"Another meeting? UGH! Church would be fine, if it weren't for all those blasted meetings!” How many times have you heard parishioners say something like that? How many times (say…this week alone) have you felt it?
What if it were different? What if, instead of groans, meetings elicited comments like,
“You know, it's the one place I go, outside my home, where I really feel listened to and heard.” “I come away knowing I'm not alone and that together we're doing something to make our community a better place.” Or, “It's a ‘sandbox' where I practice what's talked about on Sunday morning, before taking it out into the bigger world.”
We hold that meetings not only can be like that – but that in a church, they should be like that. For us to settle for anything less in the church means we are not truly being the church – a foretaste and embodiment of the kindom of God.
Meetings offer us the opportunity to engage in focused work while practicing right relationship. Gathered by God's call, and open to the Spirit, we give ourselves to doing the work of Christ. While giving ourselves to the work, God also calls us to practice and embody the values and the being of Christ. Why are consciously and intentionally loving or “right” relationships so important? Simple. They are a major medium for the transformation of individuals and the systems of which they are a part.
One of the highest callings of a church community is to help people become aware of and experience love – and to learn, in practical ways, how to love others. Knowing and experiencing that God loves us and knowing we are of sacred worth as people interact with us changes how we see ourselves. As we are changed, the ways we want to interact with others changes. An important task of church is to facilitate that experience of loving and being loved. The practical question is “how”? How do we experience God's love and learn to interact in loving ways?
Worship focuses our hearts and minds on the call of God and opens us to the touch of Spirit. Encounters at the coat rack upon arrival, during the greeting time in the service, and over coffee after the conclusion of the service provide brief moments where people can feel themselves seen and welcomed. These moments are important, but they are not the place within the church where people can best practice the art of loving and allowing themselves to be loved.
No, that privilege is reserved for the setting that makes most of us groan – meetings. “Not another meeting!” we moan…and with some justification. But meetings, whether of a committee, council, board, staff, or teams, provide the venue where people can practice doing the work of Christ as they practice being Christ with each other.
Family is the traditional place where people learn about love and it is still the primary crucible. But alongside family (and sometimes as a healthy counter to the lessons learned in family) stands the Church. In a healthy family we learn to be committed to the well-being and growth of the small group of people to whom we are biologically related. We experience safety, develop trust, and practice the deep commitment that allows us to stay in relationship even when our hopes are disappointed and our feelings are hurt.
A church family provides a next step in growth for those who grew up in such a family and a remedial “course” for those raised in family situations that did not embody love in such clear ways. A church family provides the setting where we can learn to love - to be committed to the well-being and growth of people to whom we are related as brothers and sisters in Christ. A church is a gathering of people who are called to do the work of Christ and be Christ as they do it.
Meetings, mundane as they are, give people a regular opportunity to practice both the work of Christ and the love of Christ. When meetings are looked at and designed in THAT light, they become venues for transformation. What if groups designed their time together so that the meeting served that goal - of helping them learn to do Christ and be Christ. What if church teams and committees were the primary arenas for the formation of Christian disciples?
What would that look like? A food bank team, for example, might set for themselves two sets of goals. One set would be around the ministry of the food bank. This set of goals might include things like connecting the surpluses of the community with the needs, extending love and care with each bag of food, and making the ministry sustainable.
The second set of goals would be around how they would be with each other - the attitudes and behaviors of love they want to strengthen by intentionally practicing them with each other and with their clients. These might include things like patience, authenticity, commitment, and playfulness. Setting both sets of goals gives the group a way of talking about them and holding themselves accountable to them. Just as they will assess their progress toward their goal of connecting surplus with need, they will assess what they're learning about authenticity and how their “strength training” is progressing.
Admittedly, this is a very different way of looking at life together. But it firmly plants a stake for the importance of church as a place where we are shaped for service.
We are committed to congregational development. But, congregational development does not happen simply by adding new programs. Nor does it happen by following a plan that simply shifts structures and actions. Basic to congregational development is attention to the quality of our “being.” In the way that we are with each other, do we embody the love of Christ? Do we actually live love in our actions? Marvelous facilities and marvelous ministries may attract people. But people finally stay in those places where they find their deepest needs met.
We believe that church committees are a key arena for forming disciples and taking people more deeply into discipleship. Imagine if your teams and committees were places where people learned how to be in right relationship with themselves, with others, and with God. And, they were embraced as places to regularly practice right relationship. Imagine if they were places where people gave themselves to work that made a difference while experiencing relationships that made them healthier, wiser, freer, and even more ready to serve.
Questions for reflection
Bring to mind a group you've been part of that embodied the above qualities.
What was your experience?
How did it foster your own growth in discipleship?
How are you different from being part of that group?
What were some of the ways the group discerned and stayed focused on its task?
What were some of the ways that relationships with each other and with God were nurtured and supported?
Think through the current state of meetings at your church.
What is your experience?
How well are they utilized for formation?
What keeps them from being utilized in that way?
What would help them move more in that direction?
If this article has made you think about your situation, with whom within your church will you share it?
Want to reflect further? Here are some resources to guide you.
Growing Together: Spiritual Exercises for Church Committees by Rochelle Melander and Harold Eppley
Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders by Charles Olsen
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
Practicing Right Relationship – Skills for Deepening Purpose, Finding Fulfillment, and Increasing Effectiveness in Your Congregation by Mary K. Sellon and Daniel P. Smith
Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future by Margaret J. Wheatley