My Lovers' Quarrel

2024.  A new year.  We aim for change, but the reality is it’s hard to accomplish.

40 years ago, I started working in the institutional church.  I began as an eager and naive participant. Then experience and reflection caused me to question my assumptions.  I sought new insights and perspectives, which in turn led me to advocate for change.  It’s a relationship in which I have remained engaged for 40 years, working in various positions as an ‘intrapreneur’ attempting to inspire and lead change.  However, it’s not been an easy relationship. In fact I have had an ongoing “lover’s quarrel” with the institutional church.

I write this on January 1, 2024.  A day for contemplating change.  As I started with some reflection time, I read from a meditation I frequently use. The Lectio 365 reflection for this New Years Day ended up reigniting my lover’s quarrel.  Lectio's choice of words to characterize what mission advance means, elevated the ‘full time’ Christian worker, and by default undermined the majority of those who comprise the church.  It was inadvertent, I am sure.  But that’s a symptom of institutionalization, and the reason for my quarrel with it.  The institutional structure depends on the elevation and prioritization of certain roles & gifts because without them it could not sustain its purpose as an institution, nor it’s funding.  Its recruitment, training, and polity by default advance the class of people that are required to sustain the system.  This perpetuates a cycle of self preservation.  I have discovered as an internal change-agent that although this institutional system has the ability to change itself, its very existence is threatened by the change it seeks/needs.  A paralyzing irony.

Transitioning to the often-cited models espousing less structure and reduced dependence on a clergy class, so as to become a more scattered, organic and neighbourhood/marketplace model of existence, is often endorsed in the rhetoric and even strategic initiatives of church institutions.  However, this frequently falls flat during any attempt at execution.  Change is hard.  Execution is harder.  In the past 10 years I’ve led 3 change initiatives, all endorsed and funded by my denomination, that have either been closed or reduced to token, status-quo existence because of the relentless pressures of institutional thinking and demands.

I am not anti-institution, but I have a quarrel with it.  I stayed in it for 40 years advocating for and leading change until recently when I was released due to institutional budget pressures.  I still have hope that the church-as-institution might be courageous enough to change itself.  Where that isn’t feasible, at least be a sponsor/incubator of initiatives that eventually live and grow external to it.  In other words, be magnanimous and empower/cheer on what it can’t accomplish.  However, I no longer think that is possible for my denomination, nor for others. Whatever is now being birthed that is truly new and able to engage culture as effective Kingdom ambassadors, is for the most part coming from outside the institution of the church.  They are often small and scattered initiatives.  Most likely they will never gain the size, status or collective energy typical of the institution.  There is a part of me that wishes they could.  But then I suspect they would suffer the fate of the very institutions they were trying to influence and reform.

This is an historic tug of war.  A pattern that I believe is a divine check and balance to save the church from itself.  

The 5 core APEST gifts (see endnote) that are meant to simultaneously energize the church and keep it in dynamic tension, too often fall prey to their own competing values.  Rarely are they able to perform together in their natural state of tension.  Our humanity ensures that stalemate. Human nature leads us to prefer stability, captured in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  It’s how our brains work – which is why it is hard to change in the first place.  Logically then it’s how we work in collective community, such as in politics, clubs, associations and of course, the church.  Once we have established a measure of personal or collective stability, our preference is to remain there – whether it works for us or not! But change and growth comes from tension.  That tension in the institutional church’s context is the push-pull, the in-out breathing rhythm of the APEST gifts.  Their interplay is necessary to ensure a Christian community retains and displays the dynamic necessary to ensure true impact.  This isn’t happening.  Safety, security, and tolerance for incremental change dominates the institutional church psyche and strategy.

Here is where I part ways with many of my peers.  The church as we know it is not the hope of the world. Christ, the dynamic of that community, is the Hope of the world.  Let’s not confuse the institution of the church with the Community of Christ as some do.  They are not intrinsically identical.

