Reflecting on the role of board and staff in congregations

Recently, I’ve been reviewing The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994; now superseded by the second edition). In the essay titled “Board Leadership and Board Development,” I was struck by this passage on the roles of board members and staff:

“One of the conventional pieces of wisdom in nonprofit governance is the adage that policy should be made by the board and implemented by the staff. While the underlying principles is sound, the aphorism itself is an oversimplification. In The Board Member’s Book, Brian O’Connell (1985, p. 44) states the following objection: ‘The worst illusion ever perpetrated in the nonprofit field is that the board of directors makes policy and the staff carries it out. This is just no so. The board, with the help of staff, makes policy, and the board, with the help of staff, carries it out…. Also, it is naive to assume that the staff doesn’t have considerable influence — usually too much — on policy formulation.’ [pp. 131-132]”

This argument is developed in more depth, and is worth reading. But it confirms two assumptions that I make as a staff member of the specialized nonprofit organization which is a congregation:– (1) Since board members are ultimately the ones who are legally liable for actions of the board and the organization, therefore I assume that as a staff member one of my primary obligations is to be sure that the organization complies with the law. (2) I assume that the best way for me as a staff member to aid the board in setting policy is for me either (a) to be a sort of organizational archaeologist and help identify a mission and goals that are already present in the congregation but not clearly visible; and/or (b) since Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to have similar missions and goals, to be a sort of organizational field anthropologist and report on the best missions and goals that can be found in other similar Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Obviously, in all Unitarian Universalist congregations, there will certain commonalities; and obviously, as a minister trained in Unitarian Universalist practices and values, I am in a position to educate a given board about such practices and values. But no matter what I say or think, it is ultimately the board’s responsibility to implement Unitarian Universalist values and practices in a specific local congregation — which I should let them do, even if I disagree with them — because “the board, with the help of staff, makes policy, and the board, with the help of staff, carries it out….”

Next post in this series on ministers as leaders.

Winter: dark, wet, and green

By now, the sun had gotten about as low in the sky as it will get. We will lose a few more minutes of daylight between now and the winter solstice, but it almost won’t be noticeable.

Over the weekend, we got some more rain, not a great deal of it, but enough to make a difference to growing plants. While the hillsides still look brown, there are even more tender green shoots coming up in odd places.

Mass American culture tells us that spring is associated with tender green shoots and lengthening days. But that’s not the way the seasons work here. Right now, our days are short, and at the same time we have tender green shoots coming up. We don’t dash through the snow to get to grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving; we dash through rain showers and greenery. The Advent or Yule season is dark, just as it is throughout the northern hemisphere, but it is also wet and green. Mass American culture stems from North Atlantic culture, but parts of it just don’t apply to the Pacific Rim.

We work on our quilt

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

Before we went into the worship service, Melissa found me and said that had something come up at the last minute, and she would have to leave before the class time was over. We had planned that I would tell a story about Theodore Parker, and then she would get the children to finish painting their quilt squares with chalice designs — but since she had to leave early, we quickly decided that she would start the children off painting their quilt squares, and then after she left I would read the story.

Four children came to Sunday school at 11:00 a.m. this week: Lily, who had come once before, was here while her parents were in a meeting; Kali, who usually comes to the 9:30 session; Dorit; and Heather. Their parents told us that Zach and Andrew both play football, and both had games this Sunday morning. I learned later that Sonnet, Heather’s sister, decided to stay in the worship service this week. Monty and Perry, our other regulars, attended the 9:30 session this week.

We had a quick check-in time, and then Melissa started us in painting our quilt squares. Melissa brought regular acrylic paints instead of fabric paints this week, and we all found that it was easier to use the acrylic paints. I asked the children if any of them wanted an apron, but no one did — we had not had any problems in the past while using fabric paints, so I let it go.

Melissa told us that she hoped this would be the last week for painting, and that she would try to assemble the quilt over the next two weeks. There were some quilt squares left where children had outlined a design in pencil, but had never painted; we all decided that those of us who were in attendance could paint in these outlined designs. We all got to work.

