Sermon: Sharing is Caring – Rev. Eric Banner

We’ve come to the end of this series of messages about leadership we’ve been exploring the last few weeks, and I wanted to end with shared ministry because it is the theme that ties all the rest of it together. Many years ago I had a boss who had, similarly to me, come into Unitarian Universalism as part of a small congregation. I grew up in it, she joined as an adult, but she would often point out to people that if you came into a small congregation, like the ones that had shaped us, you knew you were needed. There were chairs to be set, coffee to be made, and, if you didn’t watch out, committees that needed new members, yesterday.

But, she would say, you come into a church like this, with a strong professional staff, with key volunteers who have been making things possible for years, with music that moves your spirit, and a building that isn’t falling apart around you, and it’s pretty easy to think that you aren’t needed, that you can be a consumer of church, instead of a creator. It’s harder to see, she would say, that for all this to happen, we need you, too.

Those small church experiences still live in my bones. I taught religious education, I served as chair of the board, but I also climbed around on the roof to deal with drainage issues, and cut down trash trees on the back side of the property on work days. Nowadays, our staff leadership sometimes looks at me somewhat sternly and reminds me that what this congregation needs is not a minister on the roof, but a minister in the room. I’m still learning.

It was precisely because of those experiences as a younger man that when I entered into a conversation with the search team here, now four years ago, I could confidently say yes as they asked about whether I could work in a governance model for this community that was rooted in shared leadership and shared ministry.

For those of you who don’t know, back in the aughts and into the 20-teens, this congregation was served by another senior minister, and when he arrived it was the in vogue thing in Unitarian Universalism to have what was called policy governance, and one of the key elements of it was that the minister was understood to be the CEO of the church. We had tried to make that work, but, for reasons left for another day, it didn’t, and we decided to go another direction. Shared ministry. Shared leadership.

Everything we’ve been talking about these last six weeks, from leadership as a useful concept, to a larger faith, to generational differences, to covenant, and even money, has been about responding to a world that has taught us that leadership looks one way, and saying “No, no it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to, and thinking that it does often causes more harm than good.” So the invitation this community offers is to do something different. To take a page from our reading this morning, by local author, and international leadership development expert, Juana Bordas, who helped found Mi Casa Resource center here in Denver back in the 70s, and has spent much of her life helping people reimagine leadership when it’s latino y collectivo. Juntos, together, you might say.

“ In an I, or individualistic, culture, I become a leader because of my initiative and competence as well as my winning personality. I am a can-do, take-action person. By calling attention to myself – my accomplishments and skills – people believe I am competent and follow me. Unanimity or group consensus follows the leader’s decisions. The leader strives for self-mastery – as I become empowered, I can empower others. Leaders maintain status by remaining youthful, vigorous, attractive, and able. Seniority is secondary to performance.”

You might recognize this in the high profile CEO model of leadership. The one where someone comes in with the solution, launches the program, and makes everything better by force of will, or blunt power, to change things. It’s hierarchical, and it moves quickly. Bold, visionary, confident.

But what if that vision of leadership not only doesn’t work in a place where centering community and connection are literally our mission, what if it doesn’t work for the long haul almost anywhere.

Years ago the writer Jim Collins assembled a team of researchers to look at corporate success. He’d written a previous book about companies that lasted, and he wanted to ask a new question about companies that went along about as well as their peers, and then had an inflection point, a time when things really changed, and they saw results that far surpased the results of other companies in their industries. He titled that book, “Good to Great.”

If you’re familiar with the book, published now a generation ago, you might know that the former CEO of one of the good to great companies highlighted in the book wrote a later book titled “Good to Great to Gone.” The companies and strategies highlighted in Collins book were not uniformly successful after the period he and his team focused on, but what struck me most as I was reading “Good to Great” not long ago was that they had not only looked at companies that has outsized success in their industry, they also looked at companies that started a period of outsized success, and then watched it all fall apart.

And the thing that those companies had in common was that they depended on a single person to bring outsized attention and implement change. And when their attention wandered, or when they left, or when the business they were in changed, they spectacularly imploded. They had “CEOs (that) became wealthy celebrities—covers of magazines, bestselling autobiographies, massive compensation packages—despite the fact that their long-term results failed to measure up,” and, as Collins put it “These leaders were ambitious for themselves, and they succeeded admirably on this score, but they failed utterly in the task of creating an enduring great company.”