I repeat - The church as institution is not the hope of the world.  Christ is.  Christ living and working through His people is the basis for how we are to organize and act.  The challenge has been, and is, that the institutional needs of the church really drive their agendas for change.  Choices around strategy, personnel or budgets are made in reference to its long-term survival or viability.  Let’s just be real here: rarely is a decision made that fundamentally re-shapes the posture and structure of the church, because its hard for insiders to be change-makers due to the existential threat to their own role, status and employment.  The usual outcome of a ‘what’s next’ vision discussion is a tweak that is trumpeted as innovation.  Tweaks can be communicated with bold rhetoric.  If a bold strategy is launched, I have seen how the cost is often experienced as too heavy to sustain.  The attempt withers.  The system is sustained.

My conclusion is that the church as institution won’t change to the extent needed for significant, relevant impact on this current world because it is incapable.  To reorganize away from institution to be a collective community of ambassadors of Christ, each empowered to build the Kingdom of God, is too threatening to existing livelihoods, missiology and ecclesiology.  As has been the case through history, change happens predominantly outside the institutional form. Some change agents may remain connected as though in orbit – still within the gravitational pull of the institution.  I’ve taken that route so far.  Others leave the pull of institutional gravity entirely.

I have my point of view.  You’ve read it here and in other of my blogs.  Yet the great hope I hold is that Christ works in and through all our imperfect organizational creations.  I truly wish the institutional system could change.  I dedicated the bulk of my career to that end.  I have seen some advances but also many disappointments.  My hope for its’ transmogrification is significantly diminished.  However, my hope lies in the universal Christ who is working through His community all around this world.  Those change agents/ambassadors are inside and outside the institution of the church.  Christ is ensuring that His ways are being advanced to bless and to change individuals and communities around the world.

So, let’s keep living and acting in hope.

Harv

---

APEST = Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher.  Based on Ephesians 4 and popularized as a framework by Alan Hirsch in his book The Forgotten Ways.

Change: Rhetoric vs. Reality

We are in an era of organizational re-design and rebirth.  Whether it’s new working arrangements or new ways of doing business/ministry, things are not what they used to be.  Thank (or blame) the pandemic.  Here we are.

However, the dynamics of how change works has not changed.  Change impacts structures and processes but it’s humans that carry out the change. To declare change without paying attention to the human element of how people process and experience change, is to ultimately struggle through a failed change management process.

Here’s a classic downward spiral that I have seen take place in many organizational change processes.  If you see your organizational experience reflected here, know that it’s quite common.   My question for you is: What have you seen or experienced that has helped to get you out of this downward spiral?  Let’s help each other, and our organizations, move forward.

The Spiral: 

DISCUSSION about a sticky area; a place where everyone senses a need for change.

DECLARATION of the intent to do something about it.  Sometimes there’s even a ‘plan’. 

DELAY in taking action.  This often happens because there wasn’t an actual plan in the first place. Delays usually mean people…

DEFER to the old ways/patterns of acting.  When people realize promised change isn’t happening, the result is often a…

DECLINE of confidence that the system, or leadership’s commitment to change is real. 

DISCOURAGEMENT sets in and sometimes people begin to depart - not necessarily via actual resignation from the job, but a resignation to a status quo environment.  Leave a person in that state too long and it results in a…

DROP in both productivity and engagement[1].  After all, why take the initiative to change and improve if the system you are in, won’t?

 

Please share your thoughts & ideas in the comments.  Help us all move forward toward positive change.

Harv

---

[1] 85% of employees are not engaged at work. According to Gallup's recent State of the Workplace report, a significant proportion of employees are not fully engaged in their work. Specifically, 85% of employees are either unengaged or actively disengaged. Dec 22, 2022

This is a Good Thing

We thought we could do it. Our activism and proactive planning bore that out.

No longer.

Our ability and freedom to act as we think we should in order to build the Kingdom of God (or our own kingdoms?) has been severely curtailed.  The way to the future is now murky.  Attempts are being made by leaders to get back to what was, but those attempts aren’t bearing fruit.  They likely never will.

