Next Steps

In the end, then, we see the various realms of what it is to extend our spiritual leadership, beginning with the recognition that we must not impose a single vision of the “right saint” or the “right spiritual gift” on everyone. We start with ourselves, addressing the clearest examples of our weakness and seeking to bring our own lives under some kind of clear spiritual leadership. We move from there to our families and the intimate web of connections that require us to adjust constantly to the needs therein in order that our wives and our children remain firm in the Christian life. Then on to the parish, and the establishment of trust as the basis for spiritual leadership. Finally, we reach the broader community, that our spiritual leadership bring forth fruit in abundance.

What next? I think it worthwhile for each of us to spend at least a day in prayer and quiet reflection, identifying one goal in each sphere of leadership to undertake over the coming year. Write them down. Give them measurable goals. Record the steps you will take to accomplish it. Then take that list into some time of prayer, and begin that holy work. I pray that God will bless the ministry of each of my brethren here today. Thank you.

This concludes this series of posts.

Community

There’s that last circle of influence: community, the realm of people for whom we desire salvation. It is the place where we really should desire our spiritual leadership to obtain the greatest reach. It is frequently overlooked among our Orthodox people. It is quite intertwined with mission and evangelism, for proclaiming the Gospel to the heterodox and the unbeliever and bringing souls under the protective wing of Christ’s Church is the ultimate extension of spiritual leadership.

“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, less the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:17-18) St. Paul is not arguing against Holy Baptism here, but to say that his primary work was the proclamation of the Gospel in the world.

The basis for our seeking to build our spiritual leadership in our community is found in Christ’s calling of the first apostles:

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that he stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’ But Simon answered and said to him, ‘Master we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at your word I will let down the net.’

And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’

For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.’ So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him. Luke 5:1-10

Fishers of men. Spiritual leadership in our community is nothing less than the casting of Christ’s net. The thing about fish is that simply having the net is not sufficient to catch them. The fisherman must take the net to the fish. Still, some of the fish do not wish to be in the net, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful, and draws them in anyway.

Extending our spiritual leadership requires us to take our ministry beyond our immediate parish, which is to say, to take our ministry beyond those who come to us for the Mysteries already. As with the parable of the banquet, we must go into the highways and byways (Mt 22:1-14) to invite them to the banquet. The parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-15) speaks of the different kinds of soil, but it is God alone who knows what kind of soil each man is, or what kind of soil each man may become. It is not part of the priest’s vocation to declare a man to be the poor soil.

Our spiritual leadership in the community must become one of engagement—of meeting, talking, knowing—as well as one of intercession—praying for those whom we have engaged.

St. Paul went to the Areopagus to proclaim the Gospel. We have to find our modern version of the Areopagus, never misinterpreting prohibitions on “prayer with heretics” (e.g. Laodicea 33) such that they prevent us from proclaiming the truth.

So what is the Areopagus in our time? What is the Areopagus for those trapped in Protestant communions that are riding a rapid decline into immorality and irrelevance? What is the Areopagus for the neo-evangelical who no longer worships in a way that is identifiably Christian? We have a growing fad called the “emerging church,” which is little more than empty platitudes about a Christ who can be anything we want him to be. What is the Areopagus for them? What is the Areopagus for the unchurched and, more likely, the dechurched?

I don’t think there is a universal answer to this question, inasmuch as the answer here in San Francisco is likely different from the answer in Boise, Denver, Seattle, Sacramento, State College, or Dallas. What is certain is that the Areopagus is not found in our own naves. If we are going to extend our spiritual leadership in the community, we will need to step out. We will need to meet others, and develop those relationships. Relationships build slowly. Some of the best ones start out built around common interests.

At the individual level, meeting the parents of friends of our children, learning more about coworkers if we work in a secular environment, finding other adults who like to bicycle or perform community service are great ways to break the ice, and, over time, to establish those first frail spiritual connections. People are often reluctant to get too close to the “preacher man,” but they’ll get close to the friendly fellow who is willing to labor and socialize with them.

Shared social ministry is also a great way to extend spiritual leadership, for several reasons. First of all, the size of the Orthodox community in the United States makes it difficult for us to carry out some kinds of care for those around us. We can do more by working with others. These “others” are often heterodox Christians. They’re heterodox not because they reject the Orthodox as a deliberate act, but because they’ve never encountered an Orthodox person or viewpoint.  These contacts become profitable ways to tell others what the Church believes, to invite them to pray with us, and to manifest the fullness of Christ’s Church to them.

We should not fail to mention, too, that those involved in such community ministry are often people of influence. Bringing these individuals closer to the Church in the sphere of our leadership can have profound effects on our parish and on the broader community as a whole.

I also emphasize the role of our wives. Women go where men cannot go. They have conversations men cannot have. In the early Church, huge numbers of men became Christians through the efforts of their wives. If you have an extroverted wife, she can be one of the greatest ministerial assets you have, because she will introduce you to individuals you would not necessarily have met otherwise. Every one of those introductions is an opportunity to demonstrate spiritual leadership.

