The J Curve
Patience, Perseverance and Progress
As we navigate the ‘how-to’ of reimagining church leadership, these three P’s are becoming increasingly significant. While two of the P’s yearn to be acknowledged, the third always takes the lead. We crave progress, quick wins to boost morale and support, and to bring our visions to fruition with positive outcomes. It’s good for all, right?
The problem is that the primary focus on expected progress does feel good. We’re in control. Through our willful efforts, we can undoubtedly make incremental and short-term improvements in some of our missions. It feels honest as there is some struggle. ‘Two steps forward, one step back’ is the familiar lament. But if steps forward outnumber steps back, all is well. The unintended consequence is that these incremental improvements ultimately power the status quo, for they are not sustainable and do not adequately address the real issues that sustain the status quo’s strength. We know this to be true if we have repeatedly repeated this approach.
Recently, my reality has felt like one step forward and two steps back. And rather than feeling discouraged, it feels peaceful, paradoxically. Reflecting on this, perhaps because any step forward is progress. It may be because all steps are not necessarily equal. Last week, I was initially discouraged by witnessing two steps backward (“Why is he asking for that? We’ve resolved that. I thought we all understood”) in a local church. This week, other leaders within the system self-corrected without any intervention. Evidence that there is learning. The pathway is understood and is owned. This feels like a leap forward, with much greater significance for the long-term than the steps back would have meant if they were not corrected. And without the steps back, the environment for the leap forward would not have existed.
All this has me thinking about what matters as we reimagine Church leadership for the 21st Century. What do we need to value as we navigate this? That’s where the other two P’s — patience and perseverance — come in. Patience in our expectations and attitudes towards one another. Perseverance in trusting the overall direction we’ve agreed to and staying with it while we learn — not abandoning the effort when the status quo’s resistance sets in. And it will, with force.
This encouragement was reinforced as, this summer, the church has set a course on a particular spiritual formation pathway for the next few years. The resource being used has tips, and tip #7 for those who want to take this journey is Follow the J Curve.
It is a great gift to see this in print, acknowledge its reality, and, through its inclusion in the book, attempt to normalize it within the leadership and congregation. When it does get worse, when there is no progress up and to the right, when there are only steps back, valuing patience and perseverance are necessary. In the above anecdote of my last two weeks, what is missing from the story is the three to four years of work, mistakes, trial and error, distractions, leadership changes, and outright resistance that set the stage for the leap forward. And that is where my peace is rooted. Seeing that we are amid the complexity of reality and staying with it. And that within us, patience and perseverance are being formed.
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability — and that it may take a very long time….”
Excerpt of prayer from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. 1881–1955
