When Good to Great Isn't that Great

Before I am deemed as an insensitive heretic, I admire and commend Gary Collins for his compilation of motivational limericks in his 2001 publication, Good to Great. The book has been widely publicized by both the public and private sectors, and it could even be said that Good to Great is one of the most widely read books making it one of the most influential texts within the business world. There are many motivational phrases throughout the book, and even my old tattered copy has a few highlighted pages with notes scribbled in the corners; however, Good to Great isn’t very great, and in fact, it isn’t even all that good when it moves into church leadership. I agree with Collins’ driving quote, that “greatness is not a function of circumstance, greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline” but what is the cost of such a philosophy? What really troubles me about Collins’ work is the way in which it has trickled into the evangelical church. Somewhere, at sometime, a philosophy of business performance bled across lines and into our church homes.

Business Pundit, a business-book review website, notes that Collins’ book is dominated by poor research and the ever present *Barnum Effect.”First of all, the good-to-great principles are true in the same way a horoscope is true. They are fairly generic and thus we all apply them from our own viewpoint to make them true. I believe that some "Good to Great" readers that love the book may be suffering from the Barnum Effect. The principles Collins proposes aren't bad ones, but they are ambiguous and open to interpretation, which in effect decreases their usefulness. For instance, Collins says good-to-great companies (churches) practice ‘First Who, Then What,’ which basically means ‘hire good people.’ Its influx within churches may translate that as a need for pastors who can deliver flashy performance. I'm willing to bet no one read the book and said ‘Eureka! I've been hiring slimy weasels when I should have been hiring top performers. That is why we aren't a great company (church)!’ My guess is that most people think their way of hiring or interviewing is the best way to get the ‘good people’ and so they liked hearing Collins say this. They ignore the fact that after reading the chapter, you really don't have a better idea of how to do it.”

Though I am young, I have seen and experienced many things beyond my years: some good, and some bad. What I have found in church, is that many times it’s not the one with the greatest heart or even the most humble who is chosen to be a part of the team, but usually the one who glitters the most. Those churches following the good-to-great principles get caught in the rat-race for excellence and end up finding something much worse: a wounded staff and congregation. The sting of unwantedness….the sting of being just good is universally experienced, but is often forgotten when the tables are turned. Others perceive our “great” features due largely to opportunity and chance, and purpose where to place us within the church. For example, there may be a need for someone to build the website, and there just so happens to be a marketing developer at the church; therefore, he will be the “greatest” for the task, despite his real passion being for counseling and teaching music. Another scenario might involve a woman who is truly a great singer, but is not perfect, and is ultimately pushed from her passion when someone “greater” comes along. And so the fantasy of good-to-great claims another victim in its results-driven movement, and the church burns another relational bridge.

I imagine a church where good is good enough. Where the parishioners, and even the pastors, choose where they should minister based upon their passions rather than what they accomplish with “greatness.” The late shepherd and theological, Henry Van Dyke said “use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”

*Barnum Effect is also known professionally in psychology as the Forer Effect, named after psychologist Bertram R. Forer work in the subsequent field.

http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/paranormal/bldef_forereffect.htm (Short Answer)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17378132/The-Fallacy-of-Personal-Validation-a-Classroom-Demonstration-of-Gullibility (An In-depth Answer)

Finding Simplicity

With my second doubleshot in hand, and walking aimlessly through the mall for more than forty minutes trying to decide if I needed another pair of Italian ankle-booties, it hit me; I cannot live like this anymore. I have allowed the clutter of everyday to press down upon me and dictate my every thought and action. My priorities have swung with the pendulum of cultural expectations, rather than with the Divine, and my sense of reality has become all but lost. Though I have taken up vows to live as a reflection of Christ, I have allowed my attachment to need and want to behest my time, my body, and my mind.

Therefore, I am beginning an experiment— a leap toward transformation. Though it may seem simple on paper (or perhaps ‘on screen’), I am about to embark on one of the most difficult venture of my entire life: find simplicity. I will be turning to the Scriptures, the desert fathers and mothers, and contemporary theologians for the next six months to find what I would call ‘nothingness.’ I have allowed austerity to escape me, and I will allow it no more.

Though my husband and I have taken significant steps towards reducing our carbon foot (now registering at 0.09 metric tons of CO2) and choosing to shop locally and organically when possible, I do not live as simply as I feel the Father prefers. Even as Christians, the race to impress even those we do not even particularly like with our possessions and stature does not escape many of us easily. Many of us love value, but we also love cheap; therefore, our closets have become filled with cheap clothes that give the impression of a reality we wish was ours. As a result, Ill-fitting garments hang limply from the branches our closets, many with the clearance tags attached. These items were manufactured under nice labels, but with the same environmental and humanitarian care that a wolf might show to a lamb. Deep down, several of us know the holistic harm our love affair with cheap causes, but it often seems too difficult to consider doing the right thing when the right look is so important.

This morning, I read a deeply philosophical and spiritual reflection on the Christian’s loss of simplicity by Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline¹, which tendered and humbled me beyond description. Foster’s rapture in Simplicity is exquisite and could not be eclipsed be even the most learned or articulated:

“The Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward life-style. Both the inward and outward aspects of simplicity are essential. We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt to arrange an outward life-style of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism.

