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November 28, 2007
[Book Review] Intuitive Leadership
It’s been a long time since I read a book that I couldn’t put down… And the book was most likely a work of fiction. But this one is most certainly real stuff, as non-fiction as you can get. And even though I’m not a church leader, per se, something about Intuitive Leadership – Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor & Chaos, the latest literary endeavor by Jacob’s Well Church pastor and Emergent Village co-founder, Tim Keel drew me in, bound my imagination, and wouldn’t let me go until I turned the last page. Keel’s experience, not only as a pastor and teacher, but as an artist, allowed him to effortlessly create a dialog that is as flowing and natural as it is compelling. This is a narrative that was forged as much by limber fingers dancing lightly (and sometimes very heavily) on the keyboard of a laptop computer as it was by dipping brush after brush into a multitude of jars of pigment. Keel’s words leapt off of each page as if he were sitting right in front of me, narrating the very text that I was reading.
But, I’ve got to admit something — or, in fact, a few things. Call them caveats if you will:
- Tim Keel is the pastor of Jacob’s Well Church, a community that I call home. Not only that, Tim is a dear friend of mine.
- I am a long-time disciple of post-modern philosophy. Why is this important? You’ll find out by reading the book.
- I am an artist. Because of this, my nature is that of the intuit, wholly aware of a sort of never-ending spiritual tension between chaos and organization. Again, read the book.
The question is, will these things make for an unobjective review? Maybe so. But, in as much, I will try to be as objective as possible in relaying some of the information held within the book’s pages, as well as a few of the points that impacted me while I was reading it.
But readers beware! Intuitive Leadership will anger a lot of you. Not because it’s controversial. (Even though much of it could be considered as such.) Not because some of you may label the book heresy in some regards. (Although, I’d wager that some of you will.) No, this book will anger you because it is not a typical “how-to” book. Not by a long-shot. And, as one begins to read and be captivated by the ideas that Keel expresses, most likely they will find themselves overwhelmed and even perplexed by the fact that the puzzle pieces they are envisioning will have to be assembled by themselves, instruction manual not included.
Intuitive Leadership is a book of experiential anecdotes, of experimentation, and of a missional mindset that most church leaders are not used to. It is a book that describes life as that of continual learning, of loss, of frustration, of loneliness, but more importantly, of joy and hope…of new horizons that have never been imagined before. But, this hope — “as is everything,” Tim Keel might say — is open-ended. It is a blank canvas that requires church leaders to approach as compassionate artisans completely willing to humble themselves enough to be a part of their communities of faith; to get down and dirty in their contexts and in their locales. Intuitive Leadership is a call to get back to grass-roots evangelism, a place where pastor, teacher, artist, musician, mystic, prophet, healer (you name it) all meet on a level playing ground, not with the intent of waging a war for power, but a desire for playing out God’s plan as and for his children, together. It’s a call to take an honest look at the reasons why you became a leader in the first place. It is a call to actually engage with those whom you are serving.
With that in mind, I’d like to share a passage that I think sums up much of Intuitive Leadership nicely:
The early church radically engaged their world as a community of sojourners located in a context under negotiation, a colony of heaven contending for their new faith and struggling mightily to understand the implications of the incarnation for life in the wake of Jesus Christ. Talk about having to reorient your theological imagination! We read the narratives of the early church found in the book of Acts, and we are captivated by what we see playing out before us. But rather than marveling at the ways in which the church responded to the leading of the Holy Spirit and learning what it means to be likewise discerning and responsive, we instead often want to duplicate these stories. We read Paul’s instructions to the churches under his apostolic and pastoral direction and forget that the epistles were written in a context much different from our own. And as we displace the letters from the narratives that birthed them, we get lost to our own narratives and context and how God is working with us today in the same ways. Much in the same way that we try to duplicate the techniques of “successful” churches we see around us, we likewise seek to mimic the drama of the New Testament church. Unfortunately we often end up looking more like bad actors who cannot remember their lines.
As you might garner from this passage, Keel is not a fan of models or systems. What is important, though, is allowing those things from the past in which we admire to inspire us to listen more closely to God’s prompting, to stop second-guessing the Holy Spirit’s work within our communities. The models of the past are not something to be forgotten, for sure, but neither should they be replicated. God’s work didn’t end with the early church, so why should we continue to view the early church as something to aspire to? This same posture (a favorite word of Keel’s meaning not only our physical posture, but also the stance that we take with our attitudes) should be taken when it comes to modern church systems as well (think Willow Creek or Forty Days of Purpose). Just because something works in one context does not mean it will work in another — in fact, it is almost destined to fail.
As Keel follows a strain that describes both his own faith-journey as well as the history of the Church (big “C”), Intuitive Leadership unfolds as a general apercu of culture, philosophy, theology, linguistics, et cetera. Likewise, Keel also quotes from a variety of books, the bible, theologians, pundits, and philosophers. Those reasons alone are enough for me to suggest reading this book. If you’ve ever needed a quick way to grasp how postmodernity is emerging within Western culture; an easy-to-read overview of church history in the East and the West, Intuitive Leadership is a good bet. But, thankfully, that’s not all that it is. And, as you begin to read, you’ll find it hard to deny the legitimacy of Keel’s claims as he attempts to deconstruct modern church methodologies and reconstruct a hope for something even better — something inspired and artistic and…intuitive.
Intuitive Leadership ends with nine “postures” (as described above) in which Tim Keel offers ways that leaders might begin engaging within their contexts. But remember, these are not instructions. They are only personal experiences in which Tim has experienced generative life among his (our) community. Interestingly, some of these postures could be life-giving for some people and most likely very draining for others. These postures must be practiced with the inclination that they may or may not work for you. In fact, you may even come up with some completely different postures of your own!
Ok, that’s not really how the book ends. After the “postures” chapter, the book ends on a chapter called, Reckoning with Intuition. In this chapter, Tim comes back to another one of the core principles of the book:
Ministry as an end to itself? Destructive. Ministry as a by-product of everything else in the environment being in harmony? Creative, generative, chaotic, beautiful.
You see, all of this philosophizing doesn’t mean a thing unless your community is struggling with the tension of creating their own theology, their own missional and holistic approach to doing life together; their own ministry. These are the fruits of a faithful life that trusts the prompting of the Holy Spirit — that feeling we get in our gut when something must change. (The one we usually prefer to ignore.)
Posted at 5:47 pm
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