Easum, Unfreezing Moves

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Bill Easum, Unfreezing Moves: Following Jesus into the Mission Field. Abingdon Press, 2002.

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LifeandLeadership.com Summary

I would call this book, “Permission-Giving, Servant Empowering Congregational Cultures 101,” and although it may be too academic, it would be on target. Let’s say you begin a renewal effort in your congregation, using any of the resources recommended in this section of LifeandLeadership.com. Not uncommonly, you go through the process of “readiness” with your staff and key appointed leaders, pull together your driving task forces, do the assessments, make the plans, and implement your strategies. But as soon as implementation begins, the “Controllers” of the congregation, who may have officially been on board at the beginning, start sabotaging progress. Or, even worse, let’s say you can’t even get your key appointed leaders (e.g. elders) to be comfortable with the idea of strategic, intentional church development because of a whole host of fears. What’s the problem? This book suggests your church may be stuck with a top-down, command and control DNA. As long as this DNA is in place, most churches and their leaders will revert to their old assumptions of fear and control, no matter how many new initiatives and structures they try to impose upon the old belief system. This book addresses the DNA shift to permission-giving and servant-empowering that must occur in order for real transformation to take hold in your congregation.

Unfreezing Moves is divided into two main sections. Section One – Laying the Foundation discusses the philosophical groundwork. Here Easum challenges the idea of Christianity as an organization or institution that is focused on viability and survival. He argues that most models of church growth/church health, organizational/congregational life cycle, or size transitions reflect this mechanical understanding and are too tied to the assumptions of modernity. In place of this institutional view, he proposes viewing congregations as organic “roots and shoots” of the movement of God throughout all history. Here “movement replaces religion, flow replaces program, midwives replace priests, mentors replace teachers, and worship is a microcosm of life’s experience rather than a re-enactment of ancient history.” (18) With this understanding, “we begin to evaluate the faithfulness of our congregations based on their participation in that movement rather than factors like health or growth. We do not ask whether they are healthy and growing, but whether they are contributing to the greater movement of God in history.” (18) He says:

Envisioning Christianity as a missional movement rather than an institutional model calls for restoring biblical Christianity to its role as an engager and transformer of individuals and culture rather than a fortress to protect the elitist haves (religious hierarchy) from the barbaric have-nots (pagans, Gentiles, God-fearers). It is call to quit reducing evangelism to gaining new members and mission to sending money to denominational projects. It is call to join Jesus on the mission field. (19)

From this foundation, Easum describes several characteristics of missional movements and how these contrast with modernistic organizational theories. He then contrasts two systems: top-down, command-and-control, stifling that inhibits missional movement vs. bottom-up, out-of-control, permission-giving innovation that encourages missional movement. A key to this is how leaders function, thus he devotes another chapter on moving from a stuck to an unstuck permission-giving, servant-empowering philosophy of leadership. This is followed by a chapter on the need to embed this new DNA into the congregation.

The question then arises, how does a congregation create this change? He contends that the classic view of change presented by Kurt Lewin (unfreeze, change, refreeze) may have worked in the slow, evolutionary past. But in the world of rapid change and discontinuity, a new model must take its place – unfreeze, change, do not refreeze, unfreeze. With this understanding, leaders build change into the fabric of congregational life except for brief “breather” periods where they fall back and regroup to enter another series of innovative adventures.

The next question is, what needs to be unfrozen? Here Easum prescribes nine “unfreezing moves” that he believes are essential:

A solid community of faith
Discovering and articulating the DNA
Indigenous worship
Mobilizing the congregation for ministry
Redemptive missional opportunities
Organizing around the DNA
Hire servants, not professionals
Space and place as metaphor
Radical generosity

Unfreezing Moves is vintage Bill Easum. Many find his suggestions more applicable to larger churches that have the critical mass to act upon his suggestions. He also is quite directive, with a contemporary (especially with regard to worship), high-relevance, “get on with it” bent. As such, it is not the first book to put before fear-oriented, command-and-control elders. Yet it is an excellent description of how to shift toward a more empowering missional leadership model in one’s congregation. The content addresses the same subject as a previous work by Easum, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, which one may read to supplement this volume, but Unfreezing Moves is certainly Easum’s best expression on creating permission-giving, servant-empowering congregational cultures.

Be sure and see other volumes on empowerment, especially those by Easum’s associate, Thom Bandy, including Spirited Leadership and Christian Chaos. All are featured in the resource guide on the Easum/Bandy model.

From the Publisher

Unfreezing Moves: Following Jesus into the Mission Field will help congregations become more:

Faithful
Permission-giving
Servant-empowering
Constantly innovating outposts of mission

At the dawn of the third millennium two kinds of churches fill the Western landscape: stuck and unstuck. Most Protestant congregations are stuck in the muck and mire of their institutions with little or no movement toward joining Jesus on the mission field. To these “Controllers,” faithfulness means supporting their church and keeping it open. For churches to be faithful to their God-given mission, they need “Dreamers” who are freed from their slavery to their institutions, freed to live for others on the mission field, and emancipated to function in a constantly changing world. The same can be said for denominations. This book focuses on how to place disciple-making at the core of a church’s identity. He describes four spheres of congregational culture, and he shows how the Dreams can thaw their congregation by using Nine Unfreezing Moves that will unstick any church.

About the Author

Bill Easum is Senior Consultant with 21st Century Strategies and is one of the most highly respected church consultants and Christian futurists in North America. Bill has been a pioneer in the church growth movement, with 35 years of pastoral ministry in four churches and two denominations. During his 24 years at Colonial Hills Church in San Antonio, the church grew from 35 in worship to over 1,000, with 2,200 members. His record of evangelization and social justice ministries has been acknowledged by the Industrial Areas Foundation in New York as one of the finest records in North America. Bill is a graduate of Baylor University, B.A., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, M.D., and Perkins School of Theology, S.T.M. Bill and his wife Jan have one daughter, Caran. Bill’s main vice is he loves to salt water fish and then let the fish go.

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