Happy New Year! On today's (short) episode, Peggy and Jil go rattle off a list of factors that keep churches stuck in old patterns that may not be serving their best interests. And we are not focusing on Community Church here - we will hear stories from several different communities that shed light on some of the behaviors, attitudes, and traditions that make it difficult to move forward and change with the world.
“I would much rather be in a really small congregation of people who are on fire with mission than a great big congregation of people who are totally asleep.”
Peggy and Jil highlight the importance of examining and challenging existing systems, being open to new ideas and technologies, and addressing issues such as ego, attachment, entitlement, and fear. They also emphasize the need for honesty, collaboration, and setting boundaries to create a welcoming and inclusive church community.
You can find a(n imperfect) transcript of the conversation below. And, as always, we hope you will share this episode with a friend or colleague who might find it useful - or just entertaining.
[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:00 - (Rev. Peggy Clarke): So here's the thing. I started to, like, list stuff, like what keeps us stuck? And I started to list… I actually was thinking, those are all things everybody knows. I think in terms of the broad, general things, maybe not so interesting, but the specific stories, like what really happens that makes us too isolated or too insular. We just get…
0:00:31 - (Jil Novenski): As a church.
0:00:32 - (Peggy): Yeah, as churches. Not just us, churches in general. I actually want to be really careful that we're not just talking about Community Church, because I feel like it's a lot of Community Church, like I'm sort of done. But the issues are real everywhere. Even the issues that aren't true here are true in other places. Right? For instance, just sort of this litany of what keeps us stuck, like… when we don't welcome children.
0:01:00 - (Peggy): Right? When children show up in a service and elders shush them.
0:01:06 - (Jil): Yeah, hush culture is a guarantee not to grow your congregation.
0:01:11 - (Peggy): Or when people accuse someone on staff, it's often a DRE or a minister, of wanting too much power. Like, you're only doing that for yourself.
0:01:25 - (Jil): Right. Micromanagement of other people's roles.
0:01:29 - (Peggy): Yes. Micromanagement. That keeps us small, that keeps us stuck.
0:01:33 - (Jil): As a matter of fact, microaggressions in general.
0:01:35 - (Peggy): Yep, not welcoming new people. Do you know, I was in a church once and there was a guy who showed up who was really active in his other church on the other side of the country. He showed up for this church, and this church had a band. He played bass. Music was his life. He asked to join the band, and they said no because they had a bass player. And, I mean, the band had like 15 people in it, and it was a major ministry of the church, but he couldn't participate.
0:02:03 - (Jil): That's so sad.
0:02:04 - (Peggy): So sad. He left the church. He said to me, I've never felt so unwelcome in a UU space.
0:02:11 - (Jil): Right. I think another thing that keeps churches so stuck, too, is displaying one's discomfort out loud. If we're looking to form radical welcome, that means sometimes some of us will be a little bit uncomfortable with the ways others have of being. And if they're not injurious ways of being, making space. Ego is a huge thing. Ego is a huge reason. Attachment, attachment to positions of power, not being willing to collaborate, that's huge.
0:02:43 - (Jil): Being so stuck and attached to what you already have going. Sometimes it's not working and you have to take a step back and you have to be open to a new idea. It doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to be made irrelevant, but that stuckness to a certain position.
0:03:00 - (Peggy): I have another story. It's similar to what you're saying. There was a woman, she was the chair of the membership committee. And in that church there was a guest book. And when people came in, they'd write their name and their home address. And the chair of the membership committee was like, this is the least useful information that you can probably gather from people walking in. What she wanted was cards, or even better, an iPad, where people would punch in information like cell phone and email.
0:03:28 - (Jil): Right.
0:03:29 - (Peggy): And the committee were so attached to their guest book that they wouldn't let her. Absolutely wouldn't. And I had to meet with them and explain to them… I was a consultant, but I was brought in and met with them, and it sounded like they were like, "okay, we understand we have to do things differently." And then they went downstairs and opened the guest book, and the membership chair sobbed, held me and cried because she was like, it's such a basic thing to just, you just have to change with the times a little bit.
0:04:02 - (Peggy): And they wouldn't let go of their guest book even after they were like, "no, we totally get it." And then they're like, "but we're still going to use the guest book."
0:04:09 - (Jil): Right. Attachment again. And I was going to say that especially welcoming in different platforms and different ways of processing. Since the pandemic, it's cracked wide open. I mean, we have so many more ways of doing things. We have multiplatform, we have spaces that can bring in folks that have mobility issues and can't physically be there, can still be included. But if folks are stuck in this narrative of "I'm not technologically savvy", well, that's the time to collaborate and check in with other people and see if anybody can help. But instead of just shutting it down and saying, "no, this is the way we've always done it, this is the way it's done, and it's the way it's going to continue to be done."
0:04:49 - (Jil): It's more about being right than it is about moving the needle forward.
0:04:53 - (Peggy): Yeah, I think about spaces where there's lots of generative energy, and it feels like you can really get something done. But a lot of church committees don't feel that way. They feel sort of deadening. Even when people really like each other, there just isn't that. So I'm thinking, what is it that shifts that kind of energy so a group can come together, but I think it's a lot of "yes." When you're in a room where people, someone has an idea and someone says "yes," and "let's try it" and "let's just move ahead", rather than being met with "no."
