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Stories that Shape an Understanding 
of God’s Mission in the World: 
Visionary Leadership in the ELCA

Kristine Stache
Interim President and Associate Professor of Missional Leadership at Wartburg 
Theological Seminary, Dubuque, IA 
kstache@wartburgseminary.edu

Abstract

Stories collected through interviews with thirty visionary 
leaders in the ELCA give us a glimpse at how leaders understand 
God at work in the communities they serve and the way they lead. 
Through these stories, a theological claim is heard loud and clear: 
God is up to something in the world and we are called to partici-
pate in God’s mission in some form as faithful, hopeful ministry 
leaders. These sacred stories, filled with faith and doubt, hope and 
fear, courage and vulnerability push and pull the leaders inter-
viewed into a life with Christ to be a transformative presence to 
and with others. These voices describe a different picture of church 
than much of the current data showing a decline in denomina-
tional adherence. Findings from two of the themes explored in this 
project will be share in this article: community and leadership.



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

51

Introduction

Over the last several decades, data measuring denominational ad-
herence and attendance has shown a consistent and rapid decline. 
Trends toward no religious affiliation, a declining commitment 
to church membership, generational differences, and denomina-
tional preferences are all contributing factors (see Jones 2019). 
These trends are even more sobering in my own denomination, 
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). 

The ELCA formed in 1988 through a merger between the 
American Lutheran Church, the Association of Evangelical Lu-
theran Churches, and the Lutheran Church in America. With 
5,251,534 baptized members at the time of the merger, ELCA 
numbers dropped to 3,668,034 by 2015 (Research and Evaluation 
2017). If the current rate of decline stays constant, the ELCA will 
be obsolete in thirty-five years. When looking at the same trends 
around church attendance, the statistics are even more sobering. 
At the current rate of decline the number of those attending wor-
ship services in the ELCA will cross the zero marker in twenty-
three years (Research and Evaluation 2017).

Our capacity to produce leaders is not promising either. A 
few years ago, a report predicted that by 2019, the ELCA would 
have just over 9,000 congregations, 6,800 of which could afford a 
full-time pastor. With only 5,800 pastors to fill those pulpits, over 
1,000 pulpits with the capability to pay a full-time salary would 
be left open. That figure does not include open pulpits needing 
part-time or shared calls, which would add another 2,000 pulpits 
(DeHoek and Inskeep, 2016).

Is the church dying? This data would leave us to believe it is. 
However maybe it isn’t the church that is dying, but the structures 
and forms that we measure are dying. Perhaps a more accurate 
claim is that the church is changing, and God is up to something 
new. Statistics such as these need to be put in conversation with 
other stories to more fully understand what God is up to in and 
through these ever-changing communities we call congregations.



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The Project

In early 2018, Villanova University’s Center for Church Manage-
ment granted this researcher a fellowship to explore the stories, 
metaphors, and texts that shape a ministry leader’s understanding 
and practice of visionary leadership in the ELCA. The intent of this 
project was to use storytelling to get to the heart of how these lead-
ers understand their call, their leadership, and the communities 
they lead. And, more specifically, how they talked and reflected on 
the presence and activity of God in and through these stories. Key 
leaders in the ELCA were contacted later that fall, including bish-
ops, faculty and leaders of seminaries, synods, and churchwide 
officials. Each key leader was invited to nominate one or more ros-
tered1 leader in the ELCA that they would categorize as a visionary 
leader. The invitation intentionally did not define what a visionary 
looked or acted like. Instead, nominators were asked to articulate 
in a few sentences the rationale behind their nomination. Nearly 
fifty nominations were received. Thirty leaders were interviewed.

Interviewees were contacted and invited to participate in a 
ninety-minute interview. In addition to the interview, each par-
ticipant was asked to complete a ten-question online survey to 
gather demographic data. Interviewees represent a variety of 
backgrounds, including but not limited to years in ministry,2 geo-
graphical locations of organizations currently serving,3 and types 
of communities served.4 

1. The ELCA currently maintains two official rosters: Pastors, set apart 
through ordination for public ministry of Word and Sacrament, and Deacons, 
set apart through ordination for public ministry of Word and Service.

