1992 Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Appendix

Bibliography

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOKS

The Church today needs leaders who can work with an environmental approach.

For most Americans, communities and environments seem to just happen. They are either there or not. Institutions, organizations, businesses, programs, procedures - these are all developed and planned. But Americans have never seen a community formed. Friendships develop, people interrelate in certain ways, communities emerge. There is nothing it seems that can be done about them, any more than can be done about the weather.

But it is certainly not true that communities cannot be formed purposely. Most people, outside modern Western society, tend to think that institutions and organizations just happen. For them, what we consider ordinary common sense borders on the magical. And just as it is a lack of knowledge that makes some people think that institutions cannot be formed, so it is a lack of knowledge that makes us think that communities just happen. There are principles of environmental change and formation. There is a way in which environments function. An environmental dynamic can be learned just the way a production dynamic can be learned. It is possible to learn how to work to form environments and communities.

There is one issue in which all our previous points converge and become acute - the issue of leadership in the Church. None of the above proposals will make any sense unless this issue is resolved. There cannot be more basic Christian communities in the Church unless there are more men who can form them. There cannot be more spiritual renewal in the Church unless there are more men of God. The key to the pastoral difficulties of the Church is, not surprisingly, a supply of men who can do the job.

Not just any men will do. What is needed are men who know how to work effectively. There has certainly been a concern in the Church over how to form men for the most crucial type of leadership, the priesthood. Many options are being proposed and taken. It is being advocated, for example, that priests should be formed in management skills or in psychological counseling or as social workers, or in a variety of other ways. A great number of approaches are being suggested. But, if the main pastoral goal is to develop communities in the Church which make it possible for a person to live a Christian life, the principal need is to form leaders for developing Christian communities.

What we are concerned with in this chapter are ways of working to form communities within the Church and with the kind of person who is going to be able to do this work. We are concerned with approaches to Christian leadership, with the dynamics according to which people might work to form Christian communities.

To understand why the church today needs leaders who can work with an environmental approach it is necessary to see:

1) what an environmental approach is (What kind of approach to working it is)

2) what place activities have in an environmental dynamic

3) what kind of men we must have as leaders to make such a way of working possible.

APPROACHES TO WORKING

People generally are not conscious of the different ways there are to work. If they have a job to do (a community to form or some part of the work of a community to take responsibility for), they will often begin by forming a committee, electing a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, and perhaps form a constitution (if they expect the job to take a while) and then think about what is involved in the job and what might be the best way to proceed.

Ways of working, however, raise more important questions than structural ones (even though structural questions are very important). There are a number of ways to work from which a person can choose when something is to be accomplished. There are a variety of processes or dynamics that can be developed which will lead to certain results. Fitting the approach to the job is something which takes a great deal of skill. It is not always good to form an organization or to introduce elective procedure.

The focus in this chapter is on approaches to working, not on structures of leadership. There seem to be three common main ways of working today: the status approach, the functional approach, and the environmental approach. Our purpose here is to clarify what they are and how they relate to the formation of a community.

THE STATUS APPROACH

The Church has, in many ways, inherited a status approach to the way men work to foster its life. The approach dates back to the time when society was more stable than it is now, and when political, economic and social lives were dominated by consideration of status. In recent years, there has been a breakdown of status within the Church. But it still exists.

The emphasis in a status approach is on the maintenance of an order that preserves position and stability. Birth, wealth and academic degree have been the most common types of status. One of the primary principles in a status approach, then, is the concern that leadership positions in society (or in a social grouping) be held only by those who have a certain status. For instance, in a political organization that is dominated by considerations of status. A man can become king (that is, chief ruler), not on the basis of any ability or performance, but simply because he had inherited the position (the status of birth). Obedience and the kingdom functions are due him even though he may have no special talents as king.

Something similar is often true of the status that accrues to degrees in an educational organization. In our university system, for instance, one of the chief criteria by which a person becomes a teacher is through the status of having a degree. What he has to do to get that degree may not have any direct relation to what he needs to do as a teacher. To get a degree, a person needs to be a good scholar. But degree holders are given positions as teachers and many times no inquiry is made into their ability to communicate to students, nor are they tested on it. The status of the degree will open all kinds of doors, often with no questions asked about a person's competence or about what kind of man he is. (The lack of degree status, on the other hand, will certainly bar even the most competent man from the position of university teacher.)

The same thing has been true of the Catholic priest to a great degree. There have been two status requirements for his selection: a monastic or semi-monastic way of life (Celibacy being the prime element is still maintained) and an academic theological training (four years in the seminary). Both these requirements have some rationale behind them (They are not just senseless vestiges of tradition). Priests need to be men of God, and an ascetical life should be an aid to that. Priests also need knowledge, and an academic training should be an aid to that. But a person can preserve a life of celibacy and complete a seminary training and still not be an effective priest. The respect accorded the monastic status and the academic status has obscured the fact that they do not qualify someone to be a priest.

