Book Review: How to lead when you don’t know where you’re going: Leading in a liminal season - Susan Beaumont, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)

Deep concern and care for churches and their leaders exudes from this book, drawn from the author’s practice as a spiritual director. By reframing periods of loss and confusion in churches as liminality, Beaumont argues that such periods require a different leadership style, offering practical suggestions and advice to help and inspire leaders.

Liminality is described as a threshold period for individuals or organisations; an uncertain time when something has ended, but the future is still unclear. This period is dangerous for churches, with extra strains on individuals and relationships, however it can also a period of freedom and creativity. Drawing from a wide range of biblical accounts, Beaumont argues that such periods are times in which God works to bring revelation and transformation.

Having outlined an understanding of liminality, Beaumont describes effective leadership in such periods as different to leadership at other times. Here being self-aware and reflective is vital, and Beaumont encourages three changes in approach: firstly, from reliance on subjective knowledge to sensitivity to God’s leading; secondly, from promoting a set outcome, to listening and observing; and thirdly, from seeking resolution to embracing the experience. Within this changed approach to leadership, Beaumont describes five tasks of leadership:

Tending the Soul of the Institution: Beaumont argues that each church has a unique God-given heart, which is beyond culture and spirituality, endures across generations, can be injured or cultivated to by the activity of the church, and can be enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Beaumont draws the task of leadership as seeking to connect the activity of the church body with this heart, and contends that the following four tasks are helpful in establishing this connection in liminal times.  

Deepening Group Discernment: Drawn against a culture of rational decision-making, Beaumont argues that discernment is a process of discovering God’s will through identifying and setting aside assumptions, and listening and exploring in community.

Shaping Institutional Memory: Story-telling is powerful in shaping identity and response. Here Beaumont highlights the importance of involving multiple voices in recalling the story of the local church, and including failures and difficulties, such that the story that is told can give rich meaning.

Clarifying Purpose: Beaumont describes the task of moving a church from broad goals to more defined objectives, noting that such definition should be drawn from the identity, the context and the underlying values of the church body.

Engaging Emergence: Beaumont argues that whilst moving through a liminal state is not controllable, it does follow a predictable pattern: moving from an initial breakdown, through creative exploration, to adopting the new. The task for leaders is to embrace and encourage each stage in this pattern.

Beaumont’s practical and equipping approach to this topic is helpful and hopeful. Particularly in our current context, where the Covid-19 pandemic has moved our churches into liminality, Beaumont offers insights, tools and an approach that can help church communities make sense of their context, seek God in their confusion and discern his leading into the future.