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yrieithyddI'm currently doing a Fresh Expressions Course with people from my church along with others from the Dioceses of Llandaf and Monmouth and the Methodists in this part of the world.
At the session this week, one of the things we talked about related to change and a bell curve was given divided up into Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. The point was that to initiate change in a congregation one had to work mainly with the middle three groups -- going too much with the innovators could in fact backfire. In many ways, I could see the point.
We were asked whether we were Innovators and a few responded. Then we were asked if any of us were Laggards and I was the only who responded. Someone pointed out that the people attending such a course were likely to be Innovators or Early Adopters. I made the point that in fact at different points and about different things we might react different.
As I've thought about this for the last couple of days, I've come to be more dubious about this blanket categorisation.
I am by basic inclination a laggard. I don't like change and certainly not change for change's sake. My reaction to An Inspector Calls last night is an example of that -- it wasn't how I'd imagined it from the script so I wasn't keen. Similarly, those of you who were present when MethSoc went to see the first Harry Potter will remember my reaction to change there! And while I laugh and am disappointed by those in churches who make visitors unwelcome by telling them they've sat in 'their seat', I've had that reaction to people who have sat in 'my seat' in the library. I don't act on it, but it's there.
Whether I accept change depends a lot more on whether I understand the logic of it. For example, when I went to our sister church for services soon after our new vicar arrived, I wanted to rearrange the seating. Although it is a rectangular space, the altar is in one of the corners and to my mind it made most sense to have the chairs facing that way, but they were set out parallel to two of the walls. The new vicar agreed with me but was cautious about changing something to soon, but eventually cracked as she felt she wasn't communicating with one part of the church. She changed the layout and a couple of people complained the first week that they didn't know where to sit. Since then they've been fine. But I can sympathise with that reaction, even though I was a major proponent of the change.
In church situations, it can be set out as being about our comfort versus mission but often the innovators are in fact asking for things to be changed to what they are comfortable with.
One of the sensible things said in the course was that you needed to change values before you changed structures -- while changing structures is superficially easier than changing values, just changing structures without address the values leaves a lot of people hurt. This makes a lot of sense to me. If I'm onside with why things need to be changed, I'm a lot more likely to be happy with the change.
At the session this week, one of the things we talked about related to change and a bell curve was given divided up into Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. The point was that to initiate change in a congregation one had to work mainly with the middle three groups -- going too much with the innovators could in fact backfire. In many ways, I could see the point.
We were asked whether we were Innovators and a few responded. Then we were asked if any of us were Laggards and I was the only who responded. Someone pointed out that the people attending such a course were likely to be Innovators or Early Adopters. I made the point that in fact at different points and about different things we might react different.
As I've thought about this for the last couple of days, I've come to be more dubious about this blanket categorisation.
I am by basic inclination a laggard. I don't like change and certainly not change for change's sake. My reaction to An Inspector Calls last night is an example of that -- it wasn't how I'd imagined it from the script so I wasn't keen. Similarly, those of you who were present when MethSoc went to see the first Harry Potter will remember my reaction to change there! And while I laugh and am disappointed by those in churches who make visitors unwelcome by telling them they've sat in 'their seat', I've had that reaction to people who have sat in 'my seat' in the library. I don't act on it, but it's there.
Whether I accept change depends a lot more on whether I understand the logic of it. For example, when I went to our sister church for services soon after our new vicar arrived, I wanted to rearrange the seating. Although it is a rectangular space, the altar is in one of the corners and to my mind it made most sense to have the chairs facing that way, but they were set out parallel to two of the walls. The new vicar agreed with me but was cautious about changing something to soon, but eventually cracked as she felt she wasn't communicating with one part of the church. She changed the layout and a couple of people complained the first week that they didn't know where to sit. Since then they've been fine. But I can sympathise with that reaction, even though I was a major proponent of the change.
In church situations, it can be set out as being about our comfort versus mission but often the innovators are in fact asking for things to be changed to what they are comfortable with.
One of the sensible things said in the course was that you needed to change values before you changed structures -- while changing structures is superficially easier than changing values, just changing structures without address the values leaves a lot of people hurt. This makes a lot of sense to me. If I'm onside with why things need to be changed, I'm a lot more likely to be happy with the change.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-21 10:18 pm (UTC)I'm looking forward to you posting more about what you're learning because I want to hear somebody say something positive about one of the course :) I think the closest I get to Fresh Expressions is a new mixture of incense!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-21 11:14 pm (UTC)It's interesting doing the course, given that our situation is a growing fairly trad, fairly high church.
I can see the point of your worry about the 'relevancy' bandwagon as that's something of which I'm wary. One thing I do like is the emphasis on the 'mixed economy' i.e. it's both-and. Fresh Expressions are there to complement traditional expressions, not to replace them. Things like the Values audit we did this week are good in general too because they help you to think out where you are coming from as a church team. Even if we don't go in for a traditional 'fresh expression' as a result of the course I think it will help us think more clearly about Mission in our context. The actual title of the course is 'Mission Shaped Ministry'.
I did notice a slight bias in the notes this week. They were summing up the values of the Jerusalem church based on Acts 2:42-47 and they did not include 'they valued the Eucharist' despite the two references to breaking bread!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-24 11:39 pm (UTC)The point being that as long as we recognise that any change will disable some people, then we work to the idea of inclusivity and bringing people on board.