“Adaptive Leadership” with Ken Carter

Show Notes:

Bishop Ken Carter is a leader. As the current bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, he is guiding over 173,000 members through Hurricane Helene recovery. In addition to that, he serves as bishop-in-residence and a consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity School. He is also the former bishop of the Florida Conference, and served as the president of the Council of Bishops of the UMC from 2018-2020. 

So, yes, Bishop Carter is a leader. But he leads with a spirit of openness, love, and concern for others. He values having supportive ecosystems of people to help each other, to be a point of connection during moments of pain and weakness and to offer that support back during times of strength. He leads with an eye toward adapting to the moment--not throwing out all traditions, but discerning what needs to be preserved, discarded, or simply rearranged to meet the current need.

Resources:

Listen to Bishop Carter’s previous episode on The Weight

Or listen to our conversations on leadership with Tod Bolsinger: Adaptive Leadership and Mistakes Good Leaders Make

Buy Bishop Carter’s books on Amazon, including Gardens in the Desert: How Adaptive Church Can Lead to a Whole New Life, co-authored with Michael Beck

Donate to Hurricane Helene relief through the United Methodist Committee on Relief

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:03

Today we're talking to Bishop Ken Carter. He's the resident bishop in Western North Carolina, and he has, for a long time, been a leader in the United Methodist Church. He was our first guest on The Weight several years ago, and we are bringing him back today.

Eddie Rester 00:19

And today we're talking with him about a lot of things, but leadership is the core of our conversation. What does it mean to be a leader in this moment? What are the opportunities in this moment? We started the conversation with where he is right now. He is leading the people of Western North Carolina through recovery and response to Hurricane Helene. In fact, he's just a couple weeks beyond that, and so it really was a gift for him to pull away and spend some time with us. Chris, as we heard him talk today, what did you hear? What stood out to you?

Chris McAlilly 00:58

It's a wide ranging conversation. Some of the themes that we talked about on the podcast before. If you've listened to episodes that we've done with folks like Todd Bolsinger about adaptive leadership. I just hear wisdom. You know, somebody who's been through the cycle of both difficult things and exciting and joyful things. I hear wisdom. I greatly benefited from hearing him talk. One thing that stands out is that leaders are forged in crisis. It's a book that he referenced, and then we talk about a number of ways in which that's the case. What about for you?

Eddie Rester 01:36

That was one of the important parts, and we didn't get to kind of follow that thread. But you know, leaders rise up, are forged in crisis, and they might not have been leaders except for the crisis. If the church hadn't needed someone to point them to the Gentiles in the first century, Paul might not have been that. We might not even know his name, if that church hadn't had that need. I think other leaders rise up like that. I think the thing that really got me thinking was leaders and the ecosystems that they build of other people and resources to enable the right conversations, to bring out the best in other leaders and to help push churches and organizations towards whatever their mission or vision may be in a moment.

Chris McAlilly 02:24

The other thing that I hear is that if you're going to be doing it for a long period of time, you've got to develop rhythms that are sustainable. And so we end really with some very practical advice, here at the end of the year. And so if you feel like you're grinding, or you feel like you've been grinding for a long time...

Eddie Rester 02:45 And you're just tired.

Chris McAlilly 02:45
And you're tired. There are, perhaps, some very practical suggestions of some steps that you can take to set you up well for next year. And beyond that, yeah, just enjoyable.

Eddie Rester 03:00 Just a great conversation.

Chris McAlilly 03:01

Another enjoyable conversation. And we're grateful, grateful to have Bishop Carter on the podcast, but also grateful that you're with us. [INTRO] The truth is, the world is growing more angry, more bitter and more cynical. People don't trust one another, and we feel disconnected.

Eddie Rester 03:21

The way forward is not more tribalism, it's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope.

Chris McAlilly 03:33

So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversation with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health, and we want you to be a part of it.

Eddie Rester 03:48

Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO] Bishop Carter, thank you so much for joining us. I know right now is a very busy time for you, so thanks for taking a little time.

Ken Carter 04:04
Well, I'm honored to be here, to be with both of you.

Eddie Rester 04:07

What some of our more recent listeners may not know is that you were our very first guest back in 2020. You started the whole thing. So if you're listening you don't like what we've done, it's Bishop Carter's fault. If you like it, it's also Bishop Carter's fault. So thank you. Right now we're going to talk about leadership and some visioning, some different things, but right now, you are leading in a very specific moment in Western North Carolina. Hurricane Helene has been through just a few weeks ago. So just one, how are things going with recovery right now? And two, you know, if you gave people two ways to help over the next few months, what would you say would be helpful?