In a group which functions according to status, order is of great importance. A prime consideration is laid upon orderly procedure. Even if a ruler in a status-based society saved the nation, he would not likely be allowed to go unpunished for an infringement of the constitution. A university professor might develop an excellent teaching method for preparing students in a certain area. But, if it did not involve giving grades which could be added up for a degree, all his efforts would go unrecognized.

Along with the concern for order goes a concern for ceremony. Normally, in status-based societies or groupings, ceremonies have been developed to celebrate the positions of status. Royal courts, parliaments, law courts, universities, all have their rituals for conferral of status and celebration of status. As the Church was run more and more according to a status approach, liturgy became more ceremonious and celebrated more and more the special statuses of priest, bishop, and the other positions in the Church.

A social group which functions by status is also a social group which functions according to tradition. To a great extent, the rules by which such a society functions are passed down and accepted as customary. A king, who is king because of birth, usually finds himself in a position which is rigidly regulated by precedent. What he can do is defined by charter or grant or custom. The teacher in the university system finds his department lines, teaching methods, protocol, etc., to a great extent governed by tradition. It is not much open to change (although, of course, the trend today is away from a status system). The same thing has been true for Catholic leadership. Ten years ago, for a priest not to wear a Roman collar was a serious matter. Although there were good reasons why a priest might want to wear a Roman collar, it is clear from the inflexible nature of the regulation that wearing a Roman collar was enforced because of tradition, not because of those reasons. The Catholic priest of ten years ago functioned in a very traditional role.

Because a group which functions by status also functions according to tradition, it tends to develop a life that is somewhat independent of the people who are part of it. The role is pre-defined. The person who fits into it does it well or poorly, but it is somewhat irrelevant what he is like. As long as he has the status, and the position is vacant, he can fill it. And as long as it is filled, the order of society will continue. The Catholic priest may be a good priest or a poor priest, but as long as he is a priest, he can be the priest for a particular town and the position will be the same no matter who he is or what he is like. Moreover, the people will treat him, to a great extent, independently of who he is or what he is like. A bad king can still pardon prisoners and a bad priest can still absolve sinners.

It should be noted, however, that although a status approach places a great deal of emphasis on order and tradition, it is not the only approach which uses order and tradition. The functional and environmental approaches may also do so. What defines a status approach is that order is based on considerations of status (birth, wealth, education, etc.). And the status is justified because it is customary. Human beings need order to function together. But the order does not have to be status-based and it can be designed by considerations of the need of the group. Order and tradition were important in the early Church, but they were not, for the most part, status-based.

A status approach has many advantages. Above all, it is stable. It endures despite individual weaknesses. And to a certain extent, it minimizes the problems that can be caused by individual weakness. Moreover, many of the weaknesses of the status approach can be compensated for. For instance, a status approach is particularly vulnerable to having incompetent people in positions of authority. But that tendency can be compensated for by good training and testing of the people before the position is conferred upon them. Where status is a determining influence in human groups, those groups tend to be enduring and they provide a great deal of security for the group members.

The functional approach: The functional approach is best illustrated in the way executives in the modern business corporation work. It is the approach which is, above all, oriented toward accomplishing something. To an increasing extent, a functional approach is entering the life of the Church today.

The primary difference between the status approach and the functional approach is that the functional approach is much more oriented toward getting results. Everything (in theory) is directed toward getting something done. It seems to be true that considerations of status cannot be eliminated completely. But, in a functional approach, the tendency is in that direction.

According to the functional approach in its pure form, a person's authority should depend on his competence. In an organization run according to a functional approach, there should be no positions which are not functions needed to make the product or accomplish the end intended. There should be no one in any position who cannot perform his function well. Following a functional approach, a person would not be the head of a state if he could not govern well (and this would be judged by the prosperity and harmony in the kingdom); nor would a person be allowed to be a professor if he could not teach well (which would be judged by how much the students learn under him).

A functional approach is, in many ways, an enemy of tradition. If a tradition is not functional, according to this view, it should not exist. Everything should be weighed from this angle. Wearing a Roman collar should justify itself on utilitarian grounds, as should wearing vestments. Along with this mentality goes an experimental attitude. A person would look around for evidence to tell whether something was functional or not. A man interested in functional effectiveness would want to investigate and see whether a professor's students were actually learning something from him. He would want to check and see what desirable effects come from wearing a Roman collar or what is missing when it is not worn.

