Small Church, Small Steps

I'm excited to be starting with another small church, and excited that there is an inclination toward change in the air.  Different people are suggesting different things, including going back to the way it was "before." Still, the interim minister senses an opportunity!

For what?  Probably not the big all-congregation behavioral covenant, detailing all the agreements people make among themselves here, though that is one of the suggestions.  I'm thinking the little, informal, changeable covenants are a more likely possibility.  The kind that are posted on newsprint pads in the meeting rooms by the people at different meetings. We might have done this in the last congregation, but I didn't think of it in time.  That, and saying the congregation's mission statement at the beginning of each meeting. Oh, and lighting a chalice at the beginning of the meeting and having a formal closing.

What good are all these little adjustments?  I'm not sure. But I know they make a difference.  Something starts to shift.  Social hour takes on a busy hum.  People come forward with things they want to start or bring back to life.  Conversations are deeper and sometimes include resolving disagreements. Still, there is no clear cause and effect. Besides, I have just started with these folks, and I don't know what will happen until it unfolds.

So much of my congregational ministry is about little stuff:  getting signup sheets out and getting volunteers slotted into particular days for particular jobs, noticing what bylaws are no longer being followed, encouraging job descriptions for committees, boards, and roles, and more. Sometimes it seems as if I'm all about bureaucracy, when in my own mind it is anything but that.  Little by little, people come to understand what  is expected of them, to see each task as having a beginning, middle, and end.  That creepy feeling that if you sign up for this or that, there will be no end of one thing after another, that creepy feeling begins to fade.  After all, it is not my job to figure out what they want to do in a larger sense, what their role as a congregation in the community will become.  That sort of thing is really their work.  I can help, and the little stuff I suggest is helpful.

And I can love them.

Still, as some relationship or parenting advice book I read long ago pointed out, love is not enough.  Skill is required to turn that love toward congregational thriving. Skill in helping people unlock their love for one another and for the congregation's ministry.  Will I have the skill this time? A book I just read, Switch, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, encouraged me with the little steps in my small congregation.  I cautiously take small steps forward, hoping for the best.