Visual Leadership: The Church Leader As Imagesmith

Rob Weber stresses the importance for a church leader in our current multisensory and multicultural society to lead through engaging people in the multisensory world of images. This kind of leadership requires skills in storytelling and media. The leader must develop sensitivity to a variety of media forms as well as an understanding of the multiple levels of story, understanding, and image out of which (and into which) people live. Leaders must be able to function in the midst of a variety of perspectives, not looking for absolute unanimity of belief and understanding, but instead attempting to build a framework of understanding and possibility with a variety of "receptor sites" on to which people from many different backgrounds can grasp. This book examines the process of a "visual" form of leadership in which these principles and the process can be applied in a variety of settings, by allowing for enhanced communication and fostering the development of congregational ownership over vision and direction.

FOREWORD

Ministry in the United States in the twentieth century was shaped by the trends and events of the nineteenth century. The westward expansion of the nation, new waves of immigration from Europe, the rise of the cities, the schisms in American Protestantism, the Civil War, emancipation of the slaves, the building of the railroads, the emergence of the public school system for the delivery of tax-funded educational services, the growth of manufacturing as a central component of the national economy, the numerical growth of the Methodists, Baptists, and Roman Catholics, the founding of hundreds of institutions of higher education, and that huge boom in the organization of new congregations following the Civil War were among the forces that created the context for ministry in the twentieth century.

What happened during the twentieth century that has transformed "how we do church in the twenty-first century"? That question requires a book length response, not a paragraph. Among the many changes, the widespread ownership of the private automobile, cheap gasoline, good roads, two World Wars, the availability of low priced electricity, the rise of egalitarianism, the founding of thousands of nondenominational Christian congregations, urbanization, affluence, the emergence of the United States as this planet's only superpower, that new religious reawakening that began in the 1960s, consumerism, immigration to the United States from Mexico, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim, the extended life expectancy of forty-year-olds, and commercial air travel rank among the top twenty influential trends and events of the century just ended.

If the focus is narrowed to the one change that has transformed the role and duties of the parish pastor, the answer is clear. For nearly all of American church history, the primary channels for proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ were the spoken word and the printed word. By the end of the twentieth century, however, the most effective channel was visual imagery. One consequence is the change in the title for the clergy serving congregations. The old titles were minister, priest, pastor, and preacher. The successor, as Rob Weber points out in this book, is the ImageSmith.

From a larger perspective, a parallel change is the new definition of the pastor as leader. The twentieth century affirmed roles identified by such terms as "transformational leader" or "directional leader" and "visionary leader." All three are useful and appropriate in an ecclesiastical environment organized around the spoken word and the printed word.

If, however, that religious context requires planned change initiated from within the organization, a more useful term is found in the title of this book. The leader, who utilizes the benefits of visual communication, including shared stories, can be more effective with less stress than the change agent who ignores the power of visual imagery.

Like most contemporary discussions of leadership, this one Reflects the personality of a particular leader. The distinctive contribution, however, is not in the life or personality of Rob Weber. That is an interesting story in itself. The reason to read this book, however, is to learn how to be an ImageSmith, how to be a visual leader, and how to be an effective pastor in a culture increasingly organized around visual imagery as the central channel of communication.

Foreword written by LYLE E. SCHALLER
Naperville, Illinois

“Rob Weber is a pastor who understands that the present-day minister must dwell in the power of story and metaphor. His compelling description of visual leadership makes me want to work for him. Learn from this book to reach our digital world.”
-Len Wilson, author of Digital Storytellers and The Wired Church.