My office just moved from Jack London Square to downtown Oakland, meaning that instead of driving, I take BART daily. Last night, while on the train, I read a really fascinating article entitled, "What Lessons Can Progressives Learn from Evangelicals?" (Zach Exley, In These Times, http://www.alternet.org/story/49376/)
The article discusses a progressive movement growing in (mega)churches in middle America, not yet named or studied, whose congregation members frequently call themselves "revolutionaries," "radical," and "an insurgency." Besides the surprising fact that these labels are readily embraced in middle America by white suburbanites that dominate these evangelical congregations, I found myself very interested in their leadership structure.
How very OTV of me, I know. :) Exley notes that one of the secrets to the success of the movement is, "[L]eaders--identifying them, recruiting them, "loving them" and letting them lead. The pastors at the conference all seemed to view their church memberships as seas of under-utilized leaders, and spent as much time as they could learning from each other..."
This "high-density leadership organizing model," to me bears a strong resemblance to how leadership is owned within On the Verge and On the Move. Our community readily recognizes leadership in everyone in the group and works to grow and support those skills and abilities in all of us by giving us relevant leadership practice and experience. Specifically, OTV and OTM recognize that to realize and sustain social change, it must work on its transformative relationships (borrowing the term from Etsuko and Ian) that develop and sustain us all as changemakers.
If you don't have time to read the entire article, here's the most applicable part: (text bolding is by me)
On the left, recruiting and mobilizing leaders has become devalued work that is typically left to inexperienced recent college graduates. The pastors at this conference, however, saw recruiting and inspiring leaders as one of their central callings. Too often, the left pays lip service to the grassroots, but lacks faith in grassroots leaders. The result is that too many of our organizations are one person deep and stretched impossibly thin. At the conference, I tried to imagine what Kerry campaign field offices (where I spent a lot of time in 2004) would have looked like if we had recruited leaders instead of "bodies" and expected them to be "faithful, committed members of a team" (words included in Mars Hill volunteer job descriptions). Some organizations on the left do include "leadership development" in their organizing models. But churches seem to assume that there are already plenty of "developed" leaders in their midst and go straight to giving them as much responsibility as they can.
It's gratifying to know that there are some structural parallels--in terms of how we work--that exist in other organized communities that have demonstrated growth and success.
Lastly, besides recognizing these parallels, we can also borrow some language here that Exley uses, such as "high-density leadership organizing model" to better clarify how OTV works as well as models for success (i.e., VOICES). I think so long as OTV/OTM continues to clarify its message and vision, the more accessible our work will be for funders and surrounding communities. Just my $0.02.
