Open thoughts

An upcoming sermon is about Christians acting with openness. Recent sermons have dealt with boldness and generosity. Below are a few "open thoughts" about openness.

Are you:

• Boldly open to new ideas?
• Open to the Holy Spirit?
• Open to constructive comments?
• Open to people not like you?
• Boldly open to a different style of worship?
• Open in a way that lets others "in" to know you better?
• Open to forgiving others?
• Open to not getting your way?
• Open to focusing on helping others -- open to generously giving of your time, talent, and money when you have more than they do?
• Open to letting others help you in your time of need?
• Open to changing your mind?
• Open to being a true servant leader?
• Open to discovering new talents? (You have to try something new to discover a new talent).
• Open to asking forgiveness when it's appropriate?

We may think we are "open" in many of the above ways, but would our friends, coworkers, and strangers agree?

Membership is down - give more?

No sooner had I posted about Christian Stewardship being cheapened by equating with money than I noticed (on this blog) the news item from UM Reported, "Changing demographics impacts funds".

The article has several interesting facts and figures. One negative action popped out at me, though. The GCFA governing board, in response to the decline in giving, has penned legislation that, "among other things, the legislation aims to hold leaders at all levels of the church accountable in their responsibility to promote, support and model Christian giving."

Whoa! So let me get this straight. The denomination is seeing a decline in membership and a decline in giving. The solution is to give more? It sounds like the old semi-joke about some office managers, "Management has observed that morale is low. Beatings will commence until morale improves." Maybe we are getting more concerned with funding than with meeting the spiritual needs of the least, the lost, and the last.

Perhaps if we focused our actions on them, as Luke shows us Jesus did, we'd be getting more members, who would want to contribute to the great spiritual work being done. Are we putting the cart before the horse? Are we failing to see the spiritual forest for the financial trees?

Why people leave churches

Dr. Richard J. Krejcir, a church consultant, in his "Why Churches Fail -Part 1" article says that in his study of over 1,000 churches for more than 10 years, he found that people who leave a church other than to move out of the area do so because of:

• Conflict or gossip in the church
• Hypocrisy and judgemental attitudes and actions of the leadership
• A lack of hospitality or concern
• Unwillingness to deal with sin.
  People need a place to feel at home and to grow in their faith; a place that helps them cope with the sins of the world -- their sins.

Krejcir says that we should be stressing:

• Prayer
• Bible literacy and it relevance
• Discipleship

We should avoid trying to add "consumers" of Christianity to the pews instead of participants and disciples. He says we go for what's glitzy, what's popular, what the most "mod". We concentrate on dumbing down worship to the pew-sitters instead of encouraging the congregation to worship God. We put the focus on ourselves instead of God, he says.

• Why Churches Fail - Part II
  Are you willing to take a hard look at why people are not attending your church?

To robe or not to robe

Matt, a United Methodist pastor and author of the Catching Meddlers blog, asks if wearing of robes can get in the way to communicating the gospel message. John the Methodist, author of Locusts and Honey blog, picked up on this and his entry has over a dozen comments already.

My two cents -- if a particular vestment gets in the way of communicating with the pastor's current congregation, change the vestment. It's the message that counts, not the garment. Or as my Dad used to say, it's the potatoes that count, not the potato sack.

Some congregations may feel that wearing of robes is being "overdressed". Heaven forbid [pun intended]. Others may have a tradition of the pastor wearing robes in winter and a suit or even less casual in the summer. Others may prefer a less formal vestment such as an alb or even just a clerical shirt and collar.

The key appears to me to be the pastor and congregation arriving at a "dress code" that does not distract nor detract from the spiritual message being delivered via the worship service.

I did find David's comment at the Catching Meddlers blog educational:

"... the robes traditionally worn by Methodist pastors are known as "academic robes" and are testament to their accomplishments in that arena. To me, an alb is a symbol of humility and service that does more to link me with the congregation rather than to highlight how "smart" I am."

Multitasking slows you down

An October 2001 study reported in the "Journal of Experimental Psychology" informs us that the brain takes extra time "switching gears" when we switch tasks.

"The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once."
– Samuel Smiles

A recent broadcast on National Public Radio discussed University of Michigan research that found it takes people longer to accomplish a series of tasks if they multitask than if they do them one at a time. Multitasking slows you down. Many (most?) people believe that multitasking is faster, but in reality it is not.

In addition, humans we remember and learn differently when we multitask.

"To do two things at once is to do neither."
– Roman sage Publilius Syrus

Microsoft suggests several problems with multitasking. Among them:

• Interruptions break user concentration and thus hurt longer-term tasks. Why? Users often can't tell which interruptions need to be handled right away, making it hard to maintain current task flow.
• To successfully complete tasks, you need to know when to stop a current task and return to one you have on hold. Researchers have found that people often pause tasks while waiting for some outside event, for example an expected email or phone call. They then wanted to resume the original task as immediately after the interrupting event. But ...
• People have trouble getting back on task after shifting their attention away."

Multitasking problems have even crept into churches. For example, one pastor had a habit of shouting over the last hymn as we closed the worship service. But paying attention to his words meant paying less attention to (or stumbling over) the words of the hymn. If a hymn is important enough to sing, it is important enough to concentrate on. We should pay more attention to the words (text message) of hymns, not less (but that's another topic).