2. Approximately 14 percent of those interviewed have been in ministry 
less than five years, 14 percent five to ten years, 38 percent eleven to twenty 
years, and 34 percent more than twenty years.

3. Interviewees represent eleven different US states from four regions: East 
coast, West coast, the Gulf, and the Midwest.

4. Approximately 14 percent of those interviewed described the context of 
their organization as rural, 35 percent as urban, 31 percent as suburban, and 
20 percent as other.



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

53

This project and its methodology serve as an experiment in 
practical theology, starting in “human experience and its desire to 
reflect theologically on such experience,” with the ultimate goal 
“to increase our knowledge of God and to enable us to live more 
loving and faith-filled lives” (Swinton and Mowat 2016, xi–xiii), 
in particular faith-filled lives as visionary ministry leaders for 
the sake of the world. The role of this researcher is more than to 
serve as a collector and curator of stories. Through these stories 
and reflections, this researcher hoped to discover new ways of 
understanding and interpreting the missio Dei, and even perhaps 
affirm long held instincts about a disconnect felt far too often be-
tween those who believe God is present and acting in the world, 
and those that lead in a way that shows they believe God is active 
and present in the world: “What people say, what people do, and 
what people say about what they do are entirely different things” 
(Swinton and Mowat 2016, 5).

Interviews were convened through a mix of face-to-face 
meetings and ZOOM live conferencing. A set series of questions 
were asked of each interviewee, inviting them to draw on personal 
experience, sacred texts, images, and metaphors. The practice of 
inviting them to reflect through stories “itself enacts and names 
theology” (Campbell-Reed and Scharen 2013, 241). 

Of the thirty people interviewed, sixteen identified as female, 
fourteen as male. Over a quarter of those interviewed self-iden-
tified as a person of color, a percentage higher than that of the 
ELCA (Bullock and Peru, 2018). Twenty-nine of the participants 
are rostered. Seven of the thirty provide leadership in a non-
congregational, but ELCA related settings (i.e., synods academic, 
or nonprofit organizations). Of those in congregational settings, 
some are part of a multi-staff congregations, some lead multi-point 
parishes, and others lead mission development or other ministries 
uniquely designated by ELCA nomenclature.5 All leaders inter-

5. The Church Vitality Unit of the ELCA has established vocabulary to 
describe non-traditional ministry settings, terms which were used by leaders 
interviewed in the project to describe the structure of their worshipping com-
munities. Communities were labeled as mission development (new church 
communities), redevelopment (a church that is in an intentional ministry to 



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viewed have at a minimum an MDIV or other related theological 
graduate degree. 

The data gathered through these interviews are holy stories. 
Participants shared moments of loss and hope, success and failure, 
uncertainty and clarity. In their vulnerability they showed enthusi-
asm and an openness to share their thoughts, along with an eager-
ness to learn from others in the study. In fact, this researcher was 
surprised by the overwhelming positive response to invitations 
to be interviewed and their generosity in opening up. Each inter-
view was recorded, transcribed, and manually coded looking for 
themes in three areas. The interview question protocols were cre-
ated and organized around those three areas: call, community, and 
leadership. Findings from community and leadership are shared 
in this article.

Community

The word community is ambiguous and keeping its use undefined 
in this project was intentional. With each interview, participants 
were invited to define community in the way it is understood with 
regards to their current leadership role. Each leader talked about 
community from the vantage point of one’s own position and 
responsibilities. Leaders used the word community to describe 
things like congregations, synods, or ministry organizations. In 
addition, they also spoke of the communities they serve as broader 
than the organization paying their salary. For these leaders, com-
munity didn’t stop at the walls of the office or worship space, it 
included neighborhoods near and far. Membership language was 
rarely used to describe the people they lead, neither were catego-
ries such as baptized members or worship attendance. Participants 
was a more commonly used word, but even then, it was more often 
used to distinguish a person’s particular commitment to ministry 

reimage their identity in a particular context), a restart (a second go around 
of a mission development site), and a new wine ministry (a new worshipping 
community that was formed by a group breaking away from another ELCA 
church).



