THE 4 PILLARS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SPIRITUAL LEADERS. (A discussion document on spiritual leadership for Lutheran schools.)

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1 THE 4 PILLARS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SPIRITUAL LEADERS (A discussion document on spiritual leadership for Lutheran schools.) Background: While in recent times the question of the spiritual leadership of the School Principal has been a point of discussion, the LCA has spoken out strongly to endorse the thinking that the Principal is clearly the spiritual head of a school community. In many respects nothing has changed for our school leaders, who have been doing spiritual leadership ever since the inception of the first Lutheran Schools. However it is affirming, comforting and encouraging to know that the LCA has strongly recognized the importance of this role for our school leaders. This paper has been endorsed by the LSA Education Committee as a discussion document for use to encourage and support our school leaders in the task of spiritual leadership. The title for the document has been drawn from the fact that some of the Stephen Covey habits of highly effective people 1 have been used as a basis for shaping these thoughts on spiritual leadership. 1 st PILLAR: Look after our own backyard In order to be highly effective spiritual leaders, it is critical that we continually attend to our own spiritual health. Just as we need to attend to our physical well-being through exercise, healthy diet, rest and relation, regular health checks etc, in the same way we need to attend to our spiritual health. This first pillar is informed by a combination of at least three of the Covey habits: Sharpen the saw, Be Pro-active, and First things first. Covey talks about putting the BIG rocks in place. We need to do this in our private yearly calendar and daily/weekly diaries. By putting first-things-first and being proactive through putting in place time and space for looking after our spiritual health, we will in the process, be sharpening the saw. We will be building for ourselves a sharpness of spiritual mind and thought, in readiness for the task of encouraging others in their faith journeys and thereby enhancing the prospects of building a strong corporate spirituality. Here is a list of some suggested essential specifics for Pillar 1: 1. Word 2. Sacraments (HC) 3. Prayer 4. Spiritual reading 5. Personal spiritual time out 6. Shared spirituality sessions. God comes to us in a very special way through Word and Sacraments. We believe that God speaks to us through his living Word. As leaders we need to regularly immerse ourselves in God s Word. To some extent we do this automatically through worship, but we are perhaps not very skilled at really listening to what God has to say to us through a particular passage or set of readings. We have developed the unfortunate habit of immediately moving on to a response or jumping into something else as soon as we finish a reading. We need to take time to listen to what God is saying to us right now through a particular passage. Maybe the weekly Gospel Reflections that we have been sending out can serve as a starting point. If so, we strongly encourage readers of the reflections to take a few extra minutes to read the passage first. Otherwise we are in danger of falling into the trap of what Max Lucado describes as a second-hand spirituality 2, by taking someone else s thoughts rather than personally wrestling with God to form our own response.

2 Regular participation in the Lord s Supper is an essential for sharpening the spiritual saw. Every time we eat and drink at God s table, we actually come to God s workbench to sharpen the saw and it is God who does the sharpening! At this point it is important to emphasize the important universally accepted theological principle, that we ourselves are actually quite useless at drawing closer to God. We can have all of the best intentions in the world of progressing our spiritual health, but the reality is that we cannot do that by ourselves. It is only through God s Spirit being at work in us that we are able to do this. Hence the vital importance of both Word and Sacrament, where God s Spirit is present and at work in and through us. Prayer is a spiritual discipline that has the potential to become a spiritual burden. If we are not careful we can build for ourselves a guilt complex of not doing our prayer job well. There are many dimensions of prayer of course, but one that can be really liberating is prayer is resting! Prayer is also very much about listening. Richard Foster s thoughts on prayer being framed around the meanderings of the mind 3 may be helpful. A concept common in many traditions is that of praying a passage choosing a section of scripture and using that as a basis for prayerful reflection. Whatever the perspective of prayer, we know that it can never be put up there as something conditional to our favour with God. Our very roots Saved by grace reassures us that there can never be a guilt dimension to not being disciplined in engaging in prayer, after all we don t get any better at doing prayer through our own efforts we need to accept that it is the Holy Spirit who masterminds that. Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of spiritual life! 4 The final three essentials listed above further highlight the importance of setting aside time. Time out for spiritual purposes has to be a BIG rock that must be put in place early, before there is no room to fit that in because all of the other pebbles of running a school have crammed the diary space. Our LSA retreats are an important case in point. For many people it has been difficult to fit in a retreat time, but it is important, so should we not therefore make this a priority? The comments below from LSA Principals who have attended the Sevenhill Retreats speak for themselves: We all are extremely busy people who are forever giving of ourselves towards others. These retreats provide you with the ideal opportunity to take time to stop, reflect and be challenged to connect to a deeper level of spirituality. We have much to learn from the contemplative approach of the Jesuits. This is an eternal investment! Attending a Sevenhill Retreat provided a 'time out' for me that facilitated 'time in' with God. The sessions were presented at a good pace with opportunity for personal prayer and reflection. I thoroughly recommend the experience for anyone wishing to grow in their relationship with the Lord Be brave! Be bold! This is a wonderful opportunity for Principals as spiritual leaders to focus on their own spirituality. The retreat was a special time for challenging ones values, spiritual reflection and sharing with peers. Thanks for making this happen. Principals need this sort of time out at least once a year. I am just so pleased to have experienced something like this again and with my Lutheran colleagues. The superb setting and most able leadership enhanced the whole experience. Praise God for the Jesuits opening their hearts and home to us. So taking time out in an organized fashion to get away, or setting aside a block of time to read something spiritual, or gathering with others to reflect on things spiritual are all essentials components in having our own backyard in good shape to provide the launching pad for us to do our job of spiritual leadership well. For those schools that employ a school pastor, or have regular contact with the pastor/s of the local congregation/s, we strongly encourage that relationship to develop into one of comfortable sharing in relation to things spiritual.

3 While the role of spiritual leadership is not one that should be totally delegated to pastors or others, highly effective principals as spiritual leaders, will empower and enlist the support of those around them to make it a multi-faceted approach to shaping the form of spiritual leadership and carrying out that task. Having the resident school pastor or delegated congregation pastor as a vital and integral part of that team is a priority objective that we should strive to achieve. 2 nd PILLAR: Not forgetting the body that birthed us In an earlier draft this pillar was named not forgetting the hand that feeds us. That may have been the case over a century ago when our first Lutheran Schools were established, but these days, the organization that best fits the description of being the hand that feeds us is probably the Australian Government! While we do have great cause to be thankful that we operate in a context where the government of our country strongly supports Christian schools, that is not the central point here. We have become who we are as Lutheran Schools through the vision, commitment and initiatives of the church our church, the church LCA, Lutheran Church of Australia the body that gave birth to us. One of our great responsibilities as spiritual leaders is to make sure that a strong respect for and understanding of our Lutheran heritage is deeply entrenched in our school culture. As the seats in our staffrooms are increasingly being occupied by people who have not grown up in a Lutheran context, we have a huge obligation to make sure that everyone in our school community firstly understands what it means to be Lutheran and secondly understands that we have been set up by the Lutheran Church and established to help connect young people and families to Jesus. This is not just a constitutional aim that our staff need to know about, but one that they need to be engaged in. If we as spiritual leaders don t take that task seriously, the very fabric of who we are and what we are about, will