How does one lead through the wilderness?

In the past few staff meetings we have discussed Gil Rendle's book Journey in the Wilderness: New Life for Mainline Churches.  Rendle compares this time in which we are doing ministry to the wilderness journey of Moses and the Israelites.  We are at a time when many of the old answers no longer work, but we aren't real sure what does work.  In reality, this has been true for the past several years, but many of us are still trying to minister as though nothing has changed in society and the church since the 1950s.  We are still looking for that one denominational program that will solve our problems.  Churches are still trying to find that special pastor who will come in and return their church to what it was in the 1950s, without upsetting anyone of course.  Pastors will try to be the person with all the answers for their congregation.  Folks, it's time for a reality check.  It's not working and hasn't worked for the past few decades.  Like the Israelites, we have been wandering in the wilderness with the Promised Land just out of reach.

Rendle writes, "The best of our denominational and congregational leaders do not understand themselves as caretakers of an inherited institution experiencing weakness.  The best of our leaders begin to dream of what could be, challenge the weakness of the stories that hold us back, and then engage people in conversations about the new future."  Why is this so important?  As he later writes, "Most congregations with which I have worked as a consultant knew much more about who they were than about who they currently are."

There it is.  My experience in working with churches has been the same.  Most of the churches with which I work not only know their history, they love it, and would like nothing better than to return to that time.  Again, how many times did the Israelites want to return to Egypt even though they were slaves there?  At least, in slavery there was order and a sense of knowing where one was.  In the wilderness there is chaos and confusion.

The problem is, our churches cannot return to that glorious past (which may not have been that glorious anyway).  Our culture won't allow it.  More importantly, neither will God.  He has brought us into the wilderness because that is the only way to prepare us for his purposes.  The wilderness is a time of testing and an opportunity to learn new things about ourselves and about God.  It is also the only way to the Promised Land.  The choices we have is to try to return to Egypt (which is not going to happen), continue to wander in the wilderness until this generation is gone (which many churches will do), or to embrace the wilderness time and the resulting chaos, learn the lessons God wants us to learn, and, in his time, enter the Promised Land.

I have to admit I found this book to be a difficult read, but I believe it is an important read for anyone in denominational and church leadership.  I prefer to provide answers to technical problems that will fix things, and this book challenges me that this approach is no longer sufficient.  Even though I recognized the truths about the church found in this book it still made me uncomfortable, but that is what the wilderness is supposed to do.