Ken Carter 04:56

Yeah, well, thanks. First, thanks, Eddie, thanks, Chris. It's an honor to to reconnect with you, too, and thanks for this podcast. I would say what we're learning, what I'm learning, is that we plan our lives, and then the unforeseen happens. I served in Florida for 10 years, lived through a couple of really big hurricanes. They're in the midst of another one now, as we talk. I kind of expected that in Florida, you know. We were a peninsula. We were surrounded by warm water. Asheville, North Carolina, is more than 300 miles from any major body of water, and people sort of thought they came there to be immune from big climate things. And so the floods have come. Twenty-nine of our 44 counties are in a state of emergency, as well as Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. And so life is just really unsettled. There's been loss of life. One of the amazing things I got to do one morning was meet in a room full of 300 search and rescue people from all over the United States. And these were just ordinary people, law enforcement people, firefighters, engineers, who've been trained to do that, and that's just the search and rescue phase, which is just finding people. Even small counties right now will say there are 80 people that can't account for, cannot account for. And so this phase has just been responding to the immediacy of this. And then I would say, I mean, OU is a really vital church. I would say, I'm in awe of some of our churches that have just become a part of, I would just call it a supply chain, where they have just gathered the resources people really need, charcoal, propane, water, infant formula, diapers, peanut butter, and just these massive amounts of these really targeted resources have been flowing toward another group of really strategic churches who have the capacity to receive them. And then they're pretty close to the mountains, and they very quickly get to where people are. If you don't have water, if you don't have power, if you don't have cell service, you cannot do a lot of the basic things we have become accustomed to doing. We are just now coming out of that. But I'm just in awe. I'm all about the local church. I'm a from-the-ground-up person, and I'm just grateful to God for how this is going thus far.

Eddie Rester 07:54

If people want to just in the next, like through Christmas, what's a place where they could kind of keep up so they know? Like I was reading today, the need for water is coming to an end in a lot of areas, and they're actually huge stockpiles of water in some places. So where can they keep up with the need? Like, right now, I know there's not a need for sending construction teams or things. Where or how can people continue to stay connected to the response? Because this is going to be a long-term response.

Ken Carter 08:24

Well, that's a great question. And first, I would just say, please stay in touch with it. And not just, not just here. We were talking earlier. These big natural disasters, and they seem to really be all over the South, in my adult life have touched everywhere. Whether they're hurricanes or tornadoes where you guys live, on the Gulf Coast with Katrina, or where my children and grandchildren live more toward Memphis with tornadoes, or the hurricanes and floods we've had, or the hurricanes in Florida. And so I would say, you know, listening to Annual Conference communication is really important. But I also am all for the social media, if you can kind of sift it out. To me, that's kind of the democracy of communication. And in social media, people are real. Sometimes it goes off the rails a little bit, but just staying in touch with it. And I would say, you know, after this first responder phase, the next phase, which is kind of the response and the cleanup is really important. The teams will be needed for years. And my apprehension is just that--I'm speaking now for Western North Carolina, but I'm very concerned about Florida as well. I was there.

Eddie Rester 09:57
Yeah, you were there for 10 years.

Ken Carter 09:59

And live and know this, that just that we don't lose interest in this. That right now I know there's a need to... So I would just say, pray and and learn about it. And if people have personal connections... You know, something practical I would say for the mountains of Western North Carolina would be--this is going to sound bizarre--but this is the leaf season. I mean, October. And typically there are lots of people who just come to Western North Carolina and see the leaf changes. So I would say, this is going to sound crazy, but just for people to come in the winter or spring, and, you know, find ways to bring youth groups, young adult groups, family reunions, a week-long vacation, those kind of things, similar to the way I went to New Orleans after Katrina. Because I love the food, I love the music. That's one way. And then just if you know someone in the midst of it, encourage them and pray for them, all of that.

