“Worshipful-Work – An Icon for the Church in the 21st Century”

A participant in a spiritual formation program at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta came home to report that he heard numerous references to “worshipful work” as though it were an “icon”. That took us by surprise. When asked for more information about what he was hearing. “Whether folks have been oriented by you or not, their initiatives to integrate spirituality with leadership in governance and administration are being referred to as “worshipful work.” They are doing it using this name. I hear it as an icon – a picture image that holds meaning and vision. A lot more is happening than you are making happen, and it is happening with your name.”

The very word “icon” has such a deep and historic meaning that on the surface it would seem that using it for anything less would trivialize it. Yet it is being used in so many ways today, i.e., programs on a computer, star athletes, that it may serve as a way to lead inquirers into an understanding of “worshipful work.”

Leadership network convened a major conference in May 2000 in Colorado called “Exploring Off of the Map.” They used the upcoming 200-year anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as the dominant image from which to explore the church in the new millennium—uncharted territory off the map. Their speakers included noted organizational thinkers like Margaret Wheatly, Peter Senge and Peter Drucker. In listening to them it is amazing the ways that the icon of Worshipful-Work deals with the same themes.

Margaret Wheatly made much of the fact that people do not know who they are. They have no story and identity. They are lost. At Worshipful-Work we are getting in touch and seeing the power of story—both for individuals and for institutions. It is one thing to mourn the loss of story, but another to put in place the space and practices for story telling to become a part of the culture of an organization. Faith communities are richly blessed with powerful founding and descending stories from which to live into, and out of.

Peter Senge noted the importance of connectedness. He reported that topping the book sales for the under thirty crowd are two categories of books: 1) the new economy, and 2) Buddhism. Historian Arnold Toynbee had predicted that Buddhism would move with considerable influence into the Western world in the latter part of the 20th century. Greed may attract folks to books on the new economy, but Senge aks “what is the attraction to Buddhism?” He responds by saying that Buddhism is not a creedal set of beliefs. It is rather a developmental religion that emphasizes “practices.” He speculates that less than five percent of Christians actually practice their faith as a developmental faith. Buddhism attracts because it establishes a set of developmental practices. So the hunger is there. The icon of Worshipful-Work is grounded in a set of basic practices. All denominations engage in a clear set of practices. Take the Church of the Brethren, for example, which engages in feetwashing in their love feast. Our practices uniquely position us to meet a yearning world.

Senge went on to suggest that the role of leadership is to help people get in touch with the passion that drew them to an organization in the first place. “Why did you come here and why did you stay?” Then help them connect with each other at deep places of making sense out of experience. “What is your story and what does it mean?” Worshipful-Work is all about creating a community of spiritual leaders.

When Chuck Olsen and Ellen Morseth were writing their book on "Selecting Church Leaders: A Practice In Spiritual Discernment", they were continually driven back to the questions, what kind of a church, and what kind of leader? Before a selection process makes sense these questions must be addressed. If the church is to be an organic rather than a mechanistic faith community—then its leaders must not seek control via power, but be willing to lead “from the foot of the table” through by story, meaning, vision, and discernment.

People tend to view an “icon” with several different understandings. Let’s look at them from the popular to deeper and more profound meanings.

• A symbolic representation. At this level, one may use icon language to distinguish categories or fields of operation. We are talking about this and not that.
• A language about which to talk, reflect, and practice. The image may invite descriptive analysis.
• An art form that invites one into mystery. Like the girl who responded to the question, “What does your dance mean?” by saying “If I could have told you I would not have had to dance it.” Thanks to Don Parker and several creative artists in the Church of the Brethren, art was created to depict Worshipful-Work. It pictures “the table of the Board as a table of the Lord.” It reveals a round table with an open Bible in the Center and chairs for board members around it. But positioned at a ninety-degree angle is a side view of a communion table holding a chalice. Over it two hands extend a broken loaf of bread.
• A prayer. Now we are in touch with the profound meaning of religious icons (which most of us Protestants rejected historically.) When gazing at the icon uncritically and lovingly, a space is created between the icon and the pray-er that makes room for mystery. The icon is more than the object for contemplation as the grace of God invades our lives. Icons invite prayer.

Can you imagine a church board/council spending fifteen minutes at the beginning of a meeting gazing in solitude at the Worshipful-Work symbol? What transformation might such a practice invite – both in what is seen and in the attitudes that the participants bring. Perhaps the symbol has become an icon that prayerfully invites one into the presence of the Holy.

Those who practice “worshipful work” are iconographers. Every time they make space for the wonder of a story, connect meanings, draw people together around vision and passion, and sit together waiting the discerning word, they are writing a verbal icon. Those icon-type of story/pictures in turn can be held for others to gaze upon – and so the story will go on and on.

© 2000 - Worshipful-Work

The Leader in a Christ-centered Community Living in Discernment

Such a leader is not a person called, elected, or employed in a position of authority, but a person who stands only as his or her own vulnerable self, committed to carrying the message that God loves not because of what we do or accomplish, but because of who He is.
Such a leader leads in a radically different way, not on what the world values but in the footsteps of the servant leader, Jesus where the measure is not in what the leader does but in the answer to the question: "are the served becoming healthier, freer, wiser, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servants?"
Such a leader claims irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that permits him or her entry into a deep solidarity with the anguish and pain underlying the glitter and hype that engulfs us and to bring the light of Jesus there.
Such a leader understands that the Gospel is best communicated to people through relationships where people can encounter the message at their points of anxiety and pain, shared interests, circumstances, and/or experience.
Such a leader is not simply well informed about the burning issues of our time, but first rooted in a permanent, intimate relationship with Jesus and finds there the source of his or her words of advice and guidance.
Such a leader must reclaim the time for quiet that Jesus repeatedly sought and have an ardent desire to dwell there.
Such a leader is called into the community of believers, and to discover there the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. He or she must be a full member of that community, accountable to it, in need of its affection and support, and committed to minister with his or her whole being including their "wounded selves".
Such a leader needs to be poor, prepared to journey with nothing but a staff. Being poor offers us the opportunity to allow ourselves to be served and led.
Such a leader seeks not to control but to use their power to grow others. This is not a leader who lacks spine but a one so deeply in love with Jesus that he or she is ready to follow him, trusting that they will find life and find it abundantly
Such a leader is comfortable with power but chooses to use it to nurture growth in others and their organizations.
Such a leader must seek to listen to others as God listens to our deepest longings and in so doing help them to disclose and discover their createdness and redeemedness in new ways.
Such a leader recognizes that leadership does not rest in one person but in the many people of a community as they are gifted and the need requires. He or she seeks to help prepare others for leadership and to be an effective follower when others are called to step forward.
Such a leader knows that the only authority he or she has is that which others are willing to entrust to them save the authority to serve as Jesus served.
Such a leader understands that his or her leadership is finally stewardship, stewardship of the Gospel, stewardship of people, and stewardship of the resources that God so richly surrounds us with.
Such a leader understands people serve God through many organizations and he or she seeks to create the commitment to serve in each organization of which they are a part.
Such a leader is intimately rooted in the Biblical text and the sacraments. They are familiar and mysterious, a source of continued wonder and strength, faith and wisdom, hope and promise.
Such a leader has faith in the value and meaning of life even in the face of despair and death. Every experience holds new promise, every encounter new insight, every event a new message. But these promises, insights, and messages have to be discovered and made visible. A Christian leader is not a leader because he or she announces a new idea or is successful at convincing others to go this way or that; he or she is a leader because he or she faces the world with eyes full of expectation and the willingness, insights and skills necessary to draw open the veil that covers its hidden potential.