I just mailed my first batch of Commissioning Documents to the Registrar.“That will be $32.06,” the clerk behind the registrar said.I didn’t blink an eye; it was after all an overnight delivery.Yet as I clicked through the DEBT card purchase, it reminded me yet again that there is a very high monetary cost for creating a minister.
I believe that it is a conservative estimate that at the end of my ordination approximately $325,000 will have been spent to turn me into a minister.Between tuition for schools, interest paid on student loans, airfare to and from seminary, and many other $30.00 dollar incidental costs all add up quickly.
I have been lucky to have a great deal of financial assistance.Scholarships have accounted for most of that aid, but others came from my community, from airline mileage donated from cousins, books that have wandered their way into my library, and Starbucks cards that show up with letters of encouragement.In the end my parents and I will have underwritten only a quarter of that cost.
As I wrestle my way through this process, I try to remember that I am able to enter the ring because of my privileged place.I am someone who has been able to carve three years out of her life to attend a prestigious seminary.I am someone who has the ability to take the extra two days for her commissioning paperwork instead of saving herself the $15.00 for groceries for that week.I am someone who knows how to find scholarship money if and when I need it.
I could not imagine what this process would be like if I did not have this financial cushion.
Today in religious leadership we listed the four steps that generally occur when a group is created:
Forming A group is created. This birth can occur in numerous ways. A Task Force can be appointed by the President of a University. A group of like minded individuals can decide that they want to create an organization to formalize their purpose of existing. A new person or persons can enter into an organization, thus recreating a new, hybrid group.
The vision and the values of the group are created and understood.
Storming This is the tumultuous period of group formation. This is the time when being nice to each other takes a lower precedence than the need to articulate ones own concerns and beliefs. Conflicts inevitably ensue, because people’s beliefs and concerns rarely overlap completely. This is the first half of the relational aspects of the group.
Norming The norming stage solidifies the process of the group. After the storming stage, the group emerges with the understanding of who is going to be listened to and what role each individual is cast as in the process. The second half of the relational process occurs here.
Performing The group does the work that it needs, wants, and hopes to do. This is the task focused portion of the group process.
This is not a linear progression, but a cycle. The group will often repeat this cycle as new people join, tasks are accomplished, and new dreams are created.
So I remind myself that storming is normal. Yet I also realize that a leader needs to recognize that storming is part of this cycle in order to help move the group into the healthy relational aspects of the group. While norming eventually happens by default, it does not necessarily mean that the group that emerges from the storm is a healthy one. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism are default states of being for Americans (and indeed most societies). Unless a leader actively tries to incorporate the diverse viewpoints in the storming stage, the norming will default to the way that we’ve always done things. Norming doesn’t mean the alleviation of hurt, so it takes a leader has strong relational skills the storming process can be negotiated with a minimum of lasting resentments.
The Well Known Crisis of a Mainline Protestant Church The United Methodist Church (like many other mainline denominations) is in the middle of a crisis.Its church membership has halved from 12 million to 6 million people in the past 50 years.There are churches closing their doors and missions programs that are folding.Simply put, the United Methodist Church is not what it once was.If it is to remain a viable spiritual community in the future, then it must change.
Leadership and Change This is a challenge and clearly a change in the church is required for its future.According to Kouzes and Posner, in The Leadership Challenge, strong leadership is needed for any kind of change to take place.When interviewing leaders who reflected upon what projects they most proud of, they discovered this consistent theme.
“Evident in the tone of almost all the personal-best stories is that leaders are people who seize the initiative with enthusiasm, determination, and a desire to make something happen.They embrace the challenge presented by the shifts in their industries or the new demands of the marketplace and commit themselves to creating exciting new possibilities that make a difference.”
Instead of fearing the challenge, the leaders embraced it as an opportunity to learn how to do new things and make their company more relevant to the world around them.Intriguingly, what appeared as the most reliable source of change was the need for better customer service.It was not the product that these companies created, but instead the way that they related internally and to each other.
The United Methodist Rebrand I’ve been noticing a lot of rebranding for the United Methodist Church.Re-Think campaigns (which incidentally I first heard about from a Pagan friend who is a person in-the-know about marketing) that are happening online and on television.We’ve been trying to figure out ways that we can make our product of our church more attractive to the people we want in our doors.
The Good Samaritan This past weekend, I preached off of the Good Samaritan parable, and so I've been sitting with the challenging framework for community that Jesus lays out.The parable is framed by a story about a lawyer trying to figure Jesus out --- and being a well trained lawyer, he is trying to put Jesus into a corner.Vocationally, Jesus is a teacher, and teachers tend not to simply give information when he can invite his student into thinking through a problem.When the lawyer asks, “Who then is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan.
