I spent the afternoon with the nice people at Lanark St Nicholas yesterday thinking about communication.

Here’s what we talked about, sort of:

What do you want to say?

Have you noticed that in Churches, or in any group really, people have different priorities and different ideas about why church is important to them, why God matters to them and what they would tell other people about that?  That makes a clear, consistent message difficult.  We need to work hard at identifying our ‘core message’

Focus on one thing… or three at the most, but one at a time

Pick something and stick to that for a while.  It’s how anyone trying to sell something works.  Stick to the message.  You can add to it, clarify it, expand it, but stick to the message.

Why does it matter to YOU?

It’s actually quite difficult to explain to people why your faith matters to you.  Faith is illogical.  Explaining illogical things is kind of hard.  Start with what difference it makes to YOU.  That means you need to actually think about what difference it does make to you!  That’s not easy so stick with it.

Tell someone – and sound like you when you’re saying it!

Try telling someone your story.  Some churches do this all the time.  People stand at the front and give their testimony.  We don’t.  That means we often haven’t given much thought to how we would tell our story.  Try doing it without using church words!  Try to use your words.  Sound like the person you are at work, at home, in the pub… the real you.

The rest is about choosing the right media, but until you get these bits sorted then it doesn’t matter what media you choose

Remember, everything is marketing!  Saying nothing is saying something.

Are there certain features or practices that make church ‘church’?

Recently I’ve heard people say things like ‘That’s church for them’ and ‘They don’t do the sacraments so they’re not a proper church’.

So, what makes a church a church?  And I don’t mean the building…

The radio was on the other night as we ate dinner. It was classical music. Nothing startling or demanding. Sonic wallpaper if you like. The stuff that you don’t notice…

… until it stops.

Dead air is usually radio’s worst nightmare. In this case though we noticed the silence much more than we had noticed the music.

I wonder if church is like that?

We seem so keen to fill every available space with words, music, prayers…

… perhaps we need some dead air, some silence that people will notice.

Last night I was at an open evening at my kid’s primary school.  Their work was on display and I was finding out what the ‘not much’ and ‘nothing’ they do all day is.

Two things struck me.  The first that there seems to be little room for initiative.  I mean real initiative beyond using a  different colour for something.  Castles, islands, knights, maps… all slightly different but essentially the same.

You get good marks for meeting the set criteria.

Seth Godin talks about this:

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it.

On the wall in each class was a chart asking parents the elements they think should be present to make the school a successful learning environment.

It was an interesting list and I wish I had taken a quick photo of it.  Coherent curriculum, rewarding success, respect, justice….

and also creativity, transferring skills, initiative…

I put my stars there.  But I was almost the only one.  Most parents preferred compliance.

I wonder if church is the same?

‘That’s not how we do that’  ‘That’s so-and-so’s job’  ‘We tried that once and it didn’t work’  ‘This is what the parable means’

Are we teaching compliance?  It is easier after all.

‘Ministry’ fascinates me.

Reading your thoughts on the ‘What are ministers for?‘ discussion leave me with a kind of split personality.  I agree with almost everything written.

I think ministry is a calling and that there is no job like it but I also think that it has been moulded and shaped through training, rules and the selection process to be more limited that it perhaps should be in terms of style, focus and the kind of qualifications that bring people into ministry.

I spent my teenage years in a manse.  Some of my best friends are ministers.  I have huge respect for them and the work they do.

Almost every week someone asks me when I’m going to become a minister.  I smile and say something like ‘I couldn’t take the pay cut’ when part of me wants to say “what do you think I spend my time doing?’ and the other part of me wonders if that is where I should be heading.

Ministry has become synonymous with ‘The Minister’.  That was the thought that drove my two questions about ministers and congregations.

My answers to my own questions are that congregations are supposed to be ministers.  And ministers are supposed to enable that ministry.

I guess my frustration comes from years of working with churches where this just doesn’t happen.  Too many Congregations default and defer to the Minister and too many Ministers are quite happy with that.  It’s a strange kind of stalemate that doesn’t really work for either party but is hard for them to get past.

I wonder if that is a view that is only mine or if it is prevalent enough to earn the tag ‘model’?

The other issue that drives the question is the one of deployment.  As I said previously, how can we decide how to deploy ministers when we not to be quite sure what their role is and what they are expected to achieve?  And what happens when they just aren’t up to scratch?

Most denominations spend over 90% of their central funding on ministers.  Is that a good use of resources?

I asked the same question about ministers so it seems only right that I ask the same question about members / people who attend church / adherents / punters (delete or insert as necessary).

What are church members for?

Is their role to turn up on a Sunday morning, sing, close their eyes at the appropriate time and put enough cash in the offering to pay for the minister / roof /organ repair (delete or insert as necessary)?

Is their role to listen to the well prepared and inspirational / rambling incoherent (delete or insert as necessary) sermon?

Or is there something else that the punters in the pews should be up to?

When you ask a congregation to bring a friend to church next week some of them look like you have asked for one of their kidneys.  Some looked as though they’d rather give you the kidney!  I don’t think they are unusual in that.

What does mission mean in your church community?

What does it look like?  Who does it?  Who organises it?

Or would you rather give me a kidney (delete or insert as necessary)?

There are lots of conversations about ‘deployment’ and ‘team ministry’ around the churches in Scotland at the moment.  The discussion is mostly driven by questions of money and the size of congregations and if pretty focused on where ministers are sent and how many there are and how congregations can be scoped and grouped so they can have a minister.

The current discussion assumes that ministry in its current form is a good thing and that every congregation benefits from having one.

I don’t think that’s a good place to begin.

No-one is really grappling seriously with the question ‘What are ministers for?’.

I worry that ‘training for ministry’ is really training to be a theologian.  Those aren’t the same things.

I think theological education is vitally important in training for ministry but it doesn’t address most of the tasks ministers undertake.  Community work, counselling, visiting, organising, encouraging, public speaking, marketing…

Until we answer the question “what are ministers for?’ then the conversation about where we put them is premature.