A functional approach tends to be rigorous with regards to activities. Where a functional mentality prevails, for instance, ceremony has a hard time maintaining itself. Interpersonal relationships are considered primarily according to how they affect the function involved. A person wanting to use a functional approach, first of all, wants to define the goal clearly and then wants to order everything so that it furthers the goal.

A functional approach has many advantages. Above all, it is effective. All energies in a system or situation are mobilized to reach the desired end. And it is not true that a functional approach eliminates all consideration of status and interpersonal relationships. Status turns out to have functional value, as do good interpersonal relationships. Even more, many times, a functional concern will stimulate an improvement in interpersonal relationships that would never have come any other way. Often, for instance, a man and wife can be induced to improve their relationship by showing them the bad effects their estrangement is having. Whereas, trying to motivate them to love each other because love is good or right has no effect at all. Also, a functional approach is flexible. Changes can be made when a reason is shown for them, and change does not have to overcome decades or even centuries of tradition. The functional approach is clearly the most successful in getting a job done.

The environmental approach: An environmental approach is quite different from either a status approach or a functional approach. It is less commonly recognized within the Church today as being a definite approach. But it is nonetheless a real approach, one with advantages of its own.

A functional approach is work-oriented. It is oriented in getting a job done. An environmental approach is interaction-oriented or value-oriented. It is oriented in getting a group of people together who share certain values or concerns. It focusses on the growth of the relationship among people and on how people are being changed for the better. The two approaches are different. Or to put it another way, the work of forming an environment is not the same thing as getting something accomplished. Some business executives are effective at getting production but poor in their ability to draw people together.

There is a definite environmental dynamic that is not the same as a functional dynamic. Management experts sometimes talk about the formal organization and the informal organization. By "informal organization" they mean what we are calling environmental relationships. They mean the voluntary patterns of interaction among the people in the formal organization. They note rightly that the environment in an organization can often have a great effect on the production, even though its very nature is not oriented toward production (for example, when workers' attitude toward a company either supports or sabotages the operation).

An environmental approach, then, is one that is concerned, above all, with the formation of environments or in getting people to come together, to interact in a personal way, to accept certain values, and not primarily to get something done.

An environmental approach depends on a kind of natural leadership or authority. Certain people have an ability to draw people together, to influence them. Their opinions carry weight, their lives and actions are imitated. From a functional and a status point of view, the teacher is the authority in a classroom. But it is obvious that in some cases, a couple of the students are the leaders. They are the ones who indicate what values will be accepted, what attitudes the other students will take, how they will react.

In an environmental approach, the free interaction of the people is much more important than it is in a status approach or a functional approach. It is crucial that the people get to know one another and begin to form bonds. It is necessary that they freely accept values. In a functional approach, people can be made to work either through coercion or pay. In a status approach, they will react to the status of the person with authority and to the tradition behind him. But for an environmental dynamic to form, there must be a voluntary acceptance of some values and norms.

During the rest of this section, more will be presented on how the environmental approach works. Enough has been said, however, to indicate that it does have real advantages. It is the approach which changes most people personally. And it provides a way of working when it is impossible to rely on status and tradition (as is more and more the case in the Church today) and when people cannot be motivated through pay or force, but have to be worked with through a voluntary response.

The approach and its place: Isolating the different approaches to working does not imply that one is better than the other. Each one has certain advantages and certain uses. What we need to understand is where each approach is valuable and how we can get it to work effectively when we decide to use it.

What we have been discussing are ways of working, not different human groups. A business could be run by a status approach (this seems to be one of the main problems in certain sectors of the French economy or in certain American banks) or by an environmental approach (as many times happens in small businesses run by friends or even in sections of corporations). A parish could be run by a status approach (the Church has used this approach with great success at times) or a functional approach (this seems to be one trend in the Church at the moment). In other words, all types of human groups can be run according to one or another of the approaches we have sketched.

Moreover, usually all three ways of working are present to some degree in the same operation. A business today will ordinarily try to structure its activity functionally: to design jobs to efficiently perform certain functions, and to get men with the right kind of skills into the jobs. But it will also usually feel the need to give some of the men in it some kind of status rights for stability (although the trend seems to be away from this) and motivation. And business executives are learning more and more to foster and take advantage of the environments (the informal structure) in the business to try to increase production. Many businesses, in fact, have people whose primary concern is to get a positive environmental dynamic going and they try to make use of an environmental approach.

The same thing is true for forming a community. Status can be an important way of giving stability and solidity to a community (there are few communities that do not eventually feel the need to give certain people a status and authority that do not exactly correspond to their abilities to form community). Moreover, a functional approach has its place in a community. Whenever a job needs doing, it is usually worthwhile doing it efficiently. It is true that a well-administered community is not necessarily a good community. But it is also true that if the administration of a community is taken care of efficiently and well, the community life will be that much better if there is also an effective community dynamic in operation.

