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.
