Is Our Busyness Masking Spiritual Boredom?

The large church is known for the quality and depth of its programming, and for the exhaustion of its staff team. It’s true, every one of my client congregations is functioning with a burned out staff team, and pastors on the brink of exhaustion.

We assume that a growing and thriving church is always adding more programming, enhancing current programming, and making certain that there is something offered to satisfy every imagined need. We heap on more and more options in an effort to improve participation and engagement. But it isn’t really working, is it? Those who are already engaged and active feel compelled to participate in the latest new offering to show their support. In fact, we are creating more opportunities for those who are already over-engaged, while the under-engaged watch our frenzy with mild disinterest.

As we design and facilitate more programs, what is it that we fancy we are accomplishing? Do we honestly believe that adding offerings to the already overcrowded lives of our congregants will lead them more deeply into relationship with the Divine? Does one more scripture study, an extra spiritual formation instruction, an enticing new worship experience, or a compelling social justice opportunity really contribute to the soulfulness of our people or our congregations? Wouldn’t it be better to teach people how to sit still, to be okay with the discomfort of confronting themselves in empty time and space, to see what might emerge?

I suspect that the busyness we participate in and contribute to masks a deep-seated spiritual boredom of our own. We have forgotten what an authentic experience of God feels like, and how it is nurtured. Experiencing God begins in silence and stillness. There are no classes, twitter feeds, blog posts or sermons that will produce this. We cannot manufacture silence and stillness for our congregants. We can only point them in the general direction, and then trust that God will meet them there.

Have we ourselves confused thinking about, speaking about, and acting on behalf of God with the deep personal experience of being with God? Are we fearful that if we enter the silence and stillness that we will find nothing there to satisfy our souls? Are we afraid that we will have nothing to teach our congregants out of that experience?

It is summertime. We dreamed of this time all through the busy program year. This is the season we imagined would involve long stretches of uninterrupted time to dream, to pray, to rediscover our relationship with God, and to invent a next chapter. Instead, many of us are secretly ticking off the passing of days, worried that the summer will pass us by with nothing productive to show for our rejuvenation efforts. Many of us are already secretly gearing up for the onslaught of fall programming, just around the corner.

Today, I read this marvelous piece from Maria Popova on “Why the Capacity for Boredom is a Good Thing”. Popova reminds us of the childhood experience of boredom that emerges from having long stretches of “nothing to do”. She quotes Adam Phillips:

“Every adult remembers, among many other things, the great ennui of childhood, and every child’s life is punctuated by spells of boredom; that state of suspended anticipation in which things are started and nothing begins, the mood of diffuse restlessness which contains that most absurd and paradoxical wish, the wish for a desire.”

We have to slow down the madness of our program offerings so that we, and those that we lead, can enter the stillness, experience the boredom, and rediscover the desire for God on the other side. We need the courage to lead others in this counter-cultural journey of discovery.

So, today I invite you to quit work early. Put aside the sermon prep. Go for a walk or sit by a stream and stay there long enough to remember the sweet invitation of boredom. Invite God into that space with you and see what happens.

Ask Alban: Managing Millennials

Q. Our congregation recently called an energetic and talented young clergy leader. The congregation loves and respects her leadership.  However, there are some problems brewing around work style.  She continually disregards her scheduled office hours and doesn’t respond to telephone or email messages in a timely manner. I am head of staff.  Is this something that I should crack down on as a supervisor, or is it a generational difference that I should try to understand and honor?  How can I help her better manage her relationship with others on the team who are increasingly frustrated by this behavior?

A. The short answer to your question is that the tensions you are experiencing are likely related to generational differences. Your role as a supervisor is to help members of your team appreciate, acknowledge and arbitrate their differences related to behavioral preferences, and then to set reasonable boundaries that allow the full team to function effectively together.

Tamara Erickson is a widely respected author and speaker on managing different generations in the workplace.  She explains that generational characteristics are shaped by members’ shared experiences during their pre-and early teen years. Millennials were born between 1980 and 2000.  Members of this generation shared two important experiences in their formative years: terrorism and technology[i].

Early exposure to terrorism has taught this generation that the world can be unsafe; it is random and unpredictable. The logical response to this exposure is to make the most of today and to live every day to the fullest.  A sense of immediacy is one of this generation’s more observable characteristics. They live in the here and now. Their most pressing questions are whether the activities they are doing right now are challenging, meaningful and enjoyable.