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

55

related to the church or organization. People were more often 
identified through touch points and relationships. 

Visionary leaders in this study consistently articulated the 
belief that God is active and present in the communities and neigh-
borhoods they lead. One synodical leader put it this way, “God is at 
work daily . . . changing lives . . . extending life, healing, restoring, 
so I see the community as vibrant. God is opening us up to new 
possibilities.” There is a pervasive expectation that God will not 
only show up, but God was there ahead of them all along. One 
participant, our only non-rostered leader in the study, has spent 
extensive time interviewing people in the community she was 
asked to serve. She explains that experience this way: 

So, it wasn’t even until like in the third year that I began 
to see what was really happening in the patterns. The 
listening takes depth and time and repetition before 
the themes emerge. You begin to have an understand-
ing of where God is in the midst of something.  .  . I’ve 
prayed about that. I wrestled with that a lot. I feel like 
it is primarily about leaning into God, leaning into the 
Spirit noticing where the Spirit is. Because when we’re 
in a confidence space we don’t have that need. But when 
we’re not sure where we are, we’re on our knees. 

One mission developer, after serving the community for more 
than ten years, exemplified the passion that many of the leaders 
showed when talking about God’s mission in the world:

And I get that not everybody is called into full-time 
ministry, but I think all of us are called into living as 
followers of Jesus. Let’s believe that God is a living God. 
Let’s believe that the kingdom is here now and not yet. 
And let’s believe that God’s at work in this and God is 
crazy. God [will] work through us to accomplish what 
God wants to accomplish. I think we just don’t lift that 
up enough, that we have a role in what God is doing and 
that gives us purpose. 

God breaks down silos separating church from its neighborhood 
and calls all people together into a ministry of mutual relationships. 



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Leaders interviewed in this study do not distinguish between their 
work in the church and their work in the community. Community 
leadership is ministry leadership. A second career mission devel-
oper shared a story of how he found himself serving on a com-
munity council even though he was a pastor of a currently forming 
local Christian community-all other council members were busi-
ness leaders in the community. His new role on the council helped 
focus the priorities of the ministries he leads in a way that better 
serves the immediate needs of the local neighborhood. 

Another leader just starting a new call talks about her role 
in facilitating mutual relationships this way, “I think my job is to 
get out the way. It’s to make it available and then to help people 
connect the dots as to why this matters in their lives. And to [help 
them] find their story mixed with God’s story.”

There is a distinction made in the stories of these leaders 
between doing things for a community and doing things with a 
community. Leadership then is about inviting, encouraging and 
supporting those who do identify as part of the regular worship-
ping community to connect and engage with people in the com-
munity, through both intentional touch points and in their day to 
day lives. Participating in what God is already doing is about con-
necting the church to and within the community for the sake of 
the community. These visionary leaders didn’t separate this from 
being a pastor or synod leader or diaconal minister. One seasoned 
pastor with nearly twenty years leading a congregation in an urban 
context explains it this way:

All of the world is God’s beloved community, but the 
whole world doesn’t get treated that way. And so the 
work of the church, my work, is to proclaim the King-
dom of God- that’s God’s beloved community-especially 
to those who have not received that message so that they 
might experience God’s beloved community. There are 
those who are called to be the proclaimers of that mes-
sage. And so when you talk about the community I serve, 
[sometimes] they’re suburban partner congregations, 
what we do helps to liberate them to see the Kingdom of 



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

57

God . . . in those places that they see on the news as . . . of 
no value, of fear, and all those things. 

