Hamm, Recreating The Church

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Richard Hamm, Recreating The Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age (TCP Leadership Series). Chalice Press, 2007.

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LifeandLeadership.com Summary

This is another excellent contribution to The Columbia Partnership (TCP) Leadership Series. Any title of this series is worth reading. In this volume, Dick Hamm approaches congregational renewal through the rubric of Ronald Heifetz’s concept of adaptive vs. technical leadership. Some of the content is targeted to ministers who work with mainline denominational situations, but the bulk of the book translates to any context.

In the introduction, Hamm offers two premises. First, most congregations must be able to change in response to their cultural context and adapt their mission, structures, and style to serve current needs. Yet, they often prefer homeostasis — “staying the same” — regardless of their ineffectiveness. Second, though congregations have a tendency to avoid needed change, change with integrity is possible, especially in response to vision. He then argues that one of the fundamental changes churches must make is shifting from devotion to the ways and needs of the pre-1968 “modern” (or “establishment”) era rather than the current post-1968 “postmodern” (or “post-establishment”) era. Thus a corollary to his first premise, most churches were profoundly shaped by and for the modern era and must become contextually relevant again if they are to be faithful and effective in the current postmodern context.

As indicated above, Hamm presents Ron Heifetz’ model of adaptive leadership as an effective response to the current situation. He echoes Heifetz’ definitions. Technical changes are “fixes” to correct ordinary problems in a system as it is. Adaptive changes address underlying issues at the core of the congregation’s understanding of its existence, and demand innovation, learning, and changes in the system itself. This kind of change is difficult not only because churches are slow to change at the deeper level, but because churches keep their leaders so over-extended with constant technical changes that they do not have sufficient energy remaining to tackle the larger issues. Both changes are needful and good, but we face times when technical changes are not sufficient to surmount the challenges of our missional ineffectiveness. As Hamm quotes Bill Coffin, it is like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Many churches are continuing to do this, singing the same old songs in a land where the church and its language have become increasingly foreign. Also, seminaries and training institutions often co-opt their young into this same culture of survival, and thus lose their fresh generational insights, instincts, skills, and energy. The adaptive alternative, to quote Ron Heifetz, is for leaders to “get up on the balcony” so they can see beyond the frantic hubbub of the committees, programs, activities, and drives of the dying churched-culture church. Here they can achieve a more realistic sense of the larger picture, and imagine possibilities that go beyond the management of the status quo.

From this base, in Part One, Hamm details the “perfect storm” which has brought about the decline of so many churches. He mentions three elements: the hurricane of change in American culture, organizational obsolescence, and the “high pressure” of anxiety. A chapter is devoted to each. The first is an expansion on the modern-postmodern shift. The second includes a look at how declining churches experience an organizational maturation curve that leads to obsolescence when forms that have worked in a previous time become ineffective when the external environment shifts. When this happens, the church, perhaps sub-consciously, often turns in on itself and becomes pre-occupied with self-service and survival. The third addresses the issue of how rising cultural anxiety expresses itself in churches. This chapter says the “trick” is for leaders to keep enough heat on so that something is cooking, but not to raise the temperature to a boiling point.

Part Two applies these concepts to two issues where the stress of change is deeply felt: generational differences and governance. The chapter on governance is fairly steeped in the assumptions of denominational hierarchies, but still has some value for congregational/non-denominational settings. The chapter on generational differences is excellent. In the last chapter of Part Two, Hamm suggests viewing the challenges of the new environment as a set of continua where the no-longer-effective way of functioning is at one end and the preferred approach is at the other. This way, a congregation may assess where they lie on the continua between such polarities as maintenance vs. mission, pragmatism vs. core values, membership vs. discipleship, control vs. empowerment, democracy vs. discernment, etc. This is not to be confused with polarity management (cf. Oswald and Barry Johnson, Managing Polarities in Congregations), an approach to navigating unsolvable tensions between stability and change, new and old, etc. where both ends are deemed healthy depending on the situation. Hamm makes different use of the concept of polarities, assuming one end of the pole is more desirable. He encourages congregations to plot where they are on a continuum between the desirable and undesirable conditions.

Part Three addresses the personal and systemic aspects of adaptive change. These two chapters are excellent discussions of how leaders can maintain a transformative presence amid all of the challenges of helping their congregations enter the new missional climate with greater effectiveness.

Hamm makes a needed contribution to the plethora of material on leadership in the postmodern era. It is an excellent adaptation of Heifetz’ concept of adaptive work, and is a good primer for church leaders who are un- or underexposed to the issues of modernity/postmodernity and the ineffectiveness of incremental, slow, piecemeal changes in the current situation. It is thematically similar to Anthony B. Robinson, Transforming Congregational Culture. Both volumes build on Heifetz, and could serve as good companion volumes.

This book is part of the Columbia Partnership Leadership Series. The TCP Leadership Series is an inspiration- and wisdom-sharing vehicle of The Columbia Partnership, a community of Christian leaders seeking to transform the capacity of the North American Protestant church to pursue and sustain vital Christ-centered ministry.

From the Publisher

Mainline denominations in the United States are in crisis. These institutions-created in and for modernity-are now facing a changed, postmodern culture. Hamm faces the crisis, examining its origins, and offers sound advice on how to lead to church to make the adaptive changes needed to thrive in postmodern times.

About the Author

Dick Hamm served as General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada from 1993 to 2003. Dick is a founding partner and president of The Columbia Partnership and has written and spoken extensively on the subject of church renewal and is bringing that knowledge to bear on congregations and other church organizations through consulting and coaching. He is the author of two other books, 2020 Vision for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and From Mainline to Front Line.


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