Rethinking Connection

“Who is my neighbor?” Is it that same anonymous person who sends me an email from some foreign land with the promise of quick riches. Is it the Bank Teller who manages to smile and say have a nice day when I am the 50th person who has also forgotten to write the account number on my check. Is it your couple of hundred friends listed on your Facebook page (for those who partake)?

In today’s virtual world of connection and instant news, it can feel like everyone is living next door. Joseph R. Myers (my new literary neighbor) has some helpful thoughts about connection and space (The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community and Small Groups 2003). He reminded us that our educational training may have prioritized meaning and believing over belonging and connecting. Today, we live in a time when the way to a person head is through their heart. Folk are seeking an experience before constructing a belief or profession of faith.

Consider the hospital patient requesting a pastoral visit. You discover that this “parishioner” has never attended a service or made a financial pledge, but “watches your televised worship service every Sunday.” In her world and in Myers paradigm, she believes that she fully belongs (until we indicate otherwise).
He states, “They want to participate in our rituals, even though they may not fully understand their meaning. They see a kaleidoscope of possibilities for belonging. But our language struggles to fully express this spectrum of possibilities.” (P.27)

Space and Connection
Consider your own need for personal space or connection. If we place you on a bell curve, some of you will come out on the 15 per cent who are what I describe as having a disengaged or more distant engagement style (you hate to hold hands and form a prayer circle). Others of you will be on that other end of the 15 percent that will have an “in close” engagement style (“let us join hands as we pray”). Most folk fall somewhere in between.
Our perceptions of what others are looking for in connection and community will be determined by our own preference. Myers challenges us to look at the value of connections that can be easy to dismiss as superficial or perfunctory. Here is a quick run through of his model and language for belonging and connections.

Four Spaces of Connection

• Public belonging "occurs when people connect through outside influence or an external event." While visiting my sister in Kansas, we attending a football game between New England Patriot’s and Kansas City Chief’s. Anyone who was brave enough to wear their Patriot gear seemed to experience an automatic connection without sharing any personal information.


• Social belonging "occurs when we share "snapshots" of what it would be like to be in personal space with us." This is where you put your "best foot forward." Yet, you aren’t really sharing any deep or private information. Examples of this space might be at your place of employment or where you get your hair cut. For some folk, this might be the coffee hour after worship.


• Personal belonging is where "we share private experience, feelings and thoughts without making folk feel uncomfortable." These are relationships that we typically name as friends. They know more about us than our acquaintances, but less than our “intimates.”


• Intimate belonging is the space where we “share ‘naked’ experiences, feelings, and thoughts. We have very few relationships that are intimate." These relationships are where we can share the deepest parts of ourselves and not feel ashamed. We can share even those parts of ourselves that feel unacceptable.

Myers helps us to understand the value of connecting in public and social space. Some may have a bias that anything less than personal space is somehow “second class.” Others may undervalue the need for personal and intimate space. His thinking helps us to understand how each space has it’s own significance and place of belonging.

What do you think a healthy congregation looks like? Myers research indicates …

*8 parts public
*4 parts social
*2 parts personal
*1 part intimate.

Myers states,
“In our push to move everyone into personal or intimate relationship with God, we have forgotten the spectrum of ways God chooses to communicate with us and the ways we choose to communicate with [God]. I believe that we are to help individuals with their connections with God in the space that they choose. We can help by providing opportunities for them to learn spiritual disciplines in that specific space."

As we seek to create health and growth, wouldn't it be interesting to sit down in our churches and engage in conversations regarding our understandings of belonging. What would we discover as we looked at the messages we convey about the value of belonging to one group over another.

Discussion Questions

• What are the messages we communicate to folk in located in different spaces?


• How does program planning change when over fifty percent of the congregation may not have grape vine connection or communication outside of Sunday morning?


• How does that change our communication methods?


• How does that change how we run our pledge drives?

Meyers adds several more questions at the end of his book to the list for discussion. His book doesn’t answer the question of “who is my neighbor?” But he does provide some great models and language for understanding community. A must read for those concerned with creating spaces for belonging and connection.

Aligning Congregational Culture, Leadership and Transformation

Church culture is that invisible reality of shared beliefs, behaviors and norms that form the glue of congregational life. It is what makes each organization unique as they live out their custom footprint of being a relational organism. It is important for leaders to understand their congregation's cultural configuration as it relates to motivation, conflict and change.

Why Focus on Culture?