Simplicity begins in inward focus and unity. It means to live out of what Thomas Kelly called 'The Divine Center.' Kierkegaard captured the nucleus of Christian simplicity in the profound title of his book, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing.

Experiencing the inward reality liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone, because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravagance, not on the grounds of being unable to afford it, but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others. We join the experience that Richard E. Byrd recorded in his journal after months alone in the barren Arctic: 'I am learning ... that a man can live profoundly without masses of things.'²

Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward life-style of simplicity. We must live in the modern world, and we are affected by its fractured and fragmented state. We are trapped in a maze of competing attachments. One moment we make decisions on the basis of sound reason and the next moment out of fear of what others will think of us. We have no unity or focus around which our lives are oriented.

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We must clearly understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy…Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity.”

May we find that which we have lost: simplicity.

Grace and Peace

1. Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline. 1998. pp 80-1
2. Richard E. Byrd, Alone. 1938. p 19

Speaking to the Eye

Words, words, words. Note spoken, but written. Marketing firms have found ways to litter our visual fields with an array of slogans meant to elicit emotions and desires about products and services that will bring us closer to our (perceived) ideal lifestyle. While my husband and I were driving through metropolitan New England a few months ago, we commented how we eerily felt as though we were driving through words. Billboards layered haphazardly from buildings and frames, posters covering walls, digital screens projecting giant commercials made one’s mind feel as though it was unable to download the amount of information necessary to keep up with the ‘demands of the road.’ Every curve of the Massachusetts Turnpike was canvassed by a series of nouns to facilitate distinction, adjectives to arise desire, and verbs to encourage action. By the time we arrived at the university in Cambridge, our eyes and mind were desperate to see nothing.

So often our churches have become muddled with the same amount of visual clutter that plagues our streets, malls, and places of work. The church bulletins that were given out in our grandmother’s day may have simple, half page notes that expressed service times, the hymns to be song, births and deaths within the congregation, and the location of the spring pot-luck; however, many bulletins today serve as the church’s menu….or better yet, its resume. Photoshopped pictures of the pastors plaster every page; logos piled one on top of the other to promote everything from the youth camp to the baby dedication; to which countless hours and resources have been devoted to the forging of this thing which more often than not is read by only a handful, and discarded by all.

Escaping to the loo at my seminary I was horrified to be bombarded by three different advertisements taped to the back of the stall door. Being rather strapped to one’s placement in the 30” by 60” of space, I was forced to read about the upcoming Tea, the Beth Moore study to come, and the decline in tithing. Yes, church marketing has found its way into our potties.

We must ask ourselves if we are drowning our churches in the same media that bathes our highways and retail centers. Having an informed congregation is important, and staying relevant is equally essential, but we must become conscious of what we are projecting in the name of communication. I confess my affection for Photoshop, and my past position as a youth ministries publications and marketing director, but I had to find a balance. I realized that I spent more than eight hours a week writing and designing a publication that found sanctuary crumpled on the ground, rather than devoting time to publications of a spiritual and theological nature, let alone time with people who needed me.

It may be understood that words were given to us by the Father to lead others and ourselves into lines of communication Him, but often it seems we use words for everything but that purpose. When our words are no longer a reflection of divine translation, but rather become a means of communicating our interests, they lose their innocence and become as seductive and deceptive as the words that clutter the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Time

Between the morning coffee run and rushing up a flight of stairs to another church meeting for another event, I realized that we have become a busy people— a busy Christianity. Between the meetings to attend, issues to debate, donors to ‘make face’ with, programs to implement, and services to lead, there is little time left in the day for being a Christian. We have become so accustomed to the overbooked-church-schedule that a day with no more than two programs looks malnourished and in desperate need of an over promoted event. There is the rare occasion that we find ourselves with more hours than we have use for; but for the most part, we feel flung through space and time—distracted and unable to notice the details of life—or perhaps even the voice of God. We move and act so quickly that we forget to question whether what we are doing and saying is worth doing and saying. Rather than pause to question the cookbook formula for a perfect ministry, we accept our interpretation of the scriptures as an accurate translation of the Gospels.

We claim that our mission is not to conform to the pattern of this world, but our addiction to business seems to fall outside this philosophy. We have convinced ourselves that the size of our calendar correlates to our worth of self and calling. And so, our lives and ministry become rewarded with the rewards of business.

Thomas Merton noted that we “…have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.” If it is the Trinity we seek, if it is the love of Christ we seek, than our use of time must reflect these aspirations. We must ask ourselves whether we truly give the Father our time, or if it is rather our insecurities that consume our attentions? Perhaps it can even be said that our ministries have become a reflection, not of God’s direction, but of our own need to climb the ranks of church position and reputation. Before scheduling an event, a staff meeting, or even another coffee date, ask yourself whether you are scheduling the arrangement for the sake of mankind or for the sake of one’s own amour-propre.

This week take a moment to pause and reflect on the ways in which your time is used, the ways your church uses its time, and the ways in which time is valued by yourself, your church’s staff, and by the congregation. We say constantly that time is precious; and so, we must treat it as such.

Let there be time to be Christian.

Grace and peace