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.

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…

… 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.

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.

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?

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)?

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.

Two choices… inward or outward.

Which are you choosing and how is it working out for your church?

(HT Johnny Laird and Jonathan Blundell for the video)

Photo: Rob GT

The Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Committee are hosting a day looking at ‘Virtualisation & Society in Edinburgh on Thursday 21 January from 10am – 4pm.  The day is FREE.  To book your place email vcano [at] cofscotland [dot] org [dot] uk.

topics:

• How has virtualisation impacted on notions of identity?
• How has virtualisation impacted on our values as human beings?
• How has increased connectivity impacted on the nature of our organisations?
• How has increased connectivity and virtualisation impacted on our ability to develop meaningful communities?
• Is a regulatory framework desirable?
• What are the theological implications of the changes being brought to individuals, to society and to organisations by increased connectivity and virtualisation?

Speakers:

• Prof. John Eldridge. University of Glasgow. Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Prof. Phillip Schlesinger. Professor in Cultural Policy. Institute of Cross Cultural Studies. University of Glasgow.
• Dr. Heidi Campbell. Texas A&M University. Department of Communication.
• David Pullinger. Head of Digital Policy. COI.
• Prof. Michael Northcott. University of Edinburgh. New College.

Come and say Hi! if you’re going.

In his comment on part 1 of this little series of posts John grasps on of the key criticisms of both Emerging Church and of Youth Work… lack of substance.

I often hear that both are prone to style over content.  Both suffer from a tendancy towards the flash and attractive.  I’ve seen it and can hold my hand up and say that I’ve also done it.

But I’m not sure that lack of substance is a fair criticism of either Emerging Church or Youth Work done well.

At the heart of both seems to be a desire for relationship.

Youth work has struggled to get past the attractional model where we put on some big fancy event that lots of young people will come to and hope that for some strange reason that will be enough to get them to stay for the rather naff games and poor attempts at bible study where we tell them what the Bible should mean to them.

Emerging Church is informed by a similar process where big church for grown ups had a go at being all interesting and attractive.  It was called ‘Alternative Worship’.  Churches discovered that presentation mattered and that people wanted to be involved but many of the ‘Alternative Worship’ experiments were little more than a reformatted version of the standard church service.  People saw through it and discovered that, like attractional youth work, all that glitters is not gold.

Substance is the goal for both.  Depth of relationship, participation, learning, sharing and growing together seem to be the key factors in youth work… and in emerging church.

The cycle has been the same.  Attractional followed by a move to deeper more substantial communities.

I wonder if that is because those who now inhabit leadership positions in the church and experienced the attractional youth work model are now being joined by a younger generation of leaders who have grown up on incarnational youth work and who experienced youth groups where they were loved and valued and experienced opportunities to know God?

It seems to me that both areas are rediscovering something that has been lost.  Both youth work and emerging church are pursuing models where stillness, spiritual practices, relationship building and learning in a collaborative manner are all valued.

These seem to me to be the practices that grow from the values of community work I outlined in part 2.

It also grows from a sense of disconnection.  I heard Mark Lau Branson talk about how he has abandoned the lectionary because the people in his church don’t understand the context of these weekly fragments of scripture as they jump around the highlights of the Christian story.  That seems to bear out my own experience and those of many worship leaders I meet.

I think that’s partly the fault of the attractional youth work model which focused on highlights, particularly from the Gospel because that was the most important bit and the rest didn’t matter much.

Church has been the same.  Scotland has never been big on Bible Study for adults.  The 15 minute sermon on a Sunday morning has been the main teaching for the majority of adults.  In any other context 15 minutes a week would be laughable.  Can you imagine trying to learn a language, to play an instrument or to build a relationship by spending 15 minutes a week on it?

Youth work is about building community.  Church should be too.  Emerging Church seems to be up for going deeper… but still needs to guard against the ‘cool for the sake of it’ phenomena which happens when any group of creative people get together… apparently.emerging