• Clarifies context for change


• Identifies potential potholes in the change process


• Illuminates leadership bias regarding the change process and preferences for responding to resistance


• Predicts type, timing and degree of resistance


• Acknowledges embedded beliefs, norms and customs that can disrupt or enhance change efforts


• Aligns strategy and vision


• Provides a common model and language for managing cultural differences

Congregations that fail to implement their strategic plans do not to take into account how their culture could create a barrier to new initiatives. Once the implementation phase reached a level of changing the "feel" of the congregation, the hidden beliefs and norms in their DNA rise up to bring the change efforts to a grinding halt. It is why churches with a long history of specific attendance levels struggle to break through their own invisible attendance ceiling.

The following is an adapted model of research on families conducted by Kantor and Lehr (later expanded into four types by LL Constatine). Alan and Deborah Slobodnik of Options for Change did further work with organizational culture and systems types. I met the Slobodnik's at the Kantor Family Institute back in the late 80's. They have creating an instrument they use extensively in the business world to discuss aligning organizational culture and strategy.

In many ways, culture is even a more important concept to understand in the world of congregational relationships. The business world is an organization of relationships where people and positive relationships are an ends to a mean (profit). Congregations are relational organisms where relationships both internal and external are both the means and the end in terms of mission and purpose.

The following is just a brief composite of the four different cultural types that are expanded in my workshop of "Congregational Cultural Compass." The workshop offers descriptors for culture that is both enabled and disabled. Leadership strategies for migrating culture to meet the contextual needs of the congregation in it's life cycle are also provided.

Culture Compass Concepts

• Congregations are not just one pure type


• All types have strengths & liabilities


• All cultures are a unique blend


• Most cultures have primary and secondary types


• Leadership style is shaped by their cultural type and preferences

Four Congregational Cultural Types

• Structured/Closed – “Stable, Structured, Accountability, Procedures”


• Random – “Individualistic, Responsive, Creative, Risk Takers”


• Open - “Collaborative, Communication, Teamwork, Problem Solvers”


• Synchronous – “Aligned, Values, Harmony, Direction”

The Structured/Closed strength is provided through strong leadership & accountability. There is a clear sense of leadership, chain of command and a boundary around who is in and outside of the group. This type reacts to change by resisting, countering and overcoming.

Random Culture provides innovation, flexibility and creativity. This highly energized culture enjoys creative chaos and has very permeable boundaries between who is in and out. Highly adaptable and responsive to context and individual differences. “Randoms” react to change by escalating and encouraging it!

Open Culture provides teamwork, communication and negotiated outcomes. Collaboration, empowerment at all levels and inclusion are core values. There is a negotiated boundary between who is in and outside of the group. “Opens” also react to change and conflict by planning, facilitating and "talking things out."

Synchronous culture provides direction, alignment and is guided by a strong sense of purpose. In this culture the shared values organize behavior more than a sense of hierarchy. The values are so deeply embedded that roles are often implicit and just simply understood. “Synchronous” types react to change by ignoring and avoiding it.

In My Experience...

The four types do exist, but not in a quartered pie chart of a twenty five percent balance. I suspect there are very few types that are have a primary type of Random Culture. But some of the smaller family size churches have come pretty close. In Larry Burton's book "When God Enters The System" writers have postulated that some denominations can be defined by a primary cultural orientation. One writer stated that congregationalists were more of an "open culture." Certainly, if any one has read the United Methodist Book of Discipline a clear picture of a "structured/closed" culture emerges (how do you think they got the name Methodist to begin with). I will leave you to determine cultural difference by denomination and local congregations. But let is suffice to say that many in our American culture could be classified as "structured/closed" by bylaws and some as more "open" how they live out their day to day reality.

Culture and Clergy Coaching

In my clergy coaching I have worked with pastors who cultural type was opposite to the congregations they had been appointed. One pastor whose primary orientation was synchronous, likened their experience of direct confrontation, criticism and resistance to that of finger nails on a chalk board. They stated that in their culture feedback was indirect and subtle when tension emerged. Direct confrontation was not only bad manners, but was a sign of a high level conflict and family dysfunction. The members who were clearly more open system experienced their own communications as simply being direct and honest.

Another pastor came from a heritage that was clearly more structured/closed. By virtue of ordination, clergy were granted status of authority, power and considerable influence. In their current church, folk were more random/open system and used to relating to the pastor on a more informal - peer level basis. When challenged, one lay person stated that in terms of authority they were on the same level as the pastor. Imagine this pastor's perception when his/her ideas were treated as just that, another idea. The church's emphasis on spontaneity and "doing your own thing" left the pastor feeling marginalized and disempowered. His/her references to pastoral authority, church bylaws and scripture left lay folk puzzled, angry and confused.