Hospitality is the primary focus for a new wine start worship-
ping community in rural Midwest to engage with its small town. 
“Our core value here is radical hospitality. . . . Our official slogan 
is being great neighbors in [town name] . . . some of our best min-
istry is with our neighbors across our fence.” Neighbor for them is 
an operating metaphor that shapes how they prioritize ministry 
and resources. “We just want to love people,” he claims. Another 
leader talks about that same kind of expectation this way, “And 
once you’ve come to faith and you’re living in that faith it’s not 
about you it’s about the next person.” 

One new young leader, serving a rural multi-point parish in 
a diverse rural area uses this kind of language to describe the re-
lationship between her congregations and the community, “I feel 
like it’s a mission field God is calling us in, to surround ourselves 
with people who think differently and try and learn and grow from 
that and find ways forward. And so I feel really passionate about 
doing ministry in that way.” 

The third theme in the area of community is God is at work in 
and through communities changing lives. Ministry leadership was 
ultimately about making a difference in the everyday lives of the 
people these leaders encounter. It wasn’t measured through pro-
grams or church attendance. Changed lives don’t show up in par-
ish reporting structures. It is ultimately about the transformation 
of individuals and communities, which includes all lives. It begins 
at a very basic level, conversation.

One leader with more than two decades of ministry experi-
ence serving as the senior pastor of a large historic church in the 
Midwest shares this story to illustrate the importance of starting 
with conversation. “You know just going beneath the surface in 
that conversation is where God happens and it’s usually in sharing 
our foibles or what we would consider weaknesses that we opened 
the door for someone to share their weakness and in that God 
meets us. I try to help people do that in lots of different ways. We 
try to do that as a congregation.” 



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Living and leading in a way that shows you believe that the 
grace and mercy that Christ offers is available for all directs many 
of the choices these leaders and their communities make. One 
leader, during the first year of her current call, had a tragic mur-
der take place in her congregation’s neighborhood that made the 
national news. A couple of friends of the victim who were part 
of her congregation asked her to step in and help the family with 
the victim’s three young children. Together with the congregation, 
they led a vigil in the neighborhood walking the block, reclaim-
ing the home where the woman had been murdered. “We kind of 
reclaimed this as a place of love and safety for these families and 
these kids because they all went to school together.” Her church 
literally showed up. Over three hundred attended the vigil. They 
raised over $40,000 for the family and in response to an invitation 
from the victim’s family, this leader took point in leading a celebra-
tion of the victim’s life. 

Through this experience, her congregation helped her re-
alize that she was called to the neighborhood. “I didn’t realize 
my pastoring was much more than just a small little church. .  .  . 
When did I see you hungry, when did I see you thirsty.” Matthew 
25:17 informs the identity of this church within their neighbor-
hood. “That’s been a beautiful shift to move toward mutuality and 
accompaniment.” 

One leader, who had recently ended her time leading a min-
istry for individuals transitioning from incarceration to a new life 
outside of prison spoke to this idea of changed lives using these 
words, “We really help people to see their potential and that we 
help them to understand that they are loved and they have worth 
and that there’s nothing that they have done or will ever do that 
will take the love of God away from them.” She goes on to tell this 
story of one particular individual that illustrates this commitment: 
“So to see him come from not being able to look you in the eye 
just to answer the simplest of questions to being able to stand up 
and be on camera and talk about his experience coming out of 
prison and the support that he received from the ministry was 
just wonderful.”



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

59

Ultimately, changed lives is about mutual relationships. One 
second career leader with previous experience as a teacher oper-
ates out of the philosophy that we are called to make a friend be-
fore we make a convert. “It is easier to quit on a denomination than 
it is to quit on a friend.”

