Generating Ownership and Taking Action
In this newsletter issue I continue my series on leading change. I'm building on the work of John Kotter, a Harvard professor who has written and taught on what is necessary to lead change. In my January and March newsletters I focused on the first three steps: Increase Urgency, Build the Guiding Team, and Get the Vision Right.
Now let's look at next steps. First is to "Communicate for Buy-In."
If you and key leaders (your church's board and other respected leaders) have worked with members to get your vision right, then you have already been building buy-in or ownership.
Anytime you are making any significant change, you must get most of the congregation on board. What is significant change? It might be a major remodeling of the church building, a dramatic change in focus for the church's ministry, a major change in the style and form of worship, or any number of changes.
I contend that it's critical to get around 80% or so of the members to generally agree and optimally be enthusiastic about the proposed change. If you and the church's board have embarked on a major change and haven't brought members along, you aren't leading. You're just a bunch of friends taking a walk - perhaps into a minefield! If you don't have significant support, then you are leading the congregation into destructive conflict.
Be very clear: I think constructive conflict is essential. You and other leaders must propose ideas and your sense of God's call and then listen attentively to others' perceptions. What have you not thought of? What data do people give you that you didn't know? What third rails did you accidentally touch? Listen and then adjust accordingly.
In my consulting work I'm seeing congregations that are barely viable, often overwhelmed by an old deteriorating building. Some are saying "just let us alone. We want to be buried out of this building. We're just old and tired." The members and leaders own the plan: to let the congregation die. Some decide to sell their building, hoping to cash in on a dinosaur and start a nifty new ministry in a rented storefront. The leaders announce this as a fait accompli to the congregation and predictably there's an uproar! They hadn't built ownership.
In her book, Real Good Church, Molly Baskette describes the painstaking process of transforming a tired, older congregation in a Boston suburb into a vital church. Essential to doing what she did was building a deep sense of ownership of a new vision.
So, throw your ideas on the table. Listen. Argue. Listen some more. Go around the neighborhood and listen some more. Where is the Holy Spirit already blowing? Get people excited about possibilities! Build ownership - buy-in.
Kotter's next two steps are similar: Empower Action and Create Short Term Wins.
Whenever you try to effect change you run into roadblocks. City or county regulations may stop you from adding a ten story addition. The cost of asbestos abatement may keep you from remodeling for another three years. Even though you love less formal, more contemporary music, most members of your congregation may find it nearly impossible to worship using "that noise!"
How do you deal with these barriers? Get some leaders respected by the opposition to speak on behalf of the proposed changes. If you want to change the worship style, do a blended service, incorporating newer and more traditional music. Have your very traditional choir director explain how new musical genres help younger adults (and some older ones too) worship. Or explain how our beloved "traditional" hymns were radical when first introduced.
Find ways to bless existing program and add new ones. Just because you find the old fashioned women's association boring, doesn't mean that some women aren't enriched by it. You can keep the existing group and add new groups that capture the new direction and vision. Celebrate God's richness!
And identify those short term wins, what are sometimes called "low hanging fruit." If one dimension of your vision is having more people being part of your church and reaching out to needy people in the community, then you might have a lunch after worship for everyone.
Molly Baskette describes their coffee hour as literally an hour! We often call coffee hour "the second hour of worship," and our table is communion. If the table is sparse, it feels like the welcome is sparse, like the feast of God decided to grace some other place that day. In the early church, communion was a full meal- in part, so that poor people would not go away hungry, and so that nobody could distinguish rich from poor. Our coffee hour is communion in this sense. (from Chapter 6)
They have worked out a system in which they have 13 groups each preparing a delicious coffee hour for a month at a time.
She also asserts the importance of bathrooms, nursery, and Sunday School classrooms being clean and up-to-date. Getting a group together to paint those rooms and put in new equipment can be done quickly.
They empower people for action and create short term wins.
I encourage you, especially if you are trying to lead change in a declining congregation in an old building, to get her book asap! Her attention to detail reminds me of athletic coaches declaring that they are going back to the basics. To win a championship, athletes need to do the basics correctly. For example, a baseball player needs to know how to throw correctly, catch a ball, especially a grounder, judge a pitch's speed and trajectory, etc. Players who are planning where to throw before catching a grounder may bumble the catch. Don't omit basic steps and make major mistakes.
So if you and leaders have begun the process of clarifying God's yearning for your church, then it's critical to get members of your church on board. Communicate so that they will be excited about the possibilities God has in mind for the church. Find ways to involve people at all levels. Pick that low hanging fruit by making easy changes and thus creating short-term wins.
You will find that the power of the Holy Spirit will surge!