We painted away, and talked about all kinds of things — no big topics, nothing important, just the idle but very satisfying chit-chat that people carry on while they’re working on a project together. Dorit completed her intricate chalice design, and announced that now she had to paint in the entire background of her quilt square with light green paint. As she started painting, she sighed and announced happily, “I’m never going to be done!” Soon Melissa had to leave, so Hong, the Religious Education Assistant, came in to be the second adult in the room. All the children were still busily painting their quilt squares, so I decided we would skip the story for this week — we wanted to complete the quilt squares this week.

Before I knew it, it was ten past noon — past time for us to end class. Kali still hadn’t finished painting her intricate design, and she asked Lily and some other children to help her paint in the last details. Dorit painted madly and finally filled in the background on her quilt square, stopping once to declare again, “I’m never going to be done!” The rest of us cleaned up around them, and I began to realize that some of the children had paint on their clothing: Dorit had a splotch on the front of her shirt and one on her pants; Lily had a bit of paint on the sleeve of her dress. Dorit said that her mother wouldn’t care about the paint (which proved to be true). I was more worried about Lily, who takes great care in what she wears, demonstrating far more visual skill and creativity in her dress than you’d expect from a nine year old; but she managed to get most of the paint off, and didn’t seem too worried.

At the end of the class, Sara came in to get her sister Heather. “Sorry I didn’t come today,” she said; she had stayed in the worship service with her parents, which is a good thing for an eleven year old to try. I told her it was good to see her, and then I introduced her to Lily, telling them that they were the two most creative and talented dressers in the Sunday school: “Of course, Lily, you are more arty-funky, and Sara, you dress more like a fashion plate [this was a phrase I had heard Sara use about herself], but even though you have different styles, you’re both really creative.” They nodded to each other, and I think they were pleased to be recognized for their obvious talents. I looked at the other children and said, “We’re witnessing a historic moment, when the two best and most creative dressers in the Sunday school get to meet.” The children expressed extreme skepticism at this judgment of mine — “I don’t this this a historic moment” — but I assured them that I thought the New York Times would carry this story.

By the time we finished cleaning up, it was twenty past twelve. All the quilt squares were finally painted, and set out to dry in the storage closet in our classroom. There had been no time for the story, but it felt like it had been a successful and satisfying session.

Next entry.

Comment

(a) While there was no formal learning in this Sunday school session, we nonetheless made progress towards one of our four big goals:– we had fun and built community by working together on a group project. To a lesser extent, we worked on a skill important to our religious community:– the children gained experience in working cooperatively at church, important preparation for the kind of work adults do in our church on committees, in social justice, as worship associates, etc. I would also argue that we probably made some progress towards another of our big goals, to raise children who are more likely to grow up to be Unitarian Universalist adults, but it would be difficult to say exactly how that took place.

Questions for reflection

(1) Most often, we think that Sunday school should focus on communicating religious knowledge and information. However, one explicit goal in our program is to build community and have fun. How do you feel about not doing any teaching of religious knowledge in a class, and just focusing on building community and having fun? Does that feel like a wasted session to you? Do you think it will feel like a wasted session to children and/or parents/guardians?

Going what?

According to the BBC Web site, Sarah Palin has released a memoir titled Going Rouge. Then I read a blog post by Jim Macdonald at Making Light that pointed out a typographical error on the CNN Web site, which he quoted as follows: “In excerpts of her new book ‘Going Rouge: An American Life’ that we….”

I stopped and read it again. That’s not a typo, that’s just the title of the book, I said to myself. Finally it sunk in: I had read the title wrong. Sarah Palin, who sees herself as a rogue who uses rouge, titled her book Going Rogue. But she is no more of a rogue than Winnie the Pooh, who is cute and cuddly and a bear of little brain. Whereas Sarah Palin obviously does use rouge. And the phrase “going rogue” has an odd sort of sound to it; it doesn’t sound like something an American speaker of English would ordinarily say. No wonder I made the mistake.

