Thanks for following the “Of Mouse and Church” series, reflecting on the Disney Institute‘s professional development courses. I hope you are inspired with their content as much as I am! I encourage you to find out more about the courses at their website: www.disneyinstitute.com.
The focusing question of this series is this:
What would it be like for people to have a faith formation experience so extravagantly welcoming; with such radically inclusive hospitality; and so deeply Spirit-centered in God’s love that they were already excited and planning to return for another experience before they left the building?
I think there’s a lot of wisdom contained in Disney’s guest-centered experience that can help us live out our calling to follow in Christ’s Way of welcome. This is Part One of a a multi-part post on the first of the Disney Institute’s Three Pillars Approach : Leadership Excellence.
Leadership and Discipleship
A quick review of the Three Pillars:
- Leadership Excellence
- Employee Engagement
- Quality Service
Honestly, I thought about working from #3 to #1, because it’s easy to talk about church work from a service-delivery perspective. It’s how we coach so many of our decisions. “We have extra funds. What mission can we help out?” “The food pantry needs more cereal. How can we fill that need?” Churches like to be pragmatic more than they like to be planful and purposeful. This hurts our efforts to build authentic relationships, though. Our guests get a confusing picture of who we are, and what God is calling us to do or be (Thanks, Gil Rendle and Alice Mann!).
The Disney Institute’s thesis on leadership is:
Leaders establish, operationalize, and sustain the values and vision by which organizations thrive.
They also note that: “An organization’s values often form intentionally by proactive leaders or organically in the presence of all types of leaders.” Given the nature of the relationships within faith communities–volunteer-based and membership driven–organic values tend to be the norm. They grow out out of interpersonal interactions and shared passions. But what if leaders looked to be intentionally organic, creating space for the values to come to fruit like the “seeds that fell on good ground?” This is where faith communities thrive, holding to their historic commitments while granting space for the Spirit to move and nurture.
No matter how a faith community’s decision-making is organized, our actions in how we serve our ministries are driven by the values and vision behind how we are organized. In our Christian context: Leadership is Discipleship; and Discipleship, Leadership.
Our discernment for today is in defining the foundational values, where they came from, and how they are alive in the faith community’s vision today.
Establishing the Values and Founding a Vision
In faith communities, especially long-living ones, “establishing” the values and visions of the organization is a tricky topic. We’ve got scriptural sources, and historical testimonies, and denominational differences, and internal community legacies–each establishing part of the values. So in my context, where do we claim our Progressive Christian values originate? I think it looks something like this:
- Jesus’ life and ministry described in the Gospels starts us off (Christ is our center).
- Paul and others in the “origin era” systematize the norms of what the church will become.
- Empire and Christendom take over, and codify what’s good (orthodox) and what’s not (heresy).
- The Reformation reformed (as it does), resetting the values and recasting the vision-even in the parts of the church that rejected the Reformation.
- And the modern, postmodern/metamodern church of today keeps that rolling reform going.
I want to acknowledge these Spirit-driven revisions that keep the church alive–and celebrate them. There’s a tendency to seek a history of “the church” that is monolithic and single-origin, or to call back to a specific point in the history of Christianity. Some would use the words like Biblical, or Traditional, or even Orthodox, and fixate on a moment as a defining “golden era.” Yes, there are threads that continue across the eras, and there are other ones that were knit in at different points that are now purely historical. That’s how a living history works.
Legacy, Heritage and Values
The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.
Peter L. Berger
As the engaged Body of Christ, the church is a growing, responsive body thriving in its unique time and place. Cultural historians will tell us, and our own experience confirms regularly: our history is as old as the one who told us the story. But it also has a lot to do with a faith community’s lived history. Take for example my current church:
- The founders were German immigrants, who left to escape the oppression and economic exploitation of the Thirty Years’ War.
- They arrived in their new community, and were challenged as outsiders (though the community was under 2,000 people, and occupying the land of a displaced Ho Chunk village for about twenty years old when they arrived).
- They cared deeply for family life, for raising children, and educating them in both their German heritage and the culture of new home
- And they were Reformed Evangelical Christians, coming from both Lutheran and Calvinist traditions.
The last of these, their faith life, was bound to their understanding of self. It informed their response to the trauma of their homeland, the challenge of their new home, and their care for family. These experiences formed their values: Social and Economic Justice; Welcome and Inclusion; Education; and community. Advance these values across their 175 years of Discipleship, and you will find story after story of how the congregation was led by these ideals!
Hmm… Maybe sharing those stories will make it into another post!
Establishing a Vision
Again, Leadership is Discipleship; and Discipleship, Leadership. Once we know the foundational values, we can focus on where they are driving our actions and decisions. So, let’s ponder this together: What is the basis for the values for a faith community?
- Is it the sacred texts? And if so, which parts provide the values: the verses, the midrash/interpretation, or the apologist?
- Is it heritage and/or legacy? How does that understanding get codified as core? And what happens when heritage is proven to be “complex” or mis-remembered?
In the next post, we’ll look at how the values become infused into the culture and vision. Holding consistently to our values helps us to build a culture “by design.” We’ll see how making our values foundational in our decision-making helps to set expectations for who our community is known to be, and what they are known for doing.
What’s Next?
I invite you to join me in prayerful discernment on how God is calling us to understand our Leadership, Engagement, and Service. And I invite you to help form the language that best speaks about these areas from our heritage and values.
This series will be posting out over the next week, and I’d love to hear what you think about seeing the church through Mouse-shaped glasses. Do leave a comment and add to the conversation.
Until next time, friends. Hope to see you real soon!
-HEF
Note: You can read about the inspiration and the foundations of my 2024 Sabbatical by following this link.
