic. I next present three types of tension common in such intentional communities: (1) tensions among the community, (2) tensions between reality and vision, and (3) tensions within the leaders themselves. With each type, leaders can choose ways to interpret these tensions with a hopeful connotation, opening up possibilities to break away from destructive habits that undermine the work of bridging. The next section further defines what bridging leadership is and looks like. The activities of bridging are presented in the three interrelated categories of bridge-crossing, bridge-making, and bring-being. Influences from biblical characters and cross-cultural competency tools are interwoven throughout these categories. I conclude the article with a final advisement for an ongoing practice of self-care that connects leaders to their sense of goodness or divine source, which I refer to as one’s spiritual home, and allows leaders truly to be themselves, which I name as one’s core cultural home. Without this final piece, bridge leaders will find it hard to persist through their difficult yet important role in helping their communities constructively work through their tensions and transform into the fullness of what they envision.
Framing a context for bridging: Defining the community
Not a one-size-fits-all model
As a naturalized citizen of the United States who always lived in metropolitan locations, my contextual starting point of socialization and meaning-making is always that of diversity. I never developed, for any sustained time during my almost-five decades in this country, in an exclusively, or even predominantly, mono-ethnic, mono-racial, mono-economic, mono-ideological, or mono-generational cultural setting. As a result, I have to recognize consciously that while diversity is natural and assumed for me, this is not the case for many others. I consistently am challenged to explicate what is implicit, make conscious what is unconscious, or justify what is instinctual simply to connect with others who come from a different starting point, or to cope with my disorientation when my normative is marginalized. A phenomenon in the discipline of cross-cultural competency is commonly called lowering the waterline of one’s own cultural iceberg. In this theory, developed by twentieth-century anthropologist Edward T. Hall, culture is like an iceberg, with only a small portion visible and tangible on the surface, while a much greater (and formative) component is hidden. Lowering the waterline exposes what is internal culture so it can be understood by others and even oneself. Bringing these principles into faith-based settings, my colleagues and I identified this mutual act of lowering our waterlines as an essential spiritual practice in the work of intercultural leadership and ministries. 1
First, I assert that a preferred leadership style is informed by the particulars of any human community, with the particulars being shaped by the larger social context and defined internally by the community members. In other words, I reject the notion of an ideal leadership style that is applicable across all contexts. Even what I might consider as a non-negotiable for leadership is predicated on my cultural iceberg: substantiated by my values, convictions, belief system, and many other cultural elements, including any myths that have taken root in my psyche. In exercising the spiritual practice of lowering my waterline, therefore, I must name the particulars of the human community that primes it for and necessitates the leadership model of bridging as I understand them. Second, community can happen organically, and it can also happen intentionally. I use the term intentional community in this article because, in the following community descriptors, I start with an assumption that there is already some level of formation within the community and some reasoning why they are choosing to be together.
Community descriptors
Harkening back to the opening soliloquy, I described two possible intersections of diverse people and alluded to the challenge to leaders to recognize their influence in impacting outcome. Surely leaders find themselves in many more instances than the two described above, but my gravitation to these two examples of different yet typical settings is influenced by what I have experienced and what I believe to be a growing norm at a time when our nation continues to diversify and is forced to grapple with the implications of this diversity in more explicit and transformative ways. My full submission to my call to Christian leadership occurred in 2001, 3 weeks before the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11 2 when I moved from New York City to California to begin seminary. Another major juncture in my leadership journey coincided with the 2020 “twin global pandemics,” a popular reference to the contagious coronavirus and a rising awareness of racial injustice. Amid these social upheavals, I had a reflective summer sabbatical from work and an immersion into a new form of community-based racial justice work, immediately followed by a major vocational and geographic transition period.
On a broader social level, these two culture-shifting events will go down in history as junctures at which the United States was tested: will a diverse society emerge with some semblance of unified resolve to tend to the collective common welfare, or will existing divisions deepen and resurface with updated iterations of segregation and exclusion? This test manifested not only on the national level but has been present in all tiers of communities—organizations, neighborhoods, faith communities, and even households. History on this period is still being written, with scrutiny of leadership as a major part of these narratives. Thus, these two junctures almost two decades apart not only frame and inform my vocational leadership but also serve to lower the waterline of many cultural icebergs characterizing the landscape of the United States, not to mention the expanded landscape of the global community. I anticipate the following three community descriptors, emerging from my personal and vocational contexts, will resonate also with a growing population.
Multicultural
The first intentional community descriptor is multicultural: a community made up of people who are diverse in thoughts, convictions, experiences, social locations, and demographic categorizations. Typically, I would add to my working definition that, for a community to be truly multicultural, the practices of that community also must be reflective of the diverse cultural norms represented in the group and not governed by the norms of only one dominant group. For example, typically a church will identify as multicultural because the congregants are of different racial or ethnic identities, but their decision-making, worship, and communication styles consistently resonate with cultural norms of the most populous racial or ethnic group or the historically most influential group, preventing all members to engage their whole selves equally. I, however, still use the descriptor multicultural for the sake of naming a communal intent and vision. This point leads to the next community descriptor.
