You Are What You Read

You've heard that oft-repeated line, "You are what you eat," right? Well, I suspect that's true about most things. We are a product of our environments, and what we devote our lives to becomes, well, our lives. I'm not one that thinks that playing violent video games necessarily makes a kid a school shooter (the rates simply don't support that) but as I see it, what we see, eat, and read does shape us--I'm pretty sure that major corporations wouldn't spend such obscene amounts of money on advertising if they weren't convinced that is true.

So the same is also true for what we read. Now, this is probably apparent during school--after all, my seminary experience was vastly shaped by the fact that at Duke we read, almost exclusively, the early church fathers in our theology courses. Barth? Who's that? Gregory of Nazianzus? What a stud.

But the same is also true of reading in our "real" lives (seminary always seemed a liminal phase to me).

I've faithfully followed the major Christian mags., evolving from Christianity Today to Christian Century and Alban's Congregations. Meanwhile though, strategist that I am, I found myself delving into the works of Malcolm Gladwell and business leadership writers. And I learned something. Many of the Christian leadership resources are simply business leadership stuff regurgitated (and in "churchy" language) two years later.

I finally put my foot down this year. I courageously stood firm in the face of an onslaught of e-mails from Alban inviting me to renew my subscription, and instead subscribed to the Harvard Business Review. Yes, I do have to do my own "translating" now, but I took a business class in college, so I can find myself around phrases like "emerging markets," thank you very much. No, the leadership wisdom isn't couched in Bible passages, but then, hey, I went to seminary, I can work that out. And yes, I do think that churches would be well served to adopt some (though admittedly not all) of the business world's best practices.



For example, it's not hard to see how you can apply the following guidelines from HBR to church life.

From the article this month "Making Social Ventures Work," we have these five rules:

1. What are you trying to do and what constitutes success?
2. How will you mobilize support and neutralize opponents?
3. What will eperging data teach you about your proposed business model?
4. How can you exit without leaving a large footprint?
5. What kinds of second-order effects, both negative and positive, is your venture creating?

Or, check out the list of Sever Deadly Sins of Setting Demands--from an earlier article but quoted in this month's article "Four Mistakes Leaders Keep Making":

1. Establishing too many goals.
2. Not requiring a plan for how and when goals will be acheived.
3. Failing to push for significant improvement for fear that people are already overwhelmed.
4. Not assigning clear one-person accountability for each key goal.
5. Signaling an unspoken "if you possibly can" at the end of a statement of expectation.
6. Accepting reverse assignments ("Sure, boss, I can get it done if you will see to it that...")
7. Stating goals in ways that may not be definable or measurable.

As you can see, this isn't rocket science, but honestly, I like the clarity of purpose of these articles. They don't try to give leadership guidance AND deep theological exegesis. They make me think, and they challenge me to provide good reasons why this good advice is often so widely rejected in churches. Churches have often become bastions of mediocrity, and that needs to stop. If only we could get more pastors reading HBR...

Un-Piling

Okay, so the title of this blog could also be something about the black hole of  my e-mail inbox.

You know what I mean, don't you? Well, you do if you're a pile-er like myself. As I sit in my office here at church, I'm surrounded by at least four piles of papers. Technically, one of those might actually be two that have simply coalesced into one. I wish I could say I'm one of those people who has stacks but each stack is its own file of sorts. Nope. They're just piles. Some items I know are in here somewhere--and the best I can do is judge by the paper(s) on top how old the stack is and thus surmise the first pile to start checking for a particular item.

Often, though, these piles bide their time until they become so incredibly intrusive (or I become so incredibly bored) so as to require their dismantling. And then the hard work begins--the work I've been avoiding till that point. Un-piling requires such a slew of decisions and additions to my to-do list that it can make my head spin.

If I'm lucky, a good portion of the piles will be remnants of some now-finished project (I'm pretty sure somewhere in here are the first two drafts of the photo directory activity pages...the final draft has already been mailed). In my unlucky moments, I come face to face with some item I had happily forgotten (or ignored). When I un-pile, if I'm honest with myself (and don't content myself to simply end up with one smaller pile), then I have to deal with everything that's here. Deal with it and move on.

You know what, it's all quite daunting, but I always feel better afterward. And that wonderful feeling does last for a while (the older I get, the better I get at keeping the piles at bay to begin with).

Life is a lot like that, I think. We all get that "stuff" that pile up, much of which gets relegated to ignored or forgotten places in our mind, even our heart, until we simply cannot continue to function with all that "stuff" lying around. And then begins the un-piling. Now, it must be admitted that some of us never bother to un-pile, but those are the folks, much like the hoarders whose homes become shrines to their piling, whose very unwillingness to un-pile is evidence of deep disorders. For the emotionally healthy, the un-piling is inevitable. How quickly we do it, and how honestly we can un-pile, is up to us.