Chris McAlilly 11:09

Yeah, what I hear you saying is, stay connected to the area, you know, to the extent that you have connections. And I do think one of the things that can be overwhelming when you open up social media and you begin to maybe kind of open the aperture of the world's overwhelming need, whether it be suffering, not just kind of in your own community, but more broadly, regionally, nationally, nationally, internationally. You can quickly get overwhelmed by the amount of things that there are that are being presented to you, either through the news or through social media. You know, we're just past October the seventh, and I was just kind of, I listened to two or three different pieces on Israel's entry into Gaza, and just kind of the fallout, the humanitarian complete devastation of Gaza. And, you know, I wonder, for folks who may be in that zone of just... What happens to me is I get overwhelmed, and then I kind of shut down. I say, oh my goodness, I've got to kind of come back to this little, small patch or corner of the world. How do you navigate that? As a preacher, as a leader, how do you help folks manage the suffering fatigue, or the overwhelming nature of of what's out there, and then how do you stay focused, in terms of offering compassion in a way that is meaningful?

Ken Carter 12:51

You know, I appreciate that. I think the way I kind of function, or stay sane, or try to go about this, it's not perfectly, is to just find, often, one place to connect. And, you know, there's this phrase about finding an institution that you want to support, like a local newspaper or a small business. I went to in Waynesville, near Lake Junaluska, I have a favorite coffee shop there, Panacea. And the first morning they reopened, I went. I was up there. I went in there, and I bought a pretty expensive gift certificate, and I thought, "You know, I just want to help them in this little, small way with their cash flow." And now, that's not a fix, but the same is true for a local church. You know, the same is true for gifts of water or gifts of charcoal or gifts of money. I think we all put our contribution into the community wood pile, and that's what creates the fire and and I think, I think local and small is that way. I think, Chris, what you said about Israel and Gaza, I've also thought about. It's not the question you're asking, but there's this phrase in social psychology, which I've reflected on a lot recently, called competitive victimhood. And it's a phrase that I came to know through some work we've done in Northern Ireland in trying to work on our own divisions and our own sectarianism and violence. But it's the idea of how people who have been victimized or brought into competition with each other. How people who are suffering are brought into competition with each other. And a part of the overwhelming is often multiple groups are suffering. Does that make sense? And so what does this mean for Israel and Gaza? What does it mean for the parties in Northern Ireland? What does this mean for different groups who are on a journey to justice, like intersectionality? And what does it mean when different states are suffering from major hurricanes at the same time?

Eddie Rester 15:01 Mmhm.

Chris McAlilly 15:24 Yeah.

Ken Carter 15:25
And trying to make their case, trying to tell their story. A part of my role as a leader to say, hey, let's step back. We're not in competition with each other. We all want to help each other.

Chris McAlilly 15:37

Yeah, so that gets to this kind of larger question of leadership that I wanted to ask you, because I do think one of the things about... You've just articulated... One of the things about you as a leader, you said, you know, "on the ground, local and small," but you also have this lens, this larger, kind of global or executive level lens that you're thinking about. Not just a single church, but ,1000 or 5,000 churches, or whatever, 30,000 churches, you know, 50,000 churches. For someone who is maybe just getting started and maybe is just working in one context, or, you know, not really thinking at that level, I just wonder what are some of the things that you've learned about that, about making sure that you stay focused on local leadership? Make sure that particular and specific problems in local places, but also maintaining this kind of higher view, this kind of 30,000-foot view. What are some of the habits of thought or leadership that you've learned through time to navigate those dimensions?

Ken Carter 16:47

Well, and I would say, you know, my language, our languages as United Methodist is the word "connection." And to me, a connection is something we all need along the way. We go through times where we're pretty strong, and then we go through times where we really need someone else. I've had injuries, for example, in my life, where you have to all of a sudden really depend on someone else, and you have to go through a journey of recovering from an injury. And you need this ecosystem, this infrastructure of people, to surround you, to help you to begin to do basic things and to move back to a place of strength. And I think so, if you have, you know, in a conference, 600 churches, or 900 churches, or in the denomination, 20,000 churches, in a nation like the United States, at our best,--and we're not always at our best--but at our best an organization like that does not exist for itself. You know, it exists so that those who are in a season of strength can come alongside those who are in a season of need. And again, we see that in the unpredictability of life. I know when I was serving as a pastor of a pretty strong church, it really helped us to connect with other parts of the world. For Providence United Methodist church, that was Haiti, and we were very involved in Haiti. We were, my wife was there during the earthquake. She was in the earthquake. And so I think it's the both-and. It's thinking locally, but it's also, I think, that a larger view reminds us that there's a lot at stake there. And that's kind of where I would begin.

