BUILDING TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS

I. Empowering the Church to be faithful to God’s call, reflective of Christ’s mission, and

open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit.

II. Strategically creating the future of God’s Church.

III. Witnessing in the public square to God’s redeeming power.

IV. Performing necessary and appropriate administrative tasks.

V. Working collaboratively with intercultural awareness and sensitivity.

VI. Encouraging leadership development of self and others through continuing education and

lifelong learning.

II. Strategically creating the future of God’s Church.

Again, strategizing and envisioning a "big picture" are not strengths of mine. In the past, I have recognized great strategies and enthusiastically supported other people's visions. However, I usually am comfortable doing the background work and attending to details to help bring that vision to fruition. Nonetheless, I think I can identify one critical issue that will impact our denominational life in the upcoming decade: we have to live into our denominational vision of "Being the Church" at the congregational level. I know that many of our local churches have embraced resolutions and actions of the national church. However, many more have not embraced those actions, making it nearly impossible to impact our communities and transform lives as a unified front.

The first example that comes to my mind is the Open and Affirming stance of the denomination on a national level that has not been embraced by a majority of our congregations. I wrote an essay about what I see as the disconnect between the national church (or Synod) and local congregations for my UCC History, Theology, and Polity course that I am sharing here since I believe it articulates my analysis:

I see the role of General Synod in relationship to associations, conferences, and local churches as one of lateral relationship where people from each setting gather for “…worship…community building…education…[and] witness.” (Fosburgh General Synod Lecture Video) While I have not had the opportunity to attend General Synod, I envision it as a much larger version of our Southeast Conference Annual Meetings in that participants get to experience diverse worship styles, build community with people from other UCC churches, and learn from workshops about ministries that are happening in other settings. One difference from a conference annual meeting is that the delegates to General Synod get to help direct the work of the national board in the two years between synods; this work includes deciding where to channel resources based on the course(s) deemed most important to local churches and conferences as expressed at General Synod. (Fosburgh GS Lecture Video)

One key aspect of General Synod is the ability to “witness” to the world outside the church through resolutions. As Edith Guffey explains in her lecture, resolutions of witness address moral and ethical issues from a Christian perspective; they come from different settings of the UCC, arising from “convictions” and passions brought before General Synod delegates. (Guffey Resolutions of Witness Lecture Video) Resolutions of witness that have risen from a local church, association, conference, or board are considered by committee, then sent to the floor (or not) where they are discussed (with time given to both proponents and opponents) and ultimately voted on by delegates. If the resolution of witness is affirmed by a 2/3 majority vote, it is made public and “…offered to local churches as statements that reflect the thinking of the General Synod.” (Guffey Resolutions of Witness Lecture Video) As both Fosburgh and Guffey highlight, these resolutions are meant to speak TO the local churches rather than FOR the local churches, associations, or conferences. Guffey claims that resolutions of witness can “…widen [one’s] vision of the church…” while noting that local churches ultimately get to decide what to do with resolutions. (Guffey Resolutions of Witness Lecture Video)

As Timothy Downs explains in his lecture, The Evolving Structure of the UCC, the Preamble of our Constitution brought together beliefs from all four of our founding traditions, followed by Articles that speak to different aspects of that structure. According to Downs, Article III is “…a more recent addition…” that highlights the covenantal nature of relationship among the parties while Article V, addressing the autonomy of local churches is the “…most quoted.” (Downs Video Lecture) It seems to me that this tension between local church autonomy and our covenant where each party is “…called to honor and respect the work and ministry of each other part…” (UCC Constitution Article III) is most evident in our Resolutions of Witness. That is, the conviction about a particular moral or ethical issue comes from one or more parties and is considered by delegates from all the parties at General Synod (covenant), then the local church decides whether to “live by” the resolution (autonomy). I think that one weakness of our structure lies in the breakdown of communications between General Synod/National Setting and the local churches. I can understand how a local church might reject a resolution, but I have trouble with the idea that the local churches do not have to wrestle with -or even hear- these resolutions. In this way, autonomy is given precedence over covenant because local congregations don’t fulfill the calling to “honor and respect the work and ministry of each other part.”