Next time: Part VI, Next Steps.

Parish

The sphere of our spiritual leadership then extends further, to the realm of the parish. Up front, I’ll say that I have no intention of telling others how to lead their parishes. Ultimately, the decisions made by the priest in exercising spiritual leadership over his parish must be made in close consultation with his bishop.

The parish poses a different situation when compared to exercising spiritual leadership over one’s self or over one’s household, and it comes about because the faithful of our parish are there of their own volition. The priest is appointed as the spiritual leader of the parish, but that does not mean that the faithful of the parish will place themselves fully under his leadership in every instance. In practical terms, this means that extending spiritual leadership will require healthy amounts of suasion and trust. The priest who attempts to lead by giving directions accompanied by “because I am the priest” will almost certainly fail.

Trust is central to the furthering of the priest’s spiritual leadership in the parish, but it is something that has to be cultivated carefully over time. We must begin with the “little” tasks. First among those is that we must do what we say we will do. It is trivially easy to promise to do something (especially at coffee hour, even though our minds are distracted by the competing needs to visit with our parishioners, to eat, to meet newcomers). It is much harder to carry it out. How do we solve this as a practical matter? There are several options. The priest can either carry a small notebook to record such promises, or make it a blanket rule that such requests should be made via email or the next day, without the distractions of the trapeza or the mental fatigue that comes from serving the liturgy. Beware the danger of committing to too much, for it leads to shoddy work, frustration, blown expectations, burnout, and loss of trust.

Building trust also requires establishing competence and setting standards. If we want to be seen as trustworthy when it comes to “managing” the administrative aspect of our parishes, we must show that we do not regard mundane but important tasks too casually. For example, the recording of parish giving is vital. We must be firm in our expectation that financial standards be followed. If we do not understand basic accounting standards, we must undertake to learn them. (Give thanks for Accounting for Dummies and Bookkeeping for Dummies!) In other cases, we demonstrate our competence by acknowledging our deficiencies to others (“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand a thing about paving.”) and allowing those with expertise to guide our decisions without any sense that doing so somehow diminishes us as the priest. (Reminder: such feelings come from pride.)

After all, if we are not willing to acknowledge our deficiencies in areas such as this, how can the faithful know to trust us with their confessions? Bringing one’s sins to light in the presence of someone else requires a great deal of trust, particularly that the father-confessor will not reveal those to others and that the father-confessor will respond with an appropriate medicine to help with the sin. Note that I am not speaking of the specifics of how to hear confession, or what kind of guidance to provide penitents, but only to say that exercising such spiritual leadership requires copious amounts of trust that is developed only in the broader scope of demonstrated competence elsewhere.

But spiritual leadership also means that we must ensure that we are not set up as exalted figures to our faithful. We wish to exercise leadership, not absolute control that is more in line with a cult leader. Thus, we must also balance the image of ourselves as priests with our image as human beings. In no small way this means avoiding that special short-list of saints again. We must willing to disclose our specific gifts to the faithful, even if it’s something worldly like car repair or basketball rather than something of an imaginary list of gifts we do not possess.

I am generally unnerved by the small number of priests I know that seem to have accumulated “groupies.” It’s not much more than a form of infatuation, but it ultimately causes great harm when the sins and weaknesses of the priest eventually manifest themselves to his followers. Too often these individuals fall away, at least for a time, disillusioned and disappointed in what they have come to see. It would have been far better for the leader to have his weaknesses known, and to lead in spite of them, then for such a false image to have been presented and then shattered into pieces. As St. Paul says,

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  –1 Cor 12:7-9

In extending his spiritual leadership, the parish leader has to be attuned to those developments in parish life that lead to burnout or, worse, the hatred of God. This happens in a variety of ways: church scandal, political infighting, disagreements over church financial priorities, and, in some cases, a parish worship cycle that places too great a burden on too few people. It’s rare that someone would be so bold as to say “I hate God,” but perhaps they’ll say, “I’m just sick of Church.” The seeds of an ambivalent apostasy are found in such statements. I have experienced it myself, and it is only with great care from others that it is overcome. These situations must be handled with the greatest of pastoral sensitivity or the parish priest will find his spiritual leadership in quick decline.

I’ll close this particular section with words of Christ that I think all spiritual leaders are wise to remember:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. –Matthew 11:28-30

We must constantly evaluate our pastoral actions in view of this. Is what we propose to our flock adding to the burden (whether from pride, guilt, false expectation, or simple legalism) or taking from it? Only the latter extends spiritual influence in a lasting way.

Next time: Part V, The Community.

Family

Then there’s the matter of spiritual leadership within the family. Of course, I’m speaking mostly to the married clergy here, as that’s what I am familiar with myself.

The married priest lives in a constant tension. The tension can really be boiled down to the competing interests of what we can call the man’s first priesthood – namely his role as husband and father – and his second priesthood handling the Mysteries of God.