Value-driven
The second intentional community descriptor is value-driven: more specifically, a community that in some way articulates a shared value for the presence of a multicultural constituency and the integration of the varied gifts a multicultural constituency offers. 3 A person’s values can often be hidden in the deepest core of one’s cultural iceberg, making it central to a person’s identity and worldview, yet subconscious at the same time. In the making of a multicultural community, members give much emphasis to the exchange of customs and behaviors (e.g., food, art forms, language, and details of social interactions, such as greetings), which can also be called “above the iceberg waterline” elements of culture. Often a community does not make a deep dive underneath the waterline to search to understand cultural motivations and significance until there is a clash in a community. Getting to this level of exchange requires investment, and, unless the importance of the investment is clear among all involved, abandoning the undertaking is far too easy. Therefore, I cannot overstate the necessity for a multicultural community to discern, name, and rearticulate, again and again, shared values that will be a unifying beacon of light for individuals and the collective alike. While articulation alone never equates to actuality, perhaps except in the case of the Creator, Godself, who has and can speak into being, it is an important accountability element that leaders and community members can take hold of when casting vision and forging forward in initiatives and actions. Intentionally naming that diversity and its positive potential as values that a community upholds is a crucial step in differentiating between a collection of people that is simply categorically diverse and a community that seeks to be multicultural, not only in look but in core identity and praxis. Comprehensive development of a multicultural community would include an identification of additional values and implementation plans for the living out of all these values, but I offer this community descriptor as a minimal starting point.
Prophetic
The third intentional community descriptor is prophetic; here the distinction of faith in God is made explicit. In considering all the functions of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, my first understanding is that prophets were individuals who stood in the gap between the then-current reality of a faith community and a new reality to which God was calling them. Biblical scholar David Peterson writes that prophets were intermediaries functioning between the human and divine worlds, boundary figures standing between the world of the sacred and secular. 4 The presence of diversity and the articulated value to realize the fullness of a multicultural community makes inevitable the gaping divide between what is and what is hoped for. In the context I am describing, what is hoped for is a vision in which personal and social ethics and behaviors exhibited among and from the community are recognizable expressions of goodness, goodness being synonymous with the precepts of the Trinitarian God. In my ministerial rearing since seminary, discussions have more explicitly focused on prophetic leadership, interpreted as ministers who lead in the tradition of biblical prophets such as Isaiah, Micah, and Jesus himself, who distinctly spoke publicly, boldly, and directly truth to power. What has been implicit is that the minister is not only called to be prophetic but also to nurture prophetic communities of faith. While I touch on leaders as prophets later in the article, my purpose here in using prophetic as a community descriptor is to underscore the importance of at least an impetus of prophetic vision and courage being already present in some form within the community in order for leadership to live freely into the fullness of the model of bridging effectively. In other words, if the burden for prophetic witness as expressed through public, bold, and direct unequivocal speech fell entirely on leadership, the very nature of bridging as I describe in this article would be stressed if not completely undermined. While not entirely independent from leadership, my focus here is to describe a prophetic community.
In seeking to describe a prophetic community, I glean from the expansive definitions of two different authors. Wendell Griffin defines prophetic citizens as those who “embody the grace, truth, peace, justice, mercy, and hope of God [and] show up, listen up, speak up, act up, and otherwise live as God’s servants . . . in a suffering and despairing world.” 5 From New Testament passages highlighting the prophet John the Baptist, Chris Morton extrapolates six signs of a prophetic community: (1) makes its home in the “wilderness” (a historical significance for John’s audience) where full dependence is on God, (2) identifies with the marginalized, (3) announces possibilities, (4) denounces religious hypocrisy, (5) invites both outsider and insider to change, and (6) points to Jesus. 6 I am drawn to these definitions because they present a familiar God-dependent prophetic witness that publicly, boldly, and directly speaks truth to power, especially on behalf of the oppressed and powerless, but does not limit prophetic witness to this particular culturally informed expression. There is indication that prophetic communities do more than speak publicly, boldly, and directly. For those who lead as intermediaries between the sacred and secular in a multicultural value-driven human community, such inclusive understandings of prophetic witness are life-giving.