While local church autonomy is part of our DNA, placing it above covenantal responsibilities weakens our denominational witness to the world, in my opinion. It also diminishes opportunities for faithful conversation and theological education/reflection that should happen around Resolutions of Witness. For example, the General Synod of 2005 “…voted overwhelmingly to support marriage equality for LGBTQ people…” (Guffey Lecture Video), yet fifteen years later, only 31% of our local churches are Open and Affirming. (https://www.uccfiles.com/pdf/2019-UCC-Statistical-Profile.pdf accessed 3/31/2020) Perhaps I am too impatient; perhaps faithful conversations and theological education are still happening around this resolution. I truly hope so because I’m not sure we should call ourselves an Open and Affirming denomination (or even a denomination of “extravagant welcome”) when almost 70% of our local churches have not become ONA congregations.

IV. Performing necessary and appropriate administrative tasks.

As part of a seminary course on administrative styles and church councils/boards, I performed an analysis of the council meetings at my ministry site-especially the time allotments on the agenda and the roles of the deacons/council members. After I finished my assignment and the course had ended, I was still interested in pursuing some changes, based on what I had observed and learned. I began to advocate for governing through policy so that the council's focus could be on creating the vision for our church's mission and for using a "consent agenda" where routine reports are read outside of meetings and approved with a quick "consent" vote.

Here is a brief excerpt from that analysis:

Based on this board time analysis, the council proposed two agenda modifications upon which they will vote in the March meeting:

1) Require all reports to be sent via email to all council members one week ahead of the meeting (not just the minutes of previous meeting and treasurer's report as is the practice since December 2014). Each report should include any question or discussion that the member feels should be addressed by the council. All council members should read reports and respond to questions via return email. If an issue is still unresolved, the reporting member should ask to be placed on the agenda and given a proportionate amount of time. (The agenda is created by the moderator and the senior pastor.)

2) Identify one-time action items that should be addressed as policy proposals. This could be gleaned from emailed reports, addressed as a one-time action if it truly is, outside the meeting. If the issue is something that has surfaced more than once, address it as a policy proposal during the next meeting.

Although this analysis was written several years ago, while I was still a council member rather than a staff member, my suggestions met some resistance; the changes did not happen quickly. Slowly, council members who supported these changes began to grow in number (as people left the board and new people joined). Eventually, these changes were fully adopted! However, I can only take credit for pointing out the issues that, while not "wrong" were not as beneficial as they could be.

I should add that the pastor was on board for the adjustments-having already read some of the same materials that my professor use- and took the lead on implementing them. Thanks to his leadership, we now use a form of consent agenda for council meetings, council members more fully understand their dual roles, and we have policies that address many questions that arise.

Here is a link to the full analysis paper:

LM561 Board Time Analysis Tonya Barnette (1).docx

VI. Encouraging leadership development of self and others through continuing education and lifelong learning.

Recently, we celebrated International Women's Sunday at Church of the Savior UCC with an (almost) all woman-led worship service. I was the worship leader and was to give the meditation that day, but John and I decided to have other women speak. with me-a kind of three part sermon. The women whom we approached were not accustomed to speaking in front of the congregation, to having their voice heard, and their interpretation of scripture honored. I encouraged them to "get up there" with me; they both agreed. Each of us was to choose a woman in scripture with whom we identified, but Desiree had a different idea. She wanted to talk about how she longs to hear more about the women's stories that we only get a glimpse of in the Bible. I told her that she should say what she wanted to say; after all, the lack of women's stories is a basic tenet of feminist theology. Wendy was unsure that the way she approached the story of Miriam was theologically valid since it was through the lens of a children's book. I assured her that her thoughts were valid; she was interpreting from her lived experience as a librarian and mother.

Sunday arrived, as it always does, and we women (pianist, worship leader, speakers, tech person) were preparing to lead a hybrid in-person and virtual worship service. I spoke with everyone, including the only man (Sam) who shared a song as a male ally, encouraging us to let the Holy Spirit flow through our words and music. The service went beautifully; Desiree and Wendy spoke with conviction and strength. Afterwards, we heard from several of the women who were present in the sanctuary how much we had spoken healing words to them. One woman, with tears in her eyes, said she had never expected to hear such affirmation for her as a woman in a church service and thanked us profusely! (She was a visitor who was unfamiliar with our church.)

I am sharing a link to the video of the live-streamed service here, so folks can experience it as virtual worshipers do each Sunday:

https://www.facebook.com/168440916522886/videos/882958725861156

Note: I am aware that this does not address "continuing education" per se, but I feel that I encouraged leadership development for those involved with the service.