The Emmaus story was a common text that shaped many of 
these leaders’ imaginations around the kinds of relationships tak-
ing place in and through their communities. One leader tells it as 
the story of two friends beaten down and broken. And Jesus was 
there. The world had changed as they knew it. And Jesus was there. 
They couldn’t recognize him. But Jesus was there. The importance 
of this text shaping her community’s understanding of discipleship 
is shared here:

The whole seven miles Jesus is walking with them. 
They’ve just experienced the heartache of watching their 
savior be tortured to death on a cross and they’re so over-
whelmed with what they’ve seen with their eyes that now 
they’ve been blinded to the resurrection walking with 
them which is an event, right. I think about that text 
and that sometimes even speaking to the rationale won’t 
open your eyes to who God is, sometimes you need to 
experience God as an event, a Jesus event to be inspired 
and motivated to run back and tell everyone he’s alive 
because that’s what they do; they recognize their eyes are 
open to the event of the risen Christ and they run back 
to tell everyone-the women were right! 

Another leader, when describing the suburban community 
he has been serving for nearly three years as faithful, audacious, 
and courageous, claimed the Emmaus story as the community’s 
primary and guiding biblical story. Through this story, “they really 
believe in walking the road of faith and discovering Christ in the 
stranger and in the breaking of the bread and that is primary.” 

One interviewee, a self-identified restart pastor in an urban 
context is drawn to Acts 2, where they were “breaking bread to-
gether and praying together and gathering in each other’s homes 
and just sharing their lives together.” This breaking of the bread 



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theme so shapes their identity as a community that they gather as 
a dinner church. The eating and fellowship that occurs over the 
table creates a shared identity centered in Christ. It should be no 
surprise that this same leader was drawn to story of the Last Sup-
per in the Gospels:

Jesus in that final dinner with his friends and followers 
said as often as often as you drink of this cup and eat this 
bread is anytime you’re sharing food together. You know 
I’m there, remember me, remember what it is that this 
is all about that is made full in your sharing and being 
together for me. It’s all connected to that sense of God 
being in and among and active. . . . This is a central piece 
to who we are, right? That we gather around a meal . . . 
that meal reflects who are. 

One synodical leader, who describes his community as multi-
geographic, sums up what God is up to in and through these rela-
tionships of mutuality, being in community and changed through 
community with these words:

I’m in love with what God is doing here. The ability to 
see communities change and transform and be a part 
of that including building redevelopment and seeing 
people read what the Gospel is in those communities 
and change like that just excites me so I exhaust myself 
by going to meetings and engaging community leaders 
and engaging our mission developers who I’m encourag-
ing and coaching to do the same and to grow these faith 
communities. I’m seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ reach 
areas and places that it never would. And I believe that 
we as Lutherans have the best theology in the world. It’s 
affirming. It’s loving. It’s caring, and it breaks down. It’s 
almost like our theology is a medicine that can help the 
church to reshape itself to what I consider being what the 
gospel of Jesus was intended for us to be. 

These three themes, God is active and present in the communities 
and neighborhoods they lead; God breaks down silos separating 
church from its neighborhood and call all people together into a 
ministry of mutual relationships; and God is at work in and through 



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

61

communities changing lives, give purpose and direction to the 
ministries these leaders are called to, in and with the communities 
they find themselves. Insight into how they lead in that way can be 
found in our next area.

Leadership 

The titles and roles of each of these participants vary as much as 
the communities they serve. Some are solo pastors of multi-point 
parishes, some are executive pastors of multi-staff churches. Some 
are leading newer worshipping communities in store fronts, art 
galleries, or elementary schools, while others gather in 150-year-
old historic churches. This diversity of roles also includes leaders 
of synods, non-profits, and even a few leaders in transition be-
tween roles.6

How do they, their varied roles with their varied responsibili-
ties understand themselves as a visionary leader? And, more im-
portantly, how do they articulate what God is up to in and through 
their leadership? Three prominent themes emerged in the stories 
around this area of leadership. 

First of all, none of these leaders see themselves as long rang-
ers. God is at work in and through these leaders, their co-leaders, 
and the raising up of new leaders. While visionary leaders take 
their authority and responsibilities seriously, they lead in, and on 
behalf of, community. Mentors, mentoring, partnerships, identify-
ing and raising leaders drive much of the time and intention of 
these leaders. 

