Kyle went on to regale me with stories of the gross incompetence of the member of the ministry team whose job he felt he—or anyone, really—could do better. She never showed up for anything where she would not be the star. She buttered up influential people in the congregation and sucked up to her superiors but treated staff members who were lower than her on the food chain with disinterest and disdain. After what seemed like an unending list of complaints, Kyle shared with me his plan for how he would engineer the minister’s demise and departure. I stopped him right there.

Not because I was bored with the story or because I did not believe him. Not because I did not care about him or felt the topic to be inappropriate for a mentoring conversation. Not because he is a man and his nemesis a woman. I held up my red, octagonal sign because Kyle clearly did not get it: his agenda was doomed to fail. Whether or not his colleague was competent made no difference, and nobody would care whether he was right. What mattered was that she was the one in the position of power and was evidently good at managing up. She was beloved by those whose love she needed. My advice to Kyle was that he needed to forget about her and focus on his own call, goals, values, and work ethic. Evidently, my advice came too late. His coup attempt was already in the offing. He was gone by month’s end.

I am familiar with a church with a long history of sexual misconduct on the part of clergy—at least two ministers, spanning more than sixty years of the church’s history. After the departure of the most recent abusive pastor, the church’s treasurer was found to have stolen some money from the coffers. She had been a lifelong member of the church, found herself in dire financial straits, and did a bad thing. She was removed from her role, of course, and never returned to the church. She had taken some money, abused her position and the church’s trust in her, and since trust was such a messy matter in the church already, she was cast out for life.

The clergy abuser’s misdeeds were never taken seriously by the congregation, although the denomination held him accountable after he left his post and was seeking other ministry opportunities. The treasurer who stole was treated as a pariah in her own community, reputation destroyed. Does this dynamic make sense, where the vulnerable doer of wrong is vilified, and the powerful doer of wrong whose misconduct poisoned the well is not held accountable for decades? Of course it does not make sense, but I am betting it does not surprise us either.

What do these two anecdotes have in common? They demonstrate how many different forces are at work in a crisis, controversy, or change in a faith community. They highlight the dynamics of change that every leader must navigate with discerning wisdom: dynamic discernment. If we understand “dynamic” to be a noun, then we imagine this book will be about the discernment of dynamics in communities, and we would be correct. If we understand “dynamic” to be an adjective, the meaning likewise holds true, while turning on a different edge: discerning dynamically. This book considers how leaders can nimbly draw from a repertoire of practices depending on their read of a given moment’s needs. I invite you to reflect on what is at stake for you as a reader as you consider your community’s dynamics as they relate to change, and how you as a leader must adapt, moment by moment, to those dynamics. Adapting does not make a leader weak, peripatetic, or even inconsistent. The leader who cannot adapt cannot lead without burning out or losing their mind.

I am blessed to have been exposed to change as a dynamic, rather than a “problem,” early in my ministry. I had been an ordained minister and educational administrator for a handful of years when I began a doctoral program in Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. As a member of and minister in the United Church of Christ, I knew something about how a community had to be brought along, gradually and carefully, when attempting something new. I understood that change imposed from on high was unlikely to succeed, and I had abundant examples from my own church and ministry to back that up.

Until I took a course on program planning and evaluation with Professor William Kritek, however, where change theory was central to the curriculum, I did not have words for what I had experienced and observed. An interdisciplinary field connected to business, psychology, and sociology, change theory gave me a language that has led to some of the most fascinating conversations of my ministry. Those conversations have evolved as I have gathered new experiences, and as the field has become more nuanced and sophisticated. Those new experiences included serving a campus ministry that was at death’s door but that possessed the resources needed for a turnaround: a facility, a budget, a devoted board. That experience propelled me into theological education, as I discovered a passion for not just working with students but helping them learn to be ministerial leaders.

The seminary I was called to serve was already thinking about major change—merger? closure? relocation?—years before I arrived, so I entered a conversation about the need for change while it was already unfolding. That said, my changing roles at Andover Newton Theological School, moving from faculty and field education to academic affairs, gave me numerous perspectives on how constituents react to change depending on what is at stake for them. I represented the school’s academic interests in seven different partnership negotiations before one came about that has worked: to move the seminary onto dry ground as an embedded seminary in a university. With all the benefits that come with a strong and secure base, the costs have been high as well, including the toll taken on the human spirit by chronic confusion giving way to a sense of loss of place. I have taken to introducing myself in professional gatherings this way: “Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m from Andover Newton, which we’ve recently renamed ‘It’s Complicated.’”

