Interview With Rev. Dr. Bishop William Willimon

Upgrading Leadership In Churches

Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou. Welcome to this version of The Nonprofit Exchange. We talk to leaders worldwide about their particular perspective in leadership, their expertise, and to hear from their perspective, from their seat that they led from for so many years. My guest today is Will Willimon, Dr. Reverend Will Willimon. We are sitting in Durham, North Carolina at the Duke Divinity School where Will will tell you a little bit about what he does here. He and I got connected a number of years ago when he came to north Alabama as a bishop, and I was serving in a Methodist church. We first got connected there. I have been extremely impressed with his writing, and we have interfaced a few times. You have even spoken at one of my events in Greensboro. Welcome, Will, to the Nonprofit Exchange.

Will Willimon: Thank you.

Hugh: It’s like when I go somewhere and say, “I’m Hugh Ballou. This is Will Willimon.” Tell us about yourself, your background, and why you’re here at the Duke Divinity School.

Will: I’m a Methodist preacher from South Carolina. As a young preacher, I was summoned by Duke Divinity School. I came up here and joined the faculty back in the ‘70s to teach worship. Didn’t like teaching full-time, so I went back in a parish in South Carolina. Then again Duke called me to the pulpit of Duke Chapel, and I was there 20 years. It was my first experience with a ministry that large, a budget that large, a staff that large. From there, I was a bishop. After being a bishop for eight years, I was invited back to Duke. I teach courses in preaching and mission. I also teach a class for ordained leadership, and for the doctor of ministry, I teach a leadership class. In my latter years, I find myself moving more into leadership. In fact, in my mind, I think every class I teach here at Duke Divinity School is a leadership class because I think leadership is utterly necessary for ordained clergy to be leaders, but often that is something they say they don’t get in divinity school. It’s right at the top of the clergy list of skills they wish they had more of.

Hugh: That’s amazing. As people go into this meaningful work in ministry, first off, it’s very difficult work. It’s very challenging work. Let’s go back a minute. We talked about leadership. I want you to define leadership. I also want to ask you about what do you think from interviewing pastors that have been in churches for a while, what do they think they wish they had known before they started? Define leadership. Then what are you hearing from preachers out there they wish they had gotten from this class you’re teaching?

Will: I hear pastors complain about administration. That consumes too much of their time, they don’t enjoy doing it, they had no training in how to administer well. Larger church pastors, whenever you’re together, the talk always gets to staff: staff problems, problematic people on staff, hiring people, holding people accountable, all those things you got to do in supervision. I think few pastors come into the ministry saying, “God is calling me to administer a church.” And yet that is the work you find yourself in.

Another problem is I know when I went into ministry, my vision of myself was I will be a part of a small rural congregation in South Carolina. I hope I’ll have a part-time secretary. That would be wonderful. Then you wake up one day like I did at Duke Chapel, and I had 30 human beings that I was supposed to be supervising and orchestrating and coordinating and leading. That was when I reached out and tried to get better leadership administrative skills. Probably should have reached out sooner. I hear about administration.

Then I hear pastors complaining about conflicted congregations, congregations that don’t seem to respect their authority and leadership. This whole complex set of things that leaders, managers, administrators have to do. I hear a lot of that.

You mentioned that being a pastoral leader is hard. I agree. However, there are times I think when pastors get together and complain, whine about administrative leadership difficulties thinking this is what everybody faces who works with human beings that have some tasks assigned to them, some mission they are engaged in. Maybe the surprising thing is that pastors are surprised this is the world.

Hugh: This is the work. It’s with people. Years ago, I interviewed you for an article I was doing for a magazine on the topic of conflict. We were talking about particularly how pastors do or don’t approach conflict. One of the statements you made was typically, pastors want to move away from conflict. One of the people I interviewed on the podcast was a woman named Dr. Roberta Gilbert. She was a psychiatrist and a colleague of Murray Bowen. I don’t know if you-

Will: I know Bowen theory, yeah.

Hugh: I have been studying it for nine years....