Thank You!

Thank You! 

Thanks to everyone who was part of this great study!  A special thank you to those who wrote our weekly blogs, it was so great to hear everyone's voice on this book.

We'd like to look at another study in the fall--what book suggestions are out there?

Grace and Peace, Nicole

Chapter 8-10: Shape the Path by Rev. Judy Chung

I used to make New Year’s Resolutions.  Each year, I had every intention of living out those commitments. Yet, each year, before February rolled around, I had given up on these resolutions.  I didn’t know why it was so hard for me to stick to these commitments.  I’m a fairly disciplined, hard-working and dependable individual but somehow I wasn’t able to make those changes to alter my habits.

                  Reading this book is helping me to understand why I could not live up to my resolutions.  I knew what I wanted to do.  My Rider was on board.  My Elephant was motivated as I was inspired and was able to break down the change to more reasonable smaller steps.  The challenge was that I didn’t always do a good enough job of shaping the path.  I didn’t consider “tweaking the environment,” or to “build habits,” or to “rally the herd.”  So, my attempt to change fizzled out over time.

                  I believe many of our churches are in a similar situation. With an appointment of a new pastor, they have every good intention of wanting to turn their churches around, to become vital and growing, to reach out to new people, and to minister to children, youth, and young adults.  Many of our churches are sensing that urgency recognizing that the time for change is now and many are genuinely seeking to experience vitality.  In other words, their Rider is on board and their Elephant is sufficiently motivated.  But yet, so many of these churches have a difficult time making that switch.   Why is this the case?

                  Reading this book is helping me to understand the role that I can play in helping my congregation make that switch.  I am pastoring a church that is seeking to turn around.  In my first two years, we’ve spent a significant time articulating our vision, setting goals, and attempting to implement these goals.  Although we still have a long way to go, we have made some significant strides in becoming more outwardly focused and to serve the needs of our community so that hearts and lives are being changed for God.  Yet, with every step we take forward, there seems to be a force that is at work pushing us back a step or two.

                  This has been a frustrating and disheartening experience for me to continue to encounter such road blocks and resistance.  There are moments when I have felt that there is no hope for change because it’s so hard to change people.  And in those moments, I felt like giving up.

                  That is why I’m so glad that I have been reading this book especially these chapters on “shaping the path” because I have discovered that there is hope.  I have discovered that situational force can overcome even individual character.  Moreover, I am beginning to realize that what I had written off as being unchangeable, blaming it on our DNA, past history, apathy, unwillingness to change, etc., can be changed. 

                  Indeed, some of the successes we have experienced were due to the ways we’ve learned to shape the path.  For example, one of the challenges in our church is the Fellowship Hour.  Although many of our members are very welcoming and hospitable, we recognized that our Fellowship Hour is intimidating to new visitors as people tend to sit in round tables with their backs towards the door in already established cliques.  So, as we were planning for our 45^th anniversary celebration, we intentionally changed our Fellowship Hour format and got rid of all the tables.  The rationale was to make it easier for people to mingle more especially in light of the fact that we were going to have quite a few guests and visitors from the community.  And it worked.  I saw people mingling with folks whom they don’t usually sit with.  I saw people moving around a lot more greeting more people and engaging more individuals.  By tweaking the environment of the Fellowship Hall, that particular Sunday’s Fellowship Hour created more opportunity for people to mingle and connect.  The only regret that I have about this is that we didn’t continue this new format even though we have continued to talk about how we can get our members to mingle more.