In addition, the same person can use different approaches on different occasions or in different situations. The pastor of a Catholic parish may be called upon to use all three. In his dealing with the bishop, he may be expected to function primarily in a traditional status-oriented way. He may also be the administrator of a staff, and he may therefore have to operate in that situation using a functional approach. Finally, he may be the priest for the men's group in the parish, and in that situation he may find himself much more effective using an environmental approach, taking advantage of his natural gifts of leadership, drawing the men together and giving them a positive Christian direction.

Yet, although all three approaches can be used in the same groups or by the same person, it still is true that in some types of human groupings, certain ways of working are more essential than others. In a business, a functional approach is more essential and fundamental. Whatever else a business is, it has to be efficient and its work must be structured effectively in a functional way. In a political body, status and tradition seem to be more valuable than they are in businesses. They further stability and order, and without these, even efficient administration cannot accomplish much.

In a community, an environmental approach seems much more essential than a functional approach or a status approach. The main concern has to be the commitment of the members of the community to the purpose of the community and their healthy interaction with one another. The major focus is drawing them together around their ideal of life. If this is not happening, whatever else is happening, they are not succeeding as a community.

Communities, then, are primarily formed by an environmental approach. They begin to come together or develop under the leadership of men who have a commitment to an ideal and an ability to draw men together. These men may not be very good at organization or administration, but they have an ability to give life to a community as a community. In a society that was more traditional and stable, a status approach was an adequate approach for forming a community. People voluntarily reverenced and followed people who had status. But today, this is less and less the case. Because of rapid social change, tradition has little hold, and because of increasing functionalization and democratization, status has less and less influence. An environmental approach seems to be the main one which can form community today.

The point being made is not that organization or structure is useless in forming community. An environmental approach involves a certain kind of organization or structure, but it is not a functional or status type of organization or structure. It follows natural lines of influence and interaction. Nor is the point that Christian communities do not have need of, say, management skills or technical skills. These skills have a place where a corresponding function needs performing (and there are functions to be performed in communities). Rather, the point is that the primary skills which are needed are the skills involved in leading men and helping them to relate to one another in a community.

There is today a certain trend within the Church toward professionalization of leadership. Clergy and laymen working for the Church are being viewed more and more as professionals performing professional functions who need professional training. Many of them will, for instance, be trained as counselors and then function according to working patterns similar to those of secular counselors.

Underlying the new professionalism among some clergy is the trend toward the Church becoming more and more of a service organization than a community (sociologically speaking). People are viewing the parish increasingly as a place in which they can get "religious services." As the Church becomes more a service organization, there is a natural dynamic toward structuring things in a functional way to provide more effective services. When Church workers become more professional, they begin to work more by a functional approach than by an environmental approach.

Professional services are not out of place in a community. But the primary way in which the leadership of a community works cannot be professional (functional) if the community is going to be a community. The Church has to become something more than a service organization if it is going to survive. Unless there is a network of basic Christian communities in the Church, it may become an excellent religious service organization with no one to take the services offered. If communities are going to be formed, they will be formed by men who can work with an environmental approach, and not just as professionals.

ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNITY

Environments and communities can be formed, as has been said. There are principles which go into working effectively environmentally, just as there are principles which go into working effectively functionally. Many of the principles are different, and often a mistake is made by applying the wrong principles in a certain situation (for instance, an organization of a community that is too functional may stifle the free relationships which make community life possible).

One of the most important principles of an environmental approach has been discussed in the previous section on the issue of faith. Environments can be effectively formed around a value. If people are motivated to accept and follow a certain ideal, they will voluntarily feel the need to come together with others who also accept that ideal for support. From this, a common life can develop that has great strength. In other words, proclaiming an ideal is one of the most effective ways of forming an environment or a community and in maintaining its strength. Moral power is much more effective in this area than interest or force.

But there is a second principle of great importance in the environmental approach that concerns the activities which are used (meetings, classes, organization of various kinds). To form a strong environment or community, activities should be designed primarily to further the environmental dynamic. What is meant by "environmental dynamic" is the process of people coming together in a regular on-going way around an ideal or set of values. Indications of the progress of an environmental dynamic are commitment to the ideal and the cohesiveness of the group. In other words, if the people in a given environment or community are more and more committed to the ideal or values of that community and if they are more and more drawn to one another and have a greater and greater willingness to spend time together and a greater and greater concern for one another, the environment or community is getting stronger.