Unlike the generations before them, Millennials are not institutionally driven and don’t particularly value participation in institutional life. Staff team practices like “assigned office hours” make no reasonable sense to them. Millennial pastors tend to approach their work in highly relational ways. They find meaning in work that is engaged outside of the church building, in environments that meet people where they live, work and play. They feel stifled by forced time in an office setting.

Millennials also came of age in a world that was wired with technology.  The have intuitively absorbed things that the rest of us had to learn intellectually. Living with technology has taught Millennials that not every communication needs to be dealt with, and different forms of communication carry different response expectations.  Millennials focus on managing technology and communication in ways that are helpful and productive to them, not intrusive or anxiety-producing. Many in this generation operate with clear and simple rules about how to manage communication with technology. E-mail only if you must send a document, and don’t expect a response.  Send a text message to coordinate or address an immediate need. Share general information, updates and photos on Facebook. Never leave a phone message, unless it is for someone “older”. In short, Millennials show a preference for semi-synchronous writing, instead of synchronous voice[ii].

None of these preferences in communication are problematic when Millennials are dealing with members of their own generation.  However, most of our congregations are populated with staff and members that function with different expectations and behavioral patterns, formed by their own generational preferences.  When someone observes behaviors that are inconsistent with expected norms, they tend to attribute rudeness and disrespect to the one demonstrating those behaviors.

So, what is your role as head of staff in resolving these differences and setting boundaries around behavior? Erickson recommends a four-fold response[iii].

Appreciate: Withhold your own judgment for a period of time. Watch her behavior and see if you can glean the benefits that go along with the choices that she makes.  Millennials are innately innovative, they value and appreciate diversity, they are masterful coordinators and gifted at building networks. In what ways do the behaviors that irritate you allow these other characteristics to flourish?

Acknowledge:  Share some articles or insights about generational differences in the workplace with your team. Help the team realize that one behavioral pattern isn’t inherently better than another, just different. Ask each team member to articulate some of their own preferences, and to explain how those preferences help them engage effectively in ministry.

Arbitrate: Help team members articulate the difference between their needs and their wants.  Needs stem from legitimate and essential duties and obligations. For example, a staff member has a legitimate need to know where the clergy leader is when trying to contact her, in order to deal with a pastoral care crisis.  Wants stem from preferences and conveniences. A staff member may want the clergy leader to keep regular office hours, because the staff member finds it unfair that clergy staff don’t have to account for their whereabouts.  Define acceptable behavior patterns for the collective team on the basis of legitimate need.

Adapt: Continue to help the team appreciate their differences and check in with one another as they live into a new, mutually built set of expectations.

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[i] Tamara J Erickson, “The Millennials” at www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/archive/summer-2012

[ii] Tamara Erickson, Plugged in: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work, (Boston:Harvard Business Press, 2008).

[iii] Tamara J Erickson, “The Four A’s”, Diversity Executive, May/June 2012.

Bound by Shame

Recently, author Karen McClintock wrote The Challenge to Change  in which she made this claim, “I believe congregations are in decline because they have become shame-bound.”

I haven’t been able to get this provocative statement out of my mind.  It certainly proves true in my consulting practice, particularly in any situation that involves imaging a new future.  To imagine a new future we must always begin with understanding our past, so that the future is rooted in something real.  I often invite leaders to describe the glory days of the congregation, that period of time when the congregation was functioning as its best version of itself.  They  have no problem reaching consensus on what the glory era was, and they can quickly describe what made it a high point in the history of the congregation (usually, that attendance was at an all-time high). The shame enters in when they begin to describe the loss of those by-gone days, the descent into something other than their best selves.  They lower their eyes as they speak; they grow silent, they mumble their explanations, and often protest the invitation to dwell on the past.  It pains leaders to acknowledge that the decline has happened on their watch. Even though they can point to cultural shifts and the overall decline of the Church, they wonder what they might have done sooner or better to thwart the decline of their congregation.

I can feel the shame when I ask congregations to tell me about both their proudest and sorriest moments in ministry.  Leaders quickly chime in to tell me about their best ministry moments, but they fumble when describing that which they are sorriest about.  They want to gloss over those shame-filled memories and often haven’t developed a shared story-line to frame their understanding of those times.  It’s too hard to talk about the failed pastorate, the memory of a decision that in retrospect was steeped in racism, the sexual scandal that was covered up for fear of disgrace and inevitable membership loss.

