Mind Vitamins for a Tuesday Morning
I'm reading a book called Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership and Staff on the Same Page by Larry Osborne. It's for work and we're going to discuss it as a staff. It has a lot of food for thought about leadership in churches and such...and a lot so strong opinions.
In a chapter about making sure you have younger people (meaning mid-20's to mid-30's, in this case) in influential leadership roles, giving them visible platforms and influence. In it he talks about one possible downside of leadership that has been at it for years, occupying the majority of leadership positions throughout the church, and they stay there. He calls this "shotgun" leadership, basically saying who calls the seat first gets to ride along in the best seat.
But then he gives some checkpoints and examples of figuring out if your church is there or not. Here's what the author says, from page 121:
*"young eagles" is the author's term for young, gifted potential leaders"
Now, here's the rub:
See, I'm a big fan of cross-generational ministry. I value the wisdom and experience of the older generation. Conversely, I value the passion and energy and creativity of the younger one. So, I guess this morning I'm thinking through the balance of it all.
I mean, I don't think everybody on leadership committees and boards and key volunteers should all be 25. They shouldn't all be 55, either. Both extremes could have all sorts of negatives attached.
So, my question is how do you have leadership committees and boards that have a healthy balance of enthusiasm and creativity with wisdom and experience?
Now that author suggests one way to get started is to have a retreat of mixed-age leaders, say about 40 or so people, mixed gender and 50-50 young/old and ask questions such as:
*What would we do differently if we're starting all over again?
*What are we doing now that we wouldn't do?
*What are we not doing now that we would do?
*On a scale of 1-10, how effective is each ministry and program?
*On a scale of 1-10, how effective is each staff member?
Again, this sounds great, but if you implemented that, then you're going to have to make some hard choices on the back end of that meeting. Like maybe losing staff or valued programs. So, this sounds great in theory and it's always fun to brainstorm...but if you acted on your findings it could get difficult in a number of ways.
So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on one of things I've been preaching on and thinking about for years: The idea of a converging congregation. One that recognizes that all ages have a valued place at the table, and one that strives to be a true family...with grandparents and toddlers and everybody else in-between sharpening each other and doing life together.
Have at it, patrons!
I'm reading a book called Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership and Staff on the Same Page by Larry Osborne. It's for work and we're going to discuss it as a staff. It has a lot of food for thought about leadership in churches and such...and a lot so strong opinions.
In a chapter about making sure you have younger people (meaning mid-20's to mid-30's, in this case) in influential leadership roles, giving them visible platforms and influence. In it he talks about one possible downside of leadership that has been at it for years, occupying the majority of leadership positions throughout the church, and they stay there. He calls this "shotgun" leadership, basically saying who calls the seat first gets to ride along in the best seat.
But then he gives some checkpoints and examples of figuring out if your church is there or not. Here's what the author says, from page 121:
"Shotgun churches are easy to recognize. Just look for a church where all the influential seats are filled by old-timers. And the telltale sign is a once thriving church that has grown old, nostalgic and culturally irrelevant. Still another indicator is a strong youth ministry but few young singles or young families in the worship service. (I call these 'feeder churches' because they feed the fastest-growing churches in town with a steady stream of young eagles, singles, and families.)"
*"young eagles" is the author's term for young, gifted potential leaders"
Now, here's the rub:
See, I'm a big fan of cross-generational ministry. I value the wisdom and experience of the older generation. Conversely, I value the passion and energy and creativity of the younger one. So, I guess this morning I'm thinking through the balance of it all.
I mean, I don't think everybody on leadership committees and boards and key volunteers should all be 25. They shouldn't all be 55, either. Both extremes could have all sorts of negatives attached.
So, my question is how do you have leadership committees and boards that have a healthy balance of enthusiasm and creativity with wisdom and experience?
Now that author suggests one way to get started is to have a retreat of mixed-age leaders, say about 40 or so people, mixed gender and 50-50 young/old and ask questions such as:
*What would we do differently if we're starting all over again?
*What are we doing now that we wouldn't do?
*What are we not doing now that we would do?