That is the I culture of leadership that we lean against when we adopt shared leadership and shared ministry. It looks strong, but it’s brittle. It’s like high carbon steel, which has amazing resistance and strength, until it doesn’t, and then it doesn’t bend, it breaks.

None of that means the work of shared leadership is easy, or quick. I’m reminded of a workshop I once attended in which the presenter asked us to reflect on the challenge of getting a pizza order put together for a church gathering. We want to be inclusive, so we rightly consider everyone, but there is a budget to be considered, so we would really like to order one thing that satisfies everyone. Except, there’s some people who are vegetarian. And there’s other people with gluten issues. There’s going to be kids at the event, and they don’t like vegetables on their pizza, but there’s adults who would like something more interesting than just cheese. And, if you’ve ever watched a good, and effective leader make it happen you know the steps to get it done. Like learning to dance, it takes time, practice, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, until you live it in your body, and the results look effortless.

It’s not though, it’s work. Learning always is. It’s enough to leave you throwing up your hands and just asking “Who’s in charge around here?” And the answer, it turns out, is you. Sort of. At least if you can get others to go along with your idea. That question, who’s in charge around here, is so prevalent that years ago there was a report that came out about Unitarian Univeralist congregations that had the question as the title. You might think I am, and it’s true that I have certain responsibilities. Mostly not involving the roof, or the coffee, I assure you. And, if I don’t do my job, I can expect there to be consequences. But in a we culture, whatever the organizational chart says, in a we culture, as Bordas writes, nothing happens without the community being involved.

If you don’t like what’s happening here, you have choices. It might not have been that way in the church of your childhood, or the home you grew up in, where the father figure, be he a literal father, or a priest, or someone like that, was in charge of making the decisions, and then everyone else just had to either find a way around them secretly, or fall in line. Not here. Here you can bring your ideas forward, and have them tested against other people’s ideas, and other people’s knowledge, and other limits, like time, or money, or space, and see if they work, and work well.

These last few years we’ve watched as beloved programs have started or restarted, from the Passover Seder coming up in just a few weeks, or the LGBTQIA Task Force that has helped us be present outside our walls at things like Denver PRIDE and inside our walls with things like queer craft & chat, which centers queer identities, but welcomes all who craft and chat. We’ve watched as our newly formed pagan community has brought connection and celebration to the quarters and cross quarters. There’s the First Universalist Dads Group, the FUDG, as they call themselves, and spiritual small groups emerging inside our building AND where our members live. And it’s all possible because of a we culture that invites us to share in what is possible. And none of it would be possible if it was all dependent on one person, or a small group of people, having all the good ideas, and doing all the work.

And, if you think this is some recent innovation, I’d just point out that Jesus had a dozen disciples, and one of the first things the Buddha did was set up the sangha.

Now, leadership isn’t always easy. Sometimes it means you have to say no to people or ideas. Sometimes it even means you have to accept that other people just aren’t that into your ideas, or that the physical infrastructure doesn’t support what you would like to do. From time to time it means setting, and enforcing, boundaries that help keep people safe.

And it also doesn’t mean that everyone is a leader, or everyone is a leader all the time. Sometimes it’s the time in our life when what we can do is just show up. Sometimes it’s the time in our life when we need someone else to tell us what to do, and maybe even how to do it. As the old community organizing adage puts it, “leaders have followers.” And that takes tending to relationship. Knowing people not just as means to your own ends, but as truly sacred beings that are worthy of being known and cared about and cared for.

When leadership is shared, the lift is not so heavy as when we think that leadership is something we do all alone. When we adopt a culture that says juntos, en lugar de cada uno, together, in place of each and every one, then new things become possible. We create what Juana Bordas would call a community of leaders. A community of leaders with shared vision, history and culture that supports them, participation with shared responsibility, and the recognition that if we are to get where we want to go, we’ll get there, paso a paso, step by step, together.

It’s true in our homes. It’s true in our workplaces. It’s true in our neighborhoods. It’s true in this church. It might look messy. It might take time. But when you find your partners, when you know the music, when your feet begin to move, the dance begins to flow, and something beautiful comes, all across the floor.

Rev. Eric Banner
Senior Minister