In our increasingly volatile world, Christianity needs leaders prepared to stand firm in the maelstrom of change. Recent leadership scholarship emphasizes complexity, adaptive systems, and the need for leaders not only to permit but also to embrace and maintain tension. Complexity scholars assert that organizations transform within “adaptive spaces” where perspectives collide, conflict, and connect. Such spaces are chaotic and can tear organizations apart, but when held properly, they innovate without sacrificing continuity. Organizations, including churches, therefore, depend on leaders to create and hold these spaces for their communities. But what type of leader is needed to facilitate and hold these tense spaces without resorting to control, withdrawal, or burnout?
This paper puts complexity leadership scholarship in conversation with the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross. It suggests that St. John’s spirituality offers a vision and an itinerary for standing within chaos without succumbing to it.