In my first foray into the study of program planning and evaluation, I was taught change leadership as a step-by-step method for bringing a community along, explaining a vision and what needed to happen to get there. I was taught to assume that those I would lead are reasonable people. I had to look to other fields altogether, such as emotional systems and liberation theology, to understand the other—and often more powerful—dynamics at work in faith communities. Is this because change theory is inherently incomplete? That the interdisciplinary social science approach to institutional change was lacking? Perhaps, at the time, yes.

How much conflict, stagnation, and decline in our churches has resulted not from different ideas of what changes needed to take place, but rather conflicting assumptions about how change happens? Imagine if leaders could look at a new idea from numerous perspectives and understand both the issues and each other. Those who take pleasure in analyzing what is going wrong in their churches could have more interesting conversations over their Sunday brunches. Those who take on the mantle of leadership could have more satisfying experiences, recognizing where they can have a real impact while sparing themselves disappointment where such impact is unlikely.

Throughout the history of God’s interaction with creation, we see God providing the resources needed to face that which is uncertain and new. When God places us in situations we cannot face on our own, God gives us the tools we need. I felt called by God to write this book in order to put something—or some things—new in each reader’s leadership toolbox. When we face that which might overwhelm us, we can use these tools to examine its component parts with the hope that, by not ignoring varied dynamics and not taking them on all at once, we can lead rather than find ourselves in despair.

In the pages that follow, expect abundant examples, exercises, and case studies. These tools honor the ways in which people learn, and because they are designed for groups as well as individuals, the tools acknowledge that the quest for a just and loving world is inherently communal. “Dynamic” signals movement among forces that interact with each other in the context of an evolving community. “Discernment” reminds us that, as we seek to change communities and institutions, our ultimate goal is to make them more like what God—rather than what we—imagines them to be.

At the time of my writing this book, the president of the United States is Donald Trump. He introduced the United States to “fake news,” a term he uses to describe the words of his critics, when fact-checkers generally find that only about 25 percent of the so-called facts President Trump cited during his campaign were accurate. President Trump built a base of support through his capacity to conduct an orchestra of emotion in a symphony of discontent. His power, derived from wealth rather than wisdom, placed a higher premium on his financial successes than his clearly flawed capacity to reason. Ten years ago, a book on the ways in which reason and emotion and power all play into organizational dynamics amidst change would have had to persuade the reader why reason alone is not enough. During a Trump presidency, making the argument that reason still matters at all is the new challenge. Emotion and power, in this political moment, are everything.

I first studied change theory in a time when reason, making sense, and getting a community to see the light were primary. Now, reason is only part—and an ever-shrinking one—of the leader’s challenge. Here is the good news: this book recognizes that multiple forces are at work when change happens in communities, but even though more than one dynamic is at work, chaos does not reign. Change dynamics can be analyzed and largely understood when we employ a variety of tools. As the saying goes, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” We need more than hammers in our leadership toolboxes.

When human beings face that which seems overwhelmingly complex, a series of possible reactions can ensue. We become discouraged and overwhelmed, and thus we opt out. Opting out can take the form of a leader withdrawing, even at times presenting their withdrawal as something that is good for the community. “It’s really their decision,” says the leader whose community is discerning a future during difficult times. “They have to do what they want.” Or we decide that things must be simpler than they appear. Getting a headache from the complex array of people and their dynamics in community, we choose to paint over situations in black and white. If one interpretation of a leadership challenge is right, we conclude that all others must be wrong. We make ad hominem generalizations, saying that complaints coming from a particular person cannot be worthy of attention because of who that person is. “There goes Nelly again,” we say, “Always trying to stir up trouble.” We dismiss that which does not conform to our oversimplified analysis as sentiments that come from a lack of knowledge, or even a lack of faithfulness.

Opting out or painting a complex community simplistically are not useful practices for leaders or their communities. Three alternative dispositions for leaders amidst change—“sense-making,” “separate-yet-togetherness,” and “liberationist”—are ways in which leaders can bring together reason, emotion, and power without allowing any one of those dynamics to stealthily scuttle a change initiative. Pulling back or oversimplifying are both tempting stances, truly. They seem like good options when a person does not know what to do; they are natural when no alternative stances are available. This book not only promotes these more adequate stances but recommends practices for cultivating them, readying them for service when times demand them.

