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Posted on Jan 14, 2013 in church stuff, leadership | 20 comments

three things about one word: power

three things about one word power

power is a hard thing to talk about.  as Christ-followers, it is even trickier because Jesus was so anti-typical-power that talking about it can be misconstrued. i feel this sometimes when i am advocating for women’s empowerment (and others, too, who are underrepresented) because it can be perceived as being contrary to humility.  some also falsely think i believe in shifting power only toward women. nothing can be further from the truth.

i am most passionate about diffused power--not minimized, not limited, not watered down–but rather shared and multiplied so more people have it.

especially for people who usually don’t. 

i think that’s what the kingdom of God here on earth is supposed to look like.

as much as it’s a difficult topic, we need to keep addressing power because it is the undergirding of every system or group, including the church. as children of God, we have great freedom and great responsibility, too.

to me, power is a combination of leadership, value, voice, and resource.

when it comes to “the church” i think we have a really jacked up system related to power.  we have adopted the ways of the world and the methods of businesses as our central practices instead of the beatitudes. and even though a lot of people with power are taking more and more about “kingdom living”, often, they are perpetuating the same old power structures, where sexism & racism & inequality & oppression prevail.

as part of this new series, three things about one word, here are three thoughts rolling around in my head related to power:

1. power attracts power.  what i mean by that is that on the whole people with power hang around other people with power.  so they keep becoming more powerful. it is an interesting phenomenon in the church world, seeing how much happens on the golf course, a place where most women and people without margin & money never tend to hang out.  this is one of many power places where deals are brokered, relationships are formed, and alliances are forged.  but guess who’s not usually in these kinds of conversations? people without power!  this affects who gets funded, who gets support, who gets backed, who gets launched.  think about how hard it is for somebody without power to ever break into the power structure.  it’s so rare, mainly because people with power rarely connect in deep & meaningful ways with people without it.  it’s an unspoken law with real & lasting consequences.

2. for the most part, the powerful like to be on the winning team.  it is a human phenomenon.  we like to be associated with the side that feels the strongest, the most energized, the most impactful, the most _____  (you fill in the blanks).in order to measure up to the expectations of the powerful, it becomes about numbers & seats & sizes because these are the the things that people equate with “success.” when the tide starts to turn downward in any kind of organization and system, very often, people with margin & money jump ship and find another team that’s measurably on the upswing. it’s why so many church plants fail.  there’s a lot of excitement at the start but when some don’t see results fast enough, they find a “better” team.  that better team is usually a group that is powerful!

3. to many, power = charisma & confidence & outward strength.  oh, what would a blog post about power be without mentioning charisma & fairy dust?  the leaders most people follow tend to have a strong sense of certainty, clarity, and confidence that is compelling. i don’t want to dismiss the importance of focused leaders who can inspire & encourage but want to highlight that when it comes to leadership, on the whole we are attracted to the confident-appearing & strong not the weak, broken &  humble. from what i read in the Bible, we’ve got it all mixed up. when people are looking for leaders, they often look for the strongest, the best, the brightest, the most influential and completely miss the beauty and deep strength of the marginalized, the quiet, the uncool, the humble, the unpowerful-on-the-outside. those are the people Jesus chose, but when it comes to leadership, churches & ministries rarely do.

my hope for our future is that those in power would take a good hard look around them and start asking questions like:

“why is so and so not here? who might be missing in this body of Christ?”

“what can i do about changing that, even though it will cost me/us, maybe dearly”

“why do we all look and sound the same? what do we really seem to care about underneath all our christian language?” 

“what can i do to empower someone else in small or big ways?” 

“how can we make this table bigger & more diverse & more reflective of the actual real world instead of our comfortable one?”

so what’s “the payoff”?  that’s the wrong question.  Jesus didn’t give us a business model.  what we’ll all have is life, and life more abundantly.

i know how unlikely this is to happen on a large scale right away.  i may be hopeful but i’m still a realist.

but i will hold out that a lot of change could indeed happen if a bunch of people with power would ask God how to think about it differently–and be willing to take the worldly hit for those kingdom decisions.    

* * * * *

a few other posts on power here:

 

 

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Posted on May 21, 2012 in church stuff, equality, leadership | 24 comments

power is not like pie.

blog power is not like piefriday night my amazing & wise & passionate friend pam hogeweide was at the refuge for a really fun event centered on her book unladylike: resisting the injustice of inequality in the church. a listening party, it was a chance for women & men to share stories and process some of these tough issues of the oppression of women in the church.  it was an amazing night & stirred up all kinds of loveliness.  over the next few weeks i’ll try to write a few things that jumped out at me from what pam & others shared throughout the evening.  pam didn’t specifically share this content, but a comment someone offered made me think of it, so i’ll start with this:

it’s all about power.

patriarchy in the church, in the world, isn’t just about male-centered leadership in our church system. it’s about who’s got the power because in our human-brains-who-are-bent-on-making-it-all-make-sense, it must be clear.

and making it clear means that we have to make it finite.

we think of it like a limited resource.

we think of it as being a certain size.

we think of it like a pie, with only so many pieces to slice up.

we think that when someone gets more power, that means someone else has to get less.

this is why when we think of men and women leading alongside each other, or any other underrepresented group stepping into greater leadership in some way, shape, or form, we default to needing to step aside to make room for others.  we default to leaving the table so that others can sit at it.  we default to silencing our voices so that others can use theirs.