Chris McAlilly 19:03

You know, I think that there's a... I went on mission trips when I was in high school or in college, and those were really good experiences in part, because I think, yeah, it's kind of a bit of a cliche that you go thinking you're offering something, and you end up receiving something. And I think the thing that... I reminded of the Mark Twain quote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." And there's part of that that's at play, but also, I think there's a sense of the humanity of other people that in another place you get to experience hospitality. You experience the giving and receiving of gifts more than I'm giving something to someone that doesn't have anything. It's more the mutuality that you receive in those kind of environments that's powerful. And so that might be a way to kind of connect to our earlier conversation about the hurricanes. And, you know, you've got four different places where you could go, or there are hundreds of places of real, economic, social and just kind of relational need, and where do you connect? And it may be just like one specific person or one particular town.

Ken Carter 20:20 Right.

Chris McAlilly 20:22

There's something in you that kind of gives rise to a response, and you just follow that through. And, yeah, I think another thing that I value in your leadership is kind of narrowing the focus, you know. And so if you've got a thousand different things that you could do, you know, or the whole world to engage, what are some of the ways in which you process what could be done to narrow the the lens for the people that you're leading, and offer them a vision? What are the steps that you take, or what are some of the rhythms of discernment that you've found valuable?

Ken Carter 21:03

Well, I think so, just to stay with the hurricane for a moment, and unfortunately, I've lived through these experiences more than once. I think pretty immediately is to try to be present to where the pain is. And I also teach in the Doctor of Ministry program at Duke Divinity School. This week, we read Will Willimon's book, "Leading with the Sermon," and he talks about the role of a preacher as a leader is to connect the congregation to its pain. And so I think it's to move toward the pain. And then Will says it's to help people conceive new possibilities. And I think I have learned in that that it is to not avoid the pain. So, you know, it's just getting out there. This is just what a pastor does. If a pastor serving a local church and someone's in the hospital, they move toward them, right? Or if there's a death, they move toward them. And then it's to, just by their presence and not giving people advice, but just by the presence of people, it's to help them conceive of a new possibility. So as one person, I know that it's not me, it's the role, but in the role, I have found that if I do this, a lot of people will say--or some people will say-- "Hey, I should do that." You know, "I should be moving toward people. I should be..." If I do that for an annual conference, several hundred clergy, a pastor, is going to think, "I should be calling the people in my church. I should try to know where they are." And I have found that is one way. And then, like this Sunday, I'm preaching in a strong, medium-sized church in a decimated county, and I know the pastor, wonderful clergywoman. Soon as this happened, I was supposed to preach an anniversary at a church out of state that I had agreed to do, and they were going through a lot, we agreed that we could do this later. So I called and asked if I could come there. Now, preaching in that church will not be an act of ministry everywhere, but it symbolizes this is what's important. Right? And I think a lot of our ministry is modeling, trying to model something, and sometimes I make mistakes, but it's trying to model something. And then something I've learned recently from Gil Rendell about leader, all this in leadership. I struggled with this a long time. But we have a responsibility to teach people and talk with people about what we are doing and why. And I used to think I should do this and it should just be my own act of ministry, right? I should do this, and it's kind of like the Sermon on the Mount. I should not boast about it. I'll to go into my closet and... But Gil said, you know, this is, we have a responsibility as leaders to articulate what we are doing and why.

Eddie Rester 24:42

I was just gonna say, I think that's so important. Because I think even among the best, I'm just sitting here thinking some of the best leaders I know on one side, yeah, they've done it and not explained it. But I think we're in a world that has kind of cracked and fractured. And so the old institutions that trained up leaders and told leaders what they were supposed to and why they were supposed to, those don't function, work like they used to. So I think that's exactly right. That it's time to say, "not only am I doing this, but this is why it's important for me to be in this church this Sunday."

Ken Carter 25:24

And you know, like this week, I went to a church in Asheville. An amazing clergy couple are serving it. They come, before they were United Methodist, they came from more of a Pentecostal background. And they've redesigned their sanctuary, and at the center of it is candles. It's a large sanctuary where people can light a candle and pray for someone. And we talked, as we often do, and then they said, "Could we anoint each other with oil?" And so we anointed each other with oil in the name of Jesus, and we talked about the healing ministry of Jesus. And so I did reflect on that a little bit that evening on Facebook about how we had anointed each other with oil and to articulate this is why we're doing this. We want to be people who are healers in the midst of a lot of brokenness. And I think that's just something I've learned. I'm learning, and there has to be some... I mean, we have to keep that in a perspective, but those are some of the things I'm learning about leadership. And I would also just mention a great book I read some time ago that I've gone back to. It's called "Forged in Crisis" by Nancy Kohen. She is a professor at Harvard Business School, and it has chapters on Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rachel Carson, and it's really a book about how leadership is forged in crisis. And leadership is not always a rational, linear reality, but sometimes we become the leaders we are because of crises we go through. And it's an excellent book.

