*"Church Leadership"

Before going back to the grind of writing the always looming and hovering entity called the dissertation, I thought I would write briefly, or as much as the flow dictates, on a 'Religion and Society' seminar which hosted a paper entitled 'Leadership in Churches.'

The speaker conducted an ethnography in a few black methodist churches and found that although black members of a church are given positions of "leadership" e.g. secretary of treasury or finance (although giving, receiving, or holding a position as a marker of leadership is another question) the white member of the church, the constant figure of a methodist church is the most vocal and the one who takes on the role of telling the others, along with the minister, of what is to be done.

This raises the question about the lack of "black leadership" in these black churches. While we must beg the question of what leadership means in various different cultural contexts, there are other issues about the constituency of the black church. The methodist church in particular, maintains a white historical background of hereditary lineages of leadership position. This position (something that sounds like stalworth - not quite sure about the spelling) but is an inherited position that is constitutive of that church in particular. It is a constant. In this regard it would seem plausible and very understandable that the one person who is the constant presence with the church itself is the one who is the most knowledgeable and undertakes the managerial position of what the church out to do in discussion with the minister. The black representative is a partial figure, given this position in part by a received recognition by the church community and at the same time a position provided due to political correctness. It would make sense for that person to not be very vocal as it entails standing out and subject to politicization. What is also going on in such communities is the changing membership of that church i.e. migration and mobility. The folks that attend these churches would not necessarily remain with one church for the duration of their lives. They may move to another part of the UK or move back to their homes in Africa or the Caribbean. This reduces any investment in participation outside of attending church for church services. It is not a static community with a static intersubjectivity of interaction between community and leadership. Furthermore, any dynamic that occurs surrounding leadership and trust of a community in particular members tends to extend beyond church. Trusted lay members hold other positions and social status outside of church which warrants their reception of a leadership position.

This also gets to the point about legitimacy in leadership and the dynamics of politically correct space and institutionalized standards or criterion of holding a leadership position. One of the statements was that while the congregation is black the higher one goes the leadership positions tend to be filled with white persons. Given that this is Britain, it makes sense that there is a lack of minority members who have fulfilled the criterion of white institutions to obtain a leadership position within those hierarchies. In effect, it might seem premature to label the lack of leadership in churches as something or other of these black churches in the UK. This gets to the point about orthodoxy and orthopraxy as a white methodist leader understands it and how a black methodist leader would practice. In this sense, the space of legitimacy is colored by tones of race. Does this entail that there is a lack of black leadership in these dominantly black churches with only 10 percent white folk but historically dominated by white folk. The changes in institutional frameworks of legitimacy and power are always slow to come into effect. I think the paper only scratches the surface and requires some discernment in what leadership means, how the people talk about it, and whether the discourse is influenced by a particular history of what being a leader means in these religious contexts, which are never really restricted to religious contexts.