The presence of shame is not alarming to me. What is alarming is the visible way in which I see shame binding the adaptive learning process that is needed to move into a new future.  A congregation needs to access its best adaptive capacities, whether the congregation is creating a new strategic plan, preparing for a new pastorate, or trying to introduce some overdue cultural change.

In my experience, shame thwarts the adaptive learning process in the following predictable ways:

• Adaptive learning requires that we distinguish between our positive core, (that which represents our authentic, best selves and must be protected at all costs) and our institutionalized dry-rot, (that which needs to be scraped away and replaced with new and fresh practices).  When shame-bound we often cling to our false selves to keep the truth at bay. We blame the pastor that embarrassed us without accepting any shared responsibility; we explain away our racism as something that every other congregation fell into as well. Without authentic voice we can’t fully claim our positive core, or distinguish it from the dry rot.

• Shame-bound congregations try to minimize their loss and failure by re-creating the glory days, rather than risking a move into an undefined future. If we can just get back to where we were before the loss set in, we can eradicate the shame. When asked to dream about the future, shame-bound leaders often focus on re-creating programs, structures and processes that are familiar.  Because they have not appropriately excavated their losses or created a shared leadership narrative about the loss, they seem unable to take the necessary risks involved in creating something truly adaptive.

• Shame-bound leaders have difficulty distinguishing symptoms, causes and solutions. Shame thrives on secrecy and an unexplored truth.  When we haven’t fully explored the pain of our past we tend to blur the distinctions between that which caused our decline, the symptoms that indicated a problem existed, and the possible solutions.  Consider this example, a congregation that is ashamed of having very few active members between the ages of 20-35 will often claim a new strategic initiative aimed at attracting young adults. They almost always propose to launch a new young adult ministry program to address the identified problem, without stopping to consider that the loss of young adults is perhaps symptomatic of an underlying root cause, such as the absence of a vibrant discipleship process.  A shame-bound mind doesn’t think expansively and analytically about the source of its problems. It only seeks to eradicate the symptom that it finds most painful.

So, how do we begin to unbind ourselves from shame, for the sake of becoming unencumbered adaptive leaders?  Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, suggests that overcoming shame begins with vulnerability, and vulnerability is born of trust.  We need to create safe spaces in our congregation for shared story-telling about both our prouds and our sorries.  We need to create shared leadership narratives that make meaning out of our “not so stellar” moments so that we can learn from them and move forward, not backward.

Does your congregation suffer from an unexamined source of shame that prevents it from adaptive learning?

Persuasion and Influence

For many of us in ministry the use of persuasion and influence, outside of the pulpit, makes us uncomfortable. We don’t want to be seen as manipulative or unethical. So, when we need to convince someone to do something that they wouldn’t do of their own volition, we frame our invitation as a legitimate request (establishing our right as a leader to make the request), or we rely on rational persuasion (presenting logical arguments and factual evidence that a proposal or request is the best way to proceed).

Imagine for a moment that you need to persuade members of your congregation to experiment with greater musical diversity in worship. Framing the invitation as a “legitimate request” would involve some reference to an important article you recently read, or a workshop you attended with a recognized national expert who said that thriving churches offer diverse musical choices. Or, using “rational persuasion” you might argue that the last time the congregation experienced numerical growth in worship attendance was when alternative musical styles were introduced.

These two forms of influence work well when two conditions exist: when you are regarded as one having appropriate expertise in the area that you are trying to influence; and/or when the values of those that you are seeking to influence align with your own values.

Adaptive change in our congregations calls for more sophisticated forms of influence. We are asking people to adopt new behavioral norms and to step boldly outside of their comfort zones. We are increasingly inviting people to live in disequilibrium with us, and they may no longer believe that we all operate with the same values base. They may not trust our expertise in areas that they have not yet experienced. This requires skills in influence that move well beyond rational persuasion and legitimate request. We need to deepen our reservoir of influence tactics.

When Jesus was preparing to send the twelve out into neighboring communities to spread the Gospel he said, “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). We need to become a little savvier in our influence capabilities. We need to understand more about the science and power of persuasion.

Check out the following animated video, describing the Universal Principles of Persuasion based on the research of  Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University.

Does this level of influence strike you as appropriate or inappropriate for our work in congregations; worldly or wise?

