Haven't picked up Lasting Impressions just yet? Here's a short excerpt from a featured article in Church Solutions Magazine:
Creating Ministry: Think Environments, Not People
by Mark Waltz
The Burden of “Responsibility For”
I’ve always cared about the journeys of the people I lead. As a youth pastor, I was concerned about “my” students learning, maturing and owning their faith. When I implemented a process by which adults could find and engage in ministry roles best suited to their wiring, I didn’t rest easily until everyone had made those connections. I cared about the job performance and personal lives of my team during the few years I spent in retail management. In early 2000, when I joined Granger Community Church’s staff as pastor of connections, I carried this same sense of personal responsibility for our people to connect in meaningful relationships, take courageous steps toward Christ and develop into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
I still care. I still pray. I still feel responsible. But not as I once did. And I’m really happy about that.
It’s not that I care less. I just don’t feel responsible for our people. I do, however, feel responsible to our people.
There’s a big difference.
When I felt responsible for every person, my failure or success depended on their steps in their journeys. When I felt responsible for our students, I considered their missteps to be my fault. I felt profound guilt when people didn’t line up with what I thought they should know and do.
The Freedom of “Responsibility To”
Being responsible to our people is quite different. And incredibly freeing.
- When I’m responsible to people, I understand they have choices. When I’m responsible for people, I think I should decide for them.
- When I’m responsible to people, I know they must figure out their next steps. When I’m responsible for people, I try to tell them what their next steps are.
- When I’m responsible to people, I know they must bear the consequences of their own chosen actions. When I’m responsible for people, I assume the guilt – or worse, the shame – for them.
- When I’m responsible to people, I share their journeys, offering encouragement and teaching. When I’m responsible for people, I try to direct their journeys, never allowing them to wrestle, mess up, or make a wrong turn.
- When I’m responsible to people, I talk to God a lot on their behalf. When I’m responsible for people, I talk to people a lot on God’s behalf.
God is still God. He transforms the hearts and lives of men and women. We do have a God-given charge to lead our people well. But it is not a charge to control, coerce or manipulate people out of a misunderstood sense of responsibility. Rather, I do believe there is a mindset, a way of thinking, that helps us lead responsibly.
Think Like a Designer
Straight up – I’m asking church leaders and pastors to stop feeling responsible for people and begin to take responsibility for environments. Become an environmental architect. Each setting where people in your church gather is an environment: your weekend service, your Sunday school, your groups, your retreats, your grand events.
Yves Behar is a leading innovator in design. He has worked with the likes of Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak and MIT. He thinks about function, then combines emotional and aesthetic factors to create something unique.
As I read Behar’s “The Seven Axioms of Yves,” I can’t help but think of the responsibility I have accepted in helping to create relational environments at Granger. Environments that define and expand our culture and mission. Environments for staff, leaders, members, attendees and new quests.
The following is my take on Behar’s axioms as they apply to the local church. I encourage you to keep them in mind as you design and build environments to effectively involve your people.
- The way you develop environments reflects your respect and caring for people. If you treat people well from a spiritual, environmental, emotional and aesthetic standpoint, your environment’s design will reflect that.
- The development of relational environments is not a short-term solution to a particularly present problem. It must become a planning paradigm over the long haul that affects everything connected to your members and guests. This includes how the Gospel connects to the weekend series, how the weekend series connects to promotion, how promotion connects to a family and how the family connects to next steps.
- You won’t always get it right. You must be able to quickly adjust variables such as physical settings, start times, programming and content. A failed approach isn’t a sign of failure, it’s an indication of fluidity and innovation.
- The development of relational environments must be led by senior-level leadership. Pastors, elders and church boards need to be in touch with and embrace the innovative and creative endeavors of the church.
- Your church’s approach to creating space for human interaction will not look like every other church’s. Mimicking someone else’s design isn’t the solution. Your community, church and mission are unique; develop your environments accordingly.
In their comparison of simple churches with complex churches, Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger note, “Simple church leaders are designers. They design opportunities for spiritual growth. Complex church leaders are programmers. They run ministry programs.” I’m inviting you to design, not program.
Plan Like an Architect
Before drawing schematics, an architect asks a number of questions of the home owner or commercial developer. The answers to these questions reveal the function of the space, which in turn determines its design.
A similar approach is necessary in understanding, designing and developing human environments within the local church. If you were to own the architectural responsibility for every environment in your church, what kinds of questions might you ask? Add more to this list if you’d like, but be sure to address the following five questions.
1. What’s the Purpose of this Environment?
An architect will ask, “Is this a residence? A business? Will it be used seasonally? Year-round? Is it a retreat or a daily dwelling? What is its purpose?”
The overarching purpose of any environment in the local church is to be a place where people can see Jesus Christ and take steps toward and with him. Hang on to that. Now narrow the focus a bit more. Get specific about each setting. For instance, what’s the purpose of your small groups? Growth through shared experiences? Increased knowledge? Friendship? Cook-offs?
Develop group settings to fulfill a specific purpose. If you fail to identify the purpose for each environment, people will have varying expectations of it. Remember, when experiences don’t meet expectations, people are disappointed. Look at each of your specific ministry environments and agree on its purpose.
2. Who Will Use This Environment?
Will children use this structure? Adults? Should it contain “manly” accents because men will be its primary users? Ask, “Who will show up for the retreat, the prayer breakfast, the weekend service? Men? Women? Will everyone there be a Christ-follower? What are their stories? Are they likely to be similar?”
If you plan a service, group gathering or event of any kind without asking these questions, it’s likely that people will wonder if they really fit in that environment.
3. What Do We Want People to Experience?
What do you want people to feel in this environment? Should the environment be warm and inviting? Should it engender curiosity? Do you want people to feel at home? How relaxed do you want people to feel? Should they feel safe? What about talking: Do you want them to feel free to talk, or should they understand from the environment that they’re there to listen?
Go deeper. Do you want them to feel hopeful? Afraid? Encouraged? Challenged? Cared for?
4. What Do We Want People to Leave With?
Are you hoping people will resolve to do something as a result of their experience? Do you want them to wrestle with a specific question? What kind of steps might they take from here? Is there a natural onramp or choice of onramps you want them to consider?
5. Space for Stories
Long before people commit to following Jesus at your church, they’re taking steps. Their formation as spiritual beings has been underway all their lives. We have no idea what the Holy Spirit has been doing in their storylines before they show up in our churches. Tim Keel notes, “Throughout history people have told stories and been shaped by them, and in doing so, they have discovered and constructed ways of understanding who they are and what is happening in the world around them.”
It’s critical that we give people space to explore, understand and tell their stories. I’m not responsible for anyone’s story. But I have accepted the responsibility for creating and enhancing spaces where people can take their next steps in the context of those stories.
Build environments. Be responsible for them. Pray for your people. Be responsible to them. Then allow the Holy Spirit to do what only God can do.
Read the original article online here.