One Midwest mission developer employs coaching as a 
metaphor for the way he leads ministry with others:

There’s also a willingness to let the coach shape the 
program. And I think there’s a lot of good in that idea 

6. Among the thirty interviewees, there were thirteen different job titles 
listed in the survey data. Seven of the titles contained the word pastor, which 
represented twenty-three of the interviewees. Twenty-nine of those inter-
viewed are rostered leaders in the ELCA, in “Word and Sacrament” or “Word 
and Service” ministry.



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especially as we talk about decentralized leadership or 
you know permission giving leadership. The other im-
age I’ve got isn’t an image or a metaphor exactly but it’s a 
framework, it’s the idea that lay ministry really is minis-
try. . . . We don’t try to put people in leadership positions 
on the basis of what the church needs, we try to do it 
on the basis of the gifts that God has sent to us. So, you 
know a phrase I learned from my coach was one person, 
one passion, one position. 

Not only does this leader implement strategies for identifying 
leaders and coaching them, he is also being coached in the process. 
This idea of the leader being coached, or mentored, isn’t unique 
to him. One pastor of a congregation in a small town shared how 
pivotal it was when she experienced seeing a woman leading a 
church for the first time. “I really think the Holy Spirit was putting 
the right people in my path along the way to just say yes, see this is 
here, or hey-look here’s just a little piece of hope.” 

Another leader of an historic church on the verge of living 
into a new identity was not only coached by others but considers it 
a part of her call to raise up and coach other leaders for ministry:

I’ve been really sitting with the story of Pentecost in Acts. 
The church is getting its start and the people are giving 
up all they had to those in need. I think as a leader right 
now I’m really leaning into that, not just like physically of 
what I have, but of what I have in the way of my gifts and 
what God’s entrusted to me and how I am being invited 
to share those. But then more than that, how I am call-
ing up others to do the same? Like when I think about 
my passions in ministry, one of my big ones is raising up 
leaders. It took me a just a month here and I can already 
say I think that person could be a pastor. 

Guided by Luke 10:1–12, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers 
are few, another leader, who started worshipping with a congrega-
tion because of a passion for mentoring young men, explains the 
distinctiveness of his pastoral leadership of the same congregation 
through the apprenticeship model. “Duplication of leadership is 
our DNA”:



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

63

Once we establish a ministry, once we are clear that 
there’s a need, before we are able to go on to other places, 
we have to publicly identify an apprentice. Typically, we 
lead in two-year intervals, though you can repeat. But I 
think what people talk about is the apprentice model that 
there are no questions in ministry about who’s leading 
and who’s next. . . . So just so you know we have one year 
of class time, two hours a month. We meet with a cohort 
of people discerning a leadership role. Typically, those 
cohorts are anywhere from three to six people.

Secondly, visionary leaders see leadership as a process of dis-
cernment, communal and individual. God speaks to God’s people 
and guides them in their ministry. Discernment here is more about 
listening for God’s voice than it is decision-making. Communal 
discernment looks different for each community. For some it fo-
cuses on regular practices like prayer and lectio Divina. Others 
take more structured approaches.

Discernment within one mission developer’s non-traditional 
community happens in what they call clarity circles. Four to five 
leaders of this community gather weekly to “huddle” and listen for 
God’s voice. Through this process they were able to discern that 
they were not being called primarily to the place they had started. 
As a result, they started exploring alternative forms of sustainabil-
ity that would foster Christian community at the same time .  .  . 
“We are very careful” this leader explained, “to bring everything 
we do into conversation with scripture and with our Lutheran un-
derstanding of how God works in the world.”

Another of the interviewees, the lead pastor of a large subur-
ban congregation talked about the necessity of communal discern-
ment with her staff: 

I think that a person can do crazy things if they think 
God is speaking directly only to them. But it’s the com-
munity of faithful people who walk with you that you 
have the ability to test ideas and wonderment with. While 
I carry a title there is no question that the work that we 
do is a “we.” It’s this entire staff that works together. On 
the crappy days the buck stops at my office. But what I’ve 



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always sensed ministry as a group of people together try-
ing to figure out where God is calling us. 