Alban Institute’s Top Articles of 2012

Which Alban Weekly articles were the most read during 2012? The combination of a good title, compelling content, and, frequently, sharing on social media helped make these 10 articles the most popular among our readers. Thanks to all who shared these and other articles on their Facebook pages, wrote about them in their blogs, or forwarded them to their friends. This week, we offer links to these articles for those who missed them the first time or want to read them again, and some discounts on some of the books they were adapted from for those who want to go deeper.   

What’s the Problem? by Susan Beaumont was featured as the #2 article for 2012 through the Alban Institute.  Check it out HERE.

Leadership Systems in Motion

The large church is managed through five interdependent leadership systems. When change occurs in one system, it tends to produce
change in the others. These systems include:

1. Clergy Leadership Roles
2. Staff Team Design and Function
3. Governance and Board Function
4. Acculturation and the Role of the Laity
5. The Formation and Execution of Strategy

As daily changes occur in the life of the congregation, these systems adjust but remain relatively stable. Leaders come and go, policies are formed and adapted, groups form and dissolve, but the basic interaction of the five systems remains constant.

However, every leadership system has a capacity limit, a point beyond which it can no longer effectively function. When the activity
level of the congregation significantly increases or decreases, leadership systems hit their limits. A senior clergyperson assumes a particular leadership role that is highly effective in a church with weekend worship attendance of 700. The clergyperson is surprised to discover that the leadership role begins losing its effectiveness when the church adds an additional worship service and  now hosts 850 in weekend worship. Or, a staff team that was humming along eliminates a few part-time staff members due to a budget decrease, and suddenly the overall department structure of the church no longer works. The staff team maintains  momentum but notices how much more energy it suddenly takes to function well across departments.

One of the remarkable things about leadership systems is that they tend to reach the outer limits of their effectiveness at predictable
moments, based on worship attendance or budget size. We often refer to the period of time that a congregations approaches or moves through these limits as a transition zone. Some refer to transition zones as “attendance ceilings,” because they observe that a congregation’s weekend attendance repeatedly climbs to a predictable level and then drops back down. When a congregation hits one of these transition zones, it must intentionally adapt all of the five leadership systems, or the congregation won’t be able to accommodate added complexity. The systems have reached their effectiveness limits and cannot accommodate additional growth without being repurposed.

In the large church there are natural attendance and budget zones where the five leadership systems stabilize and accommodate complexity
and growth without shifting.  Each of  these zones operates with a basic organizing principle and with predictable characteristics
in the five leadership systems.

Congregations occupy a stable size zone when they operate with an annual budget of between $1 MM and $2 MM or when weekly worship attendance remains between 400 and 800. I refer to this size zone as the professional congregation, because most of its behavior is driven by the need to professionalize operations. The congregation realizes that the church’s programming has outgrown the managerial capacity of its lay leaders to both sustain excellence in existing programming and introduce new programming, so the demand for a staff team of specialists emerges. The growth of this size church is related to budget capacity, which limits the ability to add staff. The pastor is learning to let go of a purely relational style of leadership and adopt a more managerial focus. The staff team is moving away from a generalist orientation and toward a specialist orientation. The board is learning how to govern by setting policy and creating systems of performance management.

The strategic congregation emerges as the stabilizing zone once a congregation is operating with a budget between $2 MM and $4 MM or maintaining average weekly attendance between 800 and 1,200. This congregation requires a more intentional orientation towards strategy,
growth, and alignment. In this size congregation there are so many decision-making groups at work that it is easy for the church to drift out of alignment and for tremendous energies to be wasted. The pastor is learning to maintain strategic focus.  The staff team is learning to function in aligned departmental structures, with the oversight of an executive team.  The board is growing smaller in size and is learning to delegate daily management of the church to the staff, so that it can focus more clearly on strategy formation and oversight.

The church that worships with an average weekend community of 1,200-1,800, or with a budget of more than $4MM, is known as a matrix congregation. The presenting organizational challenge of this size category is decentralization. The careful work that was done to align church structures in the previous size category suddenly gets in the way of the more organic leadership style needed to function in this very large category. The matrix size church takes its name from the shape of the organizational chart that often characterizes this size zone. Growth in the
matrix-sized church emerges and is managed everywhere, all at the same time.  The senior clergy leader focuses primarily on the overall strategy of the congregation, teaching, preaching, and fund-raising. She has fully delegated the management of the staff team to one or more executive ministers.  The staff is learning new ways to coordinate its decentralized decision making.