some of that is true–when moving toward greater equality those with power will have to make some shifts to allow others to step into theirs.  but if we’re not careful, we will end up in the same place we were before, where power shifts to a new group of people and the others are silenced and feel resentment and hurt. 

in the kingdom of God, there’s another possibility.

power is not like pie at all. 

instead, it’s more like loaves & fishes.

there’s this wild and beautiful and miraculous thing that can happen when we share it together.  it multiplies.   and multiplies.

on our little wacky refuge team, i have seen this in action.  the more we are all more fully present, alive, engaged in who we are–male, female, in all our strengths in all our weaknesses–the more free we are, the more alive we are, the more the kingdom of God is reflected in community together. it’s been hard over the years because of a misperception of power as pie.  if we live with the idea that there are only so many slices, then someone’s going to go hungry.

it doesn’t have to be that way.    we need to re-think power.  and respect that power diffusion doesn’t limit power but increases it.

the ways of God are not the ways of this world.  that’s much of our problem.  we have limited God.  and we’ve shortchanged each other.  our default to only living under or over another instead of alongside  has jacked with our hope.  we have adopted models of leadership in our churches that don’t require faith or relationship.  we have adopted models of living together in community that are based on fear .  we have adopted a spirit of scarcity instead of abundance.

and our ways have caused us to become controlling.

underneath control is fear.

systems of patriarchy are built on deeply grooved systems of fear and a belief that power is like pie, with only so much to go around.

Jesus came to break down these systems of fear & control & self-protection and liberate us all.

i completely understand that the world needs organizations where power must be limited, defined, and protected. that’s how it goes when there is work to be done and money to be made.

but the church should be different. 

it should not reflect the power structures of the world.  it should not be built on a spirit of fear and control but on a spirit of love and relationship and equality. 

yes, we come with a bunch of different abilities and disabilities, and we are not all the same. it’s easy for us to say “it’s not possible”, that power issues are too complex and we’re in too deep to ever change it.  but i’m one of those nutty people who is crazy enough to believe it’s possible.

i am seeing what can happen when we stop seeing power as pie and start trusting God to multiply what we’ve got and feed us all. when we stop seeing only so many seats at the table and keep adding in leaves. when we create spaces for men & women, black & white, gay & straight, rich & poor, to live alongside each other with equal value. when we empower each other in any way we can, respecting that we can’t expect everyone to be “fully alive” at the same time but what we can do is fan whatever life we can into flame.

yeah, in the world, power is like pie.

but in the kingdom of God, it’s much more like loaves and fishes, where all may eat and no one has to go hungry.

 

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Posted on Jul 18, 2011 in equality, healing, injustice | 24 comments

white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, economic privilege

white privilege male privilege straight privilege economic privilegei will never know what it’s like to be a person of color.  i can only listen and learn from my friends & family who are.

i will never know what it’s like to be gay.  i can only listen and learn from my friends & family who are.

i will likely never know what it’s like to be poor and live in section 8 housing.  i can only listen and learn from my friends & family who are.

but i do know what it’s like to be a woman leader in a man’s world.  i know what it feels like to be excluded. i know what it feels like see doors open & checks written & support given to men-with-the-connections while i struggle and scrape.  i know what it’s like to be on the underside of power and how helpless and dignity-stripping it can feel.

and those who are men can never know what it’s like.  they can only listen and learn from their friends & family who are women.

white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, economic privilege are real.

i’ve heard it dismissed sometimes, heard white people talk about “the minorities get all the jobs and get to go to the top of the line now”.  heard men talk about “i don’t know what women are talking about, we ask them to be part but they always say no.“  heard straight people talk about “gay people have more rights now than i do” and economically stable people talk about “if those poor people would just work harder & smarter they wouldn’t have so many problems.”

it’s so easy to talk when we don’t know what it feels like to be another person, to walk in another person’s shoes.

we should never deny the reality and power of white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, and economic privilege.  the power each of these carry is real and must be acknowledged.

when we hold the privilege we must do our part to listen to those who don’t.

this is no easy task, but we will need brave men & women who are willing to lead these conversations–to provide listening posts to hear from those on the underside of the privilege.  to learn what it feels like.  to learn what might help shift things.  to learn a better way.

we do not need to do feel guilty for being white, male, or straight or having money in the bank; that’s definitely not the idea here but is the easiest place for us to default.  we each are who we are, were born how we were born.  but i do believe strongly that we need to understand the power that comes from it instead of pretend it doesn’t exist or shoo it away as someone else’s problem.  re-thinking power is important.

in the kingdom of God there should be no white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, economic privilege.  Christ breaks down all of those barriers. but the kingdom of God won’t just drop out of the sky.  we will have to work hard, sacrifice our time, ego, hearts, and pride to create it.  we will have to let go of assumptions that “it’s not that big of a deal” when we’re the ones with the privilege.

at the same time, when we are the ones who don’t have the privilege we will have to be brave enough to sit at the table with those who do & listen to their hearts & stories, too.  we will have to create containers for understanding & love & hope & possibility of a better way--together.

God, show us how to listen well to each other–those with privilege to those without, those without privilege to those with it.  help us boldly act to break down the barriers that divide, oppress, and strip dignity. help us each play our part in practicing equality–not just in theory but in tangible, active ways that restore, reconcile & renew us individually & corporately.

this post has been rattling around in my head for a little while & i finally got it out.  i’d love to hear some of your thoughts….

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