Part of communal discernment is creating an expectation 
with additional ministry leaders that God will show up. One of 
the participants asks the same two questions whenever meeting 
in small groups, “What did you find interesting in scripture this 
week?” and “What have you heard from God in your listening 
prayer?” These questions have helped shape an expectation that 
God actually speaks to us in prayer and has contributed to their 
ongoing practice of listening for God’s voice.

Leaders also stress the importance of time in silence, whether 
in prayer or retreat, to listen to God speak. Visionary leaders in this 
study are intentional about setting aside time in solitude. Where 
and for how long varied across the interviewees. One participant 
shared an experience of spending time “doing the Hermitage”: 

You’re in a little teeny cabin all by yourself . . . and you 
don’t see anyone at all. You don’t have any common 
meal. You are just away with God. They had a beauti-
ful window in a teeny little room . . . very primitive but 
comfortable. You’re instructed to take your watch off and 
to sleep when you need sleep wake up when you need to 
wake up and at the beginning of your time to just write 
a letter to God and kind of pour out everything that you 
are in need of, your angst or whatever, and then to just 
rest with God. I found myself. I was never bored. I was 
never lonely. I felt full. I ended up reading just one book, 
but I would just sit and stare out the window for like an 
hour or two and it was phenomenal. I felt I would sing 
songs to God. It was sacred and intimate. I didn’t realize 
that one of the spiritual disciplines I need is solitude until 
that time.

Another leader describes this time in her life as a pilgrimage. 
Her first pilgrimage was right before entering her call as a restart 
pastor. “Because I knew first call was gonna be crazy . . . so I wanted 
to know that I could still hear God’s voice, that I was ready to hear 
God’s voice.” This practice of pilgrimage continues for this leader, 



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

65

but never to the same place. “I haven’t ever been to the same one 
twice because I think there’s also something about the newness 
and freshness of an experience. I think if I went to the same place 
twice, I would have at least unconscious expectations to experi-
ence God as I had before in that place or in that journey. And it has 
been my experience that that is not how God and I work.” 

One seasoned synodical leader goes on a pilgrimage to 
the same place each year, to the Garden of Gethsemane in 
the Holy Land: 

I’m there once a year doing some things with groups 
there. The Garden of Gethsemane overlooks the city 
and that to me is like Jesus is for real. Not just that Jesus 
is something spiritual and mental for me, but Jesus is a 
physical presence for me when I’m there because it’s al-
most like I’m standing with him in the garden . . . literally 
the same trees that were there when he was alive, they’re 
like they’re trees that are over two thousand years old, or 
you know are seedlings of them . . . it’s almost like I have 
to go there to be recharged or re-engaged in my mission 
for the next year. 

Another visionary leader in this study sets aside an entire 
month each year to spend in discernment and listen deeply for 
direction as to how God is calling the community he leads to 
move in the upcoming year. Just prior to leaving for the month, he 
spends time with the leadership looking at plans for the upcom-
ing year. When he returns at the end of the month, he is ready to 
engage them in the upcoming year’s theme and priorities:

Meditation and prayer and connecting and hearing from 
God and learning God’s voice and learning the way that 
I see God and experience God is very key and important 
to me. So that has been a consistent factor in helping me 
to make decisions, helping me to see and speak life into 
other people and helping people to kind of manage their 
own lives. It is having a strong connection to what the 
Spirit is saying, and it’s always confirmed. God never 
speaks in isolation. God’s word for me has always been 



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66

kind of consistently confirmed over and over again. So 
that’s how I know it’s God. 

These experiences are but a few examples of spiritual prac-
tices that are a part of the rhythm of the way these leaders lead and 
of their lives-time set aside for the sole purpose of listening for 
God’s voice. These times of reconnecting with God are crucial for 
their own sustainability as leader, but more importantly it centers 
them in God’s work in the world and how they are called to lead in 
their respective places and times. 