This parable has been something I have been meditating on for a few weeks.The two solutions that Jesus lists out are two entirely correct religious solutions.The Levite and the Priest must maintain ritual purity (something that cannot be done if they come into contact with blood) and so they sacrifice perhaps their own personal convictions to help someone in immediate need in order to maintain a correct relationship between their community and God.The Good Samaritan crosses ancient historical hatreds to help the bleeding and battered person in need.He risks his life and spends his money to help a stranger.This compassion is also “loving your neighbor as yourself.” We know where Jesus comes down on the issue of which person acted more correctly. I myself cannot sit so comfortably with assuming that I'd take the Good Samaritan's side. Nor am I certain that the church has taken that
Rebranding and the Good Samaritan As I sit watching this rebranding campaign for the United Methodist Church I wonder who is our customer? Who does our advertising campaign try to reach out to?
The story of the Good Samaritan often seems to me to be one about exploding the circle of who we think is relevant and capable of acting with compassionate morality.I often see it as the Biblical Imperative insisting that we need to Think Outside the Box of the people who are normally inscribed as who is allowed to be inside the box.
Therefore the rebranding is our way of thinking outside the box right?Well.It’s a start.There is a TEDTalk that I often return to when I think about branding and who the product is selling to.
And while the topic of selling condoms may be slightly controversial in comparing it to the decline of the UMC, the general idea I get from it is widely applicable.Is our marketing appeasing the people who are worried about a cause or is it to actually convince people to use the product?Ending AIDS and saving the United Methodist church are two important causes in my book – and I wonder if we are falling into the same trap.
Are we selling ourselves to ourselves or are we selling to our actual customers?
Who then in our Customer? The UMC needs to market to ourselves. We need to talk about who we have been, who we are, and where we think God is taking the church in the future.This marketing is an important way of starting that conversation for ourselves. We need to see ourselves as part of the good customer service the United Methodist Church offers.
Yet the question that the Good Samaritan asks of us is to stop seeing our religious life in conventional ways and understand that our customers are more than just who is already on the inside of the box.The more I have worked at First UMC of Los Angeles, the more I believe that the future of the United Methodist Church will not be monocultural or presenting one or two styles of worship.I believe it will engage in the complicated questions of justice for the world and call us to work outside of our church walls. Worship will become a place where we God is made real and our souls are restored, not merely a place where we are entertained. I think we need to be ready to start looking at the people who make us uncomfortable, and realize that they are the neighbor that we need to ask to be in relationship to our church. Yet I see this as an exciting opportunity. We get to not just rebrand, but reimagine our whole community. This is a great new opportunity to welcome the great diversity found in the children of God and see that as precisely where the United Methodist Church will begin.
This will take leadership, risk taking, and willingness to think outside the box. This is the great challenge of the United Methodist Church for this day.
My sophomore year of college those in my apartment had an unofficial "Teenage Dance Party" Rule. When someone had something to celebrate, needed a break from working on a thesis sentence that wouldn't come, or were just in the need of either a pick-me up or celebration, they would run into the common room of the apartment and shout "TEENAGE DANCE PARTY." They would turn on music, usually Backstreet Boys or something similarly poplicious, and crank the music. Everyone in the apartment would run out of our rooms, dance feverishly for the four minutes of the song, and then return back to whatever work we had been doing.
Self-Care has been listed as a growing edge for my leadership. As in, I don't do enough self care. One person specifically asked me to bring in more celebration into my life, or as I interpreted, "Where your party at Ruth?"
Kouzes and Posner suggest that in order to create an overall willingness to take on the risk of a large projects then you need to generate small wins as you go along. Well, last week I finished up the last of my midterms. I would like to point out that this is a time for a Teenage Dance Party as an important and proper step in my Leadership Reflections.
So. TEENAGE DANCE PARTY!
P.S. Lady Gaga described the simpler video than her usual fare:
I realized that it was time to just have a moment to acknowledge myself, as a 25-year old who has been working so hard from the bottom of my heart.
I guess the Teenage Dance Party is a legitimate form of artistic expression.
There are times when the universe becomes more apparent in its coincidental overlaps than other. Right now as I am sitting in a coffee shop and I reading my religious leadership homework, an unfortunate meeting is taking place.Two people interested in starting a non-profit online organization have invited an expert in online field to give them advice on how to proceed.The tension from the table is palpable.
The person who has been brought in to consult clearly thinks that these two individuals do not have any realistic expectations of what details a non-profit website should entail.The number of times I have heard the consultant say: “Well, if you guys are actually serious about this, you should do this.”Yet I never once have heard him say, “Why are you guys interested in creating a website that helps raise funds for peoples’ cancer surgeries that are not covered by their insurance.”He is so focused on “In order to make this work, you have to do this.”I do not disagree that these two individuals who have called for the meeting thought out enough of the practical details of making their idea a reality.Yet, the blunt and dismissive style of the consultant is not bringing these people from vision into realizing how reality needs to go.
The two people who have the vision for this website are frustrated by the details that the consultant suggests: “People are looking for a way to donate, but they are so hindered by overhead.”[i]They are so passionate about the cause, that they dismiss the practical considerations as obstacles to letting people help each other.Perhaps they are dispirited by the fact that their anticipated “Realities” are not as practical as they had thought and that there are more details than they expected.