To connect and build upon the first two community descriptors already presented, I offer that a prophetic community is one that (1) acknowledges the gap between their stated values of unity and mutuality across diversity and their vision of a reality wherein personal and social ethics and behaviors are recognizable expressions of goodness, (2) names out loud the obstacles that must be eliminated to bridge the gap, and (3) intentionally and consistently seeks and applies creative solutions in realizing its vision. In other words, a prophetic community sees, names, and crosses many divides in faithful response to the Triune God. When a community is minimally multicultural, value-driven, and prophetic as described above, it is a particular human context primed for and necessitating the leadership model of bridging. Going forward, I refer to this community simply as “the Community.” Next, I detail the types of tension that are to be expected within the Community and appeal to leaders to use a particular interpretative lens to examine such tensions.
Crafting a lens for bridging: Tensions in the community
I have been in many tense intersections with another person in which I can see, almost as if I was outside looking into the situation, that our interaction can quickly either go “south” (or out of control with disaster quickly mounting), or, with the masterful insertion of just the right words or gesture, we might experience a breakthrough, or what I will refer to as transformative tension. Sometimes, even being able to see the crossroads ahead, I consciously chose the words to drive home my point, display my rightness, and perhaps even shame my co-conversant into change. One might guess that this path hardly ends well. As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I like to think I do not make this choice often, but I have done it enough to know that I tend to be impassioned enough to take this path when I have interpreted that something I deeply care about and consider integral to my sense of goodness is challenged without an opening for dialogue or simply dismissed. When this situation arises, I almost instantaneously interpret this as disrespect that might quickly turn into an interpretation of a threat. At this point, I defer to those more knowledgeable about theories, such as the flight or fight reaction, that may shed light on how human reactions are influenced by physiological functions within the body. Instead, I assert that becoming more aware of our layers of interpretation, especially before the flight or fight reaction can even be instigated, can assist us in averting the path that leads “south” and direct us to the path of transformative tension. I name three categories of tension that the Community can expect, and perhaps cannot ever completely avoid, along with an invitation for bridge leaders to cultivate a lens that reinterprets such tensions with a hopeful connection, opening up for the potential for transformation on the personal, communal, and systemic levels. Such a lens effectuates the sacred leadership praxis of bridging.
Tension among the community
I already referenced the theory of culture as an iceberg, which was mind-blowing for me when I was first introduced to it in a seminary class on multicultural leadership. This easy-to-grasp visualization of culture has been instrumental in my own self-awareness journey and my ability to nurture cross-cultural relationships and analyze institutional culture. In any gathering of persons, finding any two identical cultural icebergs, as it were, would be difficult. Moreover, with respect to broad cultural norms, in a gathering of persons who are categorically similar to some and different to others, iceberg differences above the waterline and eventual iceberg clashes below the waterline are certain. Differences in cultural components are endless. I will risk erring on the side of oversimplification in an attempt to name a starting point.
Relying on the accessible work of Sarah Lanier in Foreign to Familiar, I suggest that a starting place to understand tensions found among the Community is to differentiate between the generalized norms of cold-climate cultures (simply those cultures most influenced by European settlers, inclusive of the United States, especially northern states) versus those of hot-climate cultures (those cultures most influenced by all the other inhabitants of the globe). 7 In the post-modern world, these divergent cultural norms are intersecting more often and in more fluid ways and are always operating simultaneously in any multicultural setting. Several cultural traits exist on opposite ends of the continuum between cold- and hot-climate cultures. I will briefly name two of those pairs I have experienced as noticeably exacerbating divisions within the Community. These disparate values, which have both foundational and aspirational implications, materialize as group rules of engagement, leadership, and followership practices, communications goals and content, and much more. They can then explode into debilitating tension. For each, I offer an interpretation of the values that hopefully focus on the strengths of both perspectives, which can lead to transformative tension.
Individualism (cold climate) versus group orientation (hot climate)
Present within the Community are those of a cold-climate culture who have been instilled, from their youth, with the values of self-determination and independence and those who were reared by hot-climate values of group-defined identity and accountability. 8 Cold-climate persons might be frustrated when group-oriented persons are hesitant to contribute their opinions or speak up against things they believe are wrong, while group-oriented persons might interpret an individualist’s public critique of formal leaders as disrespectful and a disregard for group loyalty. Bridging leaders are challenged to harness and communicate strengths such as initiative, personal ownership, and swift decision-making of the individualist culture and strengths such as interdependence, synergistic progress, and communal responsibility of the group-oriented culture, all of which can forge more efforts of transformation.
Relationship (hot climate) versus task (cold climate) orientation
Another source of cross-cultural tension stems from a fundamental difference between an emphasis on relationships versus efficiently accomplishing tasks. Particularly in “business-type” exchanges, relationship-oriented people give attention to creating an atmosphere that maintains a friendliness or harmony among people, not only at the start of, but also throughout, an exchange. This focus can appear to those who are task-oriented as superfluous to the purpose of the exchange itself, and even negating the goal to accomplish the task objectively and swiftly, which are important values of task-oriented persons. 9 With the Community striving toward their stated vision, bridge leaders must learn to reinterpret details of the communication and interaction patterns of these two cultural norms, including the duration, the content, and the nurtured atmosphere, and how each of these nuances impacts the desired outcomes, while remembering that relationship and task are both important in the process of change. Many other sources of tension can be found among the Community. Because these particular pairs inform many other differences that are sometimes more readily attributed to gender-rearing, political bias, and theological bent, they offer a worthy starting point for leaders challenged to take existing and oftentimes unavoidable tension and reframe them for transformation.
