Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Last week, the Pew Forum released a major report on church affiliation.  The big news is that many people are changing churches.  The study found that 44% of Americans have changed churches or for 28%, they have changed religious faith.  By changing religious faith, that would include those who cease to go to church at all.

Certainly it is not the best of news for those of us who practice the Christian faith.   In fact, among the great diversity in religous groups in America--Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, and eastern religions--the single biggest gainer is the group the report calls the "unaffiliated!"  But is this really new news?  I am not so sure.  It seems to me that what is happening now really has seeds in what has occurred before.  In a culture that emphasizes liberty to pursue whatever you desire and resists the impulse to consider virtues as a public conversation and need, then religious practices suffer.  Likewise, when wealth and freedom excel, when humans can seemingly solve our own problems, then the idea that religion has something meaningful to offer suffers.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Christian people should go around thinking of ways to make the world look bad.  Humans (including Christians) seem to have a way of  doing that all by themselves.  And, it might be good to keep in mind that Christian affiliation has been through numerous shifts from one denomination to another and one degree of fervency to another through much of America's history.  Martin Marty points this out in his comments (to be posted here) earlier today.

However, one thing is clear.  Christianity in North America has some significant challenges ahead.  In the middle of the "competition" going on among various religious groups that the Pew Forum identifies, the questions that really begs an answer is whether the church in North America can rise above competition and move toward  authentic, compelling discipleship.  The significant increase in non-affiliated people in American life today, are not going to be impressed with an new ad campaign.  Besides   if Jesus were interested in market strategies, he would have gone to Madison Avenue instead of Via Delarosa.

I wrote the following for a group of leaders in the congregation I serve regarding the work of planning and goal-setting today.  They are beginning a launch of setting some "Ends Policies" and I have summarized some material from  John Carver's Boards That Make A Difference.  Carver is a noted consultant to non-profit organizations and it is Carver's work that was used by the the consultant the Predisan board recently used .  Here are some things that he notes about boards and their work to support the vision of the organization they serve.

1.  Leadership begins from outside, not inside, the organization.  Too often organizations suffer from myopia.  The board's best gift is to think beyond the box.

2.  Carver says, "that the organization exists makes a difference in the this larger world, and the difference it makes can be characterized in two ways:  a) The world is richer, happier, less in pain because of the care, knowledge, cure, or support produced.  b) The world is poorer, more depleted, more in pain because of the talent, capital, and space consumed.  These two impacts on the world, corresponding to benefit and cost, should be the chief interest, even obsession, of the governing board: What good shall we do, for which people or needs, and at what cost?"

3. Carver encourages boards to focus on ends--not goals or objectives.  By ends he is speaking about larger outcome or result.  "The usual vocabulary of organization contains goal or objective.  But, alas, both goal and objective can be applied to either means or ends.  Legitimately and commonly, objectives are established in the drive to attain a desired amount of activity or a desired outcome.  Therefore, it is misleading to equate goals or objectives with the concept of ends."

4.  Often a confusion exists between "means" and "ends."  It is easy for boards (or staff for that matter) to become so engrossed with everyday things and minutia that the larger question of what real difference the organization is making in the world becomes lost.

5.  "Creating Ends policies with a long-range perspective is the greatest board contribution to long-range planning."  Ends policies help set the reason for planning.  And planning is vitally important, because "planning is done to increase the probability of getting somewhere from here."  Setting out the big picture outcomes is the significant work of the board; "however, except for planning the improvement of governance itself, boards should not do the actual long-range planning."  This is the work of the staff and others in the organization.  "To deliberate responsibly, a board must interact greatly with staff and outside parties.  This interaction does not relate to the staff's present concerns and job undertakings.  Staff-board interaction here is designed to ensure inclusion of staff insights, passions, and environmental scanning in board deliberation."  Carver points out the importance of the board sharing and envisioning the "ends" to staff, calling the staff toward long-term ends.

6.  Vision, not planning is the singular work of the board.  That vision is "reduced to a few, succinct Ends policies."

7.  Carver notes that boards often get bogged down with how ends are evaluated.  That evaluation is necessary is assumed.  But the real trouble usually lies not in how, but in what to evaluate.  Regarding evaluation Carver suggests:
    a.  Don't be concerned about evaluation.  Focus on the ends.  Carson--For the church, that means asking why do we exist as a church and in what way can we partner with God's work in the world?
    b.  Avoid evaluating the wrong things.  It does little good to take pride in doing well things that really matter little--in light of our larger mission (ends).
    c.  "only when the board has created Ends policies should it stop to consider evaluation, because only when the board knows what it wants the organization to accomplish can it intelligently discuss evaluation.  Evaluation without these targets is ludicrous; fretting over evaluation prior to these targets is dysfunctional.  The issue of evaluation is merely this:  What is the most convincing evidence we can find (and choose to afford) that will show us we are getting what we sought?"

8.  "What matters in the long run is the effect an organization has upon its world."

9.  Obviously, these are observations from someone working in non-profit organizations.  We are a congregation, called into relationship through Jesus Christ.  And yet, I think that these observations resonate consistently with our identity and our larger purpose.  We have, as a church, been given a mission to live out the gospel.  If the gospel is being lived out fully among us, we will be replicating or reproducing new Christians.  With that in mind, what are the Outcomes or Ends or Vision statements that need to be placed in front of elders, staff, and congregation to direct our activity and work?

