Benchmarking – Why We Do things the Way We Do

To date, our team at Holy Cow! Consulting has worked with close to 3,000 congregations. We have worked with congregations in every U.S. state with the exception of Hawaii (unfortunately for us). We have been stuck in snow storms in Minnesota, lost in the woods in Wisconsin, seen Mount Rainer in the rearview mirror, found out how cool Omaha is, hung out with a seal in San Diego, forgotten to order unsweetened iced tea in South Carolina, and been gently heckled by congregations in Michigan because we have a lot of OSU allegiance in our office. We have covered a lot of ground over the years and have met a lot of amazing people.

If we are running a Congregation Assessment Tool (CAT) within our current database, the data is benchmarked against around 1,800 congregations – this number grows every day. Approximately 88% of those congregations within our current benchmarking have run their CAT in the last five years.

Just as overview, when we look at the database this is a general overview of its makeup:

411 congregations are Evangelical Church in America (ELCA)
412 congregations are Episcopal
375 congregations are Presbyterian
68 congregations are Methodist
80 congregations are United Church of Christ
25 congregations are Nondenominational
24 congregations are Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
The remaining numbers include congregations that are Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, ECO, LCMC, and various other mainstream denominations

So why do we benchmark? Benchmarking allows us to take the data from each congregation and remove the element of guesswork. For example, when we look at hospitality within a congregation, one of the questions we ask people is whether “a friendly atmosphere prevails among the members of our church.” If 61% of the congregation clearly agree with that statement, just looking at the raw data, that appears to be pretty good level of hospitality. That is more than half of the people within the congregation saying that there is a friendly atmosphere. But when we compare the data within the benchmarking, we find that this only puts the responses to that question in the 12th percentile. So, 87% of the other congregations in the database had more people clearly agree with that statement. This significantly changes what we understand from the data. We are able to move from trying to guess “is this how it is supposed to feel” and we can see what is typical and what is exceptional about each congregation.

When we talk about benchmarking, one of the most frequent questions we get asked is ”why don’t you benchmark us against other churches in our denomination.” The denomination question is usually followed by a general statement about who they are as Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc. Notably, here and there, the data can show some national denominational tendencies which we have noted in our denominational books. But generally, those statements about who each denomination claims to be has yet to play out meaningfully congregation to congregation in the data.

For example, if you look at the maps on the left, they include all of the ELCA congregations in our database. You can see that they range anywhere from very low energy and satisfaction to very high energy and satisfaction. Likewise, these ELCA congregations are conservative and progressive, flexible and settled.

When we receive an order for the CAT from an ELCA church we cannot predict where that congregation will land in any one area. Instead, the data tells us that each ELCA church could land anywhere in the benchmarking – and this is important.

But there is an even more important reason why we benchmark the way we do. Both the Pew Research Center and the Cooperative Congregational Election Study (CCES) looked at mainstream denominations over a four-year period. The Pew’s study ended in 2016 and CCES ended their four-year study in 2015. What they both found is that within that four-year period 16% of members in mainstream denominations changed denominational affiliations. Methodists become Episcopalians, Presbyterians became Methodists, Lutherans in the ELCA moved to the LCMS.

What does this mean? Let’s break this down by year and attendance. 16% over four years, is 4% per year. This means that if a congregation has a weekly attendance of 150 people, there is the potential that the congregation will lose 6 people per year. By the end of four years, it is estimated that 24 people in that congregation will move to another denomination.

This type of movement indicates that benchmarking churches within their own denomination is not how the average member is looking at their experience within their congregation. The average Presbyterian member is not looking at their experience and asking, “is this how I have felt in other Presbyterian churches?” they are instead asking “is this how I have felt in other churches” but also “is there a better place I fit regardless of denomination?” As we posited in “Fly in the Ointment” several years ago, people no longer just buy Ford cars in allegiance to the Ford company. The same is true within our denominational life. People will find the church that fits them and what they need in their life, regardless of the denominational name on the sign out in the front yard.

It is our mission at Holy Cow! Consulting to help regional associations and congregations, through an evidence-based discernment process, become vital, healthy organizations that better serve Christ and our communities. We benchmark the way we do because the data shows that putting congregations in a greater context is essential to truly assess where they currently are in order to help move them to where they are called to be. This is not just our mission, it is also our ministry.

We hope to see you in our travels.