The physics of institutional change are worthy of their own glossary of terms as this book begins. First, “dynamic” is used to suggest movement rather than stagnation. It also suggests more than one party is involved in a change. Even in a conversation between two people, a dynamic is at work where the two bring more than the sum of their parts to a conversation. If one is having a bad day, if the other is harboring old resentments, the dynamic between them will reflect these negativities. A group’s dynamic is only partly related to the topic on which they are focused; the unspoken vibe that shapes the dynamic can turn the most straightforward problem-solving conversation into a hotly contested debate.

The words “iterative” and “dialectic” describe the ways in which we play off one another in communities. Iterative interactions are ones where our engagements are habitual and toward a mutual goal, but not necessarily transformative. The manager works with an employee to set goals. The employee seeks to meet those goals. At certain intervals, the employee and manager revisit those goals. Where the employee has fallen short, the question under discussion is, “Did the employee miss the mark, or was this the wrong goal?” An iterative process is healthy and important in leadership.

Dialectics refer to iterative engagements that lead to transformation. Consider a meaningful interaction between two people who know each other only casually. They find themselves in a conversation about something personal, say, their fathers. One shares his story with the other. The listener then shares hers. But her story is different from having heard her conversation partner’s story; if she had spoken first rather than second, her story might have been different. She has been changed by what she has heard. Perhaps she is bolder because of her conversation partner’s modeling or has thought to name details she might not otherwise have considered important. Then her story changes her listener as he replies with further information or reflection. Dialectical change suggests not just patterned repetition, but transformation and growth.

Why are these terms—dynamics, iterative processes, dialectics—important at the start of a book like this? Because people can and do change, just not in ways that are easy to see, understand, label, or describe in generalizations. Our very theology of resurrection in the Christian tradition is enough to tell us that transformation happens not just at the threshold between life and death but many, many times over the course of a lifetime. Even if people do not fundamentally change, which some believe and others disbelieve, a dynamic can almost always change, and, thus, so can a community.

A final note about vocabulary: I come from a tradition that defines leadership with a flat hierarchy in mind. In the United Church of Christ, lay leaders hold power in ways that might surprise those from faith traditions where clergy and bishops hold more sway. For that reason, my model of leadership is multidimensional. In some settings, I am a leader; in other settings, I am led. In my church, I am part leader and part member, but never quite a follower. Therefore, this book is written with an idea that everyone is a leader somewhere, and thus the concepts of reason, emotion, and power in leading change will make sense to all in some part of their lives. As my first book Holy Clarity: The Practice of Planning and Evaluation² suggests, making sense is a sacred task, pleasing to God. Sacred tasks are not the property of any one person in any one role: they belong to all of us.

In that chapter, I propose that the leadership role that corresponds most closely with a cognitive-developmental approach to change is that of the spiritual leader as teacher and planner. The leader helps the community to see a vision, a direction, and the steps needed to get there (a plan) by educating them regarding the need for change and change’s requirements. Chapter 2 also describes some of the pitfalls of over-relying on reason. As Edwin Friedman writes, it is unreasonable to expect that those in our community are going to be reasonable. Emotions are often more powerful than reason, and they shape—and sometimes distort—our capacity to imagine. Power dynamics are almost always at work: the powerful person in a group can cause everyone to see that person’s way without realizing that they have given over their own capacity to interpret. When made mindful that we have been drawn into another’s perspective, we become defensive, sure that we are too reasonable for that to be true. The leader must be conversant in emotional systems and power dynamics in order to approach such situations with care. Quoting my colleague Amy McCreath, “Who cares that you’re right?” Being right is only part of the story of leadership.

Chapter 3 explores the role of emotional systems in institutional change. Relying on Bowen’s family systems theory and Friedman’s expansion of that theory into the life of faith communities, I describe how interlocking triangles of relationships in community help us to make sense of change and inevitable resistance to it. Many religious leaders in the later twentieth century were inculcated in seminary and continuing education with the notion that emotional systems were all they needed to know about leadership. The good news is that a generation of faith leaders became aware of how congregations tended to do whatever it takes to maintain homeostasis, and they stopped blaming themselves for difficulties getting congregations unstuck. They learned to recognize triangulation and the ways in which those who rocked the boat for good reason could be unfairly scapegoated.

