Right-Brain Leadership
I'm in magazine article mode these days. Trying to finish up three deadlines before I head to the Galapagos. Here is an excerpt from one of the articles I'm working on.
Routinization
Here is one of the central tasks of pastoral leadership: keeping what is sacred from becoming routine.
I read a fascinating study a few years ago that suggested that we stop thinking about the lyrics of a song after hearing it thirty times. That has profound implications when it comes to worship. If we aren't careful, we stop worshiping in spirit and in truth and start lip syncing. Maybe that's why the Psalmist exhorts us eight times to sing a new song.
Maybe a central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a pastor of discipleship is to keep spiritual disciplines from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?
Let me put the challenge in neurological context.
Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Longitudinal studies have shown that the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from right-to-left as we age. In other words, memory overtakes imagination. At some point, most of us stop imagining the future and start repeating the past. Our leadership shift from right-to-left, and if we aren't careful, serving God can become routine.
That neurological tendency has significant implications when it comes to pastoral leadership. How do we keep prayer from becoming an empty incantation? How do we keep Bible reading from becoming rote? How do we keep church from becoming nothing more than a religious obligation?
The Element of Surprise
We have a core value at National Community Church: expect the unexpected. That value is based on a cross-section of gospel episodes that reveal the creative leadership style of Jesus. Jesus always had a surprise up his sleeve. I think the disciples lived in a state of perpetual shock at the things Jesus did.
Jesus healed on the Sabbath, walked on water, threw a temple tantrum, cursed a fig tree, partied with tax collectors, talked with Samaritans, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
In other words, Jesus was predictably unpredictable and that is one reason why the Pharirazzi wanted to kill him. He was too unorthodox for their linear and logical left-brains, but he did capture the right-brain imagination of the masses.
I think we grossly underestimate just how unconventional Jesus was. And the question is this: are we following in his leadership footsteps?
One of my prime objectives at National Community Church is to keep church from becoming routine. And I think that is one reason why 71% of our regular attenders come from an unchurched or dechurched background.
We try to overcome routinization in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is as simple as changing our order of service. We'll do responsive worship following a message instead of preparatory worship before a message. We'll often turn our movie theater screen into postmodern stained glass and use videos to communicate the gospel story in moving pictures. And we try to celebrate communion in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we'll serve communion in trays the old-fashioned way, but other times we'll put the elements in a small canvass communion bag that attenders receive on the way into church. Or we'll have people write out a confession and nail it to a cross before taking communion. Our goal is to make communion a fresh experience every time we come to the Lord's Table.
One Sunday a few years ago, we did away with our normal service all together. Instead of sitting in one theater for an entire service, we set up a message theater, worship theater, and communion theater and let people go on a self-paced, self-guided journey. That Journey Sunday was slightly awkward for regular attenders, but that is healthy. It keeps us from going through the motions.
Part of right-brain leadership is throwing an occasional change-up or curve ball to keep people on their toes. And that can be as simple as moving the piano, changing your staging, or giving your bulletin an extreme makeover.
Routinization
Here is one of the central tasks of pastoral leadership: keeping what is sacred from becoming routine.
I read a fascinating study a few years ago that suggested that we stop thinking about the lyrics of a song after hearing it thirty times. That has profound implications when it comes to worship. If we aren't careful, we stop worshiping in spirit and in truth and start lip syncing. Maybe that's why the Psalmist exhorts us eight times to sing a new song.
Maybe a central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a pastor of discipleship is to keep spiritual disciplines from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?
Let me put the challenge in neurological context.
Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Longitudinal studies have shown that the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from right-to-left as we age. In other words, memory overtakes imagination. At some point, most of us stop imagining the future and start repeating the past. Our leadership shift from right-to-left, and if we aren't careful, serving God can become routine.
That neurological tendency has significant implications when it comes to pastoral leadership. How do we keep prayer from becoming an empty incantation? How do we keep Bible reading from becoming rote? How do we keep church from becoming nothing more than a religious obligation?
