In “30 Markers of Staff Team Health” (the February 20, 2012 Alban Weekly), Susan Beaumont discusses the balance of collaboration and accountability that need to characterize healthy and productive staff teams.
Collaboration without sufficient accountability, asserts Beaumont, results in teams that lack clear role boundaries and performance feedback. Some staff end up shouldering too much responsibility while others fail to shoulder enough.
On the other hand, accountability without sufficient collaboration results in teams that function like individual “silos” and roles that are too rigidly set.
Either situation indicates a lack of team health.
Beaumont lists thirty “markers” of a healthy staff team—including “we have a clearly defined and well communicated statement of purpose as a staff team”; “each member of the team has clear and effective supervision”; and “communication within our team is open and above board.” She invites readers to assess the health of their teams by evaluating the extent to which each marker reflects their experience of the team.
What resources might support the health of your staff team? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Church Staff Handbook: How to Build an Effective Ministry Team; Staff Your Church for Growth: Building Team Ministry in the 21st Century; and Church Staff Evaluation: A Tool for Effective Performance.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
Understanding that his own failures have often been due to flawed assumptions, Landon Whitsitt explains how congregational leaders need to grasp a key dimension of reality: that effective ministerial leadership requires openness.
In “We Do It Differently,” (the February 13, 2012 Alban Weekly, excerpted from Open Source Church: Making Room for the Wisdom of All) Whitsitt draws on the example of Jesus’s servant leadership to demonstrate that pastors today are called to move beyond their self-imposed roles as “idea factories” who either recruit others to carry out their plans or carry out the plans themselves. As Whitsitt puts it, while leaders accomplish “mission and ministry” through others, “the best way to ensure these things happen is by opening up the process to the entire congregation.”
What resources might support leaders in doing that? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness; Leading at a Higher Level (Revised and Expanded); and Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church That Is Organic, Networked, Decentralized, Bottom-up, Communal, Flexible, Always Evolving.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you.
In “Pastor as Teacher, Congregation as Learning Community” (the February 6, 2012 Alban Weekly, excerpted and adapted from What’s Theology Got To Do With It?: Convictions, Vitality, and the Church), Anthony Robinson focuses on the teaching function of the minister and others who serve in the church. Robinson expresses their charge this way: “We are in the business, or so it seems to me, of teaching and embodying a way of life, a particular way of being human in relationship with God.”
Robinson believes that congregations which are intentional about engaging in Christian formation offer three things in particular: “sermons that are instructive and believable, opportunities to deepen one’s own spiritual life, and a church that helps people to have a better understanding of the truth.”
What resources might support congregations seeking to develop such intentionality about spiritual formation? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items from the Congregational Resource Guide: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization; “Process, Not Program: Adult Faith Formation for Vital Churches“; and Claiming Theology in the Pulpit.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
In “A Question of Growth” (the January 30, 2012 Alban Weekly, excerpted and adapted from Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality), Stephen Chapin Garner and Jerry Thornell narrate how “the possibility and potential of the Holy Spirit” lead to unexpected results, even when congregations are seeking to build a particular model of ministry.
Drawing on their experience at UCC Norwell, where attempts to fashion a lay-led faith community resulted instead in seven church members entering seminary, the authors explain how they “unwittingly created a model of ministry that prompted people to choose to pursue pastoral ministry as a career.” As they put it, “In an attempt to create a clergy-free church, we wound up creating clergy that are now serving local churches in our area.”
Garner and Thornell conclude that the effort to grow, even when it is “misguided,” opens our minds, hearts, and wills to the Holy Spirit’s work. While we can try to grow in particular directions, it’s valuable to open ourselves to God’s guidance and avoid becoming too attached to our own preconceived or anticipated outcomes.
What resources might help us to open ourselves to such guidance? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Heart, Mind, and Strength: Theory and Practice for Congregational Leadership; Liberating Hope!: Daring to Renew the Mainline Church; and Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you.
Beverly and George Thompson, authors of “Gone Fishing” (the January 23, 2012 Alban Weekly, adapted from their book, Grace for the Journey: Practices and Possibilities for In-Between Times), draw on the post-resurrection story of Jesus’s words with his disciples to illustrate the potential of transformational change. Just as Jesus counseled these fishermen to cast their nets deeply from another side of the boat, we’re counseled to examine more deeply the truths about the cultures that shape our congregational life. And just as the biblical story of Jesus’s counsel reveals that the disciples didn’t know the whole story of who they were, “congregations typically do not pay attention to the whole story of who they are.”
The Thompsons urge pastors and congregations to look beyond the “artifacts” and “espoused values” of their churches and to examine their “submerged beliefs.” These beliefs may be rarely spoken aloud, but they form “the place where your congregation’s energy rests.”
While an entire congregation may not wish to engage in this level of cultural “fishing,” a small group of dedicated members willing to ask, “What will happen to our church if we keep on doing what we have done over and over again?” can move forward the process of discovery and transition.
What resources might support this process? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems; Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church from the Inside Out; and Behold I Do a New Thing: Transforming Communities of Faith.
What are your stories and ideas on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
In “Shame-Less and Grace-Full” (the January 16, 2011 Alban Weekly, adapted from the book, Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations), Karen McClintock draws on her experience as a ballet student to examine the results of shame-based teaching and leading. Mrs. Borsky, the ballet instructor of McClintock’s childhood, cloaked grace behind a slew of mean-spirited behaviors that led to a profound sense of shame for McClintock and her fellow students. The impact of those behaviors was felt years later.