Conversely—and here is the bad news—a single-minded focus in ministerial leadership education on family systems theory also created a generation of leaders who saw communities as sets of interlocking triangles and nothing more. Considering that we live in a hyperrational world, it is understandable that exposure to a different way to make sense of communal behavior will bring about in us the zeal of the convert. All zeal fades with time, and we must be able to see from other perspectives as well.

The leadership practice associated with emotional systems that I propose in chapter 3 is that of self-differentiation. Friedman writes that in order to lead effectively in the midst of emotional triangles all around us, we must cultivate a separate-yet-together style of leadership, where we are whole ourselves and able to tell where we end and others begin. Whereas a cognitive-developmental approach calls upon the leader to explain, emotional systems call upon leaders to model self-possession and nonanxiety. Determining which situation calls for which leadership practice requires wisdom. Neither reason nor emotion alone takes into account the important and at times invisible role of power dynamics.

Chapter 4 attends to power. The most rational change leader (and the most well-differentiated to boot) still cannot function without savvy and strategy as relates to power. From the individual in a congregation who has and gives a lot of money to the former pastor who cannot help but chime in with opinions, power dynamics are critically important, and anyone who has served in religious leadership can share examples of times they have underestimated that importance and paid a price for their naïveté. The sources of power in communities of all kinds vary, and they are more complicated than meets the eye.

A member of a faith community could have more or less influence over the decisions of that organization depending on their wealth, health, family connections, professional status, duration of involvement, previous leadership roles, friends and allies, possession of information, attractiveness, and persuasiveness. None of those attributes necessarily means the Holy Spirit is more likely to speak through that person, and yet the person’s capacity to get heard will vary with their power resources. In an attempt to be good and kind, religious leaders tend to overlook power dynamics where the source of power is an earthly one. By overlooking the role of power, leaders give away a key strategic tool that could help them to bring about transformation. By ignoring power dynamics, leaders allow the individuals with power to always win.

The leadership practice in chapter 4 emerges from two different sources of knowledge: liberation theology and critical path thinking. Liberation theology is a body of wisdom originating from the margins of society. Questions about life’s meaning and purpose posed by those who have been decentered and disempowered generate different answers than the theologies that have had full audiences in the world of centered and empowered Christian scholarship over the centuries. Liberation theology fosters conscientization—an awakening of sorts—in their communities.

Conscientization is not enough, however, for a community to experience transformation. Awake, the community recognizes the situation in which they find themselves, and then they must plot out a path through which grassroots energies find purchase with the powers that be, enabling meaningful change in the right places, connecting the goals of the historically oppressed with the motivations of those with more power. Critical path thinking includes organizing dimensions of a community’s work into units, sequencing those units, and intentionally considering the top-down and bottom-up ways in which power can be used for the good. I call these shared goals “pockets of possibility” between those with top-down and bottom-up power, and leaders must be ready to help their communities identify those pockets. Instead of ignoring the role of power, critical path thinking conducts different sources of power so that they sing together in harmony.

Just as each chapter in this book provides one theoretical concept and a connected leadership practice, each chapter concludes with a fictional case study or workshop exercise. Cases are not drawn from any one particular “true” story, although several of them are amalgamations of numerous, different, real-life situations. The case studies help readers to consider how the dynamic in question—reason, emotion, or power—can be identified, connecting immediately to leadership practices for that dynamic. Workshop exercises at the conclusion of a chapter help the reader to consider how a leader might make sense of a situation using the frameworks of that chapter.

I believe in human capacity for change. That said, I am sober about change’s potential on both communal and individual levels. There are such things as points of no return, after which needed change is costlier than individuals or communities are willing to tolerate, and things fall apart. I believe that knowledge of change dynamics, enriched and critiqued by theology, provides leaders with something they need in this complicated point in human history. Change is changing faster than ever, and yet we need not allow ourselves or our communities to become overwhelmed. The church has survived and thrived through practices of adaptation. The adaptation we need today is capacity to lead change amidst complex communal dynamics.

A one-stop shop for change theories that each describes attributes of what happens in faith communities. A glossary of terms for those who care about change and want to help their communities to change for the good. A toolbox for leaders who know they need to adjust based on differing circumstances but do not know which tool helps in which situation. May you find all these resources and more as you continue to explore Dynamic Discernment.