Chris McAlilly 27:28

I was reading, preparing to preach as you do if you're in a pastoral role. And one of the things that I was coming across is just kind of Paul as a model of leadership. So, you know, if you're going to be, if you're going to focus on the New Testament, you're going to end up, at some point having to go beyond just looking at Jesus to Paul. Paul's, you know, 13 of the 27 books in New Testament are attributed to Paul.

Ken Carter 27:54 Right, right.

Chris McAlilly 27:55

And, you know, I mean, you've got to deal with Paul. And you know, Paul gets a bad rap. Sometimes people you know, describe him as anti-woman or anti-sex or pro-slavery, or there are all kinds of assumptions that people, either believers or non believers, kind of have about Paul. But one of the things that this particular scholar was bringing to mind was that some of the things we think of as Paul grinding in Acts, theologically, about some kind of a point really are just Paul as a pastor of churches, churches that are in crisis, and he's just trying to figure out, "how do I keep this group of people who are very fragile and who want to divide over this really difficult issue? How do I hold them together with my rhetoric?" You know? And I think of him as being a leader forged in crisis. You know, it's the crisis of a startup that's explosively growing in some ways, you know, beyond the skills of management of one leader, especially one that's kind of a bit of a bulldog, you know? And so what you need is maybe, like, slightly more calm style of leadership, and he's learning how to communicate with his people. I don't know if that example resonates with you or kind of what you've gained from the ministry of Paul as an example of that, that leadership forged in crisis.

Ken Carter 29:22

Oh, I've been thinking a lot about Paul lately, because we're going to focus on Luke and Acts next year. And you know, that's the transition from the Gospels to right after Jesus has ascended. All of a sudden, Paul is the key leader, and he really is an expansive missionary leader. And he helps the church to open up its mission to the Gentile world, even though his own personal preferences might have been to be, you know, a very formed person within his own religious heritage that opens up. And then, I think you're right, Chris, in those later letters, he's responding to different situations. The people in Galatians are in a very different place than the people in Corinth. And so he's, I would say, to use a word from today, he's adaptive. He adapts. The gospel doesn't change, but he adapts the gospel to different circumstances. And the circumstances in Corinth, where people are both highly spiritual and highly immoral, and that's kind of a community Paul is working with, to Galatians, where, you know, the people kind of had this openness, and now they're kind of pulling it back. And I think, you know, that's very pastoral. You meet people from all walks of life, and you try to read. He says, "I become all things to all people," you know. So it's, I think Paul was amazing.

Chris McAlilly 31:24

I was talking to a guy that is involved in the IHL board of our state, which hires university presidents. And he basically said, "Man, there are two jobs that I think are the most difficult political jobs in the state of Mississippi. It's college presidents and pastors." Because you're having to deal with people, kind of the constituencies of universities and churches, a lot of times you have a whole range of people that you're trying to navigate.

Eddie Rester 31:57

At different places, at different places, in the journey as well, of not just faith, but life, what's going on? What's not going on? I want to come back to adaptive leadership in a minute. You brought it up, so we're going to go there in just a second. But you said something earlier about an ecosystem. And one of the things that, just watching you from afar when you were building your cabinet and other folks in Florida, is that you seem to do a very good job of not just picking good people, but building kind of a working, collaborative team that enables the good work to happen. So what have you learned across the course of your ministry? Because I would assume it's very different. I came out of seminary in '97. The world has changed a lot, which is going to take us to the adaptive leadership question in a second. But what have you learned about building that ecosystem of fellow leaders and fellow folks on the journey to enable the vision, the mission, to become a reality?