In my own experience and in talking with my brother clergy, perhaps the greatest challenge here is in avoiding the veneer of piety. A veneer is but a thin layer of one thing on top of something completely different. It can look good, but if it’s scratched, you can see through to the uglier stuff beneath. We must avoid the appearance of piety that is but a mask for impiety and dysfunction. After all, all of us who serve as clergy know we live in a fishbowl. There are seemingly as many opinions as people as to what makes a good priest. One natural, if wrong, response to the pressure of these criticisms is to give people what they ask for. For example, we hear from our critics (and then convince ourselves) that the priest’s kids should be absolutely well-behaved. So we cause ourselves endless aggravation trying to get our kids to act the way someone else wants them to act. I don’t know about you, but my kids don’t always do what I want them to do. Our critics tell us,”The priest’s kids should be at every service.” So we issue the decree that 100% service attendance is the requirement for our children, because our children are pious.

The priest’s wife also faces unrealistic expectations. She should be simultaneously attractive, modest, frugal, well-dressed, a bit frumpy, and ready for every situation. She is forever trying to figure out the right mix of dresses, shoes, hairstyles, dishes, and responses to intrusive questions so as to present the right image.

This solution, however, preserves that veneer of piety at the expense of the real thing. In the first place, it allows those who are sitting in judgment to become comfortable in their judgmentalism. This is not the kind of leadership the priest desires for himself. In the second place, and more significantly, it imposes a strictness on our own family that is not imposed because we as the priests of our household think it necessary, but because, in effect, someone else thinks it is. The fact is that our kids have other obligations, also known as “promises,” for some of their activities (e.g., being part of a team, band, or orchestra). We have to communicate that regular conflict with church services is not allowed, but the expectation that they never conflict is unrealistic. Our wives are people, too, with strengths, weaknesses, and, yes, needs that cannot be easily conformed to these competing images for what makes the perfect Priest’s Wife.

There are many valid places for strictness, but we must be mindful that severity can become the enemy of true piety. We know that the canons are not applied in absolutely rote fashion because their aim is not to penalize but to save. In the same fashion the priest of his family sets standards not in accordance with what other people think but with what he must discern is best for the spiritual development of his children and his wife, who is more often than not a co-laborer with him in his ministry.

Our kids encounter spiritual crises also, and we, as parents, must ensure that we do not lay too heavy a burden on them. We must also never forget that our children make a great contribution to our priesthood in their sharing of us—our time, our concerns, our financial situation—with many others. In making those contributions, they are silent intercessors in the parish and the home.

The priest’s wife merits special consideration because she has a primary responsibility of preserving the peace and harmony of the priest’s home while facing a barrage of spoken and unspoken expectations. How often does she hear the complaints about the man she loves, or bears the criticisms for the thankless job she performed when no one else would. She desires her husband’s presence, not to mention emotional intimacy, but must often set these desires aside while she discerns whether her sullen batushka is angry at her or simply weighed down with the sins of his ministry.  The best spiritual leadership in these circumstances is his regular scheduling (at least monthly) of a babysitter and a quiet evening with his beloved. At least one evening each week spent in quiet conversation, with some tea and perhaps some chocolate, with our wives provides a bountiful harvest.

Further, I know more than a few clergy marriages that have been greatly improved by the priest exercising a spiritual leadership of silence with regard to the discussion of parish conflicts with his wife. Spiritual leadership in this case means not adding burdens to someone who already bears many. Rather, let your brother clergy be the ones to help you bear the burden, to hear of your parish difficulties and to provide counsel when you need it.

With due consideration given to these issues, the priest is then able to extend his spiritual influence, and to increase the love and desire for Christ and his Church, within his own house rather than sowing the seeds of resentment and what might be called “spiritual exhaustion” there.

Next time: The Parish.

Like many other clergy in the Orthodox Church in America, I’m attending the 16th All-American Council. Also like many other clergy, I attended the first plenary session (or was it an episode of Oprah?) Monday evening. During the question and answer period that followed Metropolitan Jonah’s address and the responses from some members of the Holy Synod, the Internet came in for some rather negative criticism. (See AFR for the audio; time references below are for that version).

Bishop Benjamin (fairly) derided partisanship on the web:

I think one of the great challenges us to in this age is the Internet. And it is no secret that there are often dueling websites, this site for the metropolitan, this site is against the metropolitan. And it has made our life a living hell. And I would like to say to those who run those websites: just stop it, grow up, and get over yourselves. (applause) The Internet is a great tool, and we need to use it for good, to build up the body of Christ, not to destroy it or to wound its members. (1:20:45ff)

Metropolitan Jonah, in the final response of the Holy Synod to questioners, went further:

If there’s no market, if people aren’t interested in reading it, they’re not going to publish it. Right? You’ve gotta turn off the Internet. It’s fine for email, but I was quite surprised, for example, to find my own personal emails read to me, and even SMS texts. Isn’t this immoral, unethical, and just downright sinful? Brothers and sisters, our first task, we really have to think about how we are acting in regards to one another. As Vladika said, the children, what are they reading? No wonder. So, just remember, if there’s no market, they’re not going to publish. And if they do publish, who cares? Because if we don’t read it and if we don’t allow our minds to be polluted by this kind of verbal pornography. (2:25:58ff)

Time does not allow an extend response, so two brief thoughts:

Uninformed or malicious partisanship is bad for the Church. But what are we to do about the situation of the past year, where the most partisan of the websites (on both sides) were operated with the spiritual and material support of the highest levels of leadership in the Church?