It’s too bad she gave the book that title; it will inevitably be misread; there is already a parody version of the book which is indeed titled Going Rouge. Unfortunately, this little incident makes me want to compare Sarah Palin to another hapless vice presidential type: Dan Quayle. Which actually makes me feel bad.

Waiting for winter

After the rain we had in October, little green plants started springing up in all kinds of places. In front of our house, the ground between the sidewalk and the road turned from barren beaten-down earth to little delicate green plants in the days after the rainstorms. In our front garden, the fennel roots put out fuzzy little green leaves a couple of inches long. Along the railroad tracks, a few green shoots started showing in among the golden brown stalks from last winter’s now-dead plants.

We haven’t had any significant rain since then. Those little green plants have gotten a little larger, but not by much. There they sit, waiting for the next big rain storm so they can grow a little larger.

Teacher’s meeting

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

Susie, Lee, Melissa, and I met this morning to plan out the next few months of our Sunday school class. We have just about finished up the fall quarter, when we have been focused on Unitarian Universalist identity, and we’re about to move into the winter quarter, when we will focus on our Jewish and Christian heritage. (And Melissa and Susie have promised that they would write up a short description of last week’s class, which I couldn’t attend since I was preaching.)

We decided that we will have to try to finish up our UU identity quilt this Sunday, the last Sunday in the fall quarter. Then we talked about the winter quarter. I suggested that we spend the weeks in December talking about the Christmas story, relating it to other miracle birth stories (the birth of Buddha, etc.). We all agreed that we like our current method of telling stories about people — it seems to work well with our wide age span — although Melissa is pushing us to bring in more of the Unitarian Universalist seven principles. So we chose two Bible characters we wanted to present. Melissa said she would like to do a unit on Esther, and Susie suggested we do a unit on David (of David-and-Goliath fame).

We had all noticed that four children who had been attending regularly had not been to Sunday school in two or three weeks — Perry, Monty, Heather and Sara. So each of us hand-wrote a note to one of the four saying that we hoped the child would return to Sunday school, and we each signed all of the notes.

We also talked about what had been going on in class, especially this past Sunday (we had to explain to Melissa what had happened while playing Red Light Green Light). We talked about the children — how much we enjoy Monty and Perry swapping nametags to confuse us, interactions between siblings, the newcomers who started with our class then moved to the earlier session of Sunday school, etc. And we seemed to talk quite a bit about our own lives, too — jobs, and families, and so on. I find that I really enjoy working with this teaching team, and I enjoy just spending time with them — Sunday school is not just about the kids, it’s also about the friendships that develop between the teachers.

Next entry.

Thinking about…

In the past two days, we have had two people call at the Palo Alto church looking for money and/or shelter. I’m not going to talk about the specifics of either of the people who came here, because they deserve their privacy. I will say that we felt compelled to call the police in one instance, and in the other instance the parish minister gave the person both money and a ride to the train station.

These two visits prompted me to think about some of the ways I evaluate people who come to churches looking for money or shelter, and I realized that I have never tried to think systematically about this subject. Nor am I ready to think systematically about this subject now. But I thought I’d share some random thoughts based on experiences over fifteen years of working in both urban and suburban churches.