0:05:25 - (Jil): Well, and before saying yes, you need someone or a couple of folks to be willing to examine the entire system and be willing to actually shift the way the whole system is structured, changing the model. Right.
0:05:42 - (Peggy): So one of the things that keeps us stuck is that we don't even look at the system and how it works. We just keep moving ahead.
0:05:52 - (Jil): It feels, a lot of times, I think, like trying to force a round peg into a square hole. We get that this is the way it goes this way. It goes this way, goes from the board to the council or vice versa or whatever. And so then it feels like things don't fit when new things come up, but it may feel like it doesn't fit because that whole process needs to look different, which might mean creating different bodies that handle different things in a church that you might not have considered before, that never existed.
0:06:22 - (Peggy): One of the things that keeps us stuck is that we don't have enough people examining the systems, and then we end up with, like, one or two people, and then they get to dictate how everything goes. You know what else keeps us stuck, really? Like, I've seen this in so many places, this idea that everyone has to be happy all the time, that you have to. Well, so and so doesn't like it, so we can't do it.
0:06:46 - (Jil): Right?
0:06:48 - (Peggy): Or that everyone has to have a vote. I'm sorry, I know that we're a democratic system, but everyone doesn't get a vote and a voice on every single decision, that keeps us stuck. The idea that we move at the speed of church and we do it because everybody has to weigh in. No, we really need nimble systems. We need to be able to say, like, these people are doing it and they're doing it. We're just going to support them, and it's good they get to decide.
0:07:12 - (Jil): Right? It's one of my favorite things to have strategic planning meetings, because that's the opportunity where you can see if we have a certain goal to reach, who needs to be really involved and who doesn't need to be bothered with that at this particular stage. And at what point do you involve them in the process where it makes sense.
0:07:30 - (Peggy): Right.
0:07:30 - (Jil): It doesn't mean we don't involve everyone. But there are different ways of doing that where we can actually keep going forward and progressing toward a goal.
0:07:41 - (Peggy): So there are lots and lots of things that keep us stuck, things we just do over and over and over, the ways that we listen to or cowtow to bullies in a congregation.
0:07:53 - (Jil): Absolutely.
0:07:54 - (Peggy): Lots of bullies, and we just let them run rampant. And one thing that keeps us stuck is that we don't set boundaries, we don't suspend people.
0:08:02 - (Jil): That's correct.
0:08:02 - (Peggy): Like, you're out of covenant and you're done. We just let them stay because we somehow think that being Unitarian Universalist is about being nice.
0:08:11 - (Jil): And that kind of goes back to a place of fear. What's the fear? Is the fear that we won't. I mean, if the goal is to grow, for example, and you have a bully in the place who's not getting any consequences for the behavior.
0:08:25 - (Peggy): Right.
0:08:26 - (Jil): Is it more important to keep that one person comfortable or recognize that that's an absolute sticking point? We won't grow as long as that element is there. I have a lot of colleagues that are experiencing that, for sure.
0:08:35 - (Peggy): I would much rather be in a really small congregation of people who are on fire with mission..
0:08:43 - (Jil): Exactly.
0:08:43 - (Peggy): Than a great big congregation of people who are totally asleep, and worse, not just asleep, people who are bullies, who are nasty, who are sure that they should get their way. People. I mean, I had somebody, our DRE said to somebody, no, we can't do the thing you want us to do. And then she came to me, this person came to me to tell on the DRE. I was like, really? Yeah. First of all, she has authority. Second, she's right. I mean, I'll explain why she's right, if that's helpful, but third, you don't get to go over someone's head like that. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you get it.
0:09:23 - (Peggy): You can't derail processes, and there are too many people, and we end up so often in churches, somebody like that does get their way, and the minister goes back to the Dre, and it's like, oh, so and so isn't happy. So let's just let them do the thing that they want to do. And then you end up with burned out staff who just want to leave and start looking for other jobs because they're not respected.
0:09:48 - (Jil): Right. And it all becomes performative.
0:09:51 - (Peggy): Entitlement.
0:09:51 - (Jil): Definitely entitlement if we really rattle it off. Ego, attachment, entitlement, enabling fear.
0:10:00 - (Peggy): Yeah, those are the things that keep us stuck over and over and over and over. And this inability or unwillingness to confront any of it.
0:10:07 - (Jil): Also posturing.
0:10:10 - (Peggy): Posturing.
0:10:11 - (Jil): Posturing is a problem.
0:10:13 - (Peggy): Yeah.
0:10:14 - (Jil): There are a lot of churches I know of who have adopted the 8th principle and are absolutely not living that principle. Right. If you're not living it in your leadership circles, if you're not living it in the way that colleagues in leadership treat one another, there is no chance that just because you have groups or programs intended to be rooted in the 8th principle, that that's really the whole church living into that principle.
0:10:45 - (Peggy): So if we're talking about the institutional church dying and we're saying that we have to really revamp if we want to be relevant, we have to be honest about what doesn't work in our own churches, why are we stuck?
0:10:58 - (Jil): Honesty is critical.
0:10:59 - (Peggy): Honesty is critical.
0:11:00 - (Jil): And it's not comfortable most of the time.
0:11:02 - (Peggy): No. All right. Can't talk about this one too long. It's making me depressed.
The Things that Keep Us Stuck