Troubled Parish Cultures
It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you. - I Corinthians 1:11
My mind is on parish cultures. The next module of Shaping the Parish (STP) and the upcoming Parish Development Clinic for members of the Order of the Ascension are both focused on that issue. STP more broadly, the Clinic around the role of leaders in shaping culture. If you’re inclined you might read two earlier articles on the issue before pushing into this one:
Subcultures in the parish: Parishes need ways of effectively and faithfully managing the relationship between the body as a whole and necessary and important subcultures
Parish Cultural Density: An inquiring and discerning heart
How to not have troubled parish cultures
I’m noting these to begin with because it’s always best to head off developing a troubled culture. So, I’ll offer three frameworks and leave it to you to dig deeper. Do these things well and you have significantly reduced the possibility of developing a troubled culture.
A parish church faces three basic demands of the spiritual life -- "the need not to run away, the need to be open to change, the need to listen. They are based on a commitment which is both total and continuing. And yet the paradox is that they bring freedom, true freedom." Esther de Waal You might read de Waal’s Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict and/or the chapter on the Benedictine Promise in my Fill All Things: The Spiritual Dynamics of the Parish Church.
Effectively attend to the three purposes of a parish church: “There are three intrinsic purposes of any parish church. We see them as:
1. The worship of God
2. The formation of the People of God for the sake of the world
3. Being a sanctifying presence in the broader community” You can find more in the first chapter of An Energy Not Its Own: Three cycles of parish life and the purposes of the parish church
Exercise competence in pastoral oversight. Oversight is what knits things together in harmony and beauty. “Oversight is expressed in the three threads of spirituality, community, and leadership. They offer richness and depth in worship, doctrine and action. Oversight provides strength and connection for the fabric of Christian life. See chapter 2 of Fill All Things: The Spiritual Dynamics of the Parish Church and the section on Pastoral Oversight in chapter 6 of Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention
Troubled Organizational Cultures
Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy are experienced practitioners in the field of organizational culture. They co-authored Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. This list is based on their work. I’ll move through the list making comments, mostly rooted in my work with church systems.
1. An Inward Focus - Not paying attention to contextual trends and forces
The most obvious expression of this is when the neighborhood around the parish changes dramatically and parish leaders don’t engage the change. It’s one reason why we generally use the term parish rather than congregation. Ken Leech wrote of a “disciplined, prayerful, listening Christian community, located in a specific place.” Loren Mead, wrote, “the parish includes ... the horses and cattle, the dogs and cats, the fields and woods, the schools, and businesses—the whole kit and caboodle. Of course, I’m talking mostly about the people.” So that’s about your mental model. Of course, the context for your parish might not be the immediate town or neighborhood but a broader group of people, e.g., the performing arts community, the anglo catholics in a larger city.
I’ve known three ways in which parishes keep their heads out of the sand. Two expressions of being a sanctifying presence in the broader community and one method of paying attention outside yourself. First, “the primary sanctifying relationship of any parish is through the presence of the baptized members scattered into the arenas of daily life—family and friends, workplace, and civic life.” Does that show up on the website, in sermons, in formation classes? Does the parish communicate that that is the “primary” way or does the parish emphasize what the parish as an institution does? Second, is there some external community the parish interacts with, has a relationship with? MORE Third, it helps if every few years a group explores the parish’s context. That is discussed in chapter 3 of Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention. Here’s the chart
Contextual Forces Impacting the Parish
2. Short Term Focus - Need adequate time on strategic issues
The old “prayer rightly assumes that we lose track of what’s most important. We get caught up in all the “cares and occupations of our life.” We just do, and we will. One difficulty with strategic issues is that they are rarely urgent. Leaders frequently set them aside to attend to matters that are pressing at the moment. It’s understandable. What grabs our attention are the more insistent people and burning issues. Plus, there’s just the routine work of the parish to attend to. We imagine that we’ll get to the strategic work when we have time, when the urgent concerns have been dealt with, when we have finally found a way to manage the routine business more efficiently. We actually believe it. Sort of. But then new pressing work comes forward and if we’re lucky, we realize we’ve been kidding ourselves. We will not magically have more time.” (Michelle Heyne & Robert Gallagher, Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention.
3. Morale Problems - People are chronically dissatisfied, feel like victims; high turnover
Dissatisfaction in itself is an essential element of any change effort. Consider the Change Formula. See more in chapter 2 of Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention. As you can see the dissatisfaction needs to have a vision (sense of direction) and an idea about first steps to take if it is to be useful in a change process. Without those factors it is simply a morale problem.