Tension between reality and vision
Here, I elaborate on the Community’s tension between reality and vision, described above in discussion of the prophetic community. Jim Herrington, Mike Bonem, and James H. Furr consider a transformation journey of leading change within congregations and posit that change leaders have to both generate tension by naming critical issues related to the gap between reality and vision and sustain tension as a force for change. When the critical issues are strong enough to motivate people toward new perspectives and approaches, yet not so intense that the issues become destructive or paralyzing, leaders foster what they call “creative tension.” 10 This framing invites the bridge leader not to stop at interpreting the tension between reality and vision as a disappointing failure but to embrace it as necessary for the hoped-for transformation.
Tensions internal to the leaders
As a developing leader of the bridging model, I have found working through the internal tensions to be the most arduous. During my leadership journey, I have struggled through the tension of first identifying what is true to myself, a challenging exercise for one who has naturally and from a young age learned to code-switch. I experience tension when having to choose between my natural expression and operating out of a variety of cultural practices as part of my call to be a facilitator of multiculturalism. Deborah Gin positively describes this tension as multivocality in her writings of the biblical character of Ruth, alongside her reflections as an Asian American leader. She argues that living out of this multivocality should not be interpreted as inauthenticity or disingenuousness, but rather as an avenue for wholeness and an act of “incredible care for the other and confident skill in navigation” between contexts. 11 I have struggled when I finally mustered the courage to live boldly out of my clarified convictions, and then as prophetic rhetoric leaves my lips, I realize that those in my community who I thought were right beside me have retreated in hesitation.
I experienced this most palpably as I sought to co-organize a community of racial justice advocates in an affluent suburb at the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Finally, there was a swelling urgency among people with whom I barely had sustained conversations about racial injustice, and I was ready to run with it. I took language I had learned in my in-depth personal study and in progressive Christian and activist networks and attempted to articulate an intolerable reality of inequities and cast a compelling vision of inclusion. Yet, my spirit was crushed as I realized the disconnect between my carefully selected words informed by decades of walking this journey and my new subcommunity of change-makers. I faced a moment of decision-making: Is this really my God-given task, or will I be forced to accommodate to the extent of futile efforts, or even worse, self-harm? Avoiding the lure to go toward the solace I would find with others on the same marker on the journey, I chose to reinterpret the tension out of my sense of responsibility, and calling, to stay with this community, even among those whose convictions were still being formed. Why? I believed that within them lies a piece of a solution for lasting change and that I still yet had things to learn from them. My choice, incidentally, was also influenced by my hot-climate group-orientation norm, whereby separating from a community I loved and to which I belonged was difficult.
Finally, I have also felt what many ministers experience: the tension between the roles of prophet and pastor. Peterson asserts that the Hebrew Bible makes no exclusionary distinction between prophets and priests, that one could have been both, by nature of lineage as well as function. Biblical leaders were known to both offer comfort to the lamenting people in one instance and on another call them to profound lived religion. 12 Again, I have felt this tension especially in the work of racial justice advocacy, as the necessity to call out the sin of racism in all its forms unearths multi-layers of need from those all across the spectrum. Care and correction, companionship and self-care, and patience and passion have been pairs of conflicting outpourings from within the very soul of bridge leaders. When tensions arise above the waterline to the point of potential division, destruction, or depression, leaders must be able to dive deep below the waterline and grab onto whatever will help reinterpret clashing cultural elements and transform a posture of self-guilt or self-defense into one of confident and compassionate leadership. All of this self-work is taxing. Bridge-leaders would do well for their own emotional and mental health to transform these internal tensions into opportunities for healing, growth, skill-development, and character development into the likeness of Jesus. With the Community now defined by foundational descriptors and leaders briefed on how to reinterpret common sources of predictable tensions, it is time to turn to an introduction to the application of bridging.
Applying the activities of bridging: Leading the community
For me, a bridge is a natural metaphor for a myriad of reasons shaped by my ethnic heritage, received and developing theology, vocational commitments, and spiritual gifts. I acknowledge that I also find it an easy metaphor because literal and notable bridges, such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge, were part of the daily landscape for much of my life, so a bridge’s visual impression has been ingrained into my mind’s eye. From an objective perspective, the vast functional and poetic significance of the bridge is endless. Peter Bishop, in his book Bridges, presents a fascinating interdisciplinary overview in his introductory chapter titled “. . . The Telling of a Bridge.” In this chapter’s subsection “new spaces,” Bishops notes, Bridges [affect] the immediate gathering of the lands and cultures around them. On a larger scale bridges are involved in the creation of extensive and often global corridors of transportation, communication, and power, as well as a reconfiguration of border and territory. Bridges, perhaps more than any other single structure, radically alter the face of a landscape.