Perhaps this is a good thing. A gift from God.

We were reduced to digital reaches and initially were giddy at the potential.  However, the stats around actual engagement are dubious at best.  We could still connect personally, but that was reduced to small circles of family, neighbours and co-workers as pandemic rules allowed.  Our reach narrowed.  It was simplified.

Perhaps this is a good thing. A gift from God.

Previously our actions and even our prayers were a means of putting us in charge of the growth and the affairs of God’s Kingdom.  We planned, executed, made policy and processes, developed seminars, services and studies.  Activism. I dare say that even our prayers accompanying all those plans were assertive and even demanding of God.  Activist prayers.  And now, control is no longer in our hands.

Perhaps this is a good thing. A gift from God.

Could this be a time, now that so much of our previous power, control and freedom has been taken away from us, to reconnect with our identity as God’s servants, and begin to pray as Mary  - “let it be done to me (us) according to your word”.  That is a servant’s prayer, not that of the activist.  A prayer that asks God to make us the person(s) through whom He can reveal Himself and bring His will into being in this world.

Pray.

Wait.

Move when He prompts.

Sit when He is silent.

Be present in the moment.

Accept the daily bread as enough provision for the day, the moment.

Surrender control.

Like a servant.

Leaderships' Appetite for the Past

Leaders are about the future, right?  Well, don't be surprised that they often have a strong appetite for the past.

I'm observing a 'leeks and onions' moment among Christian leadership during this pandemic.  After the initial major adjustments to deliver services online there was a lot of discussion and even excitement around this being a 'moment' to re-think and reconfigure the very nature and mission of the Christian community (read: church).  Vision & dreaming was flourishing.

Now, note the conversations.  Seems those visions & dreams are now morphing into a focus on returning to normal.  This is where leadership energy is now predominantly focused.  Looking in the rear-view mirror to the leeks and onions of the past are proving too tempting.

The context for my 'leeks and onions' reference is clear to most Christian leaders.  But let me review:  When God lead an entire national community (Israel) out of their slavery in Egypt for a promised new existence, among leaders and followers there was the usual excitement, fear and uncertainty that accompanies change.   Then came the long haul process of actually getting to the new thing.  That's where things started to break down.  (We all love the rhetoric of change.  It's the execution that kills us!).  It was tough.  It was boring. It was tedious.  Kind of like our pandemic existence.  The people started hankering for what was: "We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted.". (Book of Numbers 11:5)

When challenge came on the way to the future, and it wasn't yet clear what that future would look like, the default human reaction was to not only to reminisce, but to long for a re-creation of the past.

Most of what I read lately from church leaders are plans and promises for how to return to gathering. Gone are references to previous visioning & discussions that the pandemic was an unprecedented opportunity to re-shape the Church.  Now its really about how to get back to what we were.

Leaders - are you about preserving what was or persevering into the future?  Show yourself.  Lead or follow. 

It's a leeks and onions moment.

Leadership for Sustained Change-Management

Inspiring change is easier than sustaining it.  All you have to do it is move people with a vision or paint pictures of what could be and you are on the road to moving people to consider and even adopt a change for which you are advocating. That's a step toward change but it IS NOT CHANGE.   The goal of any change process must not only be to initiate change, but sustain it.  The required leadership skills for initiating and then sustaining change are complementary and yet different.  Like the popular t-shirt saying goes in SE Asia:  "same same but different". 

Most non-profits do very well at inspiration-driven change.  In fact, since they tend to rely more on a committed volunteer vs. motivated-for pay personnel base, this is a necessary leadership skill set.   However, inspiration-driven change that is sustainable is rare. Most change requires the sustained effort of committed leaders.

Coming from the church world, I know a lot of them right now are in their budget and ministry planning process.  Voices abound expounding visions for change and rationales for financing those changes.  Personally I am launching a project right now that I believe will effect change.  I am inspired by it and a few others are 'catching the vision'.  But I know that I will need to create a framework and add personal commitment to sustaining the vision over the long haul.  If I don't commit to that, I am a passing fad, a whiff of wind that was refreshing for a moment.