The author goes on to explore how congregations can likewise instill a sense of shame, as can parental disapproval or abuse. McClintock asserts that those who lead our faith communities need to “recognize and heal the shame of your own upbringing, to recognize shame in the behavior of other leaders and clergy around you, to reduce shame-reinforcing theology, and to provide alternative messages of hope and healing.”
What resources can support the reduction of shame and the support of hope and healing? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Be Not Anxious: Pastoral Care of Disquieted Souls; Pastoral Care: An Essential Guide; and Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
Melissa Lynn DeRosia, author of “Is the Pastor Here?” (the January 9, 2012 Alban Weekly, excerpted and adapted from The Girlfriends’ Clergy Companion: Surviving and Thriving in Ministry), discusses instances in which her pastoral leadership was resisted—not only by photo-directory salespeople, but also by members of her congregation. DeRosia holds that some of this resistance might have been rooted not simply in gender bias, but also in the possibility that her “being there as a young woman pastor represented just how much their church had changed in the past fifty years.” For people perceiving such changes as negative, or people still living in the “glory days” of the past, his new pastor may not have been such a welcome presence.
DeRosia, however, encouraged her congregation to tell stories about those past days and what they meant. As she puts it, “I felt called to create space where these stories could be told and to be open to how these stories, along with the stories of the Bible, could guide and shape who God is calling us to be as a community of faith.”
Such storytelling, nurtured by warm cups of coffee and warm conversational spaces, served as a foundation for entering into Appreciative Inquiry and the opportunity “to formulate questions about congregational identity and the moments in all those stories when people celebrated the best of who they were and who they could be.”
What resources might support your congregation’s storytelling or use of Appreciative Inquiry? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change (Second Edition); “Leadership: Appreciatively Practiced” (a podcast interview with leaders of the Samaritan Institute); and “Claiming the Light: Appreciative Inquiry” (a downloadable essay).
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
“There Are No Barriers to God’s Love” (the January 2, 2012 Alban Weekly, adapted from Mark Pinsky’s Amazing Gifts: Stories of Faith, Disability, and Inclusion) discusses the barriers that people with disabilities face in houses of worship, as well as the obstacles that faith communities face in becoming more accessible.
While money is an issue (particularly for small congregations needing to make their buildings more accessible), another—less visible—issue can be attitude. The presence of people with disabilities can be an uncomfortable reminder of the human fragility and vulnerability we all share. And those with developmental disabilities can sometimes be a distraction during services.
But as Pinsky points out, there are also benefits (sometimes unforeseen) that can arise from sincere efforts to become more accessible. As he puts it, “communities that adapt to the world of disability are more likely to survive and grow.”
What resources might help congregations seeking to become more accessible? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider the following items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: American Association of People with Disabilities, Interfaith Initiative; Money and Ideas: Creative Approaches to Congregational Access; and Dimensions of Faith and Congregational Ministries with Persons with Developmental Disabilities and Their Families.
What are your stories and ideas on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
In “Should We Have a Congregational Meeting?” (the December 19, 2011 Alban Weekly), Alban senior consultant Susan Nienaber explains why congregation-wide meetings to “clear the air” and make decisions in response to controversial situations often do not work. She also suggests alternatives.
Why do such congregational meetings “go bad”? Nienaber outlines six reasons: (1) the format favors those who speak the loudest and provides little opportunity for deep listening; (2) especially if the controversy is long-standing, the meetings display predictable rhetoric; (3) without skilled moderators, such meetings encourage “irresponsible speech”; (4) in the atmosphere of a free-for-all, confidential information may be leaked; (5) meetings in sanctuary pews promote forward-facing, rather than face-to-face, communication; and (6) “most controversy can’t be voted away.”
What alternatives exist? Neinaber reminds readers that dialogue and discernment can happen separately from congregational voting; and if congregational meetings must be held, the moderator will benefit if she or he is assisted by someone who can help maintain the integrity of the process. Ultimately, however, the best option is not to use churchwide meetings to address “highly emotionalized issues,” believes Nienaber. Instead, leaders need to reconsider their options, inform the congregation about them, share details about decision-making, and “implement changes in productive, compassionate ways.”
What resources can support this more mature approach? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: Promise and Peril: Understanding and Managing Conflict and Change in Congregations; “Moving Your Church through Conflict“; and Standing in the Fire: Leading High-Heat Meetings with Clarity, Calm, and Courage.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
In the December 12, 2011 Alban Weekly (“When the Mission Changes“), Dan Hotchkiss holds that there are times when a congregation’s mission needs revising—not simply tweaking or refreshing. In addition, a church’s strategic planning needs to allow for those occasions when “the most cherished principles of the founders or the current members may come into question.”
Such a situation can particularly arise when a congregation was founded from a split and has tended to define itself as “the church of NOT THEM.” Sooner or later the members and leaders will need to dig for “the deeper sources of our calling.”
What resources can support a congregation needing to revisit its mission or otherwise dig into its “deeper sources”? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: “Vision and the Church“; Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition; and Pathway to Renewal: Practical Steps for Congregations.
What are your stories and ideas on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