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Affecting surrounding localities and cultures and re-facing the landscape are precisely contemporary leadership challenges that are escalated by the division and contempt between social factions and widespread lethargy and cynicism within and beyond the church. Thus, the metaphor of a bridge as a leadership model or style presents endless associations. Next, I offer a working definition of bridging, recognizing that this model is still developing and speaking to the present reality of deep division in society and the church.
Why and what is bridge leadership?
Bridging is a model of leadership for communities who value unity and mutuality across human diversity and envision a reality in which personal and social ethics and behaviors are recognizable expressions of goodness. Bridge leaders are committed to expanding their awareness and understanding, equipping themselves with competencies and connections to effect changes in the landscape and possibilities for the Community. These things are done through the interrelated leadership activities of bridge-crossing, bridge-making, and bridge-being. I refer to these as leadership activities because leaders cannot lead others to places to which they are not willing to go themselves, nor can they teach something to others that which they have not learned themselves. The hope is that, if leaders invite others and lead by example, the Community members will soon join in these activities as well. For this article, I describe these activities as specific to bridge leaders.
Bridge-crossing: Expanding
Drawing upon the expansive nature of a bridge, the activities of bridge-crossing work to expand leaders’ awareness and understanding of the Community. Bridge-crossing is iceberg work both above and below the waterline, making aware what was once hidden or unknown, and learning how to suspend judgment for the sake of deeper understanding.
Expanding awareness
Just as engineers scope out the lands that will potentially be connected by an envisioned bridge, leaders must endeavor to learn as much as they can about their Community, which includes, but is not limited to, historical markers, environmental conditions, present and depleted resources, access points and boundaries, movement and communication patterns, key decision-makers and influencers, narratives and priorities, and threats and opportunities. Leaders become aware of these factors by spending time on both sides of the bridge; they observe from above and from underneath. They read, study, prepare inquiries, collect data, meet with people, and observe the outer surroundings; they immerse themselves in the spaces and listen more than they speak. These bridge-crossing activities challenge habits such as listening only to people who agree with one’s viewpoint, limiting one’s knowledge to only that which has thus far formed one’s worldview, and spending time in spaces and participating in activities with which one is already comfortable. All these habits undermine the work of bridging.
Expanding understanding
Awareness is limited without additional efforts to understand what one has observed or collected: what informed or impacted these things, and what is their significance? Leaders are not immune to instantaneous interpretation informed by their own natural mental and emotional associations. Consequently, awareness does not always equate to understanding. In fact, their own cultural iceberg is susceptible to clashing with others, especially when cultural elements are explicitly different or seemingly fueled by different motivations. Here the skills of suspending judgment and deep-diving are important for reinterpreting the tensions that threaten to divide, destruct, or depress the leaders or the Community. Expanding understanding fosters transformative tension by intercepting a fight or flight reaction, crafting a lens for reinterpreting cultural differences, and opening up opportunities for greater connection and more complex learning.
Biblical exemplar, the Apostle Paul
In the latter part of letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul exhorts a diverse community of Jews and Gentiles toward communal living, with all members being equal in salvation through Christ and in value in the eyes of God. Paul, a Jew who had ministered among Gentiles, developed a deep understanding of the cultures of both groups. In Chapter 14, Paul makes plain that people from among the community followed different cultural practices around eating and Sabbath observance. He also makes plain the temptation to judge or have malice toward those with different practices, but he instructs the community not to pass judgment on each other nor be concerned about trying to change the others’ practices. Paul does not stop there. Starting in 14:13, Paul adds that believers should not only be without judgment; they should change their own habits if they negatively impact other members of the community. This exhortation illustrates an awareness of difference coupled with an effort to understand first one’s own convictions as well as the impact one’s convictions may have on others. These bridge-crossing activities flow out of Paul’s commitment to the values of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and mutual upbringing. 14
Bridge-making: Equipping
Another category of activities is bridge-making. Bridge-making activities equip leaders with competencies and for networking, both necessary to foster transformative tension.
Equipping with competencies
The list of bridging leadership competencies is endless. I generalize two fundamental competencies for bridge leaders: visualizing and relating. The competency of visualizing can be broken down into three nuances, including, first, making what is hard to see visible to oneself and therefore describable and actionable; second, being able to form a mental image of something that is not yet actualized but believed to be attainable; and third, making what one is able to see perceptible to others. Visualizing is the competency that reinterprets iceberg clashes, captures what goodness that is waiting for the Community, and fosters a unifying vision among the Community. The competency of relating creates tangible building blocks of a bridge. It is the ability to establish connection points directly with various Community members and between Community members. It is the wisdom to recognize and live into the words, gestures, and postures that make for curiosity and empathy and employ only when necessary those that may potentially further divide. Relating helps those with seemingly opposing cultural norms and values to consider complementary possibilities, and it fuels the ability to authentically live out of one’s multivocality.