Even church staff members need to focus on one task at a time as much as possible. Acting against that goal are an always-open email program or email notifier, an open instant messenger (IM), constant visitors, phone calls, etc. So Pastors and church managers, help your church staff focus. Seek to lessen interruptions to their tasks and they'll get more done in the same amount of time. They'll also appreciate the reduced stress.

What's a Steering Committee do?

Some confusion exists about what a church Steering committee is and what it does. Below are some hopefully helpful explanations:

• The American Heritage Dictionary defines a Steering Committee as, "A committee that sets agendas and schedules of business, as for a legislative body or other assemblage."
• A business planning company describes a Steering Committee as, "A cross-functional executive group that sets overall parameters and provides high-level project guidance by interaction with the project leader, milestone status review and approval of resource requirements."
• The Government Accounting Office defines an Executive Steering committee as, "The top management team responsible for developing and sustaining the process management approach in the organization, including selecting and evaluating reengineering projects."

These all seem to clearly indicate that a Steering Committee or Executive Steering Committee does not get "down in the weeds" in regard to the organization's activities. The members of a Steering Committee don't "mess with" the committees of a church, for example. Rather, like the rudder on a ship, a Steering Committee "steers" the organization in a direction that will be of most benefit to the organization.

Thus, a Steering committee should not be an excuse to bypass the normal Administrative organization and decision-making process of the organization. A Steering Committee should concern itself with long-range, broad-brush planning actions. Sometimes a Steering Committee may be formed when the group would be better organized as a Task Force or Project Team.

Multitasking impedes efficiency

An October 2001 study in the "Journal of Experimental Psychology" reports that the brain takes extra time "switching gears" when we switch tasks. So Samuel Smiles was right:

"The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once."

People who believe they accomplish more by multitasking may just be tricking themselves by getting the false impression of efficiency from the fact that they completed several tasks. But they probably could have completed all the tasks in a shorter period of time if they had concentrated on one at a time.

Microsoft suggests several multitasking problems. Among them:

• Interruptions plague longer-term tasks. They hamper concentration and task progress. Users often can't determine which interruptions to handle immediately. This makes it difficult for users to maintain current task flow.
• People often set aside tasks while waiting for something like an email to arrive or even a phone call.
• People have trouble getting back on task after shifting their attention away.

Multitasking problems have even crept into churches. For example, one pastor had a habit of shouting over the last hymn as we closed the worship service. But paying attention to his words meant paying less attention to the words of the hymn. If a hymn is important enough to sing, it is important enough to concentrate on. We should pay more attention to the words (text message) of hymns, not less.

Even church staff members need to focus on one task at a time as much as possible. Acting against that goal are an always-open email program or email notifier, an open instant messenger (IM), Constant visitors, phone calls, etc. So help your church staff focus. Help lessen interruptions to their tasks and they'll get more done in the same amount of time.

Empower, equip, encourage

"Discipleship Journal's" article, "The power of encouragement", deals with encouraging people to come to Christ. But that article also started me thinking about empowering a congregation to carry out God's work.

A wise and well-liked pastor at a prior Methodist church told me that Methodist pastors should not be dictators in the churches to which they are assigned. Rather, they should empower, equip, and encourage the saints of the church to do God's work. Pastors who adopt that philosophy strive to leave churches with lay leadership that is better and stronger than when they arrived. That isn't likely to happen if the local "leadership" is spoon-fed tasks, seldom sees suggestions adopted, or is seldom allowed to act on their own ideas.

When pastors change at churches, congregation members and the church's leadership need to be flexible enough to allow for some changes. But Pastors also need to make allowances for a congregation that is not exactly like the one they left. A pastor in another state relates that a Candler School of Theology faculty member once said,

"There are only two things that Pastors should change the first six months they are they are at a new church -- their address and their underwear."

While that was obviously intended to be humorous, it contains wisdom. It is very helpful if pastors get to know church members, traditions, and the reasons behind practices at the new church to which they are assigned before they start suggesting changes, especially major ones.

Sometimes it seems as though Methodist pastors forget that they are only temporarily assigned to a church. The members continue; pastors change. So pastors, go easy about making dramatic changes that may prove harmful to relations with the congregation or ultimately to the Body of Christ at that church.

Working with the church's leadership will prove more beneficial to all concerned than butting heads. A church where authoritarian clergy -- no matter how good the clergy members' ideas and skills -- allow little or no participation in decisions just sets up the church for future failure when that clergy member moves to a new assignment. Church leadership needs the opportunity to actually lead, not just follow.

"Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step." — Samuel Smiles

How well is your church doing at preparing your leaders to continue leading after current clergy members move on? How well is your church doing at empowering, equipping, and encouraging the saints?

Whence comes disunity?

Methodist Scott McKay, writer of the "Grace Happens" blog, says that unity is not the same as no disagreements. And disunity sneaks in with pride, jealousy, resentment, ego, and a desire for control.

Though Scott, a member of the clergy, associates such problems with the church membership, these same unity challenges pertain to all people associated with a congregation, clergy included. None of us are immune to the sins of pride or arrogance (for example), though some people do better than others in staving off these diseases of the soul.

His posting ends with a reminder of the invitation to Communion ... love, repentance, and peace.

Church nursery tips

Chidren's Ministry Magazine has a special section on the church nursery. It includes sample policies as well as articles on safety.

Make disciples!

United Methodist Pastor Steven Manskar proposes a church Disciple-Making system that is Wesleyan in its theology. His blog posting outlines bulding blocks for accomplishing that.