– Emily Swanson, President

Assessment as a Spiritual Journey

All truth is God’s truth. That God is loving and gracious, that e=mc2, and that curious tendency of all children to giggle at hiding in plain sight with just their eyes covered, all these are expressions of God’s truth. The process of discovering God’s truth, in any of its many forms, always has an element of revelation to it as if one were being shown something. Using the vernacular of our day, our own personal discoveries have the quality of “a light coming on.” This is also the language used by Jesus as he describes the discovery of God’s nature and purposes in the world. “He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The process of discovering the perspectives, experiences, and aspirations of a church is also one of revelation and has the revelatory quality of moving from darkness into light. In response, it is not uncommon for people to speak of “a light coming on” in the experience as they come to understand aspects of the entire body that they could not possibly have known from the relatively small number of interactions that characterizes the day to day relationships in most organizations. This process of reality moving out of the shadows and into the light is a spiritual journey.

As a spiritual journey, it has all the elements one would expect.
There are insights that evoke a liberating “aha” as connections
are uncovered that were not intuitively obvious. Some aspects of
the process tell us nothing new, but they express what we do
know using language that enables us to get a firmer grasp.

Sometimes the need for healing is revealed in the relational
wounds that come to light, often painful and occasionally urgent.
There are the common resistances that we all experience, the sense of inferiority or shame or fear that tempts us to retreat
back into the perceived safety of the darkness. We often find ourselves in denial struggling with what it will mean to embrace these truths which can often feel like loss. So, we engage with an air dismissiveness and return to our unfruitful behaviors which led us here in the first place.

Finally, there is the concrete action that must root itself in the earth of any spiritual journey and express itself in fruit for the Kingdom of God. The fulfillment of a spiritual journey ultimately hinges, not on the research design, but upon the spiritual practice that surrounds it. Without this spiritual practice, insights degenerate into trivia, wounds are probed but not healed, resistances harden into defensiveness and denial, and the promised new life fails to materialize as an incarnate reality. King David’s greatest loss of life was not to an enemy but to his own inability to manage information and keep it disentangled from his own ego.

For these reasons, it is critical that an evidence-based discernment process be interwoven with a robust spiritual practice including prayer, reflection, confession, devotions, study, and worship. Because an assessment generates a symbolic narrative, that is, a corporate story told through the symbol of numbers, we must ponder several questions:

How do we deal with our stories? While the individual contribution to the assessment is confidential, the corporate story will be quite public.
How might the disclosure of our corporate story bring insight, healing, and renewal?
In the past, how have we dealt with surprises, with things we thought were true but we discovered were not?
In that same past, how have we dealt with our wounds, our resistances, and our tendency to intellectualize as an escape from change?
What Scriptures help us reflect on truth, listening to God, trusting God’s plan for us and facing change?
How do we find access to the grace of God in this process of discovery so that our journey might be one expressive of Jesus, full of grace and truth?

When we take the time to answer these questions and weave our data with the story of our congregation, then prayerfully we can move forward with hope.

Telling the Story of the Transformational Congregation

When we call a congregation a Transformational Congregation, we are talking about a congregation with high energy and satisfaction looking particularly at how members themselves are experiencing the church rather than imposing our own external definition. In our work we have found that just as healthy organizations have certain characteristics ingrained in their corporate culture, healthy or transformational congregations have certain characteristics ingrained in their culture.

We typically find that transformational congregations have the following characteristics:

Inspiring and engaging Worship.
Flexibility (the ability to change to meet the needs of the congregation)
Conviction that church has given new meaning to life.
Inviting, friendly body of people with good relational skills.
Open, responsive decision making process (not thwarted by the same small group of people)
Opportunities for service in the church and the world that fit a person’s gifts and passions.

A transformational congregation has strategic options that other congregations may not because it does not have to spend a lot of time on internal issues, like managing conflict or regaining trust in the leadership of the congregation. Instead, it can focus on more external things such as numeric growth, program expansion (ministries, facilities, education), replication (church planting, mentor), and external impact (local, regional, international).

It is important to note that a congregation with scores in the Transformational Quadrant does not guarantee that it is growing, expanding, replicating or impacting. Instead the congregation must choose the right strategies. In fact, the shadow side of the Transformational Quadrant is that congregations can use the information to avoid taking further risks that growth may require. It takes as much work for a transformational congregation to continue to have that high energy and satisfaction, keeping the momentum moving forward, as it does for the reinvention congregation in the low energy and satisfaction quadrant to reinvent itself.

