Consideration/Evaluation

Posted on November 28, 2023

This post is the seventh in a series around the C’s of leadership, featuring a different Leadership C with each new post. Whether you lead a corporation, a church, a department, a classroom, or a family, HOW you lead has enormous impact on those you lead.

OK, first off, it’s been more than two weeks since I blogged. With the holiday, I got behind. Secondly, while I’ve titling this “Consideration,” the words “review” or evaluation” are definitely better words… but they don’t start with a C and I’ve already confessed my bias for alliteration.

Years ago, I attended a church growth training event. At the event, a leader said that, after any ministry concludes (short-term and long-term), there should always be an autopsy. I’ve always remember that and it came to mind again when I recently read a great article from the Lewis Center. You can access it here: https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/7-questions-to-determine-if-your-advent-traditions-are-still-meaningful/?utm_source=cc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LI20231108

However, isn’t it a bit late? Many churches had their Advent calendared out two months ago. Nevertheless, the questions were too good to waste. So, why not use them in January to consider or evaluate the effectiveness of your annual Advent traditions/events. Plus, having pastored in the real world, I know it can take months (sometimes years) for people to release time-honored traditions even if their effectiveness is now minimal. So, if we evaluate in January, we might be able to discern, release, grieve and be ready to create something new and more impactful for Advent, 2024.

Below are some of the Lewis Center’s questions adapted for a review context:

1. When this ministry/event began, who was its targeted population? Is that who attended this year? If not, why might this be? Does this population still exist in our neighborhood? If they do, are their needs/interests the same or have they evolved? Did this year’s event attract a specific demographic? If so, who? What do we know about this population and why might it have attracted them?
2. Are there “churchy” patterns or rituals associated with this event that have become foreign to our secular, contemporary culture? And if so, are those patterns/rituals still important? And if they are still important, how might we express them in more cultural accessible ways?
3. How did you hope people would response to this outreach ministry/event? Is that, in fact, how they responded? If your goal was for them to join your church and start volunteering and giving financially, that’s a pretty self-serving goal. As Carey Niewhouf says, that’s something we want FROM people, not FOR people. So, go deeper. What do you hope FOR people and how did this event communicate that hope.
4. Finally, did this event foster building human connections and cultivating Christian community? Today in America, most people don’t need to go far to get food, entertainment, and social services that are better than the food, entertainment and services provided by most local churches. So, offer people what the Church can distinctively offer: a connection to Christ and community!

Context is Everything

Posted on November 1, 2023

This post is the sixth in a series around the C’s of leadership, featuring a different Leadership C with each new post. Whether you lead a corporation, a church, a department, a classroom, or a family, HOW you lead has enormous impact on those you lead.

As a preacher, I have discovered how essential context is. Words without context can be confusing, misleading or, even worse, wounding.

But there’s more to context than words. One definition of “context” is: “considered together with surrounding circumstances.” Several articles I found online discussed “space” as “context” from an architectural or ergonomic perspective. But, in my thinking, context and space can be interchangeable and go well beyond an appropriately sized desk (although that’s a huge deal for me because I’m so petite and feel like I spend half my life working with my elbows up to my ears!).

Leaders play a critical role in establishing context within an organization, in insuring that context is hospitable and there is A Place for Everyone. Leaders are called to bring everyone to the table; to consider “surrounding circumstances” from our individual and varied experiences and perspectives. Each work environment provides a context within which we explore our identity and our ideas… which can be incredibly helpful if we embrace this reality. Those we lead already have uniqueness to their identity. They already have ideas brewing within them. Will we, as leaders, encourage others to give of themselves to create A Place for Everyone: a creative, courageous, collaborative context?

In the last couple weeks, I’ve struggled with my “surrounding circumstances.” I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and waking up in the dark is a huge challenge for me… hardly motivational. Right now, I’m looking out my office window at a cloudy, dreary sky. My phone tells me it’s 39 degrees with a “feels like” temp of 31. Burr…

Yet metaphorically, our inward, spiritual, space/context can project outward to influence our shared context. We can lend light and warmth to a context, or darkness and coldness. My new position of Associate Director of Innovation, Engagement and Development is one in which I am called to collaboratively construct contexts of warmth and light that provide A Place for Everyone. It’s something our world and our denomination desperately need.

Join us this (Wednesday) evening at 6:30 for A Place for You Online. And, if you haven’t yet done so, join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aplaceforyouinumc/
The link to join A Place for You Online can be found at https://www.inumc.org/umc-a-place-for-you/ midway down the page on the right.