Silence gives cover to the Evil One. In the first few months of this year, the faithful received leaked news from a questionable site, followed by information at OCANews, a video of the Metropolitan speaking from the ambo of his cathedral in DC, and, finally, the minutes of the most recent Holy Synod meeting. Not too long after this, OCATruth was established, and Monomakhos took up arms, anonymous mercenaries in service to then-unknown masters. The barrage of information was contradictory, inflammatory, and disconcerting, and spread all manner of spiritual infection.

In the face of this, the Holy Synod was silent. The Metropolitan Council didn’t say much more, in favor of allowing OCANews to function as its de facto press organization.

All of which leads me to recall the experience of Jesus in the boat with his disciples in Luke 8:22-25:

Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.” And they launched out. But as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”

Christ did not allow the storm to rage, keeping silent or murmuring soothing platitudes that “everything will be alright.” Rather, his first act was to stop the waves and the storm. He didn’t teach until after the disciples had no care about the tumult.

It is clear that the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America needed (and still need) someone to rebuke the waves and the wind, to calm the storm, to remove the fearful distractions that steal faith and joy. The same Internet that was the medium for the revelation of the problems (but not, in the main, the problem itself) could have been the medium for stilling the waves and bringing peace to God’s children. It’s time to go beyond silence, finger-pointing, and delegation of the public response. The Internet is not the problem. Our leaders should make it part of the solution, using the medium to dispel the storm of confusion, contradiction, and worry.

Where to begin?

It is axiomatic to say that the spiritual leader does not have the same influence everywhere. We know this intuitively. For the sake of this presentation, I’ll say that our influence is strongest starting with ourselves. From there, we see a still strong influence within our family, particularly among our wives and children, but the addition of wills begins to complicate things, occasionally attempting to frustrate our leadership. Stepping beyond that we reach our parishes, those communities of believers who have willingly placed themselves under our pastoral care, but by no means submitting themselves absolutely or blindly to our leadership. Finally, we reach our community, the broader areas where we live and work, where we are known perhaps as pastors and preachers, but without any kind of acknowledged leadership for all.

The remainder of this presentation is going to attempt to address some of the issues of leadership that arise in each sphere. I’ll give advice, but solely from the standpoint of personal experience (i.e., “this has worked for me”) or of personal weakness (i.e., “I really struggle with this problem.”). If anything strikes you as odd, I ask you to weigh it carefully, and, if necessary, I ask your forgiveness if what I say rings completely untrue to you.

Self

Our spiritual leadership has to start with ourselves. I think each of you knows this already. Personal spiritual leadership has to start with personal discipline. However, I’ll suggest to you that this personal discipline must go beyond “spiritual” discipline (which is to say “mental” discipline). After all, were we to focus on this spiritual dimension while deprecating the rest would make us dualists of a sort. Rather, I’ll be even bolder and suggest that personal discipline must really start with physical and general “life” discipline.

If you doubt this, consider St. Paul’s requirements for those who desire the office of bishop, for those who desire to lead the people of God.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence…not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. 1 Tim 3:2-7

It is notable that this list doesn’t make mention of vague notions of spirituality, and even piety is only mentioned obliquely (“having his children in submission with all reverence”). Rather, it describes someone who “has it together.”

Further, I suspect most of you have had the experience of the young man who desires to advance in service to the Church, perhaps pursuing tonsure as a reader or subdeacon, and clearly desiring ordination to the major orders. He loves participating on the Orthodox internet, and perhaps delights in differentiating between worthy and unworthy priests. Yet, even a cursory inspection reveals his life to be in absolute disarray. He can’t hold a job. His bills are past due. There is general foolishness and perhaps even sexual sin in his life. His spiritual life is best served not by mastering the finer points of the Jesus Prayer, but in ordering his life according to the standard we set for the mature Christian. St. Paul asks the critical question here: “If a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?” (1 Tim 3:5)

Christian leadership, then, is often best served by the application of discipline to our daily matters. We should begin with physical care, being circumspect about our diet, not as a matter of fasting but as a matter of respecting our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, battling temptations to overeat, to junk food, to excessive alcohol, and to sweets. We must maintain our hygiene, including dental care, so that this is never a stumbling block to others. Regular exercise. And, barring an exceptional calling such as that of St. John Maximovitch, getting enough sleep to avoid illness and an irritable disposition.