Reminds me of the movie Braveheart.  At one point William Wallace waxes eloquent to his followers about his vision & aspirations.  To which one of his key guys responds:

 

"Great speech.  

Now what do we do?"

Once you have cast the vision, how will you make that a reality over the long haul?

The following critical success factors in sustained change management are adapted from “Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management” (Second Edition; 2007; David Axson; John Wiley & Sons).

11 Critical Success Factors for Sustained Change

1. Don't count on a silver bullet. 

·         Usually a combination of approaches and skills is needed.

2. Stage the process. 

·         Extend it if necessary to ensure success.  Each stage must have clear outcomes.  Staging the process also allows for organizational learning along the way, and opportunities for adaptation of the process to enhance its success.

3. Plan comprehensively. 

·         Breadth is more important than depth in planning.  Identify all the component parts first. Planning the detail is not absolutely necessary up front because good planning is an ongoing activity to 'fill out' the component parts.

4.   Dedicate the resources.

·         Assign the best people and funding to the project.  The calibre of resources influences not only the optics, but also the outcomes.

5.   Build commitment through involvement.

·         The PRIMARY key here is that the organizations' leaders themselves must believe in the change and be seen as embracing the changes that the process seeks to implement.

·         There are 7 elements of securing commitment:

i)        Commitment is earned; it is not an entitlement, even in hierarchical organizations.

ii)      In the early stages, find the people who 'get it'.  They are your 'evangelists'.  Get them resourced with information and other supports.

iii)    Once earned, sustain the commitment.  The tendency is to expend the energy and vision in the creative process and then let it dissipate in the execution.  This is extremely damaging to any change process. Cynicism sets in.  Volunteers and finances begin to depart.

iv)    No single method to secure commitment works in isolation.  Match the message and the medium to the recipient(s).  Take into account their motivation, personal style etc.

v)      Security is top of mind with people.  People generally fear uncertainty more than the change itself.  Therefore consistent and redundant communication is crucial. Use common 'talking points'; create communication schedules across various media; provide easy access to information through vehicles such as websites.

 vi)    Communication by itself won't secure commitment.  You must also

·         provide 2-way processes

·         use pilot programs

·         develop templates/prototypes

·         conduct workshops

·         involve a wide spectrum of people and provide feedback loops

vii)  Know you won't convert everyone.  Plan for how you will deal with resistors.  You must deal with them because if left ignored, they will negatively affect the project. (see point # 11)

6. Gain momentum quickly. 

·         No false starts.  Momentum is a function of activity and delivery.  Produce something visible every 3 months.

7. Make the investment of time, money and personal focus.

·         It means you must reduce your commitments in other areas to make this work.

8. Work the organizational politics. 

·         Success is the best offence, so create it early; tell the story and repeat it often

9. Be flexible but don't compromise the end objective.

·         You will never define all the steps ideally or anticipate all the events along the way, but don't lose sight of the objective

10. Keep Boards informed and focused on the goals with regular updates.

11. Don't let naysayers get you down.

·         A small number will never sign on.  The greater number of naysayers are those who, at the first sign of trouble start to question the viability of the change.  Addressing this starts with the leader and his/her change implementation team. 

Is your vision worth more than the inspirational story you are telling?  If it is, my challenge to you (as I am making it to myself), get in for the long haul and roll up your sleeves to create some sustained change.

Harv

harvey@visiontracks.ca
www.visiontracks.ca

1-403-970-4148

Skype: visiontracks05

Track Your Organizations' Impulses

 

If you like where you are; if your organization is all about itself and maintaining stability & control at the centre, don’t read any further.  I won’t convince you to change.  You are the person who tunes the radio to their favorite station and then pulls the dial off the radio so it can never be changed. 

Enjoy your music.

But if there is even a hint of impulse toward serving someone or some purpose outside the space your building and people occupy, keep reading. 

