dissertation

185
vide appropriate structures, i.e. organizing, for example, building networks that facilitate
the emergence of novelty. 108 Mark Branson captures these encompassing leadership
tasks in terms of interpretative, relational and implemental perceptions and practices. 109
Scott Cormode provides three models of leadership that cover the same ground. 110 The
gardening model is that of symbolizing, sense-making and meaning making. The shepherd
model emphasizes “relationships, rather than roles, people rather than positions.” 111
The builder model is an organizational approach in which goals, structures and roles are
emphasized. Cormode adds that all three leadership aspects are important and indispensable.
112 When adaptive challenges arise, however, such as situations of ambiguity and
change, the “gardening model is primary,” 113 Cormode argues. This conviction is widely
shared within the EMC. 114
7.7 The Organic Leadership Paradigm
Is it possible to get a deeper understanding of the various ways that leadership is referred
to in the EMC, and an improved conceptual grip as well? This section suggests that
this is indeed possible – thanks to the work of Gayle Avery, founding head of the Insti-
Lausanne Occasional Paper no. 39 (2005), Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, http://www.La
usanne.org/docs/2004forum/LOP39_IG10.pdf (last accessed January 14, 2012).
108
Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk provide another characterization of the three main leadership tasks:
(1) cultivating people; (2) forming mission environments and congregations; (3) engaging context. Since it
appears to be analytically difficult to distinguish these three from each other, we did not choose them for
our typology. Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a
Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 114 ff.
109
Mark Lau Branson, “Ecclesiology and Leadership for the Missional Church,” in Craig van Gelder, ed.,
The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2007), 94-125.
110
Scott Cormode, “Multi-Layered Leadership: The Christian Leader as Builder, Shepherd, and Gardener,”
Journal of Religious Leadership 1, no. 2 (Fall 2002), 69-104.
111
Ibid., 79.
112
This is in line with the cybernetic approach – in which the congregation is seen as an organic system – of
the German practical theologian Günter Breitenbach. He discerns, first, the hermeneutical dimension, in
which images [Bilder], interpretations, concepts and vision are primary. The second is the communicative
dimension, in which the focus is on persons and relations. The third is the organizational dimension that is
necessary for the clearance of rules and roles, the deployment of resources, etc. In short: “Systeme brauchen
geklärte Leitbilder [emphasis added], eine entwickelte Kultur des Miteinanders [emphasis added] und eine angemessene
Organisationsgestalt [emphasis added]. Gemeindeleitung geschieht ihm spannungsvollen Zusammenspiel
dieser Dimensionen.” [Systems need clear leading pictures, a developed culture of togetherness, and a
fitting organizational form. Congregational leadership happens within the tension laden interplay of these
dimensions.] Günter Breitenbach, Gemeinde leiten. Eine praktisch-theologische Kybernetik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
1993), 236.
113
Cormode, “Multi-Layered Leadership,” 85 ff.
114
The emphasis on envisioning is also characteristic for new models of Roman Catholic parishes in the
United States. Researchers Marti Jewell and David Ramey found that pastoral leaders “often described the
emerging local church as a process of discerning [emphasis added] local needs, grounded in the faith-based
reflection [emphasis added] of parishioners, local leaders, and diocesan officials on the preferred identity and
structure of the local church.” Marti R. Jewell and David A. Ramey, The Changing Face of Church: Emerging
Models of Parish Leadership (Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2010), 37.