*On a scale of 1-10, how effective is each ministry and program?
*On a scale of 1-10, how effective is each staff member?
Again, this sounds great, but if you implemented that, then you're going to have to make some hard choices on the back end of that meeting. Like maybe losing staff or valued programs. So, this sounds great in theory and it's always fun to brainstorm...but if you acted on your findings it could get difficult in a number of ways.
So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on one of things I've been preaching on and thinking about for years: The idea of a converging congregation. One that recognizes that all ages have a valued place at the table, and one that strives to be a true family...with grandparents and toddlers and everybody else in-between sharpening each other and doing life together.
Have at it, patrons!
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4 Comments:
I am a BIG fan of cross-gen. ministry.Spend a load of my time with young moms (back to McD's in my old age) We have 50+ young families at CBC and the question is how to encourage them to come to the table with us Boomers--give em a place.
Long for CBC to have an impact on OUR culture for God's glory. What would that look like? Not sure, but don't want CBC to be an office building when we Boomers are gone--like Europe.
BTW--Have ya read "Radical"? Something about reclaiming Christianity from the American dream? Is it worth reading?
Thanks, pjneal
I actually grew up in those kinds of churches. Not sure what the leadership age distribution was in "the meetings" that went on. But when you truly grow up in small town America and you attend churches that only had 200 people at the most - what your describing happens with out trying.
The only reason we divided by age was for Sunday School class. Nothing else we did was subdivided by age.
Oh, wait not true. "Youth group" was downstairs during the evening service. But we had all been at a service together in the morning.
It is one of the things I do not enjoy about living in a city environment. The segmentation of ages happens everywhere in everything.
When you didn't have enough people to create a peer group. It didn't even occur to you to do so and the age difference stuff didn't really even come up.
I loved my parents friends. They loved me. We had picnics, potlucks, ice cream churning and fire fly chasing evenings. I'm not even making that up. We also made and served spaghetti dinners together.
Kids were actually appreciated and enjoyed. My brother and I and our friends were never made to feel like we didn't belong. We moved freely between the game of tag going on outside and the conversation happening in the kitchen or down in the basement. When you got bored with what the adults were talking about you went back outside to see if you could make it to the "home" tree without getting caught.
This is an issue with weddings too. My son will attend very few weddings prior to being marrying age. Why? The expense of them means that only immediate and extended family member children get invited and we have lived a great distance from extended family. That is a a culture change for me. I went to so many weddings as I was growing up.
To be divided is such an ingrained way of seeing the world I struggle to think it will ever change in churches that have more than 150 people in them.
Thanks for the journey down memory lane. I enjoyed thinking about my church life growing up.
Cheri and I could have grown up in the same church from what she described. In my home church, the parents were divided into the adult group, the young adult group and the older adult group but the church was small enough that everyone interacted with everyone else. There, we had work groups. When it was time for church cleaning, one group was responsible for the sancuary, one the kitchen, etc. You could be on the funeral committee and help with the refreshments after a funeral. There was a nursery for young kids during the service but only until they turn 3 and only for Sunday morning (we had Sunday night service). Sunday night got a little loud with the kids but they also started learning to sit during church in a more relaxed setting. When one pastor wanted Sunday night nursery, the parents said no. They recognized the benefits of having the kids in the service.
I don't know how that small church feel where everyone is important translates to a large church. What I do think we have done right is teaching the kids early on that service is important and something they can do. Whether it's bringing school supplies to VBS, or having Music Camp package those supplies, or the older elementary helping to lead their worship time and now the mid-school doing their mission trip and high school taking part in "big" church or building houses. My kids are learning that they are important and they want to help and that has translated to school stuff. They accept it as a norm and they've heard it from someone else and not just their parents. Those are things I personally feel need to be kept up.
The leadership - and I mean ALL of it - has to be on board with this idea or it'll nevr happen; they have to respect that the younger generations will A) be in charge one day B) do things differently and C) have enough respect for them to acknowledge their positions and give them room to have an impact and help the congregation & the church to remain culturally relevant, which is a requirement for a church to sustain itself and it's ministries.
Just my $.02
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