The Element of Surprise
We have a core value at National Community Church: expect the unexpected. That value is based on a cross-section of gospel episodes that reveal the creative leadership style of Jesus. Jesus always had a surprise up his sleeve. I think the disciples lived in a state of perpetual shock at the things Jesus did.
Jesus healed on the Sabbath, walked on water, threw a temple tantrum, cursed a fig tree, partied with tax collectors, talked with Samaritans, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
In other words, Jesus was predictably unpredictable and that is one reason why the Pharirazzi wanted to kill him. He was too unorthodox for their linear and logical left-brains, but he did capture the right-brain imagination of the masses.
I think we grossly underestimate just how unconventional Jesus was. And the question is this: are we following in his leadership footsteps?
One of my prime objectives at National Community Church is to keep church from becoming routine. And I think that is one reason why 71% of our regular attenders come from an unchurched or dechurched background.
We try to overcome routinization in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is as simple as changing our order of service. We'll do responsive worship following a message instead of preparatory worship before a message. We'll often turn our movie theater screen into postmodern stained glass and use videos to communicate the gospel story in moving pictures. And we try to celebrate communion in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we'll serve communion in trays the old-fashioned way, but other times we'll put the elements in a small canvass communion bag that attenders receive on the way into church. Or we'll have people write out a confession and nail it to a cross before taking communion. Our goal is to make communion a fresh experience every time we come to the Lord's Table.
One Sunday a few years ago, we did away with our normal service all together. Instead of sitting in one theater for an entire service, we set up a message theater, worship theater, and communion theater and let people go on a self-paced, self-guided journey. That Journey Sunday was slightly awkward for regular attenders, but that is healthy. It keeps us from going through the motions.
Part of right-brain leadership is throwing an occasional change-up or curve ball to keep people on their toes. And that can be as simple as moving the piano, changing your staging, or giving your bulletin an extreme makeover.
7 Comments:
What is wrong with something being a routine?
Awesome article. I have forwarded it to my team. This principle is huge and over looked probably becuase too many people see the whole conversation as scientific and not spiritual. But you nailed it when you looked at Jesus. He was edgy in his time and unfortunately His rejection of the status quo would make Him edgy today.
Anonymous,
Here is the catch-22. Routines are the key to spiritual growth. We call them spiritual disciplines. But when those routines become routine we can learn how and forget why.
Just based on my personal experience, I need to mix up my routines or they tend to become empty rituals.
Routines are indispensible to growth. But we need to keep changing them.
My two cents,
Mark
Isn't the heart of the problem not that we are in a routine but that we are bored with God. We are not amazed anymore at the depth of our sin because we do not remember His holiness (Isaiah 6). We have become bored with our salvation because we have forgotten the amazing-ness of Christ's work on the cross...
Anon,
Good thought.
In the words of the prophet Jeremiah we have lost the awe of God.
I still think it's a fascinating neurological and spiritual interplay. Loss of awe is very close to routinization and familiarization. I think awe is more of a right-brain capacity.
This dialogue also makes me think of the passage that says "His mercies are new every morning." That is the trick :) How do you keep his mercy from becoming "routine".
This danger of becoming so familiar with someone that we lose our appreciation is the same challenge friends face and marriages face.
Now I'm rambling...
Mark
Pharirazzi! Now that one definitely came from the right brain!
Anonymous,
The bottom line is that Jesus modeled creativity, innovation and spontonaety. He was viewed as a rebel and a zealot because he didn't do things the way the religious establishment expected.
We miss so much by only reading Jesus words but not obeserving his uniqueness. I thing that much of Jesus teaching was saying, "you guys don't get it; let me illustrate what I am trying to say." One of the reasons they didn't get it was becuase they had heard it many times before. Jesus then tried to illustrate it in a fresh new way in new places to different crowds.
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