{"id":9832,"date":"2016-10-22T19:21:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T02:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9832"},"modified":"2016-10-22T19:21:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T02:21:19","slug":"exit-voice-and-loyalty-can-you-say-church-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/exit-voice-and-loyalty-can-you-say-church-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Exit, Voice and Loyalty….can you say church plant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the heart of every church plant or some may say (split) there are elements from Albert O. Hirshman\u2019s book Exit, Voice and Loyalty.\u00a0 The information that is shared in this quick 126 page read is still true today and is translatable to the church.\u00a0 The authors observation that \u201cunder any economic, social, or political system, individuals, business firms and organizations in general are subject to lapses from efficient, rational, law abiding, virtuous, or otherwise functional behavior.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 These lapses, if they could be prevented or reverted, would be identifiable and could restore order to any organization.\u00a0 Slack <\/em>is the word assigned to this process of going from great to good.\u00a0\u00a0 When slack occurs there are choices to be made.<\/p>\n

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The first is exit.\u00a0 <\/em>Exit is a viable choice, if there are other choices for the person to make.\u00a0 Is there another location for the person to go?\u00a0 \u00a0Some people in the church would feel that leaving \u201ctheir\u201d church is never an option.\u00a0 Others would feel like exiting quietly would be the way to go.\u00a0 Some would exit and come back to see if anyone noticed.\u00a0 This book was not necessary written with the non-profit (church) in mind but it truly resonated with some of what has been experienced.<\/p>\n

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The second choice would be voice.\u00a0 <\/em>The way of catching the \u201cmanagements\u201d attention can get really interesting in the church.\u00a0 The \u201cexit\u201d from church comments on a weekly basis that are tongue in cheek but pointed to the pastor are where some comments or \u201cvoice\u201d come from.\u00a0\u00a0 Some come in the form of a well thought out and attacking email.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of these e-mails are conveniently sent to multiple people in leadership as well as the pastor and some are sent to the whole congregation.\u00a0 Interesting where voice<\/em> comes into the church but is not in line with the guidelines of the Bible, specifically Matthew 18:15 (if another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense.\u00a0 If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.) NLV \u00a0\u00a0Are there ground rules for voice?<\/p>\n

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The example of the voice within the public school and then the private school really illustrated some of this concept for me of churches.\u00a0 Is the church deteriorating?\u00a0 Was the school deteriorating, while nothing was being done about it?\u00a0 Management in any form, superintendent or pastor, is forced to look for answers.\u00a0 What can be done to fix or help the situation that has been brought to light?\u00a0 Is there a way to stop exit while listening to and working with the \u201cvoices\u201d that have come to the surface?<\/p>\n

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There has to be a way to have this conversation but one of the things truly identified within this book is that there needs to be strategy or a way to have this conversation.\u00a0 Is there a structure within the church to look at the \u201cproblem\u201d and it not be a person?\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes the problem is a person but can they be approached and the issues corrected like Matthew 18:15 suggests?<\/p>\n

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The third choice is loyalty.\u00a0 Loyalty is defined as a feeling of attachment to an organization of which one is a member.\u00a0 \u00a0The presence of loyalty effectively increases the cost of exit.\u00a0 This causes the members to stay with the faltering organization for a while.\u00a0 They might raise their voice during this time.\u00a0 Being loyal to an organization means that one believes \u201cover a period of time, the right turns will more than balance out the wrong ones.\u201d\u00a0 Ignoring the voices for very long can cause loyalty to really be put to the test.<\/p>\n

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All of these business principles, in my opinion, can be found in the church.\u00a0\u00a0 Some church \u201cplants\u201d are incredibly healthy because it returns voices to the actual work of the kingdom and their loyalty has to be transferred back to Christ instead of a building.\u00a0 Loyalty to a building and a cause are not the same as being committed to the commission of Christ.\u00a0 Sometimes a church plant can truly change the voices and change the landscape of the spiritual pilgrimage for the good.\u00a0 It is painful but it is for the good!!\u00a0\u00a0 Loyalty to Christ is the most important loyalty and changing a voice to reflect that instead of one that is bitter and judgmental is well worth the exit!<\/p>\n

The authors conclusion is where I will conclude this thought, “Finally, in an awareness of the inborn tendencies toward instability of any optimal mix may be helpful in improving the design of institutions that need both exit and voice to be maintained in good health.” \u00a0So what does that mean? \u00a0I believe it means that those in leadership may have to at times embrace exit, even when there is a desire to hold on. \u00a0 Leadership may have to at times embrace someone else voice. \u00a0Even when it may go against their wishes or their plans to help the whole organization grow. \u00a0Loyalty to the mission of the organization must somehow be a deciding point for the leader. \u00a0Health of the institution has to be in the mix of these three things: exit, voice and loyalty.<\/p>\n

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Albert O Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: \u00a0Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. \u00a0Cambridge, Massachusetts, \u00a0Harvard University Press, 1970.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the heart of every church plant or some may say (split) there are elements from Albert O. Hirshman\u2019s book Exit, Voice and Loyalty.\u00a0 The information that is shared in this quick 126 page read is still true today and is translatable to the church.\u00a0 The authors observation that \u201cunder any economic, social, or political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":9833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[676,251,663],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp6","tag-hirschman","tag-lgp6","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}