very quickly be eroded away. We need to work hard to make sure that all of our staff are in the boat i.e. that they understand that as Lutheran Schools we are on a mission, that of spreading the word of the good news about Jesus. How do we do this? The Pathways program gives a very solid overview. Unfortunately Pathways is sometimes viewed as something that we just have to get done and get out of the way. Many of our schools would have members of staff who could probably do with a re-visit of what it is that we are on about. Sometimes it can be the long-standing staff who may be the ones who unintentionally contribute to us getting off track, because of a we know all that stuff attitude. Being pro-active is critical. We see some wonderful examples of school leaders, who have devised dynamic on-going programs to engage their staff in building and maintaining the culture of who we are. It is hard to reclaim ground once it has become marshland much easier to spend time on a regular basis maintaining the landscape so that it does not degenerate! School leaders must have in place as a big rock in the PD calendar, an ongoing program to facilitate spiritual well-being. The spiritual development of staff must be a priority task of an authentic Lutheran School spiritual leader. We do have an obligation to work in partnership with our local Lutheran congregation/s which more than likely will technically be the owner/s of our school! This obligation brings with it the challenge to help our congregations understand that Lutheran schools have changed to a point where they now have effectively become the spiritual home for many of our families. The reality is that for an increasing proportion of our clientele, the school is their church (or church substitute). We have a critical role to play in building the school-congregation partnership and helping to re-shape the expression of church to be something more than just a gathering of people in a church building. We can help congregations move from survival to thrival by changing the paradigm so that the school community becomes part of a multi-focal expanded church view. An additional document on School-congregation partnership may be useful in expanding on the intricacies of this pillar of spiritual leadership

4 3 rd PILLAR: Calling the tune on spiritual matters There is arguably a wonderful little twist or corollary of this statement. Perhaps it could also be stated as calling a spiritual tune on all matters. This fits perfectly with an LCA statement taken from the official document The Lutheran school as a place of ministry and mission The Australian government allows churches to own and run schools. The Lutheran school is a school; at the same time, it is a school of the LCA. As such the LCA expects the Word of God with the gospel of Christ at its heart to inform all learning and teaching, all human relationships, and all activities of the school. 5 Calling a spiritual tune is not an option, but an obligation for us as spiritual leaders. We are reminded by the above quote to look to and lean on the Gospel as our chief source of wisdom for informing the decision making that underpins the daily operations of our schools. Effectively what we are saying is that it is not-negotiable for a school leader to show spiritual leadership. Further this leadership cannot be shown passively in a go with the flow style. Principals need to be strong and forthright in this dimension of leadership. We are called to take our place alongside of Luther with the sentiment Here I stand I can do no other so God help me. Spiritual leadership will not always be smooth sailing and as the profile of our school communities and of our staff rooms continues to change, there will be a greater demand for us to show strength as we lead spiritually. An increasing factor in the melting pot has become the enterprise agreement and associated work load issues. In some situations delicate negotiations may be needed, but under-pinning those negotiations there needs to be a strength of conviction from the person at the top, with the score in hand ready to go to call the tune on spiritual matters! 4 th PILLAR: Building Community How does one arrange four pillars? The classic 3D spatial relationship that immediately comes to mind is like the four pillars at the apex of a square: Building Christian Community As we focus our thoughts on this 4 th Pillar, is it possible that if any one of the four was to have some degree of priority or even centrality in spiritual leadership, then maybe it would be this one? Perhaps the spatial arrangement of the four pillars could go something like this, with BUILDING COMMUNITY as the centre pillar. (Then again the counter argument could be that our own backyard is the central pillar. If nothing else it serves as an interesting discussion point.)

