Meetings
12/02/14 05:17
February is a month of orientation and change in our church. At the end of January we elect new officers and members of our departments. During February we have the first round of meetings with the various departments and the church board. Over the years we have tried various ways of helping people become oriented to their tasks. We have had leadership retreats, prepared notebooks, handouts and tried other ways of helping people become involved.
The basic problem is that people don’t join churches in order to attend meetings. They join churches to worship, to become involved in mission and service, and to learn and grow in their faith. Although there are a few people who enjoy meetings, most of the folks who are attracted to the church see meetings as events to avoid or as necessary, but not that much fun.
Nearly 50 years ago, Phil Anderson wrote a book titled “Church Meetings that Matter.” The premise was simple. People will participate in meetings that make a difference. They resent having their time wasted with unnecessary protocols and repetitive conversations, but they are generous with their time when they feel that their time is invested in moving the ministry of the church forward.
I attend a lot of meetings. And I go to my share of meetings that accomplish nothing. The problems of meetings that are without focus isn’t unique to the church.
There are, in our church, a few areas of service that operate well without meetings per se. The Woodchuck Society gets together to work. If there are decisions to be made, they can be made around the work. Conversations flow naturally when people work together. Since the main focus of the group is cutting, hauling, splitting and delivering firewood, the tasks are pretty clear. It takes a bit of organization to arrange delivery days and to set the days when we work, but that can be accomplished quickly. Since the organizing principle of the group is that you give what time you can and don’t feel a need to make excuses when you are not able to help, there is no pressure on participants. In such a setting, with such an organization, people are amazingly generous with their time and support. I am continually amazed by the amount of work that gets accomplished.
Some other groups in the church also accomplish their work without formal meetings. Craft groups such as the quilters or the stained glass group do not need formal organizational structures. They simply go about their work when they gather. They don’t need officers and budgets and minutes to do their work. They can do the things they need to do without annual reports and spreadsheets and speeches.
However, the management of an organization the size of our congregation does require a few meetings. We manage enough money that it is very important that the money is tracked and that decisions about spending priorities are checked with others. Donors want their gifts to go to the causes in which they believe and it is our responsibility to make sure that their wishes are respected. Churches the size of ours that operate with more streamlined structures tend to be a bitt autocratic with power too centralized for the comfort of our congregation that likes to have a say in how things are run.
Meetings are a way in which the voices of the people in the pews can be heard and their ideas respected.
So we have meetings. And some are well-organized, get their business done and allow the people to get on with their lives. Others drone on and on with all kinds of extraneous storytelling, conversation, and repeated discussion. It is hard to predict which kind of meeting you might encounter on any given evening.
The training we’ve designed for this February attempts to respect the time of the participants and to enable groups to meet efficiently. We’ve prepared a one-page sheet on the structure of the church, an additional one-page description of the function of the particular group and another document that gives outlines of our communications process. We’ve tried to allow for e-mail and other communication to keep people informed when face-to-face gatherings are not required.
But we have also tried to infuse our gatherings with opportunities for prayer and paying attention to the needs of participants. A church isn’t a corporation. Efficiency isn’t always our primary goal. We need to organize our work in such a manner that we never forget the individuals who are giving freely of their time to make our institution viable.
Since I serve on boards and committees of other nonprofit organizations, I know that the struggle for balance that we experience isn’t unique to the church. There seems to be no shortage of meetings that fail to accomplish the work that was intended and end up with frustrated participants. I find a meeting where nothing is accomplished to be much more tiring than one where assignments are given and taken, work progresses and the importance of the meeting is easy to discern.
A group of us were visiting and joking recently. I suggested that in heaven there would be no meetings. A colleague questioned my vision of heaven, reminding me that there are some people who thrive on meetings and for whom the absence of meetings would be a punishment, not a reward. I suggested that perhaps in heaven, only the people who love meetings would have to attend them, to which my colleague responded that such a scenario would mean that “they” would be in charge. I observed that it would be a bit like US legislative bodies - the good people never get elected because they are unwilling to expose themselves to the ridiculous process. We both agreed that congressional gridlock was most unlike heaven.
