The Clergy-Focused Congregation

One of the things that we say about organizations is that focus trumps picture.  That is simply another way of saying that when people reflect on how they feel about an organization, they don’t look at the entire picture of what an organization does.  Instead, they focus on a few things that are important to them.  The few things they focus on are more decisive than everything else in the picture in determining how they feel about that organization overall.

We call those important areas where members focus drivers of satisfaction.

One of the patterns we observe in some faith communities is that members focus on the clergy person when they reflect on how they feel about the church overall.  We call these systems “clergy-focused.”  Generally, like the example below,  a system is clergy-focused when three or more of the top five drivers on a Vital Signs report concern the work of the clergy person…or two on the clergy person and one on worship.drivers for clergy focused.png

Sometimes, people confuse clergy-focused with clergy-driven.  When we say that a church is clergy-focused, it does not mean that the pastor is running everything.  A church can be clergy-focused where the pastor is leaving every decision to the lay people.

In a clergy-focused church, how people feel about the pastor is more important in their overall view of the church than other parts of the picture like Christian formation, hospitality, music, youth ministry, or how decisions are made.  In fact, members in a clergy focused church will often indicate dissatisfaction with areas of the church that arguably have nothing to do with the pastor.

To say that a church is clergy-focused tells you nothing about the strength or weakness of the church.  Some clergy-focused churches are transformational.  Other clergy-focused churches need reinvention.

In a clergy-focused church that is in need of reinvention, making changes in any area will have little impact on the how satisfied people are with the church unless the changes impact how they feel about the relationship with the pastor.  For these churches praiseworthy efforts like strategic planning will have little benefit to the church for the same reason.  I do not recommend strategic planning for a clergy-focused reinvention church.

Clergy-focused systems have some advantages.

First, positive changes can happen quickly in a clergy-focused system.  When a new pastor is brought on board who “clicks” with the congregation the mood of the congregation can change almost instantly.

Second, some pastors function well in a clergy-focused system.  They tend to be persons who enjoy center stage, have a bounded-ego, and who can parlay good will and resources into ministry and mission.

Third, clergy-focused systems can grow to become quite large since members may have lower expectations of their interactions with the congregation because the benefits of membership accrue to their relationship with the clergy…even if it is a distant, virtual relationship.

Clergy-focused systems have their downside as well.

First, clergy-focused systems tend to be anxious systems because success or failure hangs on one person.  The pressure of clergy-focused systems can lead to pastors who burnout or flameout.

Second, the conflicts in clergy-focused systems tend to get focused on the clergy person even if they have nothing to do with him or her.

Third, there are few remedies for clergy-focused systems that get themselves into trouble.  Once things goes south, it is difficult for the pastor-people relationship to be fixed.  When the church is clergy-focused and one or more critical success factors on the clergy person are above 30, steps should generally be taken to help the pastor move on. This is especially the case in clergy-focused, Hearth and Home church cultures.

Wherever a congregation finds itself, it is important  to know what the congregation is focused on so as we move forward we are mindful of what might be trumping the bigger picture.   It is also important to remember even if we can’t see the bigger picture, there is always someone who can. Unknown

 

The Leadership Vacuum

Recently, I spent some time with a church in the South.  Their pastor of 21 years left in April and they used the Congregation Assessment Tool to come up with a pastoral profile as they go through a transition period.  This congregation has a long and illustrious history in the community but their attendance has been dropping for some time. Three years ago their average Sunday attendance was 326 people, at last count they had 261 in attendance.  The data tells me over and over again that something has been going on for awhile.

When interpreting a Vital Signs report, it is always important to note the relationship between the Conflict Management Index and the Governance Index.  Often, if the congregation has a higher index on Conflict Management, signaling that conflict to some degree is being managed, than Governance, we are looking at a congregation where trouble is brewing.  If the Governance index is higher than the Conflict Management index, then the congregation is coming out of conflict with a leadership that can leverage their trust from their congregation to help.

The None of the Above Scenarios

But sometimes there is more than these two scenarios – it goes deeper.

Here we have a congregation that has average Conflict Management scores but very low Governance scores.  When we see this kind of Governance score the data tells us a story and that story comes from a possible three scenarios: there is a leadership vacuum created by a strong leader; a personnel decision had to be made and the leadership could not share the details with the congregation; or there is a decision that was made on some large issue that has caused distrust.

For this congregation, the previous Pastor was a strong leader, who made most of the decisions and when he didn’t make the decisions he was involved in the decision making process.  On the one hand, this can be good. Decisions can be made fast – the group of me, myself, and I can come to a consensus fairly quickly.  But what happens to the rest of the leadership?

This kind of literal single-minded decision making can be crippling for leadership.  There is no room to develop and grow as leaders. It is a marriage without balance or accountability. It leaves the congregation feeling like the leaders are not showing genuine concern in what others are thinking when decisions are made.  But, in fact, the leaders are not making decisions. This role of sitting, listening  and waiting often leaves those in leadership feeling powerless and ineffective. Meanwhile, the congregation can’t understand why there is so much shoulder shrugging and it is frustrating.

What can we say to these leaders? 

Leadership can be a thankless job. It is time consuming, overwhelming and involves a delicate balance of listening and acting.  For a leadership 557ef22a7dd3b107f4bb3cb4304fc9dethat is being told that their trust from the congregation is so low, they need to hear truth but they also need to hear hope.

As interpreters in this situation, we need to say the following:

  1. You have been faithful.
  2. This feeling of powerlessness and this lack of trust from the congregation will not last forever.
  3. Understand, you are in a vulnerable position and any issue that comes along that has any element of conflict could be risky.
  4. You will need to begin making clear, consistent, transparent decisions.
  5. You will need to communicate those clear, consistent, transparent decisions in a way that reaches the congregation.
  6. It is time to begin healing.
  7. It is time to lead.

When I went through this with the leadership of this particular congregation, they were able to move past feeling deflated and wondering why they were viewed this way.  They began asking questions about how to start leading with this report.   The discussion became focused on transparency and what steps were needed to get there. They started leading.

I always say to those I work with “I know your data but I don’t know your story.”  It is our job to help the data become a part of the congregation’s story.  By working through this conversation with the leadership, we can help them own their story and start writing it themselves.

 

Emily Swanson
President of Holy Cow! Consulting

 

 

 

Holy Cow! Consulting is excited to announce the upcoming publication of “Transition Apparitions: Why Much of What We Know about Pastoral Transitions is Wrong”

This latest book from Holy Cow! Consulting studies the data from over 900 churches and makes some startling discoveries regarding what happens to churches during a pastoral transition.  In a relatively brief number of pages, Russ Crabtree provides answers to questions like

  • What happens to the morale of a typical church as it moves through a pastoral transition?
  • Why do conflict levels in a typical church tend to intensify during a pastoral transition rather than improve?
  • Why does the trajectory of a church through a pastoral transition not track what we might expect with a grief reaction?
  • What are the typical losses in attendance and giving during a pastoral transition and what are the impacts of those upon the congregation?
  • Do interim pastors typically help congregations become more flexible as they prepare to welcome a new pastor or not?

The book ends by proposing an entirely new way of thinking about pastoral transitions and suggests a transformation in the way we train interim pastors.

Available Fall of 2015

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