I’ve been wondering about what kind of assistance helps congregations. Congregations truly matter. People find their homes with God through congregations. This alone testifies to the goodness of congregations. They also contribute expansively to the common good. We at the Center believe in congregations. And we want to offer effective help.
So, I’ve been thinking, what kind of help is most useful to congregations? Much of what I write below is influenced by Robert Kegan and the developmental theory he describes in The Evolving Self and revisits in In Over our Heads. Kegan does not write for a congregational audience, but his ideas are applicable to the important work of congregations.
Congregations constantly confront a mystifying array of expectations, claims, and demands, as well as an equally confusing assortment of expert opinions that tell them what they should do.
With so many efforts to change congregations, there is a disparity between the ways leaders know their congregations and the ways they are unwittingly expected to transform them. Using a curriculum analogy, one does not design a ninth grade curriculum for either a fifth grader or a twelfth grader. As a result of listening to congregational leaders describe their experiences, we believe many resources offered to congregations are mismatches.
Think of congregational life itself as a course of study. With all the challenges congregations face, would anyone ever graduate?
At the Center for Congregations, we have found that in order to address their challenges, congregations don’t so much need transformation or change. Those words don’t capture what is required. And besides, who embraces change suggested by others!
The kind of adaptation most helpful for congregations is better captured by the word development.
Developmental growth in congregations makes it more likely that redemptive change or transformation will take place. The purpose of effective learning for congregational leaders is to help them make meaning with greater depth and breadth. A leader is then better equipped to address more complex challenges in a way analogous to the way a more experienced athlete often makes better decisions than a rookie.
Developmental growth is like change or transformation but it is not exactly the same. For example, a congregation could make a change but that change may not represent a developmental shift, that is, a different way of seeing the world. Such developmental shifts, we believe, require a team of lay people and clergy learning together. Additionally, such developmental growth requires the learner making time and taking initiative.
The most effective resources help leaders hold (conceive, understand, see, relate to) their challenges in ways congruent with the capacity they bring to the challenges. If this is accomplished, the challenges are less likely to have a hold over them. Through the process of learning in a context that matches their capacity (actually extends their capacity at least one increment forward), they now have hold of the challenges. That is, a congregation can now act on its challenge, affect its challenge, reshape it for redemptive purposes. This is a developmental shift. The shift is from the challenge having power over the congregation to the congregation now holding sway over the challenge. All this is why at the Center we talk about not only the best resources (books, consultants, training sessions and so on), but the resources that will be the best fit for any given congregation.
Congregations matter. And it matters that the help offered congregations truly meets their needs and encourages their development.
Tim Shapiro
Center President