So, in this life, we continue to deal with a less-than-perfect scenario. Knowing that gives us a special responsibility to try new ways to shorten the meetings and enable people to become involved in the ministry.
In the meantime, I’ve got more meetings today.
The basic problem is that people don’t join churches in order to attend meetings. They join churches to worship, to become involved in mission and service, and to learn and grow in their faith. Although there are a few people who enjoy meetings, most of the folks who are attracted to the church see meetings as events to avoid or as necessary, but not that much fun.
Nearly 50 years ago, Phil Anderson wrote a book titled “Church Meetings that Matter.” The premise was simple. People will participate in meetings that make a difference. They resent having their time wasted with unnecessary protocols and repetitive conversations, but they are generous with their time when they feel that their time is invested in moving the ministry of the church forward.
I attend a lot of meetings. And I go to my share of meetings that accomplish nothing. The problems of meetings that are without focus isn’t unique to the church.
There are, in our church, a few areas of service that operate well without meetings per se. The Woodchuck Society gets together to work. If there are decisions to be made, they can be made around the work. Conversations flow naturally when people work together. Since the main focus of the group is cutting, hauling, splitting and delivering firewood, the tasks are pretty clear. It takes a bit of organization to arrange delivery days and to set the days when we work, but that can be accomplished quickly. Since the organizing principle of the group is that you give what time you can and don’t feel a need to make excuses when you are not able to help, there is no pressure on participants. In such a setting, with such an organization, people are amazingly generous with their time and support. I am continually amazed by the amount of work that gets accomplished.
Some other groups in the church also accomplish their work without formal meetings. Craft groups such as the quilters or the stained glass group do not need formal organizational structures. They simply go about their work when they gather. They don’t need officers and budgets and minutes to do their work. They can do the things they need to do without annual reports and spreadsheets and speeches.
However, the management of an organization the size of our congregation does require a few meetings. We manage enough money that it is very important that the money is tracked and that decisions about spending priorities are checked with others. Donors want their gifts to go to the causes in which they believe and it is our responsibility to make sure that their wishes are respected. Churches the size of ours that operate with more streamlined structures tend to be a bitt autocratic with power too centralized for the comfort of our congregation that likes to have a say in how things are run.
Meetings are a way in which the voices of the people in the pews can be heard and their ideas respected.
So we have meetings. And some are well-organized, get their business done and allow the people to get on with their lives. Others drone on and on with all kinds of extraneous storytelling, conversation, and repeated discussion. It is hard to predict which kind of meeting you might encounter on any given evening.
The training we’ve designed for this February attempts to respect the time of the participants and to enable groups to meet efficiently. We’ve prepared a one-page sheet on the structure of the church, an additional one-page description of the function of the particular group and another document that gives outlines of our communications process. We’ve tried to allow for e-mail and other communication to keep people informed when face-to-face gatherings are not required.
But we have also tried to infuse our gatherings with opportunities for prayer and paying attention to the needs of participants. A church isn’t a corporation. Efficiency isn’t always our primary goal. We need to organize our work in such a manner that we never forget the individuals who are giving freely of their time to make our institution viable.
Since I serve on boards and committees of other nonprofit organizations, I know that the struggle for balance that we experience isn’t unique to the church. There seems to be no shortage of meetings that fail to accomplish the work that was intended and end up with frustrated participants. I find a meeting where nothing is accomplished to be much more tiring than one where assignments are given and taken, work progresses and the importance of the meeting is easy to discern.
A group of us were visiting and joking recently. I suggested that in heaven there would be no meetings. A colleague questioned my vision of heaven, reminding me that there are some people who thrive on meetings and for whom the absence of meetings would be a punishment, not a reward. I suggested that perhaps in heaven, only the people who love meetings would have to attend them, to which my colleague responded that such a scenario would mean that “they” would be in charge. I observed that it would be a bit like US legislative bodies - the good people never get elected because they are unwilling to expose themselves to the ridiculous process. We both agreed that congressional gridlock was most unlike heaven.
So, in this life, we continue to deal with a less-than-perfect scenario. Knowing that gives us a special responsibility to try new ways to shorten the meetings and enable people to become involved in the ministry.
In the meantime, I’ve got more meetings today.