Certain necessities of life for me are only available at a farm supply store. For example, to prevent slipping on the ice the very best thing is, in my view, chicken grit, far better than either salt or sand. Thus it was that I was waiting in the check-out line in a farm supply store the other day—where I had gone to purchase chicken grit. The cashier and the customer in front of me were commiserating about the difficulty in finding work. The customer, it appears had been out of work for the better part of a year. She was hopeful, she said, the economy seemed to be picking up. Yet, having been out of work so long, debts had accumulated. She was going to need to find a really good job to have any hope of digging herself out.

Something about this echoes what I have been hearing from you, our congregational leaders. It does seem to you that things are picking up. Some congregations have reported unexpected success in fund-raising and unexpectedly strong payments of pledges. And yet the strain of the past year of recession has built up and continues to build. The prospect of better future income does nothing to pay down the debts that have arrived already.

The same dynamics seem to operate at a metaphorical level. This has been a year of strain. Now we look forward to better times but still are carrying with us the feeling of cumulative strain. It remains hard to find the sources of new energy and possibility even as prospects for new endeavors brighten.

Leading in this time is going to require us a challenging combination of deep empathy for what our people and congregations have been through and also a willingness to challenge our congregations to do new things. Paradoxically, in congregations new energy does not come from letting people rest, but rather from posing the right challenge.

Ian

Cooperation within our Midwestern region (Heartland, Central Midwest and Prairie Star Districts) continues to develop with our now monthly online educational events and with the addition of our youth leadership school. Internally, on our district staffs we are working on strengthening our cooperative structure to support and growth this work.

This has included, particularly, more differentiation of roles on our district staffs in such matter as finance, IT, and publicity. It will include a new role of lead staff person for the region, a position in which I will have the honor to serve on an interim basis. We hope that over time strengthening our structure for cooperative work will make some of the business and technical sides of our work less energy consuming thus allowing us to turn more of our energy outward to work with congregations.

Our plan and hope is that these developments be seamless for congregations. The new role of lead regional person is also connected to changes at the national level of our association. For more information about that see: http://www.uuworld.org/news/articles/150302.shtml

Ian

This advice might at first seem perverse, given that you who are reading this are UU leaders and I work for our association.  And sometimes, just sometimes, I do indeed wish someone might take our advice.

Yet, consider the matter from another angle.  One of the big shifts in congregational life is the increasing need for congregations to focus on their specific and unique missions.  In the post-World War II era we had one of the biggest booms in congregational church building the world has ever known.  In that era what worked was having franchises that specified every detail of the enterprise and following all these details completely.  This is pretty much the formula  upon which the great franchise operations were built up through the 1980s, whether this be McDonald’s or Howard Johnsons.  When you brought the car full of hungry tired kids into the restaurant there was nothing surprising or even interesting about it  that could be in the least bit welcome—especially if you found it in the washroom.  Uniformity of brand experience was a value that trumped anything else.  It was worth sacrificing a lot of other good things about your dining experience—including taste and nutrition--if you knew the kids would get those French fries quickly and that they would eat them without complaint when they arrived.

This is the season when congregational leaders are getting set in their roles. And thus it is that I am frequently asked at this time of year for my wisdom on the subject. When confronted with this question, one temptation is to give a lecture whose length is only determined by the attention space of my listener. Our family is currently renting not one but two storage units. A good portion of this space is devoted to books I cannot part with because each and every one give at least a piece of what I feel to be the essential and minimum answer to this question.

Another, more helpful answer to this question begins at an entirely different point. I have observed an interesting phenomenon. I have on occasion turned the question around. I have asked the leader what advice that they would give someone else where they to take such a role. Here is the interesting thing: the answer I get from the leader themselves is often much more on target (and much more succinct!) than anything I might have said.