Bacher and Cooper-White explain that “Vision and reality, not either/or makes for effective planning.”This is a good idea (although, to be political for a moment, I think points to the very real need for a more robust and helpful health care system in the United States); yet the inability for vision and reality to communicate to one another is making this potentially wonderful project stay grounded.A good place for this to move forward would for both to recognize the basic necessity for the other and to affirm their commitment to what they are planning.This division creates conflict and diminishes the potential for a future.
I have found myself quoting Andrew Marvell's poem quite frequently these days. If we didn’t have homework, jobs, e-mails, endless rounds of meetings, laundry, and sleep we could do all that we wanted to do.If we had but world enough and time, we would fix everything that needs fixing.
According to Bacher and Cooper-White
Human effectiveness happens within time.No one has ‘all the time in the world’ to act.A sense of mortality arrives in two ways:the awareness that I will die or that my organization will fade (“time runs out”) generates anxiety about finitude and limits.But time not only “runs out,” it also “flies by.”Thus a sense of timing is also important.Human effectiveness is carried out within the structure of temporality.[i]
This year I am beginning to realize that time is discursive.Perhaps it’s the protestant work ethic in me that makes me feel the urge to join, accomplish, STRIVE forward.Time is constant and no matter how much I try to stretch it to move forward, it will remain the same.
As someone seeking United Methodist ordination, I realize that my “life” in any one congregation will be short.The average length of appointment is 5 years.This idea of my mortality makes me very aware of how much time I have to teach, connect, pray, change, laugh, and dream with one congregation.Our relationship will not be a marriage, and coyness on my part
Ah well.If we had but world enough, and time.
[i]Robert N Bacher and Michael L Cooper-White, Church Administration, 65
On Being a High Quality Underling I spent seven years as a data entry person for a leasing company.Other than a few theological qualms about working for a company that lent money at exorbitant interest rates (and then my utter shock to realize that they were actually a relatively cheap source of cash for small businesses), I was a very good underling.I learned skills quickly, I was accurate in my work, and I was good at reporting back problems in an efficient and comprehensible manner for my supervisor to be able to make decisions.In fact it was a matter of pride at how high quality of an underling that I was able to make myself integrated into the work of the company seemlessly.
Then I saw Katz’s model of the Skills of an Effective Administrator.Northouse shows the graph like this:
On Top Management’s Lack of Technical Know-How: Now at first I disagreed with this model.Working with top managers who had such little understanding of the technical skills (for example, how to put together an effective and balanced spread sheet), that their choices suffered and the organization was harmed by their lack of knowledge.Additionally, the disdain that some Top Management had for the tediousness and grueling character sometimes required in technical work led them to incorrect assumptions about the speed at which projects could be accomplished.I thought that their lack of technical skills automatically made the Top Management less competent and certainly less compassionate leaders.Katz’s model just struck me as a description of how the management was and not how it should be.
How Experience Makes me Reevaluate my Prejudices (again). And now I’m Top Management.I have hired two people and now I’m learning how to supervise them in ways that hold to my democratic values and respect for the intelligence and creativity for the individuals who work yet still giving them enough direction to get the work that needs to be accomplished done.
Last week I asked for a poster to be made.I did not have enough time to make the poster myself, and it was a project that I know that they could easily accomplish.What my coordinator made was not at all what I envisioned, yet was a fantastic and creative way to advertise our series of programs.
I realize now that I do not need to know how the poster was made.I do not need to know what programs were used, where the picture was found, what kind of font was used.Instead, I needed to know when the poster was done and appreciate the final project.My technical knowledge was largely unnecessary for my assignment of the job and for the person to carry it out.
Appreciation of Human Skills What the technical knowledge did help me with was appreciate the hard work that went into the poster.I knew how much time that it took to make that poster.Technical knowledge then becomes something that keeps me grounded in recognizing how much effort my workers are putting forward.
What I missed in Katz’s model my first time around is that Human Skills are absolutely necessary for each level of worker/management.Empathy becomes never becomes unnecessary.The ability to communicate appreciation and hear advice from their workers remains a skill that is needed the most.While I do still think that having technical skills helps one be grounded in the human appreciation of the work done, having the human skills to convey it becomes absolutely important.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
This cartoon has been making its rounds on facebook the past week. Part of the reason is because facebook has changed its layout (which always creates a large amount of handwringing and consternation among its users) and because a persistent rumor about facebook charging money had been making its rounds. With candid humor this post explains the reasons why charging and frustration at changes are largely not a concern of facebook.
When I saw this, it really made me think about structures and people's participation in those structures. Many people in facebook see it as a tool in which they can get their message sent out to a broader range of people or a place they can keep up with many friends and relatives in the distance. They see facebook in the ways that they use it, but not in the ways that facebook is using them to make a profit and further its own needs. They see only half of the coin, the portion of facebook that they benefit from and can use; they do not see the ways in which the institution sustains itself.
In a rather cynical reflection, I wonder then why do we do leadership. Do we do this because we see the ways in which we can change an institution and our world? What is the other half of the coin? How then do institutions use us to sustain themselves?