We should bring our finances into good order. Again, recall St. Paul’s exhortation that we be held in high regard by those around us. We should seek to live within a budget, knowing how much we spend and where.

Then there’s the matter that hits rather close to home for me: personal organization. If you’ve failed to contact someone because you lost their phone number (as I have), or forgotten something important because the random slip of paper wasn’t recorded on your calendar, this is something to take up. Missing an important appointment for reasons like this is more than a trivial mistake, but is rather a failure of leadership.

Likewise, time management is key. We must maintain the balance in our lives: allocating time for family, for wife, for sermon preparation, for shut-in visits, for services and confession. Too often, we run around doing things at the last minute, and, yet the responsibility for this lies with only one person, whom we can see in a mirror. Each of these represents stewardship of what God has entrusted to us. This life discipline is a fundamental aspect of spiritual leadership.

I would be remiss, though, if I never touched on spiritual discipline as a matter of personal spiritual leadership. We must lead in this way, too. We must first be diligent to avoid falling into the universal vision of piety trap I discussed at length just a bit ago. Doing that is guaranteed to make us feel inauthentic and hypocritical, because the result of it is that we are inauthentic when we try to present some kind of image of piety that we do not possess. Worse, it leads to despair and spiritual suffering for the leader who becomes mired in that narrow image.

Our spiritual discipline is to be a discipline rooted in the liturgical cycle of the Church. There is an opportunity to pray according to the designated times for communal prayer, even if abbreviated and done in private. The specific nature of how we do this will vary depending on our specific circumstances.

This is also an area where technology can help. We can make use of phones and calendars to give us those periodic reminders to pray throughout the day, for ourselves, and for specific people. I’ve made use of this to remember to pray for individuals and their physicians as they go into surgery, for example. One can buy recorded prayers (or record them yourself using your smartphone or computer) to use at various times during the day, especially when commuting.

Finally, at the level of the self, I want to emphasize the importance of accountability. Confession is a big part of this. Its role is easily summarized: Give confession and receive absolution regularly. But our need goes beyond a sacrament we often receive less than we really need. Rather, we require more frequent “check ins” with those who can ask us about our lives, both in those matters of life discipline as well as with regard to prayer. I have two or three people in my life who have a magnificent spiritual gift. That gift is the ability to deliver a carefully considered, and well-placed kick to the side of my head. In other words, they have the ability to hold be accountable to the standard of this holy office and to that of the mature Christian. I daresay we all need such people, and, as painful as it is sometimes, to rejoice when they carry out their gift for our benefit.

Next time: The family

I want to express my thanks to the fine clergy of the Western American Diocese, especially His Eminence, Archbishop Kyrill, for blessing me not only to speak at the clergy conference, but also for inviting me to participate in the rite of revesting the relics of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco.

Defining the topic

Having introduced myself, I should say that this talk is not about me, but only observations and reflections concerning this topic of spiritual leadership. When I first began preparing this, I struggled somewhat, because, while I am a priest, a preacher, a servant of the Mysteries of God, and an intercessor for those around me, I do not see myself as particularly spiritual. In fact,an attempt to be what I held in my own mind as the image of “the spiritual person” led to a particularly acute period of spiritual malaise, anger, cynicism, and frustration in my own life.

Thus, I really want to emphasize that this presentation is about spiritual leadership, not spirituality. This is a good thing, as I’m sure there are at least a dozen people in this room who exceed my “spirituality,” if such a thing could ever be quantified.

Up front, we really have to address the idea of what spiritual leadership is. Defining “leadership” is always thorny, but the best general definition I’ve come across is that leadership is influence coupled with the expectation that it will be used. Leadership is what we observe when, at a parish council meeting, a question is asked and, after a short pause, all eyes fall on a single person. The others want that person to influence them, to show them where to go. Leadership is what we observe when our kids, having gotten into trouble or otherwise needing assistance, call us first, trusting that we can fix what they can’t. Leadership is what we see when the faithful come to us confessing their sins and seeking guidance and, even more importantly, those precious words of forgiveness.

Leadership becomes the ability to guide others into taking your lead, and, particularly in these moments of dependence, good leadership means that words must be carefully chosen so as not to violate the trust implicit therein. For those of us who serve as clergy, our desire should be that our spiritual leadership be, first, leadership coming from Christ and, secondly, that it be expanding. That is, true spiritual leadership naturally seeks to extend itself, not in order to puff itself up, but in order to manifest Christ in the world. Spiritual leadership is about mission and evangelism, which is nothing less than the spread of the Gospel of our Lord.

Leading with a flexible mind

Before going into specific spheres of influence, I want to make a simple assertion: There is no spirituality that is universal in its applicability. Put in a colloquial way: there is no “one size fits all” spirituality. Orthodox leaders in our particular context face a great temptation to see one particular kind of spiritual life as preferable to all others and, therefore, as the kind of spiritual life that all Orthodox Christians should seek. I am unsure of the exact reasons behind it, but there seem to be two general ways it works.

