Leadership in Growing a Faith Community
Growing a Faith Community has it's own unique leadership challenges. Given my professional background, I was asked by the President of the Board of my church to lead a team to study what would be entailed to grow our congregation. There ended up being 6 of us, including the President and Minister on the team. It was one of the most rewarding team experiences for me personally - and the Board was happy with our results. When I reflect on why, it had to do with our individual and collective love and passion for what we stand for, and that we set up a culture of learning within the team and best leveraged each others' background and expertise - and some of my own personal learnings about my faith and myself as a leader.
As is expected in any team, we had our share of tension with very different backgrounds, learning, communication and work styles.
This challenged us to not just give lip service, but to really live one of our guiding principles, "To respect the inherent worth and dignity of all persons" within the context of our work. We are a volunteer organization, working around multiple schedules, and trying to do good work that doesn't get too protracted so we can make needed progress.
We initially started out thinking we could accomplish our task in 3-6 months. As we moved into the real learning of the work, it evolved to 12 months - and we also learned that even "do-gooder, high mission" organizations can be afflicted by the potential for high achieving sabotage and at some point you need to declare victory. Particularly for any service-driven organization, the right balance of inputs and outputs requires necessary tending to so the active few don't get burned out and the work stays right focused: generated from the mission and joy versus drive.
In allowing ourselves to live with what we were reading, reflecting on and discussing - to really go deep and be aware of our own process as well - we ended up making recommendations for how to move forward based on patience and wisdom, not fear. There are immediate things we could do yet there is also work that we need to live into. You may say, this is easier for a religious organization. Yet, I offer it is just as, or more challenging in some ways - because we have a diversity of beliefs within our religion (some don't even like the word "church") and we have the same challenge as all non-profits: making enough money not only to keep the lights on, but to get our message and work more broadly out into the world during these times of fear and crisis.
One challenge lies in being open to all regardless of their monetary means but also challenging those who can give more, to give - in proportion to what they feel they receive in kind - by way of community, support or inspiration.
It reminds me of a clip on NPR this morning where a disgruntled listener complained that the station is too biased, but listens every morning, and won't donate. He did agree to keep a log and share specific stories for one week. I say, it's okay to challenge or criticize but if you receive or take, you could also give back in some way, whether it is your time, talent or treasure. People's true values speak most loudly through their time and wallets.