| We Shall Decide Our Own Destiny
- An Inside Look at Faith Based Leadership Training |
| We Shall Decide Our Own Destiny
- An Inside Look at Faith Based Leadership Training |
The great emotional song in the stage musical Les Miserables has the cast mounting the barricades, waving the tri-colors and singing the great marching song of the oppressed, “Do You Hear The People Sing?” If only there were real people like that whose power, conviction and values were every bit as strong as the scene of those singers mounting the stage barricades. Well I got lucky and found just such a group. No, they were not French peasants, they were modern day faith-based community organizers- a hundred strong from churches and community organizations in Chicago, Green Bay, Detroit, Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul and lots of other places. They represented only part of an organization that is becoming the fastest growing faith based community organization in the country and they ROCK! The organization’s name is ISAIAH.
So how does a plain old Joan of Arc parishioner get involved in something like this? In times past I have done some work for the ISAIAH office, which represents some 80 ecumenical churches in the metro and out-state areas, supporting faith-based community organizing in Minnesota. St. Joan of Arc is one of those churches. The ISAIAH office recruited me for a larger project that will create multi-church partnerships between some of the ISAIAH churches and South African churches. For four and half years I had cleverly avoided their leadership training but this time they sent two very convincing Lutherans after me. One of them, Myrna Nelson just did not take my no’s gracefully. She can be very persuasive, but then she is a product of this leadership training. Bottom line, I agreed to attend the weeklong training in Chicago in mid-August in a former seminary, and in another moment of weakness I took a ride in an economy Nissan with three other participants for eight long hours, both coming and going. In reality my backseat partner was a wonderful woman who is working on her theology doctorate. So, an on and off eight hour conversation on contempory theology with a lot of references to the Old Testament gave me the equivalent of a two credit course, and the ride was free.
Once gathered on the north-end of Chicago, they divided us into three groups, two English speaking and one Spanish speaking. My roommate was from Columbia, my session mates were parish workers, Episcopal deacons, Lutheran ministers, Unitarians, a Yale law student, a Jesuit pastor, a couple of college profs and a handful of newly minted community organizers and one south side Methodist minister. We were a vision of collaborative ministry come true. There is nothing more invigorating than sitting shoulder to shoulder in a group of people who speak to the true diversity of this country.
During the years I was employed, I was in the field of employee training and development. For 30 some years I had either typed, trained, bought, designed, participated, contracted, facilitated, or ran a good number of leadership training programs. I am not THE expert but I DO know the product line. This National Leadership Training was one of the best-designed and executed programs I have been part of and trust me, I came at this in total low gear, as the other participants can attest to. Was it perfect, NO, but it was extremely effective and powerful and even with my belt-notched credentials; I learned a great deal. I was impressed, challenged, humbled and energized and, considering my life mileage, to have all those experiences at the same time is a great gift.
Like others, I have had my questions about ISAIAH, about community organizers, about their methods and their effectiveness. What I saw in Chicago was the coming together of many similar groups just like ISAIAH but with different Old Testament names and they all belonged to the Gamaliel Foundation. Gamaliel was the teacher of Paul and the organization takes it’s name in inspiration from him. It is a powerful network of grassroots, interracial, multi-issue organizations whose goal is to keep working together to create a more just and democratic society. What I saw and experienced was the leadership of this organization; they are not hand-ringing naysayers. They are strong, clear thinking, and highly energized racially diverse women and men. Like most other people, I sit in church that is filled for the most part with people like me, white. We talk about reaching out but not much happens. Well, go to Chicago and it happens. The trainers and your group mates are Latino, White, African American, Asian and that is just one layer of the mix. If you list the various represented denominations, you are sitting in the great American melting pot and you can feel the power and the buzz!
Six and half intense days and evenings of training cannot be translated into a single paragraph. A lot of it is based on the confrontational side of Jesus and the New Testament. There is no Sweet Jesus in this group, it is Jesus the challenger, Jesus talking about those barred by the self-righteous holders of power. It is about power and moving people from being victims, and/or caretakers to leaders. It was great fun to watch over the week’s time; meek churchwomen find their voice of strength and conviction, Latino men and women walking tall and looking you straight in the eye. The woman sitting next to me one session is Unitarian and retired. About mid-week she turned to me and said “I spent way to much time in Arizona bored out of my mind, this is where I want to really be – where the action is.” Another leader was born.
For me and for anyone who agrees to participate in this kind of training, there are several layers of learning. Learning to lead means building relationships, not friends but public relationships that can help you accomplish things. In a week’s time I was able to put together a network that would take me years to do on my own. There were people from Pax Christi and St. Luke’s in St. Paul. Between the clergy, church workers, and community organizers, I can rely now on at least 25-30 key people around the metro area for the work I want to do on the South Africa Project and on immigrant legislation that is so important to the growing Latino population in this state. Collaborative ministry is working with one another within your spirit community, but it also means reaching out to other faith communities and that is not always easy to accomplish unless of course you work with ISAIAH who can sit you down with the Lutherans, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Catholics, to name a few. As an added bonus, they have pre-weeded out those who want to be victims or caretakers and you are at table with freshly trained or seasoned people who want to lead by claiming their personal power.
At the end of an exhausting but fascinating week all the participants designed their own celebration. I abstained and claimed old age, which worked for awhile. However, I am a witness to what happens to a challenged and personally empowered people, THEY DANCE! What a feast to the eye and soul to see a room full of Anglos learning Salsa dancing from the Latinos and as the music pulsated, you could see the Religious Right’s nightmare come true. The Unitarians were dancing with the Methodists, the deacons with the Lutherans, the gays with the straights, Catholics with the Baptists, and yes even THE OLD danced with the young, it was a great wonderful happening of people transformed. It certainly got my engines charged. I came back with not one but two projects to work on and I didn’t even raise my hand ... but I did keep hearing that melody from Les Miserables over and over in my head.
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