The final theme in this area on leadership focuses on plan-
ning, vision casting, and effectiveness. God creates a vision for God’s 
people. Creating any vision for our leaders is deeply dependent on 
the ongoing practice of listening for God’s voice. Stressing the ne-
cessity of the communal nature of this work, a bishop in the study 
articulates it in this way. “I think in some ways I would say I am 
more of a vision caster. I know that I don’t do this work alone and 
that if we’re going to have impact, we need to have the involvement 
of a whole lot of folks. That’s helping people see a larger picture 
and helping them begin to wonder and pray how they might be 
involved in it.”

The sower of the seeds parable from the gospel of Mark 
provides a great image to understand how he frames visioning. 
“A sower went out to sow. Our call is to be continually planting 
seeds and God’s going do what God’s going to do with them. . . . 
People’s ability to always recognize that or to see the incredible 
possibilities that God is laying in front of them sometimes is really 
difficult to see.” 

“So for me,” shares another synodical leader, “it’s a team effort 
and it’s a communal task to cast vision and then once I have all 
that information, my expectation and goal, and the method I’m 
trying to lay out, I’m going to glean from the people that I trust and 
respect the most. . . . It’s a communal task.” 

When asked how she casts a vision, a senior pastor of a large 
suburban congregation shares, “As vulnerable as this seems for me, 
I don’t have it figured out. The vision is God’s vision that comes 
specifically. I know my gifts are called to cast that vision and give 



Kristine Stache—Stories that Shape an Understanding 

67

theological framework to it and proclaim and extend grace, but I 
am just part of a bigger sense of what this is. I think people trust 
me because I think my presence is authentic. And I show up.” This 
leader is also fond of the sower and the seed parable, likening her 
role as vision caster to that of a gardener, always tilling and plant-
ing, but ultimately is it God that grows the garden.

Another leader talks of visioning this way, “Anybody can have 
a dream but to quantify that vision it has to be rooted in scripture 
and prayer. And I think that’s one thing I would say. Vision rooted 
in scripture and prayer is a vision, other than becoming just a 
dream or a nightmare.” 

These three themes, God is at work in and through these lead-
ers, their co-leaders, and the raising up of new leaders; God speaks 
to God’s people and guides them in their ministry; and God creates 
a vision for God’s people, speak to the primacy of the presence and 
activity of God in how these leaders lead. They give us a glimpse 
into transparent and prophetic approach to leadership while 
showing the dependence they have on God’s leading the way in in 
their ministry.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The stories shared through this study do not provide answers to 
a problem of declining church. Instead they help us reframe how 
we think about church and how we understand how God might be 
restoring and healing the world through the church and through 
changing lives.

Churches have a future, despite the data presented at the on-
set of this paper, because this is Christ’s church. Our call is to listen 
closely to this movement of the Spirit, as these leaders do, to discern 
communally how God is calling us into God’s future in new ways. 

This is the beauty of stories. They provide layers upon layers 
of meaning, metaphors, and theology-both explicit and implicit-as 
a way to enter into God’s unfolding story for the world. The beauty 
and distinctiveness of learnings thus far speak to the inability of 
any of these leaders to separate their understanding of leadership 



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and the communities they lead from how they understand and 
seek to further discover God’s work in changing the lives of all 
people in and through the ministries they lead. 

This article serves not as a conclusion and summary of find-
ings, but an invitation for further exploration into how these 
themes, and others themes shape our understanding of how God 
works in the world and how God’s work in the world shapes our 
varied calls to lead communities and walk with one. Our task as 
leaders, is to listen deeply to ways it is changing in our own com-
munities. Our work together has just begun.

Bibliography

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DeHoek, Adam, and Kenneth Inskeep. 2016. The Supply of and Demand for 
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Jones, Jeffrey M. 2019. “US Church Membership Down Sharply in Past Two 
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Research and Evaluation, ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop. 2017. “Summary 
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Swinton, John, and Harriet Mowat. 2016. Practical Theology and Qualitative 
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