A congregation approaching the upper or lower limits of any one of these stabilizing zones will experience leadership stress. Rightsizing the
systems requires a fundamental paradigm shift in how the church functions. The congregation that tries to avoid the difficult work of adapting its leadership systems risks stagnation in growth and/or the ineffective use of congregationa lresources.

Large Church, Small Board

I’ve heard this question recently from several of you.

Q:  I’ve always heard that the governing board of a congregation should grow smaller as the church becomes larger. Why is that? Is there an ideal size?

 A:  Effective boards in every size congregation must tend to three types of work: fiduciary (tending to the stewardship of tangible assets), strategic (working to set the congregation’s priorities and seeing that resources are being deployed in accordance with those priorities) and generative (problem framing and sense making about the shifting environment of the congregation). See Chait, Ryan and Taylor,  “ Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards” for more about these definitions.

In the large congregation many of the fiduciary responsibilities of the board are better delegated to others. The board can never abdicate its responsibility for fiduciary oversight, but it can rely on board committees and the staff team to do much of the fiduciary work on its behalf. As congregations grow larger governing boards must increasingly focus their time on the strategic and generative work of the congregation, if the congregation is going to thrive. This type of work is best accomplished by smaller decision making bodies, with specific skill sets in strategic leadership.

The board of the multi-celled congregation (200-400 in weekend worship attendance) is often consumed by fiduciary work. The staff team is not yet large enough to assume the full managerial responsibilities of the church, and lay leadership is still actively involved in the management of ministry. Governing bodies in this size congregation are often representational in nature, consisting of the people who are doers and managers of the ministry alongside the staff team. Much of the monthly board meeting is wrapped up in planning for and reporting on ministry management. This board often needs to make special provisions for strategic planning work, outside of the context of their monthly meetings.

The governing board in the Professional sized congregation (400-800 in weekend worship attendance) is intuitively drawn towards a more balanced focus between fiduciary and strategic work. The largest struggle of the board is figuring out how to be more strategic and generative on a regular basis. The staff team is becoming highly specialized and is better able than the board to tend to operational management. The board must avoid micro-managing the staff.  Congregations in this size category feel the need to reduce the size of the board in order to move away from reporting out/operational management and into more strategic and generative work.

Healthy congregations in the Strategic size category (800-1,200 in weekend worship attendance) have generally learned some things about delegating the fiduciary work of the board, in service to more time spent on strategic and generative work. The governing body in this congregation has typically been downsized to create a more nimble decision making body. The voice of the staff team is represented by the senior clergy leader and the executive pastor. Other professional staff members attend board meetings only when invited, to evaluate or reflect upon a particular aspect of ministry that rests within the staff member’s sphere of influence. 

What size is the right size?  A group trying to engage in effective strategic decision making faces two key challenges. The first is the management of communication. The second is decision making accuracy.  Generally having more people in a group will increase the likelihood that someone will have the information needed to make the decision and someone will propose a correct choice or solution. However, more people produce more opinions that have to be communicated and discussed. This makes the management of communication process more difficult, which ultimately ends up reducing decision making effectiveness.

The difficulty of managing communication within a small group is roughly proportional to the number of possible social interactions within the group. With two people there is only one possible social interaction.  With three people there are three possible two-person interactions and one three way interaction for a total of four possible interactions. The number of possible social interactions begins to explode in groups with more than five people. 

Most of us cannot imagine reducing our governing bodies down to 5 individuals, but the closer we can get to that number, the more effective our problem solving will be.  Larger groups require skillful leadership and formal structures in order to function effectively. Formal structures, such as parliamentary procedures, work by deliberately stifling many of the possible social interactions.  Unfortunately, this can also stifle creativity which is critical for strategic and generative work, and it also insures that most decision making will be dominated by the most politically influential individuals in the room, whether or not they have the best ideas.

A Worthy Performance Goal

This post is for those of you who attended, “Stepping Up to Staffing and Supervision” last week in Atlanta.  Here is my promised description, with examples, of an effective performance goal. (See what happens when you articulate your expectations, set measurable objectives and establish time frames?  People actually step up to meet those expectations . Smile.)

Performance Goals focus a staff member on the priorities of the congregation. They are outcome statements. They provide the staff member with direction about how to channel their energy, encouraging the staff member to grow their area of work in defined and targeted ways over the next six-twelve month period, in accordance with the overall strategy of the congregation.

