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Understanding Your Congregation As a System: The Manual

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At the time of publication, Speed and Leas were both senior consultants with the Alban Institute, "an ecumenical, interfaith organization founded in 1974, which supports congregations through book publishing, educational seminars, consulting services, and research."[1] As stated on the book cover, both authors have ministerial experience. Parsons has advanced degrees in psychology and counseling along with training in conflict management and organizational development. Leas appears to be more focused on organizational development and systems theory as they relate to churches and families. The book grew out of work Parsons did with Richard Pascale of Stanford University in the areas of problem solving and organizational restructuring in multi-national corporations.

Most chapters of the book are individually authored by Leas. In chapter two, Leas identifies three ways for dealing with organizational problems: (1) the "difficult people" approach, (2) the "problem solving" approach, and (3) the "systems" approach. As its name indicates, Understanding Your Congregation as a System, takes the latter course. Although Leas agrees that genuine problems and truly difficult people actually do exist in their own right, he and Parsons champion a systems approach to ensure people and problems do not become mistaken substitutes for systemic dysfunctions. "Problem solving" and "difficult people" approaches run that risk. A systems approach, however, looks for multi-factor causation in terms of "systems" in which people shape each other's behavior in predicable patterns.

A systems approach to organizational problems recognizes that people are held together in "systems" by formal, informal, and tacit forms of agreement,[2] none of which are necessarily in accord. The resultant "systems" exist in terms of (1) rules, (2) roles, (3) rituals, and (4) goals.[3] Furthermore, these systems can be viewed as operating across seven intertwined dimensions: (1) strategy -- how the church plans the realization of its vision, (2) authority -- where decisions are made, (3) process -- how information is gathered and decisions are made, (4) pastoral leadership -- the pastor's time perspective in motivating and organizing, (5) relatedness -- the degree to which church members work cooperatively or independently, (6) lay leadership -- lay leaders' time perspective in motivating and organizing, and (7) learning -- the degree to which members use past success or future possibilities to improve ministry and congregational life. These dimensions exist respectively as continua from (1) rigid to spontaneous in terms of strategy, (2) concentrated to dispersed in terms of authority, (3) regulated to discretionary in terms of process, (4) managerial to transformational in terms of pastoral leadership, (5) collegial to individual in terms of relatedness, (6) managerial to transformational in terms of lay leadership, and (7) maximizing to "metamizing" in terms of learning.

The existence of the preceding continua suggests the possibility and utility of developing a survey tool for characterizing individual congregation in terms of their particular locations within each dimension. Parsons and Leas have done that very thing with their "Congregational Systems Inventory" (CSI), a survey instrument that can be used to determine a congregation's profile in terms of its balances and excesses across the preceding seven scales, with each scale ranging from one to ten. The present book, Understanding Your Congregation as a System, is actually a companion to the CSI Inventory Participant's Packet and provides systems theory practitioners with background needed to introduce and administer the CSI, interpret its results, and assess its implications for congregational change.

The location of a congregation on particular CSI dimensions provides clues to its organizational health. Since the dimensions are interrelated, a snapshot of a church's location across all seven dimensions provides a "systematic" view of its vitality. The most important thing is not necessarily balance between extremes. Rather, it is the existence of a healthy dynamic between two poles. Pastoral leadership, for example, will conflict with lay leadership if the former is transformational and the latter is managerial. The challenge is not to eliminate the difference. Rather, it is to exploit the difference in ways that produce healthy tension.

Location at an extreme may not be bad if it is a functional (vice dysfunctional) response to the congregation's environment. Things to avoid are (1) lack of tension and (2) rigidity. The latter is an inability to move within a continuum in response to negative environmental feedback. Rigidity is often centered on patterns associated with past success. "Most congregations are stuck in their successes."[4] The authors devote most of their book on tactics for becoming "unstuck."

Parsons and Leas use Routhauge's categorization of churches into (1) Family, (2) Pastoral, (3) Program, and (4) Corporate.[5] Application of CSI to a large sample of congregations shows that congregational size has characteristic influences on CSI profiles. Program-sized churches, for example, tend to have the most managerial clergy, the most concentrated pastoral authority, lowest levels of relatedness, and are most focused on the past.

Churches as a whole also tend toward a characteristic profile over against other types of organizations. For example, most congregations -- as with voluntary groups in general -- tend not be excessive in their attention to planning. Among religious communities, mainline churches are most likely to neglect it. Some groups are theologically averse to planning. Failing to plan, however, means that major decisions are made without reference to organizationally relevant criteria.

Understanding Your Congregation offers many useful, counter-intuitive insights. For example, tension is not necessarily bad. Rather, it is a sign of caring. Loss of tension therefore signals decline. Most organizational changes come from environmental and developmental challenges that are outside the control of leaders. The challenge for leaders is to exploit such challenges for purposes of renewal. Many attempts at renewal flounder, however, because leaders are not attuned to their congregational systems -- what is actually going on in the congregation.

Many leaders go astray because they always consider conflict as a problem in need of a solution. Conflict, however, differs in quality and exists across a continuum. Reactive conflict can exist in a system that is too collegial. Excessive, competitive conflict can exist in a system that is too individualistic. As the authors note, "the controversy never really ends. Phases of it do." Healthy congregational systems create tension, capitalize on environmental disruptions, recognize tacit rules, roles, rituals, and goals and "recontract" to improve life and ministry.

Theologically, Understanding Your Congregation as a System is a modern form of "wisdom literature." As in ancient wisdom literature, Speed and Leas describe how the natural world of human beings works -- more specifically, churches -- and promise their readers greater success if they will align their thinking, values, and behavior accordingly. Readers will not be disappointed regardless of their religious affiliation. As with all wisdom literature, Understanding Your Congregation as a System is universal, applying equally to churches of all kinds, sizes, and persuasions, the main point being that the success of ministries is powerfully determined by the organizational systems that house and sustain them.

-- Bill Brewer
[...]

NOTES:

[1] Leas continues as a consultant. See The Alban Institute, "Our Consultants"; available from [...]; Internet; accessed 24 March 2007. Also see The Alban Institute, "About Us"; available from [...]; Internet; accessed 24 March 2007.

[2] Kenneth R. Mitchell, Multiple Staff Ministries, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988).

[3] Rules, roles, and rituals come from Mitchell. Speed and Leas add "goals."

[4] George Parsons and Speed B. Leas, Understanding Your Congregation as a System, (The Alban Institute, 1993), 1. Many organizations eventually fail because they react to change by becoming more and more efficient at outdated practices. In the end, they wind up with so few resources they are unable to change and have no choice but to die.

[5] Arlin Rothauge, Sizing Up a Congregation for New Member Ministry (New York: Episcopal Church Center, n.d.).

I was never introduced to the concepts in this book during masters or doctoral studies in seminary. A major problem of much of current theological education is that it presents church ministry in a compartmentalized and programmatic fashion. In my book "Simple Discipleship," I suggest that much of th current paradigm of theological education contributes to churches inability to make disciples. George Parsons has presented a very useful book that every pastor should read. It will help church leaders step back from the systems in the church and determine whether they are connected, purposeful, and sustainable.