For some, they have a profound sense of the suffering of Orthodox Christians over the past century in particular, and the awareness of those priests and bishops who led under terrible conditions, praying, gathering, baptizing, and communing in secret. Such men labored mightily to avoid falling into sins of hatred and vengeance, and rejoicing at every tiny blessing. Thus, some fall into this view that all spirituality is to look like that spirituality. This, of course, fails to take into account that the myriad other charisms that established other forms of spirituality were significantly minimized if not persecuted out of existence entirely for a time.

For others, they either come to the Faith, or grow to maturity in the Faith, in the awe of saints such as St. Seraphim,or of St. Herman, or in the wisdom of the various monastic fathers from the famous places: Optina, Valaam, Athos, and so on. The vision of a patient, holy silence that has no need for earthly humor or family life takes hold.

I hold my suffering brethren, the martyrs and confessors, and the pious monks and nuns—spiritual warriors all—in the highest of regard, and realize that my own spiritual life pales absolutely in comparison with theirs. Their lives and writings are worth reading, for the edification and building up of the faithful of Christ.

However, as spiritual leaders we err greatly if we allow these fairly narrow visions of sanctity and piety, especially to the extent that our popular understanding makes them caricatures of the real thing, to take hold as the sole legitimate spiritual path.

St. Paul writes:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant…. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. 1 Cor 12:1,4-11

Or, if we don’t like that, we should consider some other words, namely those of the proskomede. Consider all those ranks of saints we commemorate there before every Liturgy:

1. The Theotokos – the one whose holiness and quiet piety we should all seek to emulate.
2. The Forerunner who prepared the way, speaking boldly, and losing his life for it.
3. Of all the prophets, who were alternately exalted and brought low for speaking God’s word to his people. Think especially on Jonah and David as prophets coupled the greatest of manifestations of God’s grace with, at times, profound flaws of character.
4. Of the holy Apostles, which are in themselves an absolute picture of the diversity of gifts and, perhaps more importantly, of weakness and sin. Consider St. Peter in his moments of greatness and of weakness, plus James and John “the sons of thunder”, compared to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.
5. Of the holy hierarchs, among whom we have John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, but likewise Cyril of Alexandria, who was notable for the (ahem) rather heavy-handed way he dealt with his opponents. Others we know of by their brilliant articulation of the belief of the Church but who were rather less noteworthy for their effective episcopal leadership.
6. Of the holy martyrs, including several soldiers by name, and, by extension, those like St. Nestor whose hymns commemorate not his spiritual victories but his military ones.
7. Of the holy monks and nuns, most of whom need little introduction.
8. Of the holy unmercenary healers, a group that is often forgotten.
9. Of Joachim and Anna, and of the several equals to the apostles, who, in many cases, brought the Faith to people through translation, writing, and even imperial decree.

If there is anything negative in this list, I want it not to be construed as casting aspersions on our holy fathers and mothers in the Faith, but rather, to paraphrase St. Paul, “if he can save me, he can save you.” Which is to say, God’s strength is made manifest in weakness, and he works through the broad spectrum of the charisms he has bestowed upon his creation.

Our goal as spiritual leaders should be to help those who have placed themselves under our leadership to develop the gifts that they have. If we place a single vision of piety on them, we distort the fullness of Christ’s gifts to us. Worse, it leads to despair and, in some cases, even the loss of faith. Therefore, I return to the assertion that we must lead with a flexible mind, discerning the gifts and weaknesses inherent in each person given unto our care. As the canons themselves make clear, our goal is the salvation of the person, taking all of the factors into account:

It behooves those who have received from God the power to loose and bind, to consider the quality of the sin and the readiness of the sinner for conversion, and to apply medicine suitable for the disease, lest if he is injudicious in each of these respects he should fail in regard to the healing of the sick man. Trullo 102 (bottom of page)

Such discernment is not always easy, but it is absolutely necessary. It will also color how we go about interacting in the general spheres of leadership.

Next time: The first sphere of influence.

In a couple of articles I wrote not too long ago, I took up the five levels of leadership posited by Maxwell in order to discuss them in our own situation. Having done that, I should point out that no definition of leadership was given. There are numerous such definitions, but perhaps the simplest is the equation, “Leadership is influence.” However, this raises the question of whether such leadership (influence) can be had illegitimately. Maxwell’s five levels don’t address it.

On the one hand, there is a common presumption that authentic leadership is legitimate. That is, Christian leadership influence is commonly assumed to be the result of the leader’s demonstrated success with motives that align with the Church/parish/jurisdiction and with methods that meet the Christian moral standard. That presumption works most of the time, but what about the possibility of the leader’s having private motives that do not align with the Church’s, or a willingness to use immoral methods to attain success? Private motives allow for the possibility of acts contrary to the common goal, and immoral methods taint even good results under the principle that the ends don’t justify the means.

