More thoughts going through my head (see previous post for the beginning of this discussion):
There has to be a balance in the church between getting things done and cultivating community. Committee meetings, though sometimes tedious, also do provide a place for people to connect with one another. In other words, ministry is not just about efficiency, and the church is not a business; but nor should committee meetings turn into constant group therapy sessions. Senior pastor will often suggest potential committee members to me because she’s worried about so-and-so because they aren’t plugged in anywhere; I’d rather give that person a job and a small group than put them on a committee.
Also I am struggling with how to balance “casting a vision,” going ahead with something exciting that people will want to participate in, and on the other hand, “equipping the saints” for ministry and encouraging collaborative efforts. In other words, I don’t want to be a Pied Piper, but if I wait for everyone to come on board, we’ll never get anywhere.
In terms of meeting “as needed,” well when it comes to adult spiritual growth there is always stuff on our plate. One could justify monthly meetings without breaking a sweat, given the sheer amount of stuff going on. What I’m wondering about is doing away with adult spiritual growth committee altogether, and creating a series of task groups for short-term things, like the Lenten lecture series, the fall spiritual growth event, and the all-church retreat. People would work on a project for 6-9 months and be done, or re-up for the next iteration of the project if they felt so called. In some ways that feels like so much more work, because someone’s gotta have a handle on all those little groups. But they have a lot more ownership in the process and feel like their gifts are really being used.
The only ongoing/non-”task” thing is Sunday School, and that’s the main thing the committee works on now. We brainstorm classes, figure out who the potential teachers might be, etc. Maybe that group could continue to meet, BUT what excites me to think about is how to get that kind of feedback from the Sunday School participants themselves. Eliminate the middleman, in a sense. I’m thinking an evaluation tool at the end of every Sunday School quarter that would solicit feedback, suggest some future courses and get people’s opinions, and also ask “who among your classmates do you feel have gifts for teaching ministry?” Etc.
Obviously I’d then need to meet with the spiritual growth elder and process all this feedback, but that just feels much more authentic than this group we have going now, stabbing in the dark about what might work.
14 Responses to “down with committees, part II”
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adult spiritual growth committee
That’s very funny.
We aim to please.
There are all kinds of little tricks and cutesy things you can do to get people to participate a little bit more for a little bit longer. In the end, tricks don’t work. Tricks are what builds barriers to accomplishment. Especially after a while, people get to a point where there just seems to be no point. Everyone knows how everyone else is going to vote. Why even go?
All of these are symptoms of an empty glass. We are promised to be filled to overflowing, but when we spend to much time pouring and not enough time receiving, that isn’t possible.
My advice: Confront the committees directly, with compassion and love. We are lost because we have lost each other. What is keeping YOU from participating? Has God told you to move on to something else or are you just not getting what you need?
Be ready for tears.
Also, Remember Exodus 17 - the Amalekites will be defeated if only Moses will hold up his hands long enough. Of course, his arms tire over and over. Finally, Aaron and Hur hold his arms up for him.
Not to be blunt or coarse, but it sounds like you need Aaron and Hur to grab ahold for a while. Maybe that’s where to start with the various committees. Convene the group, tell them the story, and ask someone to help hold up your arms.
You may be surprised at who steps up to help.
Of course, I may be reading too much into your words, too.
God bless.
XT
If I were going to do the multiple-task-group thing, I’d see whether there was a trained project manager in the congregation who was willing to give an hour a week to keeping a handle on the various tasks.
Keith: That would be a great resource. Part of why I’ve been thinking about this stuff is that R and I recently read the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, which has been one of the most helpful time-management things I’ve ever read, not that I’ve read that many. I’m a very organized person, but there are aspects to GTD that give me hope that I and others might actually be able to keep track of what’s going on.
XT: Are you suggesting that task groups and more focused “jobs” are gimmicks to try to get more out of people? If so, I don’t see it that way. If anything those structures allow people to go where their gifts and interests lead them. Are you passionate about retreat ministry but couldn’t care less about Sunday School? Then why should you have to sit around while those decisions are made? Follow your bliss!
I may have misunderstood you though.
I love Exodus 17 dearly, but I actually feel like *I* am the one who is feeling energized, and my people who are either not attending the committee meetings or who are there and going through the motions are the ones who are in need of some lifting up. Or maybe just some direction. They care, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, but their gifts are not being utilized.
Yes, life is extremely full, but I’m not weary about that, I’m energized. (Most of the time.) This is very interesting, because I am somehow giving the impression lately that I am in dire straits. Not just here. I shared with some people recently on a message board my recent weird thoughts on abundance and what I have come to call “gracious scarcity,” to coin a bizarre phrase, and people instantly responded with sympathy and hugs. When in reality, the thought that there really isn’t enough, and that’s OK, we just do what we do, has made me feel lighter than I have in years.
I interned at a small church, and all of our committees met at the same time, with dinner beforehand, and child-care provided. the pastor hopped around like a rabbit room to room, but it worked. People liked the dinner–it made it social (and it was not pot-luck, but things like pizza or chinese–carry out–with one committee per month baking desserts. (sometimes the youth group or someone else cooked) they also often had some singing or a little devotional. I’ve never seen anyone else try it, but it was a sure winner at that church….plus no one was on two committees! Some committees ran much longer than others, I admit….
