‘Canoeing the Mountains’


Officers discuss leadership in uncertain terrain BY BECKY TACCA AND BILL WHITE


Te book Canoeing the Mountains was the focus of an officer retreat several weeks ago in Fellowship Hall.


About 33 officers and other church leaders attended, unpacking details from the Tod Bolsinger volume examining the demands of leadership for Christians in a rapidly changing environment.


Te title refers to the dilemma facing explorers Lewis and Clark when, after 15 months traveling upstream to what they expected would a swift, watery downhill route to the Pacific Ocean, they found themselves instead facing the Rocky Mountains, their hopes for a Northwest Passage shattered.


Tey were about to go off the map, their canoes useless if they hoped to continue.


So it is, metaphorically, for church leaders who find that the world in front of them is nothing like the world behind them. Teir only hope as they journey off the map is to adapt to their new surroundings.


Tis passage from Canoeing the Mountains, which leaders were encouraged to read leading up to the gathering, was offered as a key leadership lesson:


“Traditional churches will only become missionary churches as those in authority (and even those without formal authority) develop capacity to lead their congregations through a long, truly transformational process that starts with the transformation of the leaders and requires a thoroughgoing change in leadership functioning.”


In addition to hearing presentations focused on various aspects of Bolsinger’s message, church leaders at the officer retreat sorted through a selection of photos to find the ones that spoke to the biggest challenges facing FPCA and other churches.


Many of those challenges defy easy answers. As Bolsinger wrote, partially quoting a pair of leadership theorists, “Adaptive challenges are those that ‘cannot be solved with one’s knowledge and skills, requiring people to make a shift in their values, expectations, attitudes, or habits of behavior.’ Tese are ‘systemic problems with no ready answers’ that arise from a changing environment and uncharted territory. Tese are challenges leaders face when the world around them changes so rapidly that the planned strategies and approaches are rendered moot. Tis is when the discovery of the Rocky Mountains


‘CANOEING’ AUTHOR TO VISIT


Author Tod Bolsinger, vice president and chief of leadership formation at Fuller Theological Seminary and the former senior pastor of San Clemente Presbyterian Church in California, will be visiting First Presbyterian of Allentown on Saturday morning, January 25, for the Winter Leadership Gathering. The meeting is open to anyone who is interested and will focus on how Bolsinger’s ideas might play out specifically at FPCA.


Bolsinger also will offer an overview of his book to the Lehigh Presbytery on Friday, January 24, at First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem. Everyone is invited to this event as well.


requires us to ditch the canoes and look for new ways forward.”


Te gathering was organized by the Leadership Development Team, which conducts training events and other programs throughout the year. Tese include the Next Level course to be held later this winter; an officer partnering program, in which each new elder and deacon is paired with a current officer; the officer training course, open to new and present officers and staff; an officer appreciation dinner; and other activities designed to develop and care for present and future leaders.


“These are challenges leaders face


when the world around them changes so rapidly that the planned strategies and approaches are rendered moot.”


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