Continuing the Journey

The Four Seats Within the Car

Through George Bullard’s work and time with us, we learned that relationships and vision belong in the front seat, guiding the direction of the church, while management and structure are best positioned in the back seat to provide support. All of these elements are necessary; however, church organizations tend to decline when structure and ministry management are allowed to take the wheel.

Deep Change

Drawing on the work of Robert Quinn, there was a consistent and insistent call for pastors, elders, and congregations to embrace change for the sake of greater health. This was not an invitation to adopt a few new techniques or programs, but a call to allow our fundamental patterns, ways of functioning, and shared outlooks to be transformed by Christ.

Shalom of the City

After years of wrestling through workshops, retreats, and book studies, the presbytery discerned a call to seek the shalom of the city, echoing Jeremiah 29. Inherent in this discernment was an honest recognition that the old ways of Jerusalem were gone—that we were living in exile. Yet this exile was not a temporary detour with a return to the past. We were not going back to the way things were in the 1950s through the 1980s, but were being invited to live faithfully and fruitfully where we had been placed.

Balance

During this time, we also turned our attention inward, studying ourselves as individuals and as a community. We engaged change-style indicators, personality assessments, leadership strength finders, and many other tools. The overarching insight was clear: health requires balance—both personally and communally. We need innovators and conservers, early adopters and those who come later, gentleness alongside the capacity to be direct, open, and honest.

Embraced Failure As Learning

One of the consistent messages during this season was that experimentation is essential to growth and learning. It is the child who plays in the water—not the one who only takes swimming lessons—who often learns to swim first. In that spirit, over the past twenty years we have tried many things. Some have borne fruit, such as our CRE training and the development of leadership teams within our churches. Others did not unfold as hoped, including a pastor training partnership with Ashland Theological Seminary and the calling of a mission coordinator to help congregations raise funds for local mission.

In the process, we learned to make it safe to take risks and to celebrate learning, whether an experiment succeeded or fell short.

Moved from Regulatory to Equipping

While presbyteries carry important regulatory responsibilities, regulation alone does not make a collection of churches healthy. During our transformation, we made a conscious decision not to lead with policy, but with formation. We came to believe that a presbytery best serves one another by equipping one another for ministry.

In this light, local pastors have trained elders to preside at communion and to preach. It is also why I devote significant time to facilitating workshops such as Presence, Mission Lab, and Prayer Lab. Policies can be useful tools, but they can also be wielded as weapons. Equipping, by contrast, empowers others and multiplies faithful leadership.

Presbytery as Churches

There are two primary ways to understand a presbytery. One is as an institution; the other is as a collection of congregations. While the institutional dimension cannot—and should not—be eliminated, we have made a conscious decision to function first and foremost as a community of churches.

Underlying this choice is a fundamental conviction: countless faithful people can build an institution, but an institution alone cannot turn a struggling church into a thriving one. Institutions measure members and demographics. Communities of faith attend to transformation—of our lives, our practices, and our witness—and invite others into the widening grace of God. As part of this, we learned that people and churches are allowed to opt in and out of the transformation with no force and no judgement. But that everyone is welcome to join at anytime.

Sabbath

Just as individuals must discipline their lives to include rest, worship, and renewal, the same is true for organizations. One of the most effective practices that created space for leaders in the presbytery to grow and mature was the observance of an institutional Sabbath.

For a season, bylaws were suspended, committee work was reduced to those groups required by the Book of Order, and our time together shifted away from governance toward formation. We gathered not to manage, but to listen and discern. This Sabbath proved essential, providing the margin, rest, and relational depth necessary for the presbytery to engage in its deepest work of discernment.

No Magic Answers

In keeping with the call to deep change, leaders in Muskingum Valley Presbytery learned over time to release the idea that our task was to fix the church, as a plumber might repair a leaking faucet. Instead, we came to understand our work as something far more complex—more like building an airplane while already in flight.

This shift introduced us to the language of technical and adaptive change. Technical change addresses problems we understand, applying known procedures to achieve predictable results. Adaptive change, by contrast, requires humility, curiosity, and a willingness to wander. It invites wonder rather than certainty, and learning rather than control.

While we all long for clear and easy answers, faithfulness is often measured by our willingness to take the next faithful step—especially when the path is unclear, and even when we are uncomfortable or unsure.

Leadership Isn’t A Four Letter Word

Through the practice of Accountable Leadership, we were reminded that leadership matters. Pastors and elders cannot simply sit back and wait for others to determine what comes next. We are called to do the hard work of asking deeper questions, offering faithful options, convening meaningful conversations, and helping our congregations move forward.

Scripture reminds us that faithful leaders are not called to be people-pleasers. Figures such as Hannah, Jacob, and Jesus show us that leadership often involves challenging the status quo. Even Abraham demonstrated the courage—the chutzpah—to wrestle with God. Faithful leadership requires both humility and holy boldness.

Healthy Congregations

Through the work of Healthy Congregations, developed by Peter Steinke, we were reminded that anxiety—rather than disagreement—is often the greatest challenge facing congregations. Healthy leadership does not seek to eliminate conflict, but to remain grounded, thoughtful, and connected in the midst of it. Leaders are called to resist reactivity, avoid quick fixes, and stay present when tensions rise. By cultivating self-awareness, emotional maturity, and trust, congregations are better equipped to face change with faithfulness, resilience, and hope.

Acts 16:5

Through the Acts 16:5 Initiative, led by Stan Ott of the Vital Church Institute, we were reminded that spiritual vitality is not accidental, but cultivated through shared practices of prayer, discernment, and adaptive leadership. The initiative invites leaders to pay close attention to the Spirit’s movement within their particular context and to align mission, worship, and governance accordingly. Rather than chasing quick growth, faithful leadership focuses on strengthening trust, deepening discipleship, and nurturing communities where faith can grow steadily, authentically, and sustainably.