Goals should NOT be written to encourage employees to step up to meeting basic expectations about their daily performance. If an employee is not meeting basic expectations of performance, you need to address that by clarifying the core competencies and essential functions of the role, and by providing ongoing feedback about how the individual is performing against those expectations. Goals are meant to provide purpose, direction and alignment; beyond the basic daily expectations of the job.

 To be effective, performance goals must be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.

Specific:  Goals must be concrete and easily understood. They must tell precisely what the staff member is expected to accomplish.

Measurable:  Goals must measurable or observable (on some level) so that there is clarity about whether the staff member has been successful or not in reaching the goals. Measurable and observable aren’t necessarily the same thing as quantifiable; be creative in the measures that you define.

Attainable:  Goals must not be too difficult or too easy. If the goal is too challenging, the staff member may become frustrated. A goal that is too easy won’t prompt any changes in behavior. Seek to formulate goals that will stretch the staff member, but have a reasonable chance of being accomplished with consistent effort.  

Relevant: The goals of each staff team member must be relevant to the boundaries of the role they occupy. Think about what you are trying to accomplish (e.g. a 15% increase in attendance) and then figure out what part of that goal rightfully belongs to the person for whom the goal is being written.

Time bound: Goals must be bound by specific time parameters and deadlines for completion.

Finally, make certain that your goal passes the “so what” test.  A reasonable person reading the goal should understand why the goal has inherent worth and how it will advance the mission of the congregation.

Some Examples:

• Enrollment in adult religious education programs will increase by 5% between 1/10 and 1/11.
• A campus wide signage system will be designed, procured and installed by 8/31/10.
• Small group curriculum for a church wide initiative on Discipleship will be developed or purchased, approved by the teaching pastors and elders, and ready for use by all small groups in September of 2011.
• Five new adult leaders will be recruited, trained, equipped and assigned to work with our high school youth, in small group settings, by September of 2011.
• Congregation members will be surveyed in July of 2011 about their personal practices in bible study, prayer and worship. The results of this survey will be used to benchmark membership practices in anticipation of a year- long emphasis on deepening the spirituality of the congregation.
• An RFP process will be completed so that a capital campaign consultant is selected and ready to lead a capital campaign beginning in the spring of 2011.

 How many goals should be written for each staff member? Two to three performance goals are plenty. Remember that the performance goals help to sharpen focus and energy, and align the organization. A staff member is expected to fulfill all of the essential functions of the position, satisfy all of the defined core competencies and accomplish all of the performance goals. Two or three goals are plenty to keep the average staff member highly engaged, motivated and challenged.

Building Staff Collegiality

I hope that you’ll consider joining me at this upcoming Alban sponsored 2 1/2 day event on Building Staff Collegiality

April  27, 2010 – April  29, 2010
Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center , Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

Facilitator: Susan Beaumont

The seminar is scheduled to begin at noon with lunch on the first day and end after lunch on the last day.

A healthy staff team is at the heart of every thriving congregation.  Building the collegiality needed for staff teamwork 

• Requires the dedication of each staff member to live into their own calling. 
• Challenges all members of the staff team to learn to live out their personal vocations in concert with the attempts of their colleagues to do the same. 
• Calls upon special skill sets from the “head of staff” to create a collaborative and productive culture

 

Participants in this highly effective seminar will examine the characteristics of a healthy team, learn how a staff progresses through stages of team development, and identify where groups tend to get stuck.  You’ll be introduced to 30 markers of healthy staff team culture, specific approaches to managing team conflict, building accountability into team performance, and crafting effective staff meetings.

• Each participant will complete a team role self assessment prior to the seminar and will receive a comprehensive profile of their team role preferences. 
• This seminar will use a variety of learning strategies, including interactive lectures, experiential exercises, small-group conversations, and case-study work. 
• The seminar is designed for heads of staff, executive pastors, department heads, or anyone who is interested in learning how to foster healthier staff team culture.

Trend and Forces

I just stumbled across  this synopsis of,  ” Thirteen Trends and Forces Affecting the Future of Faith Formation in a Changing Church and World“. This piece was written as part of a broader study on the future of faith formation by Lifelong Faith Associates. It doesn’t have anything in it that is brand new, but it’s a remarkably good synopsis of the current landscape. I think it could serve as a helpful focal point or conversation starter for a staff or board planning retreat.