It doesn’t have to be all that many people in a parish who feel like they are victims to have a problem. I know of a situation in which the family of a National Guard officer felt put upon by a few of the more extreme progressives in a parish because of their disapproval of the military. No one in leadership intervened. The family felt like a victim but so did a number of friends of the family. In distress and feeling powerless. And I recall other situations where a priest made his dislike of a few members and a staff person clear to others in the community. Some clergy have a difficult time managing their emotions and being discreet and wise within the congregation.
The high turnover may show itself in the general membership of just around leadership roles. When we can’t get anyone competent to serve as a warden or even to just be on the vestry — we may have a morale problem. One of the odd things about this is that it can happen in parishes where most things are going well. Sunday mornings are attractive and the parish may be growing. But the vestry may be known for frequent fighting or the rector may behave in ways that makes the work difficult.
4. Fragmentation/Inconsistency - Different standards regarding dress, speech, work, etc. for groups of people. They do not come together when common effort is needed.
This will happen from time to time in most congregations. Those serving at the altar and as readers are unreliable or they have too little guidance from the Vicar about how to function in the role and so the congregation experiences what can seem like a lot of confusion during worship. Or a vestry lacks a common set of norms about how decisions will be made, when meetings will take place, keeping the discussion on the topic, have a time limit on meetings, and what kind of group methods will be used routinely to test ideas and encourage participation.
5. Emotional Outbursts - Anger, a pattern of crisis – drinking, people in trouble, health issues
All of those things can be unsettling. I’ve seen clergy act out, some by angry outbursts and others by sullen withdrawal. Parishioners will only tolerate a limited amount of yelling and stomping about before they begin to withdraw emotionally or physically. The sullen withdrawal of the priest or another key leader will be endured longer. But in the process the person will be seen as unreliable and childish. I recall going into a room to consult with a vestry and finding the members standing about engaged in friendly banter while the Rector was already seated at the head of the table with the book of canon law placed in front of him, i.e., I’m the rector and I’m in charge it said, It took another few months before he was forced out of the parish.
Some parishes seem inclined to have one crisis after another. Rarely are they true catastrophes. But they do serve the purpose of allowing parish leaders to avoid dealing with difficult issues and the strategic matters that they may not be competent to address. Sometimes it’s because several parish leaders are skilled at dealing with crisis situations and they then see everything as a crisis requiring their action. And in still other cases we see people who get a kind of emotional high by the sense of urgency they experience. It’s addictive.
6. Subculture Issues
Subcultures ingrown – the needed regular exchange across subcultures does not take place
Subcultures clashes – different subcultures try to “outdo” the others
Subcultures become exclusive
Subcultures preempt shared organizational values
The most common subcultures that become problematic are choirs and groups focused on justice or social welfare. “Choirs spend a considerable amount of time together, once or twice a week and over the course of years. It’s an experience of collaboration and collegiality, and often friendship. They develop ways of working and norms about group behavior. There are espoused values and underlying assumptions about what they do together. All the stuff of a culture. Some choirs have a rather dense culture that leaves a mark on the participants. And like any group, choirs will at times see themselves as serving and at other times as being in an antagonist relationship with the larger group.” See more HERE. When on the bishop’s staff in Connecticut one of the early interventions I was called on to make was in a middle size parish in which the choir was in constant uproar, fighting with one another and often with others in the parish. The vicar’s conflict management action was to have the vestry send the choir a letter telling them to stop fighting. We removed the priest. I took charge for a few months to see if I could understand what was happening in that congregation and to establish a sense of stability and safety. The subculture issue was just the tip of the iceberg.
Here’s a PDF assessment form for Troubled Cultures
The Priest
There’s no way to avoid the reality that in almost all parish churches the vicar or rector is an central actor in shaping a healthy culture or creating a troubled culture. Her ability to manage her emotions will show itself not just in the absence of emotional outbursts and crisis generating behavior but in her ability to persist, have courage and think under pressure. His character will show in his capacity for kindness and ready forgiveness as well as setting boundaries and offering guidance. There’s also a wide range of skills and knowledge needed that allows the priest to head off any drift into a troubled culture, e.g., actively developing staff and other leaders, models for seeing under the surface of parish life, some skills for understanding and managing disagreements and conflict.
Wishing you a Happy New Year in an untroubled parish church.
This abides,
Brother Robert, OA