  • At one church, I could track the price of one hit of heroin by the requests we used to get for specific amounts of money. When lots of people needed eleven dollars to pay for a ticket from where we were to the VA hospital in another nearby city, I knew heroin was going for eleven dollars. When lots of people needed ten dollars to pay for a taxi cab to the unemployment office in the next county, I knew the price of heroin had gone down to ten dollars.
  • When people I do not know get close to children or children’s play areas, and when they do not move away immediately when I ask them to do so, I am very likely to call the police, and it doesn’t matter how polite they may be.
  • When someone asks me for money for a motel room because they just happened to be passing through town and suddenly got stranded overnight while their car is being fixed and their credit card isn’t working until tomorrow because a hold got placed on it when they filled up their gas tank, I am likely to believe them the first time — but when they come back six months later, obviously don’t recognize me, and give me the same story all over again, I am very unlikely to give them money.
  • Sometimes people are normally polite to me, they make an effort with their appearance, and they actually attend worship service in a respectful manner. I am far more likely to offer help to those people, no matter how questionable or dodgy their story might be.
  • I’ve had many people show their scars to me. Socially I am a fairly conservative New England Yankee, and having to look at scars kind of grosses me out, and makes me want to get rid of the person without hearing their story, and without offering any support. I have learned to not look at scars when they are displayed, so that I can concentrate on listening to the person instead of throwing them out.
  • I once had someone ask me for money. He was wearing clothing that looked more expensive than anything I could afford. I didn’t give him money. He got aggressive with me. I’m still not sure if he was an upper middle class white guy who lost his job who was genuinely in need and had been reduced to begging and who was just naturally aggressive — or if he was a con man. Either way, I didn’t give him the money for a motel room for which he was asking.

I don’t know. I’m afraid I have gotten way too cynical about these things. Now whenever someone from outside the church asks me for money, I start with the assumption that it’s a con game. I don’t like that about myself.

Why do we sing in worship services?

So why do we sing in worship services? My Unitarian Universalist tradition comes out of Calvinism, and we started singing because John Calvin said we should sing the Psalms — you know, sing because it’s in the Bible. Well, now we’re post-Christian, and some of us are very critical of the Bible, so why do we sing in worship services?

I think many Unitarian Universalists sing in worship services because it’s a chance to promote their favorite theological doctrine. Shades of John Calvin! The humanists in our midst like to sing songs that extol the virtues of humanism, and they pout when there are songs that mention God. The theists and Christians in our midst want to hold on to the tradition of Unitarian Christianity and Universalist Christianity, and they pout when they have to sing songs that don’t mention God.

Maybe this is why I like to sing with the Pagans and the New Age types. They just sing, and it’s powerful, and changes the way you think and feel. They know that “sustained singing is an ancient technique for creating altered states of consciousness through hyperventilation, elevated blood oxygen, and cranial and somatic vibration” (Marini, Sacred Song in America, 93). They know you don’t have to be a trained singer to get all these benefits. And the Pagans know that you when you sing about topics like birth and death and the ultimate meaning of life, you will be transformed. I also like to sing with Sacred Harp groups for exactly the same reasons. Not because I am in complete doctrinal or theological agreement with Pagans, New Agers, or Sacred Harp singers, but because I want to sing with people who don’t care what you sound like and who know that singing is supposed to transform you.

A recent article in the Portland Oregonian makes this point eloquently. Read it and — well, yes, read it and weep. I did. I wish typical Unitarian Universalist hymn singing affected me like that….

We play games, and experience conflict

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

During the first 15 minutes of the worship service, Amy, our parish minister, told a really good story about a rabbi who dreams about treasure (Amy sometimes reads this blog, and I let her post a summary of the story in the comments if she feels like it). Then we sang “For the Beauty of the Earth,” a lovely hymn that we want the children to know. Those of us going to Sunday school went out during the fourth verse of the hymn.

Melissa was going to be the lead teacher this week, but she had sent email to Susie and me, asking if one of us could take over for her. Susie had replied that she’d come up with something, but when we got to our classroom, Susie said she had been ill. She was ready and willing to lead the class in — something — unless I had something I’d like to do….

Now one of the things I’ve learned teaching Sunday school is that it’s good to always have activities in mind that you can use. Sometimes planned lessons turn into disasters, sometimes I have had to fill in at the last minute, sometimes I have planned a lesson only to find that one of my co-teachers did pretty much the same thing last week when I was off — so now I always have some activities ready that aren’t related to the formal curriculum, but which will help us work on our big educational goals. this week, I had been thinking about some theater games, and I also had a story that I wanted to tell the class…. Continue reading →