Equipping for networking
Bridging is collaborative work. Throughout this article, I have been careful to refer to leaders in plural form because in the complex work of bridging, one individual cannot effect transformation on one’s own. Even the most competent bridge leaders have had others who have crossed, made, and become bridges before them and with them. The wisest of bridge leaders even will allow themselves, at times, to be led, if only for self-care. This network of leadership must be built upon relationships of trust and generosity. Bridge-making is interdependent work utilizing competencies, such as visualizing and relating, and abilities, such as appreciating differences, building trust, receiving from others, and giving back generously. These elements work together to solidify building blocks into tangible and reliable structures that connect Point a to Point b or that move people from marginal positions to central visibility.
Biblical exemplar, Esther
When considering the competencies of visualizing and relating and the powerful impact of utilizing these within a strategic network, the biblical character Hadassah, also named Esther, is one that stands out as a bridge-making leader. The story goes that Hadassah, a young Jewish woman, was living within the empire of a non-Jewish king and was taken to his palace during the cultural practices of identifying a new queen for the king. Hadassah learned and followed these foreign practices, assisted by her friend-making abilities with an influential eunuch, and she ultimately found favor in the eyes of the king and became his queen. In due time, a high official within the king’s court grew in contempt for a Jewish man named Mordecai who refused to debase himself before this official, and in return the official managed to persuade the king to allow the killing of not only Mordecai but all Jewish persons living within the empire. Mordecai was Queen Esther’s relative, and he entreated her to employ her influence to save her family and all her people. Despite the difficulties involved in overturning a king-endorsed edict and the life-threatening consequences of initiating interaction with the king, Esther mobilized a plan which relied upon a network of people with whom she had built trust and influence, resulting in a masterful negotiation of power, the defeat of the murderous official, the lifting up of Mordecai from the margins of the king’s courts to the place of influence second to the king, and the salvation of God’s people. This summary grossly glosses over the intricacies and risks of any life-and-death situation saturated with power imbalances due to nationality, gender, social standing, and cultural hierarchy. The point here is to recognize that as one reads the progression of events in the story of Esther, the necessity of the bridge-making activities is clear. Esther had to employ the competencies of visualizing and relating within a network of persons who had agency and roles in the larger endeavor of life-saving transformation.
Bridge-being: Effecting
The third category of bridging activities is bridge-being, whereby leaders effect changes in the landscape and effect possibilities for the Community. The image that comes to mind when I try to visualize “bridge-being” is not one of becoming like a notable bridge, such as the ones aforementioned, but one that displays the characteristics of what is called a “hanging bridge,” like the one hanging over the Loboc River on the island of Bohol in the Philippines. As I recall, this low-tech foot-bridge, made of bamboo planks and seemingly rudimentary connectors, was not too expansive. It was not difficult to see with the naked eye from one side of the river to the other, and it was intended to be traveled by foot. And that I did, fearfully, with two much more confident native cousins during a 2001 pilgrimage to my country of birth. I was intrigued by the adventure and anxious that every step forward or backward could cause a collapse. Simply to stand still, however, gave only momentary relief. I could not let my fear of heights and falling, or worse yet the fear of causing the fall of the bridge, paralyze me. So I had to put my trust in my cousins. Although I knew they would not put my life in danger, their every movement impacted my stability; it was as if I was literally hanging on for dear life. Nevertheless, between the precarious steps were moments of catching breath-taking glances of the river from both sides, and I tried calling out to my aunties on the river bank to join us, forgetting all about the doubts I had just had, so they could share in the view. What I remember most was the amazing feeling of not letting my fear rob me of a shared memory alongside two others to whom I was connected, at first only by blood and now also by common triumph. I did not realize it then, but in reflection, this shared bridge experience has been an important piece of my spiritual pilgrimage.
Effecting change in the landscape
While this hanging-bridge experience easily lends itself to the leadership activity of bridge-crossing, I have come to resonate with the bridge itself. Through their very physical presence, leaders can actually be the bridge, changing the visual landscape of the Community, similar to a newly installed literal bridge structure. This activity can be obvious when leaders are from a less-represented population. Yes, tokenism, often a shallow effort, is a risk, but this representation does have visual impact. Effective bridge leaders will never be satisfied with mere optics, however, and their leadership will soon give way to other visual changes in the Community. The converging of the surrounding cultures and connections between those who were once separated by chasms will soon become evident.