If you doubt the possibility of contrary goals or immoral methods, just look at the OCA scandals of the past decade. There is no doubt that Kondratick was a leader. He gave the impression of genuine interest in the people he dealt with, freely handing out his mobile number, and even answering when it was used. Have an urgent need? He could see that it was met. Are things going to pieces? He could pick them up. Yet, according to the best evidence (see the SIC and SC reports), one can see Kondratick’s most significant motive, self-aggrandizement, coupled with a willingness to manipulate and compromise others as needed to pursue private aims. It was leadership in service to self. In an odd perversion of level 4 leadership (“People Development”), how many clergymen owed their own standing to him? In promoting their causes or covering up their scandals, he established himself as a leader on a foundation of uneasy loyalty and the keeping of secrets.

Illegitimate leadership in the Church inevitably leads to spiritual harm. When the illegitimacy and its means become known, they create disillusionment and cynicism among the faithful of God. This might not happen immediately, but such things are very difficult to hide forever. This element of secrecy is key.

Legitimate leaders have faults that are known, and they lead in spite of them. They do so through personal effort, spiritual development and, more importantly, by augmenting their own strengths and weaknesses with complementary ones from those around them. (Brilliant but disorganized pastors are often saved by attentive secretaries.)

In contrast, the illegitimate leader must be seen as having no, or relatively insignificant, weaknesses. Why? If they were known, they would be exploitable by others like him. Of necessity, a certain hagiographic depiction of the illegitimate leader develops, as a means of concealing the sins and weaknesses. A veil of secrecy is established, either through an inner circle of individuals who maintain the facade (and diverting the curious) or through taking ownership of critical tasks personally, with minimal information disclosed to others. Both methods are seen regularly in the individuals mentioned in the SC and SIC reports: the cash transactions (which prevented tracking of funds), stonewalling (“the Metropolitan blessed it,” the hiding of accounts, the refusal to provide essential information), convoluted financial controls, and self-interest that prevented would-be whistle-blowers from saying anything.

What is perhaps worse is that the illegitimacy that masquerades as competence or piety at the top washes downward. The illegitimate leader gains the (unwarranted) trust of others, and that trust extends to his lieutenants. “If the leader trusts him, I should trust him, too.” Trusted lieutenants extend their perception of trustworthiness to others in the same way, establishing a web of compromise and privilege. It can work in reverse, too, with illegitimate leaders in the lower ranks transferring their ill-gotten trust to leaders in positions of greater authority, supporting them and, too often, manipulating them for their own ends. Illegitimate leadership is thus corrosive to the whole, and such rot is quite difficult to eradicate.

I think we’re still battling this in various forms within the Orthodox Church in America, even with the scandals described in the SIC and SC reports fading from memory, and in at least a couple of other jurisdictions in North America. The real questions for us are:

1. How do we spot illegitimate leadership? From a spiritual standpoint, how do we remain vigilant without becoming cynical or excessively suspicious?
2. How do we stamp out illegitimate leadership when it occurs and halt its corrosive spread?
3. How do we end, or prevent, a system a privilege that fosters illegitimacy?

What do you think?

Blessings to all on the feast of our Lord’s Ascension.

Returning to leadership matters, I posted last time about Maxwell’s five levels of leadership. I had some questions at the end, but I’m going to ignore those myself for a bit, in order to develop some more thoughts on this topic. At this point, my thinking may diverge from Maxwell’s. Make of that what you will.

Careful reflection reveals that a leader at a particular level always has the option to lead according to a lower level. As a hypothetical example, a leader at level 4 (who owes his stature to the respect garnered by developing other persons’ abilities) can choose to lead as though he were at level 1, for example, in a fit of pique, ordering rather than requesting a subordinate or teammate or church member to do something, “because I say so,” or “because I am the priest.”While this can be done from time to time, it requires those being led to overlook it in a spirit of forbearance. Why? It violates a principle of magnanimity. We naturally expect leaders to be magnanimous, and great leaders to be even more so. We possess an innate desire that our leaders be willing to overlook small insults for the greater good, avoiding any vengeful or resentful spirit. Put another way, great men don’t need to be worried about hecklers. Stepping down to a lower level of leadership means setting aside a higher, godly way of thinking in favor of a lower one built on self-interest to a greater degree.

In fact, this is directly related to what we refer to as the great virtue of humility. We only progress in our spiritual lives to the extent that our pride, our ego, and other personal vanities are set aside or destroyed in favor of seeing ourselves as we really are before Christ. We must recognize ourselves as the greatest of sinners, and, in doing so, we find it so much easier to overlook the sins of others. Humility leads to magnanimity. The greatest Christian leaders are notable for their magnanimity, for their resistance to pettiness and hostility.