What an environmental dynamic means for activities can be seen by considering some approaches to the liturgy. Ten years ago, most liturgies in the Catholic Church depended heavily on status and tradition. It was possible to read out a book everything that would happen in all the Masses around the world, and that book was the way it was because of tradition (tradition explains a service in which the epistle, for instance, was "proclaimed" to the people inaudibly, facing away from them, in a language they could not understand). If a man had the status (ordination), he could fit into any service anywhere and still be adequate. Even if he could not speak the same language as the people or was too old to do much more than make it through the ceremony, he was adequate. Moreover, during the service, he would receive many marks of honor in a ceremonious way (he wore special vestments, people stood to greet him, he partook of Communion separately, etc.). It was very heavily a status-tradition-based happening, and it formed a strong grouping yet without much personal interaction or many personal bonds.

More recently the liturgy has become more functional, in a certain way. If a liturgical event can be viewed as a religious "product" in itself, there has been a functional improvement in the liturgy. People have begun to reflect on the meaning of each part. There has been more explanation. The Mass has been restructured for more effective participation and communication. People have been taught (more often) to read well, to sing well. There has been an emphasis on proficiency in preaching and expressiveness of gesture. From the point of view of the product (a liturgical event), greater proficiency has been developed.

And yet, by and large, even with the increase in liturgical proficiency, most liturgies do not involve an environmental or community dynamic even now. In the liturgy, people do not come together and interrelate in a way which forms a community. They do not share a common direction together or form a commitment to one another. It does happen at certain special Masses that communities form, but this is an exception. By and large, we would have to go to certain protestant churches (usually the smaller sects) or to prayer meetings to see a worship service which is not only satisfying worship but which is also the vehicle for forming a community.

Here is the nub of the distinction between a functional approach and an environmental approach with regards to the liturgy. A functional approach is concerned with getting something accomplished (putting on a worship service, for instance). An environmental approach is concerned with forming a community, developing a real environment of people who are affecting one another. At some worship services, people can be present and be very happy with the product without forming any kind of community. At others, the whole service draws people into the community.

The distinction which is being made here is not the distinction between a liturgy which is done mechanically and one which is done with sensitivity and expressiveness. Many liturgies which have all the "communitarian techniques" (the handshake of peace, dialogue sermons, communal singing, spontaneous petitions, etc.) do not foster community at all. The people interact where they are, but they often have little more tendency to become a community or environment outside the liturgy than the customers at a participative folk sing in a coffeehouse do outside the coffeehouse. It does not lead them to freely form relationships with one another apart from the service. Yet some services (like the one described above in the section on basic Christian communities) do.

A similar point can be made with the example of religious education. Catechism used to depend on status (obedience to the nun) and tradition (memorizing the Baltimore Catechism). Now religious education is often much more professional (better and more effective teaching is done). But it often can fail to reach its goal, because the environmental dynamic is leading the students in the class away from accepting what is given to them, and the religion class is just an educational service. It does not foster an environmental dynamic among the students which might lead them in a new direction.

An environmental approach is a way of working. The primary concern of an environmental approach is to form an environment or a community which centers on certain values. It may make use of a number of activities. It always has some kind of organization or structure (people can do things which are effective at forming community or which are damaging to community formation, and they can learn which things to do and which things not to do), but the organization should always be concerned with the process of forming community.

From this point of view, much of what happens in the Church today is not very effective. There are many activities and many organizations. They do things which are good. But they do not build up a community of people committed to Christ and so they are ineffective in meeting the main pastoral needs of the Church today. It is true, another criterion could be applied to them too. Many of them are not very effective functionally either. Much religious education is not good education. Much social action is not effective action. They are usually not evaluated from the point of view of doing effective work. If the Church were primarily an institution which was supposed to provide certain services (educational services, worship services, and social change services) this would be the most serious failure in Church activities and organizations. But if the Church is primarily supposed to be a community of people committed to Christ, there is an even more serious problem - the lack of any community being built up through these activities.

If a person works according to an environmental approach, he would be very cautious about beginning activities or establishing formal organizations, especially at first. He would be more inclined to begin with one or two activities which would attract a nucleus of people to a certain value or ideal. As the people begin to change and come together, he would introduce activities that would build up the community and whatever organization is needed to meet the experienced needs. Above all, he would be careful not to drain off energy into activities and organizations that are needed to form the community. In other words, he would keep a careful eye on the process of community formation (the environmental dynamic), and he would evaluate all activities and organizations from the point of view of whether they are deepening the commitment of the members of the community to the ideal and deepening their bond with one another. Eventually, when the community is strong enough, out of the community would come many services which would be much more effective because they would be guided by an ideal and maintained by people with a strong commitment.

