I’ve been reading books like Organic Community and Finding Our Way for work. At the same time, the congregation is moving into a looser knit, team-based ministry model (as opposed to a council and committee structure). I’m learning a lot.
It’s a bit chaotic at times. We’re trying to focus on our assets, personal and congregational, instead of needs and deficits. We’re trying to avoid unnecessary structures that only serve to say “no, you can’t do that,” or “we tried that and it didn’t work.” And get rid of the meetings. We’re experimenting a lot, and some things work out and some don’t, which is all good.
There are four rules I’m giving all my teams. (Actually, three, but the fourth occurred to me yesterday during staff meeting.) I think this is all we need to move forward and make the vision we have for the congregation happen.
1. Whatever works. We don’t need consensus. If it’ll get the job done, and someone wants to do it, they get to do whatever seems best at the time. If it’s easy and doesn’t require meetings, all the better. Unless it causes harm, all is permissible.
2. Whatever’s welcoming. Can new people come into this process? Will they feel they’re contributing to it and not just towing the line? Do they need years of congregational history (the “why” behind “we’ve always done it that way”) or will they feel good about jumping right in?
3. Whatever’s sustainable. Not just environmental sustainability, which is an ideal we’re working our way into, but process sustainability. Does the work depend on one person with unique abilities and hours and hours of free time? Can someone come right in and pick up where they left off? And, as far as financial sustainability, will it break the bank?
4. Whatever puts the congregation’s best foot forward. Will newcomers look at it and think, “That’s a pretty cool place to be”? Will it embody the congregation’s highest values and not put its integrity at risk?
That is pretty much how I live my life: Whatever Works, Whatever’s Welcoming, Whatever’s Sustainable, Whatever puts the my/families best foot forward: Thanks… I can now say I live by Whatever!
These are great!
There’s a name for a rule that sort of corresponds to #3. It’s something like What Would Happen If X Was Hit by a Bus. In other words, have we built an organization around one person who is irreplaceable?
Having meetings just because you’ve always had monthly meetings is a bad idea. But I just had a situation where my team of lay members received a rough draft of a strategic plan and was asked to discuss it via e-mail in order to figure out goals, outcomes and deadlines in two days, so everything we plan to accomplish in the next two years is listed on paper and ready to be given to the board by this weekend.
Absolutely not!! We’re having a meeting to do this work. Sure, it would be faster if a couple of us just sent in our opinions. But what is the goal? To get a strategic plan written as fast as we can?? NO.
We will meet and bounce ideas off each other so that our collective wisdom will come together in a plan we can be proud of, a plan that we own and will be vested in seeing through to fruition. Because we are the ones who will be expected to carry out the plan, we must have time to think, discuss and formulate the plan together.
Let’s hope no one’s hit by a bus!
@Elizabeth: In my experience, strategic plans are out of date as soon as they’re written. I’ve found an asset-based exercise like the one in this book to be both quicker and more inclusive.
When I suggested even steps towards these types of ideas you have thought I wanted to begin sacrificing animals or doing away with coffee hour.
These certainly are counter-church cultural. They seemed steeped in the principles of appreciative inquiry and they remind my of the leadership theories of Ronald Heifetz in Leadership Without Easy Answers.
Heifetz argues that leadership is all about adaptive work, finding adaptive solutions to the new problems and solutions that confront us instead of doing what we’ve always done, but better, faster, stronger. Heifetz also says that leader is not authority, but about getting the work done. Authority comes from power granted in order to perform a service. If the service is provided – getting the work done, solving the problem, the power is granted to continue the work (and in this case, churches, continuing to create community is part of the work). Exercising power without performing a service is authoritarianism. Too often church committees (“that’s the way we’ve always done it” , “we must have a meeting to decide things”, and ministers, both clerical and lay (committee chairs) act in an authoritarian manner and forget to provide the service for which a congregation or a committee has granted them power in the first place.
[…] tip of the hat and a deep bow of thanks and gratitude to Making Chutney for the post on Four and Only Four Rules for Doing Church. The comments to the post are worth reading as well. These are suggested guidelines for the most […]
This is great stuff. I wish we could apply these things at my church, and in a few other organizations I’m a part of.
To elaborate on Ms. T’s comment, I learned recently that in the business or programming world, #3 is also referred to as “The Bus Factor.” How many people would need to be on the bus that crashes before you had no one who knew how to work on/complete this project/task? One of my friends who works at a UU church is the only person who can update the church’s website. A Bus Factor of 1. Pretty scary.
The Bus Factor! That’s it!
[…] discussion between our own ministers.” And Chutney at “Making Chutney” offers four rules for congregational life. March 14th, 2008 | View Comments blog comments powered by Disqus var disqus_url = […]