An Everyone Culture in the Church
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. – 1 Corinthians 12:12 (NIV)
What does it mean to be an “deliberately developmental organization?” Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey’s “An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization” is an examination of how organizations can best succeed when they invest in the growth of people.[1] Rather than see people as commodities or “cogs” in the corporate machine, a deliberately developmental organization is as focused on helping people overcome their limitations as they are on profitability, seeing the two as linked.[2] As an offering of the Harvard Business Review Press, this book is naturally situated for companies, but are their broader implications for organizations like the church?
Developing people can be a challenge in the church. While churches may talk about investing in people, in practice, churches often reward stability and predictable continuity. Many churches have a strong gravitational pull toward the status quo that cause them to look for the easiest and calmest leadership development strategies, which includes focusing on established leaders and those who seem to possess “natural”[3] leadership ability. Kegan and Lahey write, “Ordinary organizations don’t move you into a new role as soon as you’ve mastered the old one; instead, they commend you for having mastered it and call you reliable and dependable, appreciating the way you can be counted on now to keep performing the role indefinitely.”[4] Churches that want to become deliberately developmental organizations need to be intentional about building a culture, invested in relationships at all levels, and able to help people recognize their capability.
INTENTIONAL
There is no doubt that churches are notorious for extracting every last ounce of energy and passion from a congregant who volunteered for a task or a role, not knowing it would become a lifetime appointment. Churches are filled with “experts” who have served for years on a committee or in a role who have become tired, bored, and/or stuck. In some cases, the person in the role may be just as reluctant to give up their spot as a church might be to have to look for someone else. In other cases, it is really just a matter of leaving well-enough alone. Whatever the circumstance, churches that operate out of this mindset often lack imagine, initiative, and/or intentionality.
At the same time, for most churches, staff roles are very specific to tasks that need to be accomplished. For example, a church musician (pianist, organist, or guitar-player,) is likely to be expected to be competent, reliable, and dependable and is not likely be moved to another role in the organization as soon as they have mastered the first one. To be deliberately developmental, the church would need to see opportunities to expand the role of the church musician once they have proven themselves capable in their initial roles, and be prepared to adjust the job description and compensation package, again something many churches seem reluctant, unwilling, or unable to do.
RELATIONSHIPS
Another importance aspect of developing people in the church is in building relational credibility. Lance Witt writes that all development in the church hinges on relationships. “Relationship is what gives me the right and insight to encourage, comfort, and urge the people on my team.”[5] Jesus’ relationship with his disciples allowed him to prepare them for greater work.
The deliberately developmental way of Jesus was to call, teach, model, equip, send, and support. Perhaps this model could also work for the Church of Jesus Christ. The model of Jesus was to move his followers to collaborators and ultimately, apostles; from students to interns to partners. Rather than scrambling from one year to the next to identify and recruit a small percentage of church members to serve in leadership, a church could implement a system that begins with building relationships as a means to develop people at various levels of ability.
CAPABILITY
The Apostle Paul took this a step further as he compared the community of faith to a body. Each part having a specific function, and each part necessary and important to the whole. Jason Johnson writes about the importance for everyone in the church to “find their something.” He writes, “The goal of your church is not simply to start a peripheral ministry a few are involved in; it’s to establish … an environment where it’s understood that while we’re not all called to do the same thing, we’re all certainly capable of doing something.”[6]
This method begins with the idea that every person has something they can contribute. One way of communicating this, to paraphrase Johnson, would be to say that some are going to travel to Central America to drill a water well and the rest of us will look and pray for ways to support that work. Supporting the work might be to pray, to give money, to research sustainable partnerships, to help with stateside logistics, and so on. This is one expression of “an everyone culture” in which the gifts of all are celebrated, even as they are deployed differently.
The old adage that eighty percent of the work is done by twenty percent of the people[7] will continue to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in churches that are not committed to a better way of developing people to make significant contributions to the community of faith and the Kingdom of God. And this is vital work. Churches could be establishing a model for how to intentionally develop people by investing in relationships and recognizing the capability of each person. Will the church take the lead? Or will the church remain stuck in a mindset that contributes to its continued decline?
[1] Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, “An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization,” (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2016,) 2.
[2] Ibid, 13.
[3] Whatever that means.