Effecting possibilities for the community
Effective bridge leaders must also keep in mind that not every bridge has the photographic appeal of a Brooklyn Bridge or the historic significance and attraction of a Golden Gate Bridge. Most bridges are not the destination themselves but the instigation for progress and a greater purpose. I might even say that much of the experience of bridge-being is more reminiscent of the Loboc River hanging bridge, meant to be walked on and passed over, not in an abusive or denigrating sense but in a humble yet purposeful strength sense, an inconspicuous yet luring bridge creating a pathway that leads people to one another and that makes the intersection of separate realities possible. The bridge itself absorbs the shocks of the passersby who intentionally stomp or sway to incite a reaction from other crossers. The bridge gives assurance, as precarious as it may be sometimes, to crossers who are both fearful and compelled while stepping into their curiosity of a new view or adventure. A hanging bridge would likely have a crucial capacity marker, clear about its limitations, and would particularly be susceptible to becoming weather-worn. Bridge-being is not glorious but, even in its understatement, transformation toward something better is attainable if the chasm was worth crossing in the first place.
Biblical exemplar, Jesus
A student of the life of Jesus would quickly see how he effected changes in the landscape of the communities in which he walked, taught, and acted and how he created new possibilities for these communities. Whether he was amazing temple dwellers by his understanding (Luke 2:41–47), calming the wind and sea (Matt 8:23–27), or raising the dead (Luke 7:11–16), Jesus changed the landscape by simply living into his identity among the people. Jesus sought to effect connection between people who ordinarily were segregated by social chasms through the imperative to love one’s enemies (Matt 5:43–48) and the storytelling of the compassion of the Samaritan passerby (Luke 10:25–37). Jesus effected new possibilities for individuals as he healed people with isolating diseases (Mark 2:1–12; 5:1–17; Luke 17:11–19), and Jesus oriented communities toward new possibilities as he reframed their thinking around unexamined cultural norms (Luke 18:15–17; John 8:3–11). A student of the death of Jesus would also quickly recognize his sacrificial acts as a bridge through the laying down of his own life in purposeful strength, creating a pathway that would lead people to one another and to the ultimate source of goodness for generations to come.
Sustenance for the pursuit of bridging: Self-care of the leaders
Above I referenced a moment during a leadership summit when I noticed tension from pent up frustration rising within me. What I did not mention was how my attitude was impacted after that moment: I recall becoming self-righteous and disinterested, and I even exacerbated others’ disengagement with portions of the event. About a year earlier I led several back-to-back diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) events. They required much self-work and pouring out to others. I then attended an event as a participant eager to learn something new and have my soul replenished. Yet, like at the leadership summit, I was beyond the point of weary, and, rather than being able to learn, the keynote speaker triggered confusion and distaste in me. I had to leave, take a long walk, and engage in some meditative practices. After some relief, I came back for the afternoon session, but I was again triggered, this time by an unintentional yet impactful gesture by another participate nearby me. I left the room again. Obviously flustered, an acquaintance asked if I wanted to talk and took me to a private office and offered a listening ear. In our conversation I found out she grew up in the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which I grew up, and we quickly connected on a different level as we compared notes of our “hometown” and our perspectives on DEI in our current surroundings. Without the interjection of a lunchtime walk with God and sister-talk with this fellow New Yorker, my day would have ended in disaster. Instead, I realized how spent I was and how much I needed to reconnect to God and to someone who could “speak my language” and feel where I was, even when I did not say much. Subsequently, I took a longer break from bridging work to fully restore and renew.
Although bridging has become instinctual for me in many contexts and I can feel comfort and peace in various settings, I do need to get off the bridge or cease from bridging activities from time to time. In fact, if I did not, the temptation to jump off the bridge could be very real, and I do not say that with any levity. The aforementioned internal tensions often found within the leader point to the potential severity of struggles bridge leaders can face. Theologians, sociologists, and experts in other disciplines have written on the health risks and cautions for those who are often cultural outliers. In the least, the effects of carrying responsibility within contexts that are predictably tense is another layer of stress added to the existing pressures on leaders in general. Taking care of oneself is, therefore, paramount to being ready for and effective in the long work of transformation toward personal, communal, and systemic change. Periodically, bridge leaders will simply need to get off the bridge and go home. I propose bridge leaders engage in self-care in one’s spiritual home and in one’s core cultural home.
