Craig

My mind is still on the self-awareness theme. As somebody who now knows himself to be the possessor of a neuro-diverse brain, this is one of the things I have spent a lot of time reprocessing. As a minister, I was obviously expected to chair meetings. Or maybe it was me who thought that was my role! But I now realise that my best contributions to meetings are made from the edge of the gathering. I think I was unconsciously aware of this whilst I was leading a church, but I didn’t have the level of self-awareness I needed in order to suggest a more creative way forward.

So my strength is in seeing the bigger picture, in quickly assessing a number of different options that will help us as we work out where we could, or even should, be going. But my weakness is in discerning the steps that those who can’t see that bigger picture so clearly, or are not so excited about the idea of taking any new journey, might take towards a new destination.

In the light of this revelation, I think an important skill for the person leading a meeting is to be aware of the assumptions they and others are bringing to a discussion. It might even be helpful to start a meeting by making people aware that each of us entered the room with thoughts and ideas that others could not be aware of. This pause to observe this simple fact could then provide a way of being honest with ourselves about our intentions. Have I come to this meeting with a desire to persuade others that my idea is the best one? Or am I willing to embark on an adventure based on the possibility that the journey is as important as the destination? 

I think I was at my wisest when I resisted the temptation for us to co-opt God into our discussions too quickly. What I mean by that is to push back on any contribution that begins with the words “I think God is saying..” Because, as soon as people do that, they are using a trump card that makes it really difficult for others to modify an idea, or even to disagree. It was friend Paul Maconnachie who would advise leaders he was coaching to pause a meeting and ask a person to tell us why they believed it was God, and how he had communicated this view to them. I used to have a friend who would begin a conversation with a statement like “I’ve got a brilliant idea…”. I would say to him, “tell me your idea and I will tell you if I think it is brilliant”. I think we’re talking about the same thing here because confident people are not always aware of what makes them confident or of the effect they are having on others. 

In my early days of leading church meetings we’d use the standard 9 or 10 point agenda. And I’d always try and leave finance at the bottom so that it didn’t become a ‘we haven’t got much money, so all the creative things aren’t even worth discussing’ limitation. It then took me a few years to realise that the ‘begin with prayer, end with prayer, and hope that meant God would somehow be involved in the bit in the middle’ assumption was not realistic. As I allowed myself to question this methodology I became aware that 95% of the items on a long agenda were questions the Holy Spirit seemed to have no opinion on. So therefore it really was over to us. The next step in the evolution of meeting agendas would be to discern which were the questions the Holy Spirit would have an opinion on. We would then try to make each meeting about one key question, the one where we really did need to listen carefully and hear from each other. And often that was a vision question which often needed several meetings to explore fully. These become questions about how we form and live out our values, which would often help us answer the more practical questions we would previously waste so much time on. 

Our meetings became very different when we started with those much more open-ended and larger questions rather than going straight to detail, which often makes meetings a meaningless focus on things which really aren’t that important.

Simon

There’s a couple of things I want to reflect on. One is an experience of a church that I was part of that went through a decision making and discernment process around inclusion of LGBTQ folk. And this was not led by me. It was very, very surprising to me that the church felt very strongly that they wanted to progress this. But it was a big shock to a significant number of people in the church that this was even on the agenda. And I would say the process was really, really good until we got to a whole church meeting, which we had on a Saturday morning. I remember that lots and lots of people came. And I remember asking, “we’re nine months into this process, do we do we need an opportunity to talk in small groups?” And a number of people said very strongly, “no, we’re ok, we’re ready”. And one person, a very quiet voice said, “I would like to”. And I listened to the loud voices in that moment. And I think there are times when you have to listen to the quiet voice, because when a person who’s feeling a bit railroaded has the courage to speak up, they are probably representing a number of other people who don’t have the same courage. It would have added 20 minutes to the length of the meeting to let people just chat and listen to each other. I really wish in that moment that I’d listened to that voice. 

Another thing I’m thinking of is that there are certain things that we think will never happen in our church. And obviously, it’s hard now to say sexual abuse won’t happen in our church, but I think a lot of churches are still in denial about the possibility that their church might be taken over by an authoritarian person or an authoritarian faction. And once it’s happened the conflict of dealing with the aftermath is, inevitably, incredibly painful. Once someone has taken over a church or a charity, getting rid of them can destroy the whole thing. So I would say when you’re creating a trust deed or creating a method of governance for a community or a charity, just expect that, maybe from day one, someone is going to try and take it over and rule as if they have been appointed by God to be the single king with their courtiers. So think really, really hard about how you make your church or your organisation unattractive to those people. Have the checks and balances. Make it a rule that the chair cannot personally invite trustees or whatever. Think about how you would prevent someone from taking over. And be aware that it is often the person that had the idea in the first place that becomes that authoritarian figure. You need to do it right from the beginning, because if you ever let it happen, I promise you, getting it back is murder.