Ken Carter 33:01

I think I would begin by saying it was a gift to have been an associate pastor at a large church and then a pastor of a couple of large churches. Those were gifts. You could, I would even say privileges. And there's complexity to those roles. But what I learned through that was to sustain a ministry in those roles, I could not be the funnel that everything flowed through, and that I did not help my institution by doing that, and that the ministry would shrink. And that ultimately, it was not sustainable. It was not good for me or my family. And further, it squelched the gifts of others, other people. And getting back to Paul, I mean, his, and I wrote a book years ago on spiritual gifts. You know, that is a great contribution of Paul, too, that it's not so much about hierarchy in these roles, it's just that we have different gifts. And I can think of people, and I would start naming their names, but I would leave other people out. But some of the people you're probably thinking about are extraordinarily gifted people. And they have, some have gifts that I do not have. And my role, really, I felt like in life, was to help them flourish and to help them develop. And to see that is, really, it may be the most wonderful thing about this role. Same is true for clergy pastoral appointments. It is... I have felt like being a bishop, the primary worth of it to me has been you sit at this table for other people. And I realize other people did that for me. And you really try to ask people to be, to consider being in a place where they really can stretch, they can grow, and to see them do it. And I think that's what I've loved about that. And then I think, as a team, to try to learn and develop and grow has been really important, too. So that has been something I really loved about this role. I also loved it when I was in a local church as a pastor, you know? And I wanted, I felt like a lot of the role-- this is really, greatly simplifying it--is how other people can be happy in their callings. And sometimes, when I was having a supervisory conversation with a high functioning person, I would say, let's say the person was a male. I would say, "How would your wife answer this question?" You know, because I wanted it to work as a system. Does that make sense?

Eddie Rester 36:29 Absolutely.

Ken Carter 36:29
And so it's a work in progress. But that's been a real gift of this journey.

Eddie Rester 36:36

I had the, when you talked about being an associate pastor, the gift of that. I came out of seminary as an associate pastor who did youth ministry. And I told my advisor at Duke when I was graduate, 'There are two things I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna be associate pastor. I'm not doing youth ministry." And that's where I went, the bishop sent me to do in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. And the gift of that senior pastor, his name's Willis Britt. I should, I need to call him more often than I do. But his gift was to let me be, to kind of occasionally nudge me back away from the guardrail or the ditch, but to really allow me to find my voice and my ministry and to use my gifts. Just a lesson I never forgot from him, that great gift that I wouldn't have gotten if I'd gone out to some church and just pastored that church. I would not have had that experience. One of the things that you mentioned a second ago is adaptive leadership, and that hums in the leadership conversation in a lot of different places. Help listeners who might not have heard that phrase understand what it is and maybe why it's a different type of leadership than maybe people have expressed in previous generations.

Ken Carter 38:01

Well, the term really comes from the work of Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky, Abraham Grashow and their books on adaptive leadership. They all have been related to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. And Martin Linsky worked with the Council of Bishops, so I was really blessed to get to work with him a little bit along the way. And adaptation, or adaptive change, is distinguished from technical change. Technical change is, you know, we need to fix this. Let's get a better computer. And technical problems are important. You know, when I go to the dentist, I want it to be really good technical work.

Eddie Rester 38:51 That's right.

Ken Carter 38:51

If I'm having a root canal or something like that. Adaptive problems are often much messier, less able to be defined. They require more out of us. So if I have a health issue when I go to the doctor, you know, a technical change is just give me a pill. Adaptive change is how I need to start living differently. And so adaptive leadership is also rooted in evolutionary process, how organisms live through change in order to flourish in a new environment, to move from water to dry land. And another key concept in with Heifetz especially about adaptation, is the difference between a human being and then a chimpanzee, their DNA is less than 1%. There's less than 1% difference in the DNA between us and a chimpanzee. Remarkable difference in the two creatures. What I love about that is I'm, in many ways, a very traditional person, is that adaptive change is not trashing everything. It's not trashing the tradition. I'm a very traditional person theologically. But it is, in Heifetz's language, is understanding what do what do we need to preserve, what do we need to discard, and what do we need to rearrange? And so the discarding may be, speaking for myself growing up I'm a child of the Deep South my whole life, except for a little bit of school, is I need to discard my racism. Right? I mean, I do. It's just the air I breathed, you know, growing up, but it's not at the heart of an orthodox Christian faith.

Chris McAlilly 41:04

So what is it? What? Sorry to interrupt you, but I wonder. I mean, I think that, taking that framework, you know, and then kind of applying it not just to your personal experience, and not just to one tradition, because I feel like the entire church in North America in this particular moment is navigating living through change. This is a kind of question that we've talked about several times on the podcast, bu what is essential that must be preserved from the perspective of an orthodox Christian faith, in your view? What can't be let go of in your view, even as maybe that things like racism needs to be discarded?