Businesses often state they are about innovation for the ‘marketplace’.  Churches say they are about the ‘mission’.  Retailers focus on the ‘customer’.  Non-profits express their existence is for the ‘client’ or a broader social purpose.  Most state their organizational impulse is for a purpose or people beyond themselves.  Wonderful. 

However, if your impulse is truly beyond yourself, do your current organizational structures and processes reinforce & support  that?

Within our North American culture we pride ourselves on our ability to change with the times.  We believe we are innovative and flexible enough to adjust to the needs of our customer or target audience. Yet in the business world the field is littered with once-great, well known companies who have talked the talk but could not take the walk.  Blockbuster, Eastman Kodak, Sears and Yahoo are but a few of the big-name examples of companies with commitments to change but who did not adapt well.  I can identify a few non-profits who started with the most altruistic and noble of impulses, but as they grew in size they grew in complexity and along with it found they became bloated or myopic, and inevitably off course.

Much of the reason for this is that with time and success, people in groups, whether as businesses or non-profits, think less and less about the further development of ways to serve their original ‘outward’ impulses, and more about how to preserve what they have.  (By the way, that’s a natural tendency of all human beings).  They will walk and talk right up to the edges of change, but taking the step over into real change is rare.  Leadership talks about innovation in order to keep serving the needs of the person or customer, but leaderships' walk usually reinforces it’s about keeping the business or the organizations' status quo.  When you see a company driven by stock price over principle, or a non-profit influenced more by its donor-base than the needs of the people it serves, you have an indication of what I mean.  No one likes hearing this because we all live in the illusion that we are change-agents.  Our culture regularly streams out the message of change, but our collective rhetoric proves we no longer get the point.  Talk about change has become a cheap and easy way to maintain leadership currency.

But true leadership is about identifying and declaring current reality in light of where you want to go and then being bold enough to address the gap.

Conduct a brief audit of your own organization:

·         How do we expend our primary personnel resources?

·         What does our budget indicate to an outsider as our priority areas?

·         Where do most of our activities take place and what does that say about who and how we serve?

·         What gets celebrated in our organization and what does that indicate about what we value?

·         What are the top 3-4 areas where leadership expends their energy?  How does that define the core ‘impulses’ of our organization?

(Would you be bold enough to use these questions as a 360 of your organization?)

If the assessment reveals a significant gap, let me propose a solution:

An ongoing perpetual strategy for maintaining focus on your core impulses is to identify and release the people within your organization who already have the capacity for reflection, ingenuity and innovation.  I can tell you right now that there are people within your organization who are connected to your original impulses and who think about it...a lot.  How are they heard?  Is there a place for them?  They often exist a little ‘in orbit’ around the hairball of your organizational inertia.  Sometimes you might feel they work for you and against you all at the same time.  They ask too many questions.  They might even be complainers.  Their ideas are just a little too off the wall.  “Can’t they ever just put their nose to the grindstone and do the job”??

Yet they are a key to ensuring that you make whatever changes are needed to stay true to your original organizational impulse.  Rarely do the answers to needed change & innovation come from corporate strategy sessions.  Rather, they come from within individuals who are not only set free by the organization to think innovatively, but who carry within themselves the capacities for ingenuity. What you need to do as a leader is find a way to let them be themselves to examine, criticise, dream and innovate.  Come into their space once in a while and hear what they have to say.  Spin them off in orbit on a retreat, or in specialized task groups.  Ground them in the organizations’ core impulse, and then release them to discover how to stay true to that.  Feed them with the freedom of thought and innovation towards a grounded purpose.