Appreciating congregational culture by recognizing strengths before jumping to judgements is an important first step in creating a culture of trust that can lead to sustained change and transformation. Even in a disabled culture, finding ways to notice the enabled structures of their primary type paves the way for creating influence and change.

In the absence of a longer blog on culture, make your best guess regarding...

Assess Present Culture

• Assessing your organizational culture


• Identify your primary and secondary cultures


• Are they enabled or disabled?


• Do they fit your mission, strategy and goals?


• Where is the “rub” between current cultural preferences and the future fit?

Consider Current Culture and Change

• Is there enough structured culture to manage the chaos of change?


• Is there enough random culture to provide the necessary flexibility, energy and tolerance for the chaos of transformation work.


• Is there enough synchronous elements to provide direction and vision for that "new thing."


• Is there enough open communication to reduce anxiety that is produces by new directions and change.

Problem or Difficulties?

The photo of a car perched in a church roof creates an opportunity for assessment. The newspaper article states that a German motorist missed a bend in the road, broke through a barrier and hurtled up a bank, crash-landing on a church roof in eastern Germany.

Just about everyone would see this as a problem that needs to be solved. One of my favorite books on systems approaches to congregations is written by Lutheran pastor and family therapist Kenneth A. Halstead, “From Stuck To Unstuck: Overcoming Congregational Impasse.” He writes about the important assessment of determining whether something is a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be lived with or managed.

He states that when congregations get stuck they often fail to distinguish between a “difficulty” and a “problem.”

• A "difficulty" is something we must accept and learn to live with or manage.
• A "problem" is something that is solvable (like a hole in the roof).

For example, one church I worked with had problem with organizational structure. They had a problem filling all of the 100 positions on their Nominations Roster. Some of the causes could be related to difficulties that must be lived with and accepted.

In this case, there were concrete solutions. They had 52 folk filling 100 positions. During the program year they had a low of 57 adults and a high of approximately 105 at worship. They were living with this problem as if it were a difficulty. Each year the process of nominations created a weakened morale and pining for the "good old days." A different assessment led to a different perception and options for taking action. The "hole in their roof" was a governing structure that did not fit the size of their congregation. Choosing to create a new organizational structure became a way "to repair the leaky roof."

Churches often react to changing cultural realities around attendance as if it were a problem to be solved or they intervene at the incorrect level. Folk from an age when people went to church out of a sense of duty perceive that a lack of commitment is the problem. They often communicate judgment and look down at folk who miss church because of soccer or other activities as lack of duty and Christian values. But in an age where folk are motivated to attend church out of a sense of fulfillment and meeting individual or family needs, they miss the point of influence in human motivation. They intervene our of a peceptual set that worked in a prior age.

Imagine a missionary's approach coming into America for the first time to begin a new congregation. As "outsiders" they would find a way to live with cultural differences and join with our secular culture and create an inviting spirit. The effective approach wouldn't perceive the culture as a problem to be solved. They would look for ways to use it toward building a new church. The solution would be built around the gospel message of grace - not judgment, meeting needs (both to give and receive) - not leveraging a sense of duty or obedience.

Assessing whether an issue is a "difficulty to live" with or a "problem to be solved" is critical in the life of a church. Also, understanding whether the problem is "out there" or as is more often true "in here" is an important choice. Often, the problem is internal in the form of out dated perceptions and cognitive maps. The Church as an institution has shifted to an "outsider" or in some cases "out of it" status in our society since the 1950's. Getting this perception incorrect points leaders in the wrong diretion.

Halstead has identified three ways leaders get pointed in the wrong direction when dealing with issues. Notice the difference at the point of action taken or avoided.

• 1. Terrible Simplification – denying that a problem is a problem (turning a mountain into a molehill). Action is needed but not taken.
• 2. The Utopia Syndrome – trying to change a difficulty, which, for all practical purposes, is either unchangeable or nonexistent (turning molehills into mountains). Action is taken when it should not be.
• 3. Paradox – taking action at the wrong level in the system – by failing to distinguish whether a problem should be addressed at the molehill, mountain, or mountain-range level, groups often fail to take intervention at the appropriate level. For example, a church council may attempt to fix an ailing program by starting a new program, when all that was needed was to encourage and support the present program leaders.

In your past or present group experiences reflect on the following questions:

• What are some examples of creating problems by trying to ignore or deny them?
• What are some examples of trying to solve an insolvable difficulty instead of learning to cope with it creatively and graciously?
• What is an example of trying to solve a problem with a strategy at the wrong level of intervention?