by Emily Swanson, Holy Cow! Consulting

I am currently working with a church in Indiana, and we are halfway through a strategic planning process. My first meeting with them in person was to review their Congregation Assessment Tool results. It was early January and extremely snowy. We were settling into writing 2025 on all the things – from agendas to signatures. In the middle of the meeting, the group shared that at the beginning of the year, each person in the congregation gets a star with a word. I stated that I loved that idea, so at the break, one of the women grabbed the basket for me to blind draw my word. My paper star said “assurance.”

My formal training is not in theology but in a completely different world so, in my understanding of the word “assurance,” I think of conveying property titles which sounds incredibly boring. But Meriam-Webster also defines the word as “being of a certain mind, something that inspires confidence, without self-doubt or uncertainty.” The purpose of this word on my star has felt, perhaps ironically, uncertain.

I often hear that we are in an unprecedented time, and I think, “well, every time we live in is unprecedented if you really think about it.” But as I listen to people around in the country in their churches, I believe unprecedented means we are uncertain and we feel like there is so much to worry about, know about, fix, or do we don’t know where to start. It is overwhelming and deflating.

In 1989, Stephen Covey published his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Affective People.” In the book, he developed the “Circle of Control,” originally a part of Stoic philosophy. This concept contains three circles. The outer layer is the circle of concern, which includes what we worry about, from weather to politics to global events, but ultimately have no control over. The next layer is a circle of influence, which we have some influence or sway over but cannot decide the ultimate outcome. This can be our relationships, final business decisions, or what our kids do when they leave our homes. The middle circle is the circle of control. This circle contains the things we have complete control over.

The concept is based on the understanding that, in the Western world, we all believe we have a lot of control. But in fact, we do not. This perception disconnect leads to anxiety, stress and decreased effectiveness or burn-out. The Circle of Control is not designed to make us feel inept or prove that our perceptions are ridiculous. Instead, it is designed to give us a way to have a proactive focus. It allows us to think about where we can expand our circle influence so that we can move out of the Circle of Concern with clarity and direction. We can use this process in our personal lives but also in our work, our advocacy, our church planning, and other seasons of change.

Here is how to use this process:

  1. Begin by making a list of all of your concerns in the outermost circle. This list includes things that our external in nature and that we worry about but have no control or influence over. Your list of concerns might look something like this: severe weather, environmental issues, road construction, church finances, national trends in church, generation gaps.
  2. In the innermost circle, make a list of things you have control over from start to finish. This list might include actions you personally can take, how you treat others, what you wear, what you think about, or how you react.
  3. Finally, in the middle circle, make a list of the things you have influence over. These are things that you can influence over but cannot control the outcome. These typically encompasses things like relationships, decision-making that you are a part of, communications plans, places where you can give feedback, outreach or ministries you can be a part of or do.
  4. Once we finish our list in the circles process we need to ask these questions to determine the effective next steps:
    • Has anything worked before? For example if we as a church are experiencing a particular period of conflict examining where the church has been through conflict before and how it was resolved well can be helpful. We can also look at other situations in other churches that have been hard that have resulted in a stronger church.
    • What haven’t we tried? Often in the circle of concern we have a lot of things that feel completely out of our hands that leads to frustration. We need to think through these issues by digging a bit deeper. Is there anything we can influence within this realm? If your church is concerned about climate change -can your church start recycling or begin to recycle more? can it partner with a nonprofit that works in environmental safety? can your use of your property include more indigenous plants and use less toxic lawn care products? Once we start breaking bigger issues down into the parts we can influence we begin to feel that we are making change.
    • What if nothing works and this is outside of our control or influence, can we still do good work? The implicit answer here is always yes but we need to be ready to adapt to the current reality. A church that has diminished in size because the community size has decreased significantly might find themselves in this place. The question then becomes how can we create a meaningful legacy in our community that best serves God even if we are not here in 15 years?

This process begins the hard work of naming the things that feel daunting but refusing to feel the lasting effects of defeat and instead look at adaption and creative solutions.

And so I return to the word I drew for 2025 -“assurance.” This had a different connotation for me when this morning, I remembered the hymn that starts with “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine.” But I didn’t just remember it from church; I remembered my grandpa singing it in the house when I was young. And the phrase he would belt out from that song that keeps repeating in my head is, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all day long.” Because, if nothing else, I can control who I focus on in my day-to-day work and what that story is. What my story is. And so can our congregations.

“Blessed Assurance”

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of his Spirit, washed in His blood

This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long

Perfect submission, perfect delight
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love

This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
This is my story, this is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
Praising my Savior all the day long

Music by Phoebe Knapp, Song Lyrics by Fanny Crosby, Copyright 1873