First, I apologize for misreading your intent. I have occassionally been known to see myself in others.
And, no, I don’t mean that task forces and such are tricks or gimmicks. I think that phrasing was aimed at thoughts in my head as far as giving advice rather than aimed at answering the question you asked. My apologies. I deal with politics so much that I sometimes slip into bad habits.
So, I’ll try and redirect my comments. If I understand things, you are feeling like others around you are over-burdened with official duties to the point where nothing is getting done. Things have lost focus.
One thing I would suggest about that, and I think you mentioned something about it in either this post or the last. Get peer reviews. People are very often surprised at how they are perceived and those perceptions can sometimes help re-direct a person to a more rewarding and fruitful endeavor.
For example, the last session of the UMC’s Disciple class has participants write down what spiritual gifts they see in their classmates. I know that the gifts I saw in my self were no where matching what my peers saw. It was sobering and humbling to me to see what esteem they held for me.
Perhaps such an activity, which I don’t think is a trick or gimmick at all, would help people identify where their gifts are better spent. It might help move people around to where they feel more energized. In conjunction with breaking things up into goal-oriented groups, that might breathe some new life into the committees.
XT
I have found that evaluations are pretty useless as planning tools. People tell me what they think I want to hear or what they think they ought to say. Then when we try to offer class topics or special events that respond to their suggestions, they don’t participate.
Although I may not be very good at designing the evaluation forms, I finally decided that leadership isn’t about responding to what people say they want but about creating opportunities for faith development that are designed to address what we think are the needs of the congregation. The CE committee knows what we have recently done and what our teacher and curriculum resources are and the class members don’t. That seems to work better for our church. And saves us a lot of aggravation, too!
I do use “ministry teams” (but don’t use that nomenclature). For example, the VBS planning team meets on their own just for that purpose and the chair reports to the CE committee. Also the Dinner Team for our Midweek adult education event meets on its own schedule and reports to me. I think that is an excellent way to use the talents of many folks who find attending a CE committee meeting burdensome.
More work maybe, but organizing around tasks seems to keep meetings more focused, because there’s less tendency to start dealing with issues unrelated to the task at hand. And I have seen people taking a great deal more ownership of the work this way. For some reason (and I’m speaking of my own personal experience of it here), it feels less overwhelming and more fulfilling to take one task and see it to completion.
I like what you are outlining here. Sounds promising to me.
Cross-posted with Linda: thanks.
Grace, I see your point re: evaluation and have experienced that somewhat myself. I do think open-ended evaluations can be very frustrating because the respondents ask for things for which there are no resources. Then they get irritated that their suggestions were not followed. And as you suggest, the Presbyterian church is not a straight democracy. We are elected to provide discerning leadership.
What I have in mind is an evaluation of the course they just completed–what did they feel was worthwhile, what would they appreciate more of. We do this rather half-hearted at the moment. Then the team, or the elder and I, or whoever, would make that an element of the discernment. It also puts attendance numbers in perspective. A small class on a specialized topic may not bring in hordes of people, and thus be seen as a “failure” by people on the outside looking in, but if the 8-10 who were there absolutely raved about it, that’s something to consider.
Another piece of the puzzle is how to identify people who might have the gifts for teaching. Right now our little committee draws on the same old folks to teach. Broadening the search might yield nothing, but on the other hand, maybe we’d get one person saying, “You know, [random class member] always had interesting things to say, and seems to be pretty well grounded, you might have a calling conversation with her.”
This is all very helpful though.
This may be a radical idea, but what about presenting these questions from the pulpit? I can think of a few things coming up in the lectionary schedule that would lend themselves as fodder for this stuff in a sermon. Give the communicants a chance to hear the dilemma and then time to offer their ideas even if it means having a quiet time during the service with paper in the pews to jot down brainstorms that could be then added to the offeratory.
RM,
I’ve found a good way to encourage and identify new teachers is by asking people to take a turn leading a small group they already participate in for one session or to encourage a small group leader to share leadership with one or two others. That’s much less of a commitment than agreeing to lead an entire class series. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some of the people who turned out to have a teaching gift –when they had success leading one class session they were willing to step out and lead more.
Thanks for raising these questions. Everyone’s comments are enlightening.
Check out FAITH LEADER, a ministry of Woodmont Christian Church, Nashville, TN –www.faithleader.org or Email:beth@faithleader.org
I love what I’m reading here. And ppb I so enjoyed visualising the small church with no-one on more than one committee and the take away food and desert once a month.
Takes a brave pastor mind NOT to be in on every decision
and good summarising techniques required of the committee itself when the pastor did pop in for the 10-15 mins- but what encouraged me was that it DID work for the church and they provided child care which is one of the main reasons in our church that married women are on so few committees (plus the fact that most of them like getting things done and many of the committees don’t seem to actually DO anything except meet)
oops