5 Having signaled the importance of this pillar, let s explore the significance of it as a central dimension of spiritual leadership. The staffroom is the engine room of a school community. The staff engine must be regularly service and maintained, finely-tuned and well-lubricated (now that leaves some scope for Lutheran interpretation!) Within a short space of time after walking into a school staffroom, it is possible to make a reasonably accurate summary of how things are generally ticking right across the school community. By the way, we are not talking about any little old club here we are talking about the staffroom as the centre of authentic Christian community where we would anticipate observing staff celebrating together, sharing joys and sorrows, caring for each other as well as the staff room being a base for broader care initiatives outside of the immediate staff boundaries. Community is not built in isolation. The regular gathering of the whole staff is fundamental to maintaining the engine-room as a strong Christian community or transforming it into one. The embedding into a school culture of a daily gathering of all sectors of staff is arguably the most significant task of spiritual leadership in a Lutheran School. Schools that do not gather daily as an entire staff really probably do not know what they are missing out on. It is possible to dismiss the implementation or maintenance of a daily gathering as being too hard, not appropriate or even impossible. Perhaps taking that view reflects either a misunderstanding of spiritual leadership or a soft approach to it! Central to the daily gathering should be a time of spiritual reflection, where people tell their (spiritual) story. Nuts and bolts daily trivia should not be allowed to infiltrate this special community time. Only in emergency situations where last minute changes of plans have occurred, should this type of information giving be part of the daily gathering. Any announcements should focus on the community who has had a baby, whose mum is in hospital, a family that is in crisis, a celebration announcement of an engagement or an anniversary or a tip-off that someone amongst us is struggling and needs our prayers etc. Calling it a devotion maybe a bit formal perhaps we can come up with a better name. Some schools regularly allocate time each week to sing together. We know of a school community where the entire staff engaged in the huge challenge of learning and singing the Hallelujah Chorus for the closing service that year and also sang that same song at the end of year staff dinner to staff partners. This is powerful stuff in binding the staff team together while also making a statement to the broader school community. You may be aware of the story line of the Parable of the rich fool. There is a phrase in there about tearing down our barns and building bigger ones. If ever there was a barn that we should tear down in a school and build a bigger one perhaps it is the staffroom. There may be self-indulgence arguments from parents and council members about that if so we can strongly rebut that criticism by expounding the message of the importance of the staffroom as engine-room and in building a strong Christian culture and authentic Lutheran school environment. Some schools for whatever reason have allowed auxiliary engine rooms to start up. Small faculty or subgroups of staff gather and are set up with kitchen facilities, which means staff in these areas rarely gather in the main staff facility. In very large and complex organizations there may be a case to consider exceptions to that rule, but exceptions should be only granted with provisos that are grounded in Covey s win-win thinking. Sometimes auxiliary engines like to think they have the power to take over. We want to avoid that. When discussing the 1 st Pillar Looking after our own backyard, the image of allowing God to regularly sharpen our saw was outlined. In a similar way this can be translated into the whole staff setting. Regular celebration of the Lord s Supper in a school staff community is in many ways a fresh expression of church. Most if not all of our schools celebrate Holy Communion together as a staff group. A reasonable estimate is that this probably occurs on average perhaps 2 or 3 times per year, but rarely more than once per term. There is a strong argument to suggest that there should be an option to engage

6 in this celebration at least 2 or 3 times per term and maybe as often as fortnightly or even weekly. Why wouldn t we allow God to strengthen us through his Holy Spirit on a very regular basis? In the past we would perhaps have said well we have access to Holy Communion in our congregation. The reality is that times have changed. We can lament the fact that less people do have a regular worshipping home base outside of the school and continue to try to encourage these people to come along to worship on the weekend or we can help reshape the traditional way we think about church, by expanding the boundaries of church beyond the church building to include the school staffroom, the school yard and car park and even into the community at large. When God comes to us through the bread and wine he sharpens our saw. Conclusion: The four pillars provide some suggestions and guidelines for the task of spiritual leadership. Hopefully these may serve to equip us as leaders to take up the challenge of spiritually nourishing our staff. This does not mean providing a fixed set of recipes. Rather it is taking them by the hand and leading them into the kitchen. There we show them some basic skills of cooking. We introduce new ingredients to bring out new flavours and broaden nutrition perspectives. We together experiment also with a range of cooking techniques that will eventually (with God s Spirit in charge) create for each individual a cuisine that is theirs. Neville Grieger LSA Spiritual Development Facilitator (Last revised October 2010) From The Message Through His Eyes Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Rom.12:2 (MSG) then you can see things through His eyes. Acknowledgement: Sincere thanks to Dennis Obst for his contribution to the shaping of this document. 1 The 7 habits of highly effective people Stephen R Covey (and a number of other related titles.) 2 Just like Jesus Max Lucado 3 Celebration of Discipline Richard Foster P54 4 Celebration of Discipline Richard Foster P52 5 The Lutheran school as a place of ministry and mission LCA Website. Official statement from October 2006