                  Another example of how shaping the path has been effective in the successes that we’ve had is our Ministry Moment.  During the service, we provide a 2-4 minute spot for a new ministry, program or project by celebrating how God is at work, recognizing how many volunteers participated, and highlighting how this ministry is making a difference.  The Ministry Moment serves several purposes – to inspire people, to encourage their continued support, and to thank them for their ministry.  What I didn’t intend was that this would be the way to rally the herd but it is fulfilling that purpose as well.  In November, we were launching an ambitious project of offering a Furlough Days program, an all-day childcare program offering Vacation Bible School and Enrichment Classes for children during furlough days.  We knew we would need a lot of volunteer support to pull this off but we are a small church with not a lot of young people.  We weren’t sure we would have enough volunteer support to make this work but in faith, we began to recruit and invite volunteers.  Once we had about 20 persons committed, we shared this upcoming program during our Ministry Moment highlighting how many volunteers have been enlisted.  By the time the Furlough Days program started, we had almost 40 persons committed, included were a few folks who have never volunteered for anything like this in the past.  With these volunteers, we served 32 families from the community to further our mission of “sharing the love of Christ with our world.”

                  Reading this book is helping me to rediscover my role in the midst of this change.  My role as the pastor is to make the journey easier so that more and more people can join.  My role as the pastor is to never lose hope but to trust that transformation is possible in God.  My role as the pastor is to utilize these tools and skills to help God’s people make that switch.  Because in God, all things are possible!

Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard Blog Entry – Chapters 5-7 by Rev. Craig Brown

I felt so exclusive.  In 2009 I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit where Chip & Dan Heath, authors of Switch, were leading one of the sessions.  With the completion of a simple coupon, attendees of the Summit would receive a pre-release of Switch before it was published.  I promptly lost the coupon, but fear not; Ron Griffin was there with a replacement.  Before I knew it, there it was…in all its top secret-ey-dressed-up-in-its-shrink-wrap glory…Switch.  I felt so exclusive.  What did I do?  Placed it on a shelf for several months.  There it beckoned and called for weeks.  Then finally I cracked it open and started to read.  What I read was nothing new, but yet made new in ways that I could not imagine.  It is one of a very few books that shaped and impacted how I lead in and through change.

I am an elephant man.  While I can relate to the rider with all his or her analytics and parsing of the data, I find the elephant more attractive to me.  As a United Methodist I have set in meeting after meeting with analysis of what is wrong with the church, its structures, its focus and…well…its purpose.  From study group to task-force, there has been a great deal of oxygen spent and paper shredded over the analysis of “what-went-wrong-for-the-Methodists”.  Not only does this happen across our organization, but it happens time and again in the local church.  How many vision retreat outcomes, focus group conclusions and purpose statements are attached to walls in our local churches?  The rider places these truths on walls.  Fixed in time and space.  They are a written testament of knowing the truth while yet testifying that we have not embodied the truth.  This is why I am an elephant man.

For me, the analytics of problem-solving are the kindergarten of the issue.  When reading Switch I resonated with the pros and cons of the “rider”.  The one who knows where to go, but yet cannot persuade the elephant to go there.  My experience of so-called “change-management” was too long rooted in this model alone.  I could always make a compelling intellectual case about why path “A” is better than path “B”.  Why did no one ever follow?  The facts were clear.  The study was conclusive.  The vision statement is framed on a wall.  People said they wanted change.  With contempt, the clergy blame the laity for asking for change but not changing.  With despair laity wonder why clergy won’t step up and make tough choices about leading through change.  It’s because no one is taking seriously the role of the elephant.  This is where leadership succeeds or fails.  We must act on the change we seek.  The conviction of our beliefs is made manifest in our actions.  Some one (the leader) must FIND THE FEELING.