To translate what has been said into more Christian terms, a person working pastorally according to an environmental approach would be very wary of starting organizations and activities. Nor would he be inclined to spend a great deal of time in shoring up most of the present parish and diocesan organizations and activities. Many of them lack any sense of community, are ineffective, and are dying. He would be much more inclined to begin by drawing together a nucleus of people who would be strongly committed to Christ and who would begin to share together their life in Christ. Then, as the community developed, he would gradually begin to add activities and organizations, but only so long as those things furthered the commitment to Christ and to the community. Only later on might he be inclined to consider significant educational or action programs - when there are people ready to work on them and when they would not drain the strength of the community away from the life of the community and from commitment to Christ. Moreover, when he would form any activities, a primary concern would be to see that the people involved in those activities would grow in their commitment to Christ and to each other as a result of taking part in them.

What we have said in this section about the place of activities in an environmental approach is not the same point that was made in the first chapter on the holistic approach. It is possible to have a holistic approach to activities and still use a functional rather than an environmental approach. A pastor of a parish could view himself as the chief manager of a religious institution that provides effective religious services. If he were a good manager, he would be concerned with the goals of the institution and the successful operation of the units of the institution taken as a whole. But he would not be trying to build a community. He would not view himself as a pastor concerned to form the members of his parish into a basic Christian community. He would probably tend to approach services (like the liturgy) as ends in themselves, that which his service institution is trying to provide for the people, and the criterion he would use to evaluate them would be their success as worship events. he would be less inclined to view services as instruments to form community or to evaluate them according to the criterion of whether they bring people together in Christ or not. He would, in other words, be using a holistic approach, but he would not be using an environmental approach. He would be combining a functional approach to working with his holistic approach.

To summarize this section, one of the most important principles of an environmental approach is that all activities in a community be viewed from the point of view of whether they are furthering an environmental dynamic, a coming together of the people in a common dedication to the Lord. There are certainly other ways of viewing them, and those other ways can be valuable. A community worship service does not have to be sloppy. It can be a good service considered in itself as well as a means of forming community. But the primary way of viewing activities in a community is whether or not they strengthen the life of the community.

FINDING LEADERS FOR COMMUNITIES

If the Church can only be built up effectively by an environmental approach to pastoral work, then the primary need is to find men who can use an environmental approach, that is, men who can build communities. There has to be a way of finding the right kind of men, forming them to do the work, and fitting them into the right place in the right way.

A leader in a Christian community has to do three things. First of all, he has to be able to present the ideal on which the community is based in such a way that people will understand it, accept it, and grow in commitment to it. Secondly, he has to be able to draw people together and to get them to relate to one another in a positive way. Finally, he has to be able to provide whatever organization is needed to see that everything which is needed for the people to live according to this ideal (or in the service of this ideal) is provided.

Or to state the point more explicitly, a Christian leader has to be able to draw people to Christ and to help them to grow in their relationship with Christ; he has to be able to help people come together to form community based on Christ; he has to be able to organize the community in such a way that people get all the help they need to be good Christians - in that order of importance. In order to get a good community dynamic developing, a leader has to do those three things.

If a man is working to form community with an environmental approach, he will tend to approach the way in which he leads people somewhat differently than he would if he were working with a status approach or with a functional approach. If he were working according to a status approach, he would be much more likely to give orders or to operate by authority. If he is working according to a functional approach, his concern would be more with establishing procedures, defining responsibilities, teaching skills, keeping records, etc. But if he is working according to an environmental approach, he would mainly try to lead people to Christ, to help them to understand how to live the Christian life, to encourage them to make a deeper commitment to Christ, and to encourage them to take more of a responsibility for the common life. He would, to a great extent, be using personal influence.

In an environment or a community, the functions a person performs for the common life or the position he holds in the community structure is not necessarily a good indication of his leadership. The leadership of an environment is not necessarily provided by the people who run it organizationally or who preside over it. In a classroom, the teacher is the head, organizationally. But some of the students may be the real leaders of the environment. In a political group, the president may not be as influential as certain prominent members who might be, for instance, the real spokesmen for the group. In a Christian community, many people might be more influential in drawing people to Christ and in holding the community together than the official head.

There is, in other words, a difference between position or job and leadership. Having a position or job in a community does not guarantee the kind of leadership a person exercises. There is a need to look at more than the job or position when the question of the formation of a community is raised. The more important question is: who are the people whom the others follow? If the structure of a community does not include the real leaders, it will not be very effective in the long run.

In a community, there is one basis for leadership which is most important. In a status situation, leadership can be established through having a certain kind of status (perhaps birth or wealth or scholarship) that may not have a direct relationship to the job to be done. In a task-oriented situation, the leadership is established in a more functional way - the ability to perform a function or do a job well, i.e., competence. But in a community, effective leadership is established in a different way. That person is a leader in the community who has the ability to influence men, to draw them to accept certain values and approaches, to motivate them to form a community. In a certain sense, this kind of leadership is functional (in a way that status leadership is not). But it is functional in a different way from functional leadership in a task-oriented situation. The chief criterion of effectiveness is not ability to get work done but the ability to get men to respond in a voluntary way.