 

The Jesuits, of all organizations, have the most to say to all of us about releasing ingenuity.  They were/are one of the most decentralized yet focused organizations on earth.  (You can read in detail about their founding principles and extremely dispersed organizational philosophy in a book by Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit himself who worked in the banking and non-profit industries.  His book is “Heroic Leadership”, 2003, by Loyola Press).  For them, ingenuity is the readiness to ‘cross the world’ at a moments’ notice in pursuit of a good opportunity.  It is the willingness to work without a script and the creative embrace of new ideas.  It is not achieved merely by developing the skills leadership pundits always champion for innovation:  imagination, adaptability, creativity, flexibility etc.  Rather, it is about adopting the demeanour, attitudes and worldview that make creativity and adaptation possible.  What is that stance? It is an “optimistic view of the world thoroughly shot through with (divine) love. Ingenuity blossoms when the personal freedom to pursue opportunities is linked to a profound trust and optimism that the world presents plenty of them.  Imagination, creativity, adaptability and rapid response become the keys for finding and unlocking these opportunities” (pg 128 – Heroic Leadership).

Ingenuity is NOT however the blind pursuit of anything new and creative.  It is in pursuit of a broader purpose or a core impulse that ingenuity takes on meaning.  The Jesuits had a purpose to ‘help souls’ and left it up to the ingenuity of their people to make that happen.  What resulted was a global kaleidoscope of endeavours, but all in pursuit of this purpose.

Your organization may grow to get involved in many things, but do they serve the core impulse of why you exist?  Reject the impulse of inertia.   As the leader, restate your organizations’ core impulse and release the ingenuity of your people to help you regain that ground and innovate your way back (or forward) towards the accomplishment of your primary purpose for existence.

Harv Matchullis

3000 Yr. Old Change Management Advice

I've been through a lot of change lately. 18 months ago I was on the verge of moving from Calgary to Kuwait. Entering some new territory vocationally. But unexpectedly repatriated to Canada last August. So, I am thinking about "change" more than I usually do. Even though I am back on "home ground", there is new territory to define and pursue.

Have been slogging my way reading the first few books of the Bible's Old Testament. These were people 'on the move' and used to regular change. Found some interesting insights to share with you from one particular point in their history...

Israel for most of its history was a collection of nomadic tribes. Change happened constantly when you were moving and taking up new territory. Here are some lessons their leader Moses gave before they were to take over lands and cities on their march to possessing the territory their God had promised to them:

1. When you go to war (face a new change), and see that it is far bigger than your capacity, don’t be afraid.

In Israel’s case they could believe that because their God said He was going ahead of them and preparing the way. I recognize God may not be part of your thinking & planning. If God isn’t a part of your plans, then what is the confidence you are taking with you that this change is going to work? You have to start with confidence. No confidence, no guts in the face of the challenges change will throw at you. No guts, no glory.

2. If you are not fully prepared to engage the change and all it entails, then don’t.

Army captains were to say to their warriors that if any of them had commitments to take care of first (like: they just got married or were still building a house), then they were to go take care of those commitments first before entering the fight. What might you as the leader need to take care of first in order to fully engage the change you are entering? This advice also suggests that leaders need to identify the ones who are ready to move forward, and leave others to continue to complete their current commitments. Some should not go with you – it’s just not the right time for them. In fact, some should be left behind to develop and be ready for a later phase of the change.

3. Finally, in the pursuit of new territory, don’t destroy what’s needed to feed you in the long run.

Moses’ advice to warriors when they were besieging a city was to not cut down every tree in the area in order to build the ramparts. “Leave the fruit trees” he said, "otherwise what’s going to feed you when you’ve captured the city and settle down?" How often have you seen a person tear down the past in pursuit of the future, or belittle the existing structure/organization as a justification for breaking new ground? They leave the ground barren, empty of 'trees', devoid of currently existing resources that could have helped them make their new future into reality.

In pursuit of the new, sometimes we still need the old to feed us, support us and sometimes even finance us!

It’s easy to view the organization or situation we are currently in (and want to change) as a hairball that stifles us. We want freedom. Gordon Mackenzie’s book “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” is an insightful & creative look at how to manage the relationship between the “hairball” of our current organizational context, and the creative change that typically can only be born outside of it.

(For those interested in reading the full account of Moses’ advice, refer to the Bible, the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 20)

Wishing you a successful and prosperous 2011

Harv Matchullis - back from Kuwait and settled in Canada. Still ever the nomad...