Finding the feeling means that groups change primarily out of an emotive response.  This is not to say that people are emotionally fickle.  It simply means that change must be PRESENTED in practical way that EVOKES a desire to change.  Once I started to figure out that my job was to present change in an inspirational manner…things started to, well change.  The elephant, once persuaded, is an unstoppable force.  As a leader it was my JOB is present change in an inspirational manner.  I am not suggesting that I need to function as some kind of spiritual cheerleader.  The purpose statement hanging on the wall had to get into the hearts of people.  That was my JOB.  Inspire.  Provoke.  Exhort.  Push.  Pull.  When people sense that their envisioned future is POSSIBLE, there is nothing that can stop it.  It means that every leader must in some way embrace their role as FEELING-CASTER.  I am talking to clergy here.  We need to up the energy, conviction, passion about what God is doing.  90% of that happens outside the sermon.  Do you talk about your vision in every meeting?  Do you share a story about a changed life with your choir?  Do you tell your retired members about a teenager whose life was changed?  Do you ooze the vision of your church?  Are people intoxicated around your passion for reaching people?  If they are not…you are not doing your JOB.  You were ordained to Word, Sacrament, Service & ORDER.  Order does not mean putting together a Charge Conference packet.  Are you ORDERING your congregation’s life around God’s vision and purpose for it?

It is a monstrous task, taking that vision statement off a wall.  That is why I am an elephant man.  To turn the analogy on its head…there is only one way to eat an elephant and that is one bite at a time.  As the Heath brothers describe it, you must “Shrink the Change”.  If you can succeed at doing your JOB of inspiring people, then that means you are ready for your first bite.  What is the first step toward arriving at your God-Given, envisioned future?  I learned that if you shoot for the most challenging aspect of your change, you will likely fail.  Look for the low-hanging-fruit (LHF).  What is the easiest step to accomplish?  That then is the first step.  By finding that LHF you will set up a cycle of success.  You can then build upon win after win.  Soon people will sense that they can move in God’s direction.  Soon people will step up.  Most of our congregations do not because they have forgotten what a “win” looks like.  They look year after year at the aging and shrinking congregation.  It may have been years since there was a “win” for that church.  Another part of being an effective leader and coach, is building confidence.  Shrinking the change is a pastoral act that invites people into transformation.  For laity, this means that there are times you will need to hold back your dreamy-eyed pastor to take it one step at a time.  When the elephant beings to change course with one step…it can, and often is, the most delicious bite of a long journey.  Being an elephant man is what it is all about.

For the church, watching people develop and change is the heartbeat of a vital ministry.  So often we sell the people-capital part of our work short.  Sometimes we are so principle-oriented we loose all sight of being practice-oriented.  It is ironic that the people called Methodists have largely forgotten this truth of their DNA.  We often hear of churches of 20-40 people justifying their existence because of a ministry they provide the community.  Whether it be a food bank or renting their facility, their existence as a church is merited by the work they do.  We seldom think in terms of what kind of food bank we would have if there were 200 people here or even 2000 people here.  At times we are so captivated by the “principle” work of the church we neglect the “practical” work of making disciples for the transformation of the world.  Making disciples.  Developing people.  Growing spiritually.  These terms can become synonymous.  Our capacity to transform the world is only limited by our ability to make disciples.  Developing your people is the greatest investment you can make toward the world transformation we so often talk about and seek.  It is the model Jesus demonstrates time and again.  Personal development and transformation lead to a transformed world.  When you see lives being changed by God’s grace, you know God is moving.  I believe that the change must occur in multiplication.  One changed life leads to two, which leads to four and so on.  This is the biblical model we see in the Acts of the Apostles.  How are you growing people?  How many are growing?  Are they growing other people?  Is there exponential growth in any area or facet of the life of the church?  When the elephant begins to move with momentum and clear direction, you know you are on to something.

I feel so exclusive.  What a wonder it is to witness the wonder of a church catching God’s vision for its future!  I feel so exclusive.  What great joy is there is watching a group of people take one small step that leads to monumental change!  I feel so exclusive.  What excitement there is when people come to Christ and are released to fulfill their purpose and call in ministry!  I feel so exclusive because, I get the great honor of playing a small part in it.  What a true honor it is to see the church take flight and step into the fullness of what it can be.  I feel so exclusive that God would let a man like me, cracked and broken that I am, see the fullness of God’s grace released in a congregation of beautiful people.  I really do feel quite exclusive to be an elephant man.