We hear a lot about the struggles facing our congregations in every denomination, in every geographical area, in every community. But, at Holy Cow! Consulting, we also get to hear some pretty phenomenal stories of congregations doing great work and really transforming lives. There are churches of less then 50 people in their average Sunday attendance that are transformational. There are transformational churches in rural areas, in metropolitan areas, in the middle of prairies or the D.C. beltway. There are transformational churches making strides every day and we think we should be celebrating those stories.

Over the next year, Holy Cow! Consulting will be spending some time on this blog telling the stories of these transformational churches from all over the country. We are hoping these stories will serve as a way to inspire and a way to give hope as we all determine what the Lord is asking of us as congregations.

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Clergy-Focus, the Critical Clergy System and how the Middle Judicatory can help

Clergy: Power and Vulnerability

With the exception of family-sized congregations, clergy are generally the individuals who hold the most power in a local parish. Depending upon the polity, this includes the political, relational, moral, and platform dimensions of power. The introduction of organizational intelligence (OI) into a system has the consequence of making the clergy person one of the most vulnerable, because he or she is the only person in the system where perceptions are individually focused. This combination of power and vulnerability merits sensitivity on the part of OI interpretive and application consultants.

Since most middle judicatories are charged with particular oversight of their clergy, it is desirable for these bodies to prepare resources for clergy in congregations that are utilizing OI, especially if they are using OI systematically as an information system. This is particularly true for clergy-focused systems.

The technical definition of a clergy-focused system can be found elsewhere. Here it will suffice to say that a clergy-focused system is one where members tend to evaluate the vitality of the church through the lens of perceived clergy performance. A clergy-critical system is one where members perceive that an improvement in the pastor-congregation relationship is the decisive factor in improving the vitality of the church.

Implications for a Clergy-Focused System

The fact that a system is clergy-focused can have a number of different implications and possible trajectories:

A “front and center” clergy person who can parley his/her relational capital into ministry and is a good fit for the congregation. The middle judicatory can help the clergy person/church leadership manage any narcissistic risks.
An overfunctioning clergy person who is paying a psychic price for success. The middle judicatory can help the clergy person/church leadership manage tendencies to burn-out or flame-out.

Implications for a Clergy-Critical System

A clergy-critical system is essentially a clergy-focused system where things are not going well. Again, there are a number of different implications and possible trajectories:

A pastor who is exercising the necessary leadership to shift the culture of a congregation. The middle judicatory can help the clergy person/church leadership by publicly and privately standing with them. This usually occurs within the first several years of clergy tenure.
A pastor who is no longer, or never was a good fit for the congregation. The middle judicatory can help the clergy person/church leadership in a process of discernment regarding the pastoral relationship.
A leadership team that is beginning to engage in a project (strategic planning, leadership development, financial campaign) that avoids the clergy issue. The middle judicatory can help the clergy person/church leadership avoid the costs of those failure paths by keeping the system focused on the primary issue. Are they being led to (a) shift the church culture, (b) work on the pastoral relationship, or (c) dissolve the pastoral relationship?

In many cases, these will not be easy conversations. However, many issues in clergy-
focused or clergy-critical systems will not improve with time. Sometimes they will devolve into full-fledged crises of one kind or another in which no one wins and options are diminished.

Reg images ardless of where the congregation is, whether a clergy-focused or a clergy-critical system, there are important roles and conversations that the Middle Judicatory can be a part of – both in the short and long term. Those early conversations on the part of middle judicatories can avoid painful, costly interventions down the road. These conversations and efforts can also aid clergy who may feel the weight of the congregation on their shoulders – before that weight becomes too much to bear alone.

From Holy Cow! Consulting and Crow’s Feet Consulting

Making the Fit Right -Pastoral Coaching

We often receive calls from Regional Associations who are looking for ways to have comprehensive pastoral coaching programs. The Effective Coaching Handbook, developed by the Executive Coaching Forum (http://www.executivecoachingforum.com/), begins with this observation:

“Executive Coaching has become commonplace in leadership development in the U.S. and internationally. It is seen as a viable lever in developing high potentials, retaining top talent, readying executives for more demanding roles, and building a leadership pipeline. Organizations that use coaching report that they’ll likely increase its use in the coming years.”