Ken Carter 41:54

You know, I would say, so, getting back to Paul a little bit, that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. For me, that's essential DNA. And I would say, as a United Methodist, that I live in a connection. For me, that's kind of essential DNA to me. Now you can, one can be a Christian and be a church in many different ways. We're not the only kind of church. We're not the superior kind of church. It's just our way of being church. And then I think what I've come to believe about holiness is, again, it's reading the sermons of John Wesley, the hymns of Charles Wesley, when they talk about holiness, they talk about love of God, love of neighbor, the great commandment, and the journey to holiness, being made perfect in love. I would start, in some ways, with those, and then I think you get into Paul's letters and more how we relate to each other, and practices like humility. And so, you know, I would start there. So, I'll just answer very practically, Chris, I grew up in a very traditional church in the deep south. So I'm probably wired in my DNA to think that it's not really church unless I'm sitting in that pew and I walk down the center of the aisle and shake the pastor's hand and make a public profession. So what... So, adapting, what does it mean when we go through a period of two, three years where it's really hard to be in a physical sanctuary, right? Or someone is in your church and they love it, and for some reason, family or work, they move to another state, but their heart is in your church, and they want to worship with your church online. We're adapting in those ways, and so that's where I would begin, but I think, so, to me, you know, I mean, I talk about the doctrinal standards, are, for me, the non negotiables. I talk about that, I'm not into adapting any of that-- the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, all those things. But there's some things I can let go of that maybe are more personal preferences, at least see them in that way.

Chris McAlilly 44:50

And I think that's the work that I see Paul taking, specifically the church in Galatia, through. It's a sifting of what is it that I thought essential to what it means to be holy, what it means to be righteous, that was actually just kind of the accumulation of my cultural heritage that needs to be discarded. And then, what are the things that are essential to salvation? And I mean, you mentioned being saved by grace through faith, that that's not just an individualistic thing, but it's being involved in a connection, and that being in relationship with other people is the way in which we are made perfect in love. Those are things that are essential, and particularly from a Wesleyan or Methodist perspective, you know, that's really, that's at the heart of the whole thing, is how are we saved together, you know? And then there are all the other, the things that we've thought of as maybe, you have you sing out of this specific hymnal, and then you have this potluck, you know, and you have to have this particular kind of tea with it. Those are probably just like cultural accumulations. And some of them, these are the people that got to come to the potluck, and these are people that weren't. Those are things that may need to fall away. Those are maybe cultural, or part of our cultural heritage,that may need to be reexamined and may be discarded. But I do think that that's a framework that can be taken by anybody, anywhere. You know, what needs to be preserved, what needs to be discarded or let go of, and what's essential that we've got to hold on to. I mean, those are the kind of things that that have to be. That's the work of discernment in a specific context.

Eddie Rester 46:44

I think one of the words that is important, that Bishop Carter, you used, is also "rearrange." Preserve, discard, or rearrange some things need to be kept, but not in the place that they were or how they were done. And I think one of the good gifts of leadership right now is helping people into that conversation. Because it's not a conversation that if I'm a leader whether it's church or an organization, every organization, every business, is facing a lot of this as well. It's not something that this solo, heroic leader gets to figure out. This pushes, this is goes back to when the conversation about building an ecosystem of people who will ask hard questions, give creative answers, and really begin to think beyond what the culture that that--whether it's an organization, business, or church--has built up over time, to think beyond that. You know, I served at OU Methodist here in Oxford for eight years, and one of my happiest moments, I don't know they've ever said this publicly, we were meeting with our leadership about our Easter Sunday service. And this was after we had just finished a $12 million construction and renovation project. During construction and renovation, we had to go worship at the area high school. The three Easter services that OU had not been on campus, I had led that, led them out. And so there was a great hunger to come back to OU after we finished construction. As the leaders began to talk about it, one of the leaders said, "I think trying to do worship on site is going to be a barrier to people coming to Easter Sunday worship. I think we have to go back to the high school." And it was a powerful moment of that leader had begun to put a lot of pieces together of what needed to be preserved, discarded, or rearranged. We weren't getting rid of Easter Sunday worship, but where it landed and for the reason it needed to land, again, one of my most proud moments.

Ken Carter 48:57

Well, and that's just a sign of real spiritual maturity, that when I can set aside what would be my personal preference and think about it in terms of, hey, here's a way someone this might be their pathway into accepting Jesus, and going more deeply into faith, that's just, as a leader, when you see that. And then I think getting back to what we were talking about earlier, to see that, you were talking about it, I also--this is something Lovett Weems said one time, "What we feed grows." It's like, you know, to tell that story, what you're saying to people is, this is what I'm paying attention to, right?