[4] Ibid, 83.
[5] Lance Witt, “Developing People: The Key to Ministry Multiplication,” theunstuckgroup.org, September 3, 2019, https://theunstuckgroup.com/2019/09/developing-people-the-key-to-ministry-multiplication/.
[6] Jason Johnson, “Building an ‘Everyone Can Do Something’ Culture at Your Church,” cafo.org, January 29, 2018, https://cafo.org/2018/01/29/building-everyone-can-something-culture-church/.
[7] I’m aware that this is not the actual application of the 80/20 Principle, but it remains a familiar trope in church leadership circles.
8 responses to “An Everyone Culture in the Church”
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John, you do well to point out the potency of relationships in development. Kegan and Lahey were a bit weak on that point. God is using his collective people to form them (both individually and as a group) more and more into the image of his Son. Sounds deliberately development to me!
Yeah, I’ll give the authors a pass since they weren’t coming from a religious perspective. Honestly, as I read, all I could think about was how the church could and should have been leading the way on this.
John,
Great insight! I often equate Pauls analogy of the body with multiple parts along with his discussion of spiritual gifts to Collins idea of having the right people on the bus in his book God to Great. I am a believer of not only having the right people on the bus but also having them in the right seats. Often times in churches we grab the first volunteer that comes to the surface. There is little thought to whether they fit in the position or whether their spiritual gifts can be utilized else where in the church. How do we get churches beyond the warn body approach and start equipping and train people in their gifting and godly design? There is always something to do in the church and many volunteers aren’t overly concerned about specializing but those that have obvious talents and gifts are often not given avenue to grow in those gifts especially those with the gift of teaching.
John, in your own experience as a pastor, what have you done to intentionally develop members of your congregation? What do you think this process looks like now during COVID / how has your church approached it during this time so far?
All I know is that it’s a slow, and often surprising process. Covid has forced us to really think about “do it yourself” kinds of discipleship as our role shifted from being a place where things happen to a resource and encouragement provider for those who are willing and able to take ownership of their own spiritual growth.
John,
As I read your words and the insights you shared with how many churches function, my blood pressure continued to increase. Not because I’m frustrated with what you said, but as a “congregant” I have lived out so much of what you have highlighted. Despite serving in a variety of ministry capacities, I eventually was pigeonholed into women’s ministry. That was the lane I was to remain in, regardless of my education, passions, or gifting. I saw this happen with countless others who volunteered within the walls of the church. It is like, once you’re a thumb, you have to remain a thumb- you don”t get to try being the voice or a foot or an eye. But if we are truly transforming, then how and why do we have to remain in one area, or be just “one part”? I think this is why many have to move outside church walls to keep growing because the church actually doesn’t want us to grow; If we do, it disrupts and disturbs the equilibrium of the system, which as you noted, is to be maintained at all cost. I have been wondering if an unhealthy co-dependancy has formed between pastors/ministry leaders and the congregation, where a stifling of the congregation’s growth is necessary to maintain/ensure/secure the ministry leaders’ role? You know…a little job security?
I’m sure that temptation exists in my profession- to intentionally keep people dependent on the “professionals.” Certainly we’re guilty of keeping people in “niche” roles indefinitely, maybe because we too are tempted to leave well-enough alone and finding replacements takes work! I’ve personally always seen ministry as the art of working one’s self out of a job.
John, thank you for applying the DDO idea to the church 🙂
DDO + Church attitude leads me into a reflection on ‘skin in the game’ for us as followers; more for those somewhat ‘real’ about involvement in fellowship/community life.
(Natural desire for involvement is sweet as an outflow from the realisation of the nature of Christ and community, as opposed to the fallback ‘being delegated’ by the pastor or leadership for involvement in ‘a community thing’ of ‘some sort’.)
What do you think about the concept of ‘Skin in the Game’ in relation to living out the Gospel and finding place/meaning in community? Could this angle give some reason/perspective to the hope and avenue by which a Church community could begin leaning toward a DDO culture/style?
I was thinking earlier about those who make the calls from a distance (ie. boards and committees on which volunteer time is given) and, yet do not have ‘on the ground’ even ‘on the bench’, let alone ‘in the crowd’ cheering-the-team-on…skin in the game.
The 20% significant; hyper-development, here.