Craig

Good wisdom.

Dave

Wow.

Julie

I recognise I probably have a lot to learn here. But I’m aware that it’s relational. So I welcome all of the points on self-awareness and empathy, being able to understand someone else’s point of view, and having the relationships where people can speak honestly, without fear of judgment. 

A few years ago I was a frustrated pioneer and I didn’t really recognise that I was just trying to get things done and couldn’t understand why everyone else couldn’t see it the same way that I could. Now I’m hopefully a slightly more measured, more mature, minister. My church may well choose to disagree with me there! 

As you were speaking, Simon, there was something I recalled about the conversations that happen that are not part of the church meeting. You know, when you’re in a period of discernment and it should not be about rallying support in the back rooms. Discernment is about helping the people with the quiet voices who will never speak in a room full of people in a church meeting to be heard. Whether it’s in small groups as you described, or over coffee after church, or when you pop round to see someone about something else that you, as the leader, are always listening to the current issues that are being discussed. Allowing them to voice their thoughts when they feel comfortable to do that. I know that can create a whole set of problems when it comes to the church meeting, but sometimes I think we’ve got to value those conversations as part of a bigger discernment process.

Craig

I laugh when I recall how long it took me to rearrange the chairs in our church so people could see each other, and how challenging it was to nurture an environment where questions were encouraged. I soon realised how threatening the idea of taking the risk of sharing ideas or personal opinions was to many people I thought I knew so well. There is a good reason, I think, that the early church chose the synagogue model of meeting – in homes, often around a table and with all generations present. Paul uses the phrase ‘one another’ so often in his letters, and so we have to assume that he saw an honest and well functioning community as being essential to good discernment.

Roy

Self-awareness is really critical, and also being willing to be open to constructive criticism from others. We are back to blind spots and conscious and unconscious biases, because all of us have them and we bring them into every relationship, conversation and decision. 

I love getting to know and appreciate people, learning how they process and how are they make decisions, which may be very different from our own way, is really important. I’m someone who can, within a few moments of reflection, make decisions combining both intuition and information. I don’t need a lot of information as I’m a big picture thinker which has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. I worked for years in leadership with someone who was polar opposite to me in terms of how they processed facts and ideas. In the early days their approach seemed to me to be slow, ponderous and overcautious. However, over time, I came to see them as a person who provided the necessary checks and balances to my own, often relatively quick, decision making process. My speedy decisions would always be subject to ongoing reappraisal and change when necessary, but to someone who liked to be sure I was a bit of a nightmare in our early days of leading together. Over time what emerged was something deep and very beautiful, the realisation of the gifts that flowed from the different perspectives that we brought to decision-making. It was very healthy and life giving, not only to us but to those whom we served.

I think it’s also really important, even though some people find it irritating, that as leaders we listen as widely as possible to others, and only then share our own thoughts and opinions. I know that I have been very guilty, particularly in the early years of my ministry, of making assumptions about where I thought people were at. I learned silence was not always approval and that, even when people gave assent to something, they didn’t always mean it! It’s therefore really important that people are allowed to think, feel and find appropriate ways of speaking out.

Dave

Something else has come into my head as we’ve been talking, and that’s the great thing about doing this conversationally, because it sparks new thinking as well. I think decision making processes will probably be different in each individual community we’re involved in. And so some of the things we’re talking about will work in some places, but they won’t work in others. And they’ll be more important in some than others. 

I think something that I feel quite keen on is the whole idea that we need to nurture an environment where God’s voice can be heard as distinct from the cacophony of other voices. And maybe we do it by building an intentional listening, thinking community. I’m a teacher by inclination so, for me, teaching would always be an important part of that. We teach and then we model how to discern the difference between the voices that are crowding in together. I think it’s also important that we have a shared language, a shared vocabulary, as we think about discernment. And that’s one of the great things, Simon, about the five fingers. It gave you a shared vocabulary to talk about decision making. I think it’s brilliant what you just said about informal opportunities being so important Julie. They feed into the process as a whole. And, of course, we have to create intentional times to discern together.

I want to add one other thing, and it came out of the story that I told at the beginning. I think that when you come into a decision-making process you have to accept that all progress is progress. You need to know when you’ve reached your current limit of agreement because unity, being of one mind, is really important. So if you realise that you’re pushing it that bit too far, then save it for another day. Don’t sweep it under the carpet and pretend it’s gone away. Continue the conversations. Because sometimes united compromise might be better than its alternative. 

And just as an aside, Craig, using God as a Trump card has taken on a whole new meaning in the last few years!