Resorting continually to lower levels of leadership, for the sake of passions (like irritation and anger) or impatience or frustration, is to discard humility in favor of pride. It inevitably leads to a leader’s loss of status. That is, the higher level of leadership is traded away for the lower level. In fact, others come to see the original higher level as a fluke, as the exception rather than the norm. The higher levels can be regained, but only with effort and time, and usually only after other damage has been done. Only humility, and the desire to heal the wound, make it possible.

Next time, I’ll be discussing illegitimate acquisition of leadership levels (is that possible? If so, how?) along with a vitally important level that can precede these other 5.

In the meantime, I ask each of you to consider what I’ve said above, and to assess its value. (As the blog title suggests, these are reflections. Like an intimate discussion, we all get sharper as we discuss, even if it means tossing aside something we believed strongly before.) Do you have any examples to share? If so, please use the comments.

(Sorry for the delay since the last post. When you see me again, ask me how the post-exposure rabies shots for the whole family went. I think that sums up the last week pretty well.)

Some personal reflection on recent events as well as parish and mission development have led me to revisit the five levels of leadership (or see here) as posited by John Maxwell, a well-known leadership speaker and motivator. (Individuals love or hate John Maxwell, but the five levels in his scheme are well-supported in my own experience. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while?) I’d like to discuss how these levels play out in an Orthodox situation. The list below summarizes them.

The Five Levels of Leadership:

1. Position – People follow because they have to. That is, they recognize the “rank” of the leader, but with little other basis.
2. Permission – People follow because they want to. This is the “teamwork” level, where others follow the cues of the leader much as those who play team sports follow the team captain.  Those members who aspire to more will soon look elsewhere, though.
3. Production – People follow because of the leader’s contribution to the organization. The leader has made the organization successful. He is liked, and generates momentum to accomplish more.
4. People Development – People follow this leader because he develops them in line with their potential. The individual team member perceives the leader’s contributions personally (i.e., the leader’s contributions affect the individual personally, not just organizationally).
5. Pinnacle – The team follows the leader out of respect for what the leader represents. This level is achieved rarely, and only after long years of service. This is the kind of leader for which people will undertake extreme risk.

In an Orthodox setting, we struggle mightily with these levels. The Church is hierarchical, but that doesn’t always mean those in the hierarchy are “natural” leaders. Likewise, some of the faithful become leaders only in the crucible of extraordinary difficulty. (Look at the heroes from the scandals of Metropolitans Theodosius and Herman.) Such “weak” men and women become leaders only by the grace of the Holy Spirit and their constant cooperation with it through the seeking of God’s will and the kenotic act of risking reputation and wealth for the sake of righteousness. Our treasure is in earthen vessels, and that also applies to our leading clergy and laity, many of whom come from unlikely places. The difficulty lies in bringing the gifts of God to the surface, in order to manifest the treasure.

We are familiar with leaders, particularly priests, who struggle to get beyond level 1 in Maxwell’s hierarchy. The faithful accord such priests the basic respect of the office, politely hear their sermons (no matter how bad), go to them for confession and absolution, and partake of the Body and Blood administered by their hands. Indeed, these are the vital things of the Christian life, but the priest must not be reduced to little more than a vending machine for Sacraments. The relationship shouldn’t end there, with pious laity quietly tut-tutting about Father’s lack of [insert skill here]. Under these circumstances, the priest can find himself tossed aside, his spiritual authority confined to, rather than based upon, the Holy Table. Out of frustration, the priest asserts his priestly authority (qua priest), and bad things ensue, much as Metropolitan Jonah describes:

If you sit there and you lord it over your parishioners that ‘I am the priest and I can do whatever I want and I can spend the money however I want without accountability and without…’ you are not going to go very far. In fact you are likely to get thrown out because you will get into all sorts of problems.

The source of such a loss of real leadership authority can have multiple causes at the same time, but the core of the problem is the leader’s failure to advance beyond level 1, regardless of mitigating factors. In the realm of the Church, there are legitimate ways to do this (and see the questions below, where I ask you to think about them), as well as illegitimate ways, such as the “purchase” of loyalty through favors, cover-ups, and cold hard cash and the imposition of loyalty through punishment and abuse. We should all know about these illegitimate ways by now.

With these things in mind, I ask readers here some questions for reflection:

1. Where do you see Orthodox leaders reaching levels 4 and 5 in contemporary Orthodoxy, particularly in North America? Think of this as a moment for praising the good.
2. Where do you see Orthodox leaders stuck at level 1? Cite examples, but be constructive.
3. What is the way forward for us to see more of our leaders, clergy and lay, making it to levels 3 and 4? That is, what can these leaders do (or stop doing) to escape level 1?
4. What role does trust play in advancing through the levels? What about goodwill?

Sharing of your answers is encouraged. I hope to present some other thoughts on these questions, in the context of current events, very soon.

[UPDATE 5/28: I still prefer real names here, but, considering that this might make some would-be participants nervous with regard to this particular subject matter, pseudonyms are OK here. Please use a real email address (not shown to the public) and keep it constructive, please.]