Eddie Rester 49:48 Right.

Ken Carter 49:49
We don't always pay attention to the bad stuff and dwell on that. If we do, we get more of it.

Eddie Rester 49:55 Right.

Ken Carter 49:55

And I think just the way you just said, that is a way a community is formed. You tell the stories of when people leaned toward maturity and depth of faith and love for the unchurched. And to see Easter in that way is wonderful.

Chris McAlilly 50:19

So, you know, we began the conversation talking about hurricanes and suffering, both locally and globally. And one of the difficulties in that is that you have just the overwhelming nature of the things that you could pay attention to and could engage with. And you kind of end the conversation with this aphorism, or this proverb, "What you feed grows." And I do think that that is... The best leaders that I've ever been around--and I consider both of you to be phenomenal leaders. I've learned a lot from both of you--It's, it's honing attention, your own personal attention, kind of guarding your own personal attention, and then being able to shape both your team and your organization or your church to focus on this thing right now. As we, this episode will air here at the end of the year, if anybody who's in leadership is beginning to think about next year, if you were giving someone who's trying to develop these habits of getting out of just the day-to-day rhythms of doing technical work, and maybe shift their mentality in terms of their leadership as they move into a new year, what are some of the things that you might suggest that they try to do in October, November, December, to set them up well for 2025, 2026, and beyond?

Ken Carter 51:55

Yeah, I think, you know, I would start... I remember having a conversation with my coach, who is a woman. I talk with her by phone about once every two months. We've done this for several years. She's more out of the business world, although she's a active in her church, in a church. And somehow we were talking one day, it was when I was in one of the busiest seasons of my life, and I said, "I just don't want this to be a blur." I knew I was going through some important things and some hard things, but I felt like they were meaningful. And I would say, if you are a pastor of a church, if you've got kids growing up, if you've got goals you want to try to attain, that question of, how can this not be a blur? And Heifetz talks about getting on the balcony, you know. And it's the rhythm of sometimes we're often in the dance, you know, things that happen every day, appointments, but then how we get on the balcony. And I think to spend some time toward the end of the year thinking, how is next year going to be different? How is it not going to be a blur? And how can I get some perspective on this? Sometimes for me, I know I went through a period in my life when we were starting a new church, so we were buying land, raising money, building the first building, all those things. I know you lived through that in a family, Chris. And so I decided that year I would try to read everything I could by Thomas Merton, which had nothing to do with anything I was doing. So I read his journals. I read a lot of his books. I went to hear someone give a talk about him, and maybe that helped me to kind of have a balance on that. So sometimes it's to take an author in a year, and just go more deeply into that. Next year, I think we're gonna focus on Luke and Acts, and it's the lectionary gospel. Most people don't follow the lectionary, but it's just a way of framing that for me. So I would say that those are pieces of it. And then, this is going to sound more practical, but my coach also said to, every quarter, have some kind of carrot on the stick, something you're looking forward to--fly fishing, going to see your family in another state. Just trying to have something that's very different. And I've been counseling people through these floods. I've had very direct conversations with people. The first week, I wrote to a lot of people and said, "You're forming new habits right now. And for 24 hours, I want you to detach from this. And if you can do this, you may look back in a few months and realize, 'this is how I made it through.'" And I've said this to some of our most effective people. I said, no one likes to hear advice. None of us likes advice. I said, so, I said to them, "This is not advice." I said, "I'm very selfish here. We need you in six months. We need you in nine months." So what they're going through is very sometimes hard, but sometimes it's very inspirational. You see people go through change. You see people sacrifice. You see people coming into the church, being vulnerable, all of that. But I said to them, "we can get addicted to that." And I think it's how we get some balcony perspective. I think for leaders, it's a hard time to be a leader, as you were, y'all were saying earlier. It is a very difficult time to be a leader, and so that's kind of where I would begin.

Eddie Rester 56:39

Bishop Carter, thank you for your time. I know you have a lot of things pulling on you right now, and we just really appreciate your leadership and your wisdom, but just more than anything, your time with us today. Thank you.

Ken Carter 56:51
Well, thank you, Chris and Eddie, for this conversation and for for everything you do.

Chris McAlilly 56:57
Thanks so much. Great to see you. Great to be in conversation.

Eddie Rester 57:03
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 57:09

If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]