mentoring mentors

Mainline Protestantism--including Fundamentalism, and including UUism--is failing; attendance is declining and the members'average age is increasing. Stefan Jonasson, our UUA's consultant on large church dynamics, blames it on a failure of leadership. Besides improving organizational structures--role clarity is essential--Stefan teaches that we leaders need to lead. We must articulate a grand vision and high expectations, and mentor leaders (lay and profesional) into living out that vision. People are starving for meaning in their lives; they want to do real work and take on real challenges. Churches who are growing have high expectations for their members.

Many of us are uncomfortable with authority--that of others, or our own. For UUism to survive, for our saving message to reach the millions who need it, for my own spiritual growth, I hereby challenge myself to grow into this kind of leadership.