Abstract
This volume of papers on church leadership is published on behalf of the Archbishops’ Council by Church House Publishing in its Explorations series. As Bishop Cocksworth explains in the Foreword, the Faith and Order Commission (FOC) report on Senior Church Leadership that begins this volume was presented to General Synod in July 2015 following the controversial report chaired by Lord Green into the development of leadership skills among bishops and deans. The Church might appear to be in panic mode as it looks to the secular world to provide answers to its current malaise, so this volume is a welcome theological offering from the FOC with background reflections by some of its contributors and other interested voices. Perhaps the sequence could have been beneficially reversed. Thankfully reference to talent management and other corporate labels used in the Green report were immediately dropped by the FOC to embrace, as Higton explains, more theologically robust terms culminating in their report’s focus on faithful improvisation and adaptation to the increasing diversity of Western social contexts.
The background reflections offered to the FOC report are dominated by historic commentary on the development of models of leadership in the Church since New Testament times and conclude with a summative focus on the evangelical wing of the Church as in recent years it has most obviously embraced the organizational paradigm. Tensions in these proposed church growth models and, in particular, between management and leadership would benefit from further referencing. I enjoyed Harle’s reminder of Bartlett’s writings as a mathematician and jazz musician, bringing together the mathematical systems of order and chaos. He also cites references in the FOC report to leadership as a conductor of an orchestra to note that gathering such a messy culture challenges our Western preoccupation with order, authority and control. Like Harle, I was concerned at the neglect of references to leadership in the Hebrew tradition of the Old Testament where a rich resource of prophetic leadership styles might also resonate with the experience of the persecuted Church across the world. Faithful improvisation indeed!
A short postscript by Bishop Treweek beneficially introduces parallel language from secular usage, and in doing so she highlights the ministry of all God’s people, the laity. Bringing an educational flavour, she leaves the reader pondering what a flourishing church might look like? Perhaps I have been involved in the church institutions for too long, but the monastic tradition explored by Fr Seville was quite simply refreshing and could provide some clues. His discussion on leadership and community provided insights of mutuality and de-centring that challenge distinctions between the led and the leader. How restrictive are our frequently prescriptive pathways to senior church leadership and how do we give opportunity for the youngest to show the way?
The FOC report and these essentially clerical theological reflections offer a good beginning, but there is more theological groundwork to be done yet. I was left looking forward to a further study, in particular, on the meeting of institution and monastic tradition in the model of leadership suggested in the title adopted by Pope Francis!