 

Working through Peter Steinke’s book, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, offers a number of insightful observations about the realities of congregational life.  He presents 20 concepts regarding congregations in conflict.  Here are some of those ideas:

1. “Most people are interested in relieving their own anxiety arather than managing the crisis or planning for clear direction.  Their primary goal is anxiety reduction, not congregational renewal.”
2. “Under certain conditions, anxiety is neutral.  As much as possible, effective leaders normalize anxiety. Considering what is happening, anxiety’s presence is what we would expect.  By normalizing, people will not automatically think it is because the community is flawed.”
3. When anxiety is high, people are unable to be self-reflective.
4. Typically in churches, peace is preferred over justice.  “Congregational members can resist or be hesitant about taking stands, making decisions, or charting a course of action that would offend or upset the community.  By placing a premium on togetherness, they play into the hands of the most dependent people who can threaten to incite disharmony as a way to receive what they want.  When such superficial harmony—so-called peace—must prevail, then the pursuit of justice is sacrificed and others who are involved become excused from responsibility.”
5. “The way we use information is an emotional phenomenon; what we hear and don’t hear, what we remember, how we gather and exclude data are all connected to emotional processes.  We gravitate toward information that coincides with our viewpoints and that promises to contribute to our survival.”
6. “The healing process for midrange to severely anxious congregations takes two to five years.”
7. “Losses (membership, offerings, attendance) will result no matter what choices are made.  Most congregations regain their losses within two years.”
8. Hidden agendas and secret loyalties need to be brought to light.  Transparency is critical.  Sin and evil will be present.  Expect to see and be prepared to name it.  Remember the story of Jesus and the demoniac in Mark 5.
9. Reactivity can come from all sorts of people—talented, educated, well-spoken, wealthy, pious, charming, etc.  Remember that none of these named characteristics indicate emotional maturity.
10. “Issues must be clearly identified and individuals must be challenged to act.”  An anxious church can not handle more than three to five issues at a time—so clarify and condense.
11. Expect sabotage of the process.  “The usual saboteurs will be those who are losing control or not getting what they want from the process.”
12. “How the conflict is framed affects the behavior of those involved.  When the conflict is conceptualized as cost or benefit, the participants’ behavior changes.  People become more involved if they anticipate losses as a result of the conflict than if they anticipate gains.  Losses arouse greater emotional force.  Researchers found that a prospect of loss led to less yielding behavior.”
13. “No emotional system will change unless the members of the system change how they interact with one another.  Patterns of behavior ten toward rigidity.  Conflict may be necessary to jolt and jar the shape of things in order to reshape the pattern.  But the degree to which that change is positive or negative depends on the leadership present to respond to it.”
14. Final, perfect solutions are not possible.  Conflict is a messy thing, conducted in the messiness of life.  “The best solutions to insolvable problems are the approximate solutions—ones that prepare a system for new learning and a new beginning.”

I am reading Peter Steinke's Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times (Alban, 2006).  Steinke is a nationally recognized church consultant and author.  Here are some of his abbreviated thoughts on change and anxiety from chapter five:

1.  "Western society is experiencing a shift from one historic period to another.  Many believe no parallel exists in history for the current rate of change. . . .  For thousands of years, civilzations focused on continuity.  Teh overriding and new fact of history is living with constant, radical change."

2. "You can never make only one change.  Change here creates change there."

3. "No transformation happens without a crisis."

4.  Quoting Edwin Friedman, those who come first are the last to accept new ideas. "This is the paradox of the change agent who, once his or her change is completed, tends to block or stall the new changes someone else wants to implement."

5.  "Change is stimulated when we look at things from a different angle, associate with new people, pass through a critical moment."

6.  Quoting Nancy Ammerman--"Congregations that systematically avoid conflict are also very likely to avoid change."

7.  "Sometimes leaders get into the position of thinking they are primarily responsible for preserving tranquility in the congregation. . . .  Anything that might jostle or jar the equilibrium is instantly rejected.  The congregation's unity supercedes anything else."  He then quotes Edwin Friedman on what Friedman calls "peacemongering:"  "by peacemonger I mean a highly anxious risk avoider, someone who is more concerned with good feelings than with progress, someone whose life revolves around the axis of consensus, a 'middler,' someone who is so incapable of taking well-defined stands that their 'disability' seems to be genetic, someone who treats conflict or anxiety like mustard gas--one whiff, on goes the emotional gas mask and they flit.  Such leaders are often 'nice,' if not charming." Steinke continues: "If the leader adapts his functioning to the weakest members, he enables their dependency, encourages their happy ignorance, and reinforces their helplessness.  To protect a congregation from bad news or upsetting changes is to admit that the system is weak and fragile, too brittle to be challenged."

8.  "Distress is not always an obstacle to learning.  Pain can be a teacher.  Real learning begins when the threat of pain emerges.  Everyone has learning anxiety (a general dread of entering unfamiliar territory or exploring new ways of understanding).  The anxiety that spurs growth is survival anxiety, when choose something new because survival itself is at stake."

9.  "If a leader does not have some degree of toleration of pain, it's doubtful that others will be able to tolerate pain and use it for growth."  If that occurs, "the weakest, most dependent, and most emotionally driven people will control the congregation."

10.  Resistance to change is a normal reaction.  Leadership must recognize that and not take it personally.

11.  Leaders must exercise patience in anxious times; well-composed leaders influence the congregation well over the long term.

12.  Leaders must keep their focus on the goals of the congregation to "avoid giving in to the pressure of the moment, such as by quickly fixing problems and taking care of people's anxiety."

Several folk asked yesterday for some notes from the message.  So here you go--click here.  The amazing diversity of the early church is a reminder for us as we think about practices today.