For us the question is where does Organizational Intelligence (OI)* fit into pastoral coaching? One of the critical issues for effective coaching identified by the Handbook is how to address the organizational context -citing that “[a]lthough the primary work is between executive and coach, coaching is always an organizational intervention and, as such, should be conducted within the context of the organization’s goals and objectives.”

In order to effectively coach pastors in their work, we have to be able to identify the organizational context. And that is the work of OI.

What are some ways that OI might can significantly enhance pastoral coaching?

First, OI helps address issues of fit. Poor organizational performance may have more to do with a lack of fit between the gifts and motivations of the pastor to the church than with the abilities or work ethic of the pastor. In some cases, coaching may help a person move on to a better fit. In other cases, a thoughtful shift in the pastor’s responsibilities can improve satisfaction on both sides.

Second, OI provides clarity about the organizational starting point. Armed with this knowledge, coaching can work with the pastor to develop steps that are measured, realistic, and “incarnational”, that is, beginning where people are.

Third, OI discloses deep seated cultural values that are unlikely to change quickly. This enables the coach to focus on approaches that are consonant with the culture in the short term. Where long term cultural changes are envisioned, coaching can work to develop an intentional change management strategy that will minimize the risk of catastrophic conflict.

Fourth, OI identifies sources of energy within the congregation. Those sources of energy can be used by the coach to align the development of the pastor’s goals to those of the church il_570xN.724209728_hu97.jpg

Finally, OI helps differentiate issues within a particular church culture from those of the pastor. This provides the empirical data that can support coaching efforts to encourage the professional development of the pastor that would otherwise be hard to pinpoint if it is not clear where the congregational culture ends and the growth edges needed from the pastor begins.

With these insights from OI, pastoral coaching has a clear way to begin the work of helping the pastor as they take their next steps in leadership.

*If you have any questions on how to use the Congregation Assessment Tool™ (CAT), the Pulse™, or Focal Points™ in pastoral coaching, we would be happy to help.

Holy Cow! Consulting, office@holycowconsulting.com

Organizational Intelligence you can use.

Why Do We Talk about Congregational Culture?

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. – Isaiah 64:8

“Organizational Culture” has become a very common phrase in business, non-profits and faith-based organizations. An organization’s culture represents the collective values, beliefs and principles of the organizational members. It is a product of many factors: organizational history, unwritten but understood rules, treatment of leadership, traditions, transparency of decision-making and how new ideas come to manifest themselves. Over the last ten years, many of the great organizational pundits have gone back and forth on whether organizational culture trumps strategy or if a good strategy wins the day. After a time, this type of argument becomes more about semantics than actual useful application. The real question is how does organizational culture affect strategic thinking, leadership and growth for organizations? The pundits can debate all day, the rest of us have work to do.

In congregations, the Congregation Assessment Tool (CAT)™ examines culture using a congregation’s collective values and beliefs regarding the world and the wider community through the lens of their Christianity. This is their theology. The CAT also looks at how committed the congregation members are in moving towards their collective objectives. This is their flexibility or adaptability.

For a congregation’s strategic movement and priority-set to be embraced, it must have alignment with the congregation’s culture. This is true in terms of a congregation’s theology – a conservative congregation that believes that conversion is the first step to a better society needs to have ministry that fits with that belief set. Likewise, in order to avoid becoming stagnant, a congregation with limited flexibility will have to be mindful in next steps so that they are able to embrace change and create an environment that is open to new ideas.

It is important to note, that while we have found time and time again that theology does not hinder strategic movement, lack of flexibility can. With the rare exception (14 congregations out of 2,000 to be exact), the more settled the congregation becomes the harder it is for them to be a vital organization. This indicates that the more settled the congregation, the more imperative it becomes that next steps focus on flexibility so that the strategy can be rooted in culture, but, importantly, that the culture allows forward movement.

In order to help congregations strategically plan their next steps, we have to first understand their culture and how this will help, hinder, and propel growth of various kinds. The often quoted phrase is “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Let’s get them at the table together. Because as we come to understand how culture affects a congregation’s next steps, we can truly begin to lead in way that is compassionate, mindful and effective.

– Emily Swanson, President

Holy Cow! Consulting

Tag: Organizational Culture