Spiritual home
A leader’s spiritual home may be a space to which one goes or in which one creates, a space in which a connection with goodness can be reestablished, refined, and renewed. Stepping out of the event, taking a walk around the neighborhood, and being mindful of what was stirring in my body and mind while talking and listening to God was my spiritual home for that day. In those moments I checked myself against the characteristics Jesus exemplified for me. I allowed myself to be comforted by the Holy Spirit. I circled back around to my identity as a beloved child of God, created in God’s image and for good works. I tried to circle back to an ethical perspective and to behaviors that aligned with the vision I had for a unified and just human endeavor. On that day, these connections to the divine came through prayer walking and meditative mindfulness. Sometimes I utilize journaling or worshipping through music. Sometimes I enter my spiritual home deeply before entering into what I anticipate to be particularly tense bridging work, and, as already mentioned, sometimes I fall into it after a triggering episode. When and how will change with each leader, but the key is why: to stay connected to your spiritual source for motivation, guidance, and accountability.
Core cultural home
A bridge leader’s core cultural home is the space to which one goes or in which one creates, a space in which one’s natural or default self can simply be. This experience is different than being in a space in which a leader can skillfully and quite effortlessly engage with someone who is culturally different, even if this space is welcoming and life-giving. A cultural home is where the muscles in one’s face and shoulders relax without notice, where what one takes in hits one’s deepest understanding without incessant translation, where a leader can communicate honestly without concern for how it will impact or land in a way not intended. This core cultural home can be lived in with other people or by oneself. Sometimes it can be with someone who has the same “back-in-the-day” formative experiences or says the same exact thing at the same exact time. Or core cultural home can mean sitting alone in front of a movie in which one gets every innuendo and laughs from the belly. This home need not be defined by existing broad-sweeping cultural categories; it simply needs to align with who one is at one’s unique core.
Given (1) the challenging yet rewarding experiences of multicultural, value-driven, and prophetic communities and (2) the predictable presence of tension between reality and vision within the community and within the leaders themselves and the intentionality of reinterpreting these tensions and (3) the taxing activities of bridge-crossing, bridge-making, and bridge-being, bridge leaders must commit to finding and applying ways to care for themselves. Without this commitment in the present and for the longer term, they will soon be weather-worn and perhaps decommissioned, by oneself or others, from the work of bridging altogether. This loss would be great because bridge leaders offer qualities and qualifications that can complement well the gifts of leaders who operate from other leadership styles. While this model of leadership is still developing, it has applicability in a variety of human contexts. In addition, while many persons have identified bridging as necessary for contemporary challenges in the circles in which I work and live, not as many of them are well-equipped to actualize it. It is time for those who have been “walking the walk” to take their rightful and crucial positions as leaders, contributing to the transformational work of personal, communal, and systemic change toward God-honoring realities.
Footnotes
1.
Lowering the waterline as spiritual practice is a term I learned as a cross-cultural trainer with i-Relate from 2006–2010, a ministry of the California–Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church.
2.
A reference to a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in the United States on September 11, 2001, commonly referred to as “9/11,” which resulted in the collapse of the two buildings of the World Trade Center in New York City.
3.
Three examples: (1) My former context of leadership, the America Baptist Churches of Wisconsin, had within its long-standing mission statement the following excerpt: “We affirm our diversity of culture, gender, and theological perspectives as gifts for ministry.” “About American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin,” https://www.abcofwi.org/mission-vision/. (2) The mission statement of the community-based group I reference in this article which began in the summer of 2020 is “Our mission is to work toward racial equity and inclusion by bringing people together through education, conversation and creative solution finding across all sectors of our diverse community.” “About,” Community Engagement for Equity, http://www.facebook.com/communityengagementforequity. (3) The mission statement of my current context of leadership, the American Baptist Churches USA, includes: “As a people of prayer, purpose, and passion, we are in the forefront of creating a community of faith where people of every race, nationality and culture gather as one in worship, service and work.” “Mission Statement,” 
. All of these communities explicitly express an embrace of cultural diversity in their identity statements, supported by other values expressed in word and theoretical and practical pursuit of their mission.
4.
David L. Peterson, The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 7.
5.
Wendell L. Griffin, The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (King of Prussia: Judson Press, 2017), 14.
6.
7.
Sarah A. Lanier, Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures (Hagerstown, MD: McDougal Publishing, 2000), 20–21.
8.
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing reactions to social distancing restrictions surfaced a major iceberg clash between an inherently individualistic worldview and a group-oriented worldview. One portion of the national population pled for social distancing practices for the sake of public (not just personal) safety; another portion of the national population resisted governmental mandates, partially on the grounds of individual liberties and autonomy.
9.
Lanier, Foreign to Familiar, 28.
10.
Jim Herrington, Mike Bonem, and James H. Furr, Leading Congregational Change: A Practical Guide for the Transformational Journey (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 100–101.
11.
Deborah Hearn Gin, “Ruth: Identity and Leadership from Multivocal Spaces,” in Mirror Reflections: Reframing Biblical Characters, ed. Young Lee Hertig and Chloe Sun (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 66–67.
12.
Peterson, Prophetic Literature, 7, 240–41.
13.
Peter Bishop, Bridge (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 37.
14.
See Rom 14:13–19.