The key to finding the man who can be an effective leader in a community is to see what man carries weight with others, what man changes people's opinions and decisions, what man others tend to identify with. Leadership of this sort depends on having certain gifts which could be natural or charismatic. Some people seem to be born leaders of men. Others, by holiness of life or special workings of God in them, have a spiritual authority. Often these two factors are combined or work in some kind of combination. Sometimes, considerations (although a man who has status but no leadership gifts will rarely be a good leader). Sometimes skills, especially organizational skills or speaking skills, are real considerations. But the chief criterion should be the ability to foster the development of a community.

In the attempt to find leaders for communities, the selection process is more difficult than it is in a situation in which it is possible to work according to a status approach or a functional approach. In a status approach, a person can be picked out fairly directly (if he has a certain parentage, or if he has a degree, or if he has spent time in a certain situation). In a functional approach, a person can be picked by seeing how well he functions in certain jobs. He can be given jobs to do which will be an indication of how well he could do jobs which involve a similar function. But in an environmental approach, he has to emerge as a leader. He can be picked well only by observing what kind of effect he has on others and how they accept him as a leader.

A good term for the type of leadership that is natural to a community is "elder." An elder has a position. He is one of the recognized heads, and he has an openly accepted responsibility for the order of community life. But he is chosen because he really is one of the elders, and not only in name. He is chosen because he has a natural position of respect and leadership in that community. His opinions and decisions "count" more than most people's anyway. That would be true even if he did not have the position. In a properly functioning community, the position reflects the reality.

Although the elder represents a natural type of leadership, in a Christian community elders are not picked because of natural qualities alone. Because the Christian community is spiritual, its leadership is spiritual. The elder in the Christian community has a "spiritually natural place within the Christian community. Some of that place comes from natural qualities, but more of it has to come from maturity and wisdom in the Christian life.

The elder was traditionally the leader of the Christian community. Early Christian communities, like Jewish communities and many pagan communities, had elders as heads. In the Catholic Church, the priest is supposed to be an elder. The theological statement of his position is that he is the elder or presbyter. The meaning of his office has been somewhat out of focus in recent times. Emphasis has been placed on the sacramental part of his office as a special "minister" and on his status as part of a "clerical" body, and recently on his professional training (where that is present).

If the Church is going to be able to return to a community life, the position of the elder has to be recaptured. Leaders are needed who can work with an environmental approach, and they have to be the kind of people who have a "spiritually natural" authority. It is only when we have the kind of leadership which is appropriate to community life that we can have successful communities.

At this point, it is important for the sake of clarity to qualify what has been said. So far, we have been talking about the need for the right kind of leaders of communities and how they have to be selected by observing the effect they have on others and how they emerge as leaders. If a community is going to form, there has to be such leaders to provide the backbone for the community. But in a community which is not too tightly structured, there is room for a great many types of people working to form the community. A place can be found for a person whose abilities are primarily administrative or for a person whose abilities are primarily those of a teacher. In other words, there can be a team of people in the community who are contributing to the formation of the community so long as there are one or two or more who can provide the core leadership which can create a dynamic community. Or to state it another way, elders are not the only ones who should be providing leadership for a community.

A second clarification is an elaboration of something which was said before: Using an environmental approach does not mean that officially recognized positions are out of place. As a matter of fact, it is usually important early in the development of a community for some people to be given recognized positions for the stability of the life of the community. This is where ordination should come in. Ordination is the conferral of a special position, a special authority on someone for the good order of the community. The approach we have been sketching does not eliminate the need for ordination, neither sociologically nor sacramentally. But it does give some indications about when ordination should be conferred and on whom.

If the Church is to work toward new structures of communal life and new forms of pastoral leadership, there are going to have to be some major changes in the present form of choosing leaders. This is true of both lay and clerical leaders. First, we can consider some of the implications for clerical leaders from what we have said.

To begin with, there is a need for a new method of selection for ordination. At the moment, a person volunteers to be a candidate for ordination. If he meets the basic mental, physical, and psychological standards, he is admitted to the seminary. If he completes the seminary program in a satisfactory way, he is ordained and then assigned a place to work. But the seminary approach is inadequate as a process of selection. It is inadequate primarily because it does not provide any way for the candidates to prove their capability for leadership in community. Throwing in a year or two of special pastoral work does not do the job either. There has to be a way of seeing which men can, as a matter of fact, lead other men closer to Christ and form Christian communities. This can be done only as a person is actually working in a functioning community, not in pre structured environments (like seminaries), nor in special projects (like most pastoral training programs).

