A Call To Be Active Christian Leaders of Transformation in the World Today

I think a lot about leadership development as the president of New Brunswick Theological Seminary. And with leadership, one of the things that I’ve really been pushing is to move from being a consumer to being a provider. I consume information, I consume data, and I consume relationships in order to be able to provide care for people, to provide theological understanding to others. No one wants to walk into a church as a consumer, as a leader. The leader needs to be a person who can actually provide and help others to become providers. I think too often we’re dormant. We’re not active as professionals.

This material was originally recorded as part of the Renovations Project. It has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Leaders need to be transformers

I really believe that a good leadership model is one where you make things happen. I had a conversation the other day with a person who wanted to leave a leadership team. And I simply said, “Stay on the team, but never come to a meeting without something to offer, without a movement from where you were yesterday.” The next meeting that we had, that person came in with a completed task. I had that person lead us in that task. You could see this person just light up and stay on the team because she realized that she had something to contribute. So often we’re too busy comparing what we have to what you have, rather than realizing that we have to do something now that will transform this community, transform this world.

We’re in a situation now where we need transformers. We can’t have leaders who are leading from the back row. We need people who are willing to risk, to lay down their life, to make good trouble, to do things that may cost them their lives. If I suffer, let me suffer. If I die, let me die. I love the part in John’s gospel where Jesus says that Lazarus is not dead; he’s asleep. Then after two days, Jesus says, “Martha, do you believe? Do you believe you’re going to see resurrection right now as well as resurrection later?”

I think we need leaders who recognize that they need to promote and make resurrection happen right now as well as later. We need to figure out a way to bring things back to life now as well as later. I loved my job as a faculty member, as a professor of psychology, and as a pastor; I wasn’t ready to give it up. As I look back over my life, it was amazing to me that I made the decision to start my own psychological company—working with churches, doing things to really develop people. I then had a major auto accident and broke a rib, tore up a shoulder, and couldn’t work as a consultant. So for three months, I couldn’t work.

During that three months is when one of my mentors called and said, “I know you talked about leaving academia; I want you to come in and become the dean in my place. I’m retiring.” I said that I was happy where I was. He said, “I’m telling you: get ready, come in, apply, take over this job.” That didn’t work out. But that put me into a mindset to be mentally open when New Brunswick Theological Seminary had an opportunity for me to be president of the seminary. If it were not for that stopping, I would not be in the best job of my life. I’ve got a new resurrection, but it was based upon a most Holy Saturday. And it’s based upon preparation for my crucified Friday. All that together really makes a difference in helping someone to lead. How do you lead through the diversities? How do you lead through the adversity? How do you lead through plurality? How do you lead through being broken in your spirit and now recognizing that God can fix this?

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Look to the past to lead into the future

The future of leadership development for me is captured by the word sankofa, a word from Ghana that says you have to return to your past to really learn some things in order to move into your future with knowledge and understanding. I think leadership is really studying what leaders have done, whoever that leader might be. How do you take that into the future?

I was just thinking through a situation I had yesterday. It was a deep conversation because New Brunswick Theological Seminary is the oldest Protestant seminary in the United States (organized in 1784), so many of the persons who gave significant endowments owned slaves. What do we do with this money? How do we frame this differently? Yes, this is an issue that’s coming up, but how do you use this money to actually aid and to grow the people who were engaged in it? As a leader, I’ve established something called Higher Purpose, Higher Call Fellowship for undergraduate students at Rutgers University to work with the seminary in areas of domestic violence, areas of immigration, areas of interfaith development. So we’re using the resources that were given by those people who endowed the seminary back in 1814 in particular to do programs now that change the narrative.

Related: How the church can take something bad and make it better

Use the gifts of those around you with your gifts to lead

To really be active, not reactive, not even proactive, but active in what you’re doing is the best way to be a leader. Being a leader means being able to recognize that there’s just some things you cannot do, but you never stop doing so eventually what needs to get done is going to get done.

The other piece for me is building a team because no one can be a leader by herself or himself alone. You really need to surround yourself with people who complement your skills, your gifts, and your talents. I know I’m a visionary. I know I’m hyperactive, energetic. I need people around me who can plan well, who are very insightful, who have administrative skills to then take the visions and figure out how to do this for longevity. I think team building is a major part of being a team.

Related: How to create a sense of belonging and invite everyone to contribute their spiritual gifts

Leadership is also about understanding how to grapple with liminal seasons. To be a leader, you’ve got to know there are some seasons where things are just not working for you. You don’t fall apart then, but you actually embrace that. You sit with that; you dialogue with that. What does this mean for this agency? What does it mean for this person? What does it mean for this team to be in this season where we’re struggling? Theological education right now is in one of those liminal seasons. We don’t know where we’re going to go. 

We’ve got a new doctor of ministry program, for example, that is about missiology and global Christianity. Let’s look at what it means if we keep this, even with these intensive pieces fully online. We connect with our legacy, which is to be a mission-based seminary in the Reformed Church in America, which is missional and has a strong missional arm. We look at connecting with missionaries all over the world. The seminary grows, and those missionaries get education.

To thrive in liminal spaces as a leader, there’s no set quality for me. When I think about it, each person comes with a certain set of gifts. And so the psychologist in me, the pastor in me says, how do I help this person marry their set of gifts to their season? Every quality is acceptable in those seasons. There’s no “This is what’s going to work” and “This is not going to work.” Instead, it’s how do you figure out a way to make whatever it is you bring to the table work?