So...as both guidance to cleaning up one's office, and perhaps also with some help for all of us in our lives, here are my tried and true tips for un-piling (I'm a good pile-er, so I've got lots of experience):

1. Get a good look at all the piles. Take stock, and plan a reasonable amount of time/resources (as best you can predict) to finish the task. It's never good to leave the task half-done, because such situations always seem to re-pile with incredibly speed.
2. If there is any question about your ability to swiftly and easily get it all un-piled, get help. As a child, my best friend and I often ended up cleaning each other's room because our mothers realized it was much more fun for each of us to get to sort through the others' stuff. Instead of requiring us to clean the rooms before we had a sleep over, that was often the first task of the sleep-over. Find someone you're comfortable seeing into your piles (and whose sorting advice you trust) and get them to lend a hand.
3. Decide what will be done with items once sorted. Options might include trash, DO, and file. Avoid option three as much as possible. Only file items for informational purposes. If there's anything to be done, resolve to DO it. If you can't forsee needing that info any time soon, trash it. Chances are it has sat in that pile for a long time and you never needed it anyway.
4. If you've got something in your piles that really should be someone else's task to accomplish, pass it off. If they pile it, that's up to them. But certainly don't let other people's "stuff" add to your piles.
5. Do not, under any circumstances, create a "sort later" pile. This is then death knell of all un-piling attempts. It is capitulation to the "stuff". Do not let the "stuff" win! You are in charge, handle it! It may take a bit more time, but trust me, not nearly as much effort as the trouble that may be caused in further ignoring the "stuff," and of course, it's always difficult to forcec yourself to un-pile, so who knows how long it will be till you get back to it. I know that's the attractiveness of re-piling, but DON'T DO IT!

Those are just a few tips. Got any to share?

Why Doing Good things Doesn't Cut It

It seems that half the time I venture to Walmart, some organization is set up by the entrance asking for donations. I think there's a really good chance they all do really good things. So why don't I give money to all of them? Simply doing good things doesn't mean I will necessarily support an effort. Here's why.

There are an infinite (okay, not actually, but SEEMINGLY infinite) number of ways a person can help those in need. I mean, first, we have to decide WHO is in need and how we think they need help. This is a personal thing, and one can't fault someone else for having different priorities. You may not agree with them, but isn't it their prerogative? We are all finite creatures, and our resources are all finite. Can we all agree on that? Our finiteness?

Therefore, we each must make choices based on the resources we have, what our priorities are, and what groups use the resources they receive to best meet those needs we care about. Some people do this more intentionally than others, but most of us do this in some way.

So here's what I don't get--the assumption that we are out of line to ask for information that would help us evaluate different programs or ministries as a congregation. Does it not make sense that since our congregations are also finite entities, we also have to make judgments about how best to use our resources.

Just in our local community, there are a myriad of causes our congregation could support. We cannot meaningfully support all. We could, I guess, just decide to give each organization a set amount of money--albeit small. But that would be a bit lazy, wouldn't it? And it would fail to account for different levels of need. Some organizations receive all their support from churches, while for others church giving is simply icing on the cake. And even the groups who rely upon church money have different goals and use our funds in different ways. Is it not fair for congregations to make these choices?

All of this came to a head for me at a recent meeting I attended of a ministry that needs the financial support of congregations. It is one that reaches a particular population in our community--one that is certainly in need of assistance. But here's the thing...is it not fair for us to ask what the goals of this ministry are? After all, it is not the only ministry that reaches this population. On what basis should our congregation choose to fund this ministry and not another that helps this population?

I finally tired to getting looked at crossways when I asked for specific goals of the ministry. I agree that some ministries cannot, by their nature, have as concrete of goals as other ministries, but surely it is best practices for all ministries (as all congregations) to have some goals by which to measure success (and, necessarily, failure, or not quite succeeding, if that sounds better).

At this recent meeting, when I once again pressed for a clearer definition as to what the ministry saw itself creating, I heard, "People's lives are being changed." Okay. That's good. But changed into what? And as anathema as it is to us often in church work, yes, I do have questions about how many lives are being changed. I know this sounds to some like discounting the effect a ministry has on a few lives, but after all, you're asking our church to fund this instead of one of the many other ministries that also changes lives. If "People's lives are being changed" was the only criteria for giving, few groups would receive adequate funding because giving would be spread so thin.

The truth is, non-profit giving is, indeed, somewhat of a competition. Churches themselves have to compete for funds in a world where people can now be very selective in their giving (the specificity of causes is mind-boggling). The groups who will survive in this setting are those who tell a better story, cast a more powerful vision, and display responsible fiscal management. There have been and will be groups who do awesome things, but are not able to get people tied into their work. This is not because people are necessarily against their work, but because given the choice, people will invest in what works and what offers them clarity and a real sense of their giving making a difference.

I wish we lived in a world where no one needed to strive to meet people's basic needs. Sadly, however, we live in a world that is not yet perfect, and since I cannot do all things, I will strive to make the very best decisions and the most responsible choices I can make. And I hope our congregations do the same. Those choices will not be perfect, and all congregations, like all people, will make those choices in slightly different ways. But to deny our givers the basic respect of providing information about what a ministry does and why people should support THAT ministry and necessarily ignore others is to court financial disaster for a ministry. Just as it also spells financial downfall for congregations.