Watching for leaders as they emerge does not mean making the mistake of picking the people who are already in Church organizations, because they are usually there since they volunteered and are frequently ineffective in forming Christian communities. Nor does it mean electing people, because there is not enough community in the Church today where an election would be a good indication of how the community accepts a person as a leader (since most of the electors would not know him). It means observing where real Christian communities are being formed effectively and picking the people who are responsible for that process. Ordination in the Church will be most effective when those who are ordained are the natural leaders of the Christian people.

The seminary approach is not only inadequate as a way of selecting priests, it is also inadequate as a process of formation. The primary criterion of success in seminary training is academic. It is the ability to pass courses. It therefore fits a person primarily for a position as a theology student or scholar. Often an uneducated Protestant inner-city minister is more effective as a former of Christian community than a seminary-trained priest in an inner-city parish, because the minister knows how to lead his people. The principal formation a person needs for leadership in a Christian community is a deeper relationship with Christ and the skills of leading people to accept him and of forming communities (neither of which is best acquired by courses). This is not to say that instructional training is of no value. Anyone who is actually engaged in forming Christian communities will feel a need for knowledge about Christianity and about the situation he is encountering. But it is to say that the focus of seminary training is off if the seminary is the main way of forming priests.

A further implication of what has been said is that we need a great many more leaders in the Church than we have today. If we are going to move toward bringing people to basic Christian communities, more pastors are needed. At the moment, less and less people are being ordained. There are three possible approaches to this situation: letting a greater and greater leadership vacuum develop in the Church, letting an unordained leadership grow up until the leadership in the Church functions with little relationship to the sacramental system, or making the present approach to leadership in the Church more flexible. Only the last-mentioned seems to make good sense.

Actually, many of the suggestions made above are designed to handle the leadership scarcity in the Church. The main reason why fewer and fewer people are interested in the priesthood and other positions of leadership in the Church is that Christianity and the Christian community do not mean as much to them as secular ideals. The environmental pressures are leading them away from wanting to put much of their time into the life of the Church. But vital Christian communities provide a continuing supply of leadership. One reason, therefore, for moving in this direction is that even though it would take more leadership to accomplish, it will provide more leadership in the long run. In fact, it is the only approach which will, because people will not make that kind of commitment of their lives if they are not part of some Christian community or a strong Christian environment.

One implication of what has been said so far might seem to be that those who have been selected and formed in the present system are inadequate for the pastoral work of the Church today. This is not, however, a necessary implication. First of all, even though the system has not been designed to provide pastoral leadership of the kind we have been considering, that does not mean that many of the people who have been ordained are not the right kind of people for the job. Some are not, but many are. Secondly, as was pointed out above, there is a need for many kinds of contributions for the formation of the Church. The kind of community formation leadership working through the environmental approach we have been considering is not the only kind of work that needs doing to make the Church grow and develop. Finally, the present priests have been trained to work in the present approach to maintaining the life of the Church. A whole new approach is not something in the immediate future.

Although the ordained priesthood is the most crucial element in the leadership of the Church today, lay leadership is important too. In our present situation, most leadership positions have to be filled by laymen or leadership needs will not be met. But even ideally, ordained elders are not the only form of leadership a good community needs. For a community to function well, many people who are not ordained have to perform roles of leadership or take positions of leadership.

The present approach of getting lay leadership in the Church is inadequate for many for the reason that the approach to clerical leadership is also inadequate. Normally, the way it is done is to set up organizations and activities and ask laymen to volunteer. Those who do them sometimes receive some training. Occasionally, elective procedures are used, but the elective procedures usually amount to a choice between volunteers. Those who are willing to take the jobs get them. Too often, the people who are in positions of lay leadership in the Church would not be naturally accorded leadership.

The same approach to choosing clerical leaders should be adopted for choosing lay leaders. In a community, certain leadership patterns gradually emerge as different members of the community become visible, people with special gifts for certain kinds of leadership. These would be the ones who would be asked to fulfill the appropriate functions in the life of the community.

Basic Christian communities, new communal structures, and new patterns of leadership go together. As one develops, the others have to develop. Much of what has been said about forming communities would be utopian if there were not leaders who could do the job. Or the approach to leadership selection sketched above would be impossible if there were no real Christian communities in which they could develop. The two grow together. This type of leadership actually develops quickly in an environment of free interaction if there is good direction. Such a community provides leaders who are committed and who know instinctively how to form community. It is not a question of which comes first, the chicken or the egg, but of a little capital wisely used which makes more. A new approach to community has to be implemented by the right people. But they will begin a process which will lead to more community and more leaders.

Building Christian Community  - Strategy for Renewing the Church by Stephen B. Clark. ©Stephen B. Clark 1996 All Rights reserved.