132. The Role of Nostalgia in Spiritual Leadership, with Mark Roberts and Tod Bolsinger

Spiritual Life and Leadership

Mark Roberts is the former Executive Director of Fuller Seminary’s DePree Center for Leadership. Mark now leads the Third Third Initiative at the DePree Center.
In this episode, Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss three clips from a recent webinar by Mark Roberts on the topic of nostalgia. We learn about the difference between historical nostalgia and personal nostalgia. We discuss the positive effects of nostalgia. And then we reflect on how to lead people pastorally through the experience of nostalgia.
THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Tod Bolsinger is the Executive Director of Fuller Seminary’s Church Leadership Institute and the author of Canoeing the Mountains and Tempered Resilience.
• Mark Roberts is the former Executive Director of Fuller Seminary’s DePree Center for Leadership. Mark now leads the Third Third Initiative at the DePree Center.
• Mark Roberts and Tod Bolsinger have been friends for a long time. The topic of this podcast episode came about as they were talking over dinner about the value of nostaligia.
• Mark Roberts, Clip 1: The difference between historical nostalgia and personal nostalgia.
  • Historical nostalgia has to do with thinking the past is better than the present.
  • Many churches are in decline. If they try to go back to the glory days, they decline even faster.
• Mark Roberts, Clip 2: The Positive Effects of Nostalgia
  • Personal nostalgia is a bittersweet yearning for the past.
  • Part of personal nostalgia is knowing you can’t go back; so it’s not trying to go back.
  • Nostalgia shouldn’t make you go back to the past. It should energize you to live more fully in the present.
  • There is something lifegiving about nostalgia.
  • Reframing the values of the past to be the healthiest expression of the future is what is lifegiving to a church.
  • Churches have to help people grieve that we’re never going to go back to the past.
• Mark Roberts, Clip 3: Two Pastoral Responses to Nostalgia
  • When people feel nostalgic about their church, the pastor can 1) turn the nostalgia to gratitude or 2) acknowledge the bittersweetness of remembering the past
  • Gratitude is critical in a healthy, mature organization.
  • Gratitude reminds us that God was faithful in the past and will be faithful as we move into the future.
  • Attunement accelerates change.
  • Attunement is what happens when people empathize with each other and their brains start firing together.
• The Church Leadership Institute’s Adaptive Church Leadership Cohort is designed to help churches respond to nostalgia in a healthy way so that they can navigate and lead change in a healthy way as they move into the future.

RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:

• Church Leadership Institute
  • Adaptive Church Leadership Cohort
• DePree Center for Leadership
• Third Third Initiative
• Books mentioned:
  • Canoeing the Mountains, by Tod Bolsinger
  • Tempered Resilience, by Tod Bolsinger

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