My context, leadership strategy, & recent discoveries
A lot of my work leading The Project F-M has to do with understanding the context of Fargo-Moorhead, the broad context including young adults, older folks, and the established congregations in town. And then there’s the issue of my leadership, my self-awareness and approach to ministry. I’ve recently made some seemingly simple observations about both that have gone a long way in helping The Project F-M move forward.
First, it can be difficult to launch a new ministry when the status quo of ministry around you is pretty established in its ways. That’s not a slight against any of the wonderful congregations in Fargo-Moorhead; it’s just the case. Many folks who love Fargo and are active in ELCA churches here tend to describe the area’s churches as “traditional,” “conservative,” and “part of Christendom.” (Again: I’m not picking a fight, just reporting a description. It’s cool with me. Really.)
The issue for our more outside-the-box ministry, then, is how to function in this context. I’ve found Ron Heifetz’s work helpful here.
Significant change best (and most easily) comes after some sort of disruption. Broadly speaking, the Project F-M is attempting adaptive change in our community and in the church. Heifetz distinguishes between technical and adaptive change stating that technical change is something an expert can bring about. Adaptive change, on the other hand, requires a community to change its values, behaviors, and attitudes.
I’ve come to understand my work with the Project as attempting adaptive change in a place that would much prefer technical change. We haven’t had the disruption here to warrant adaptive change. That makes it pretty tricky work.
Second, it’s OK — no, it’s great — for congregations to carefully claim what type of person/family/new member they’d most fully be able to welcome into their community. Congregations cannot be all things to all people. I’m totally cool with them focusing their evangelism ministry on particular aspects of the community (as long as it doesn’t intentionally exclude).
If a congregation is great at youth ministry, then claim that and advertise it. Be bold. If you have a wonderful place for retirees then, perfect, claim that. Similarly, if a new family comes and they drove past another church on the way to yours but other other church might fit them well, tell them about it. They can save gas and be faithful disciples.
Yes, I really value diversity, I’d rather not congregations become monocultures. So, again, if a congregation wants diversity then they need to claim that, and reach out and invite diverse folks to their community. Similarly, if a congregation wants to become a neighborhood church again, it needs to visit folks in the neighborhood, knock on doors, host community meals, etc.
My hunch is that new church developments think much more carefully and clearly about the demographics and psychographics of folks they hope will attend their church; established congregations, while they perhaps once emphasized this, have grown to consider this sort of thinking as “market driven.” I’ve come to think it’s just good leadership.
Third: goals, goals, goals. After a few months working with the Project I brought a six-month plan to our Board that included a series of benchmarks for our work going forward. That was helpful to really get us moving from to more task-oriented leadership.
Now in 2012, we have even more fire under our feet because nothing focuses the mind like financial troubles looming in the same calendar year. (No, I’m not worried about buying food next month, but we are doing some good work on our questions of longterm financial sustainability.) The trick with leading our new ministry seems to be setting short-term goals, noting our progress on them, and then flexibly making the next list.
Again, these reflections are nothing brilliant or new, but they are incredibly helpful for me to note as a leader. Recently I’ve been astounded by how just a little clarity on our approach can add up for a much fuller picture.
So, ministry leaders out there: what realizations about your leadership style and/or context has affected your work? What kept you from realizing it sooner?
image by ivanmarn
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Adam, these are good reflections. One thing I’ve learned in our congregation is that someone must spark/spearhead any kind of institutional reflection. We have been doing that in our congregation for the first time in at least 30 years beginning back in January.
The results are becoming a clearer focus of who we are and what we want/need our ministry goals to be over the next two to three years in order to grow as disciples.
One of the great insights that the congregation is just beginning to name is that a congregation our size has the potential strength to nurture strong and lasting intergenerational relationships. They wouldn’t have begun in this process with that vocabulary, but through the last three months I keep hearing stories about everyone begin together instead of being segmented into age groups like in larger churches. That’s something they value highly.
What hasn’t happened, however, is the church hasn’t claimed that as a theological and ecclesiological strength to be shared with those who might want to join in ministry with us. We also have lost our focus in some activities geared toward intergenerational relationships that have skewed toward mainly senior adults.
This discernment process, however, is helping us name our strength and begin to work intentionally to expand this identity and begin to share our particular church’s strength with others.
What I’ve learned in the process as a leader, is that you often have to be the one to spark a community into self-reflection and visioning. The results of that visioning, however, have to come from the stories and beliefs of the community, but you can help the people find a vocabulary for what they are sharing. Then, as a leader, you can help them begin to see the context around them (in our case, the lack of extended families for young adults and children and how a church like ours can become an extended family to people by supporting them in ways traditionally lived out by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins) and how their strength (now clearly articulated) provides something important for the community.
re: point 2 – many years ago aa deear UMC pastor (when i was UMC, reformed now…) returned from a sminar or something and carefully lettered signs that read: Work Smarter, Not Harder. His purpose was to try and engage the church counsil in some introspection on what the congregation was, what we might be and where we might be headed. This was over 20 years ago and this kind of study did not happen on any kind of regular basis. At the time, I don’t think it went very far, it did however set this idea in my mind and I have remembered this many times, sometimes with sueccess at starting conversations about just what you are talking about.
Oh, that congregation where I heard this saying, it had been through some rough times, having a pastor change after he said he was staying, followed by a pastor who had an affair (he moved up the promotional ladder, the congregation got left in the dust) followed by the pastor mentioned above, who would have been a great interim if he was Presbyterian, having health issues followed by a pastor who took the pastoral leadership role in a less than cooperative direction with the pastor as the leader. It was about that time I moved from the area.
At our last presbytery meeting a congregation was placed under an administrative comission, whit tremendous opposition from the congregation. After this was approved, the newly installed Moderator standing in the pulpit where he stands every week, told of that large and sucdessful congregation also having been under an adminsitrative commission before he was called there. He thanked the presbytery for taking the time and forcing and guiding that congregation to work through isues and making his job easier and causing the congregation to become a stronger wittness.
Either I need better glasses, darker type on the screen or a larger font size… sorry for the bad spelling