Mindsets

What is your mindset about the challenges that you face in your job, in relationships, in personal growth, in spirituality? Researcher, Carol Dweck, identified two mindsets that lead to different outcomes when we encounter adversity. One is a fixed-mindset in which we attribute our successes and failures to innate talent (smarts, athleticism, charisma). The other is mindset is a growth-mindset in which we give more weight to practice, learning, and hard work. Children she identified who had a fixed-mindset when when they failed in a task attributed it to them not having enough talent. Fixed -mindset children would not persevere towards a goal but stopped. Those with a growth-mindset did not see failure as a reason to stop but continued to employ different strategies, worked harder in order to complete the task. Matthew Syed cites Dweck’s research in his book Bounce and gives more examples especially in the field of athletics.

As a pastor of a church I wonder about how this applies to our functioning as churches. When churches describe themselves do we use inherent traits, which are usually fuzzy categories. Positive ones would be warm and friendly, family-like, generous. Negative ones might be dysfunctional, conflicted, graying, not growing. (I’m sorry if the use of graying in this way offends those who have gray hair but I’ve never heard graying used a selling point for churches. This is evidence of a fixed-mindset.) Note that all of these may be accurate descriptions but they also lock us into expectations, keep us stalled and risk-avoidant.

Or do we focus on what we have actually done, what we learned, how we failed, and how we grew through our trying. The growth-mindset helps us to see failure as an opportunity to try something else or to persevere in our attempts. It nurtures in us a learners-mind, creative solution-seeking, and risk-taking.

How do you see these mindsets at work in you and others?

Can You NOT Take This Call?

This article in the Harvard Business Review caught my eye. It speaks about what we in the Judeo-Christian tradition refer to as a “calling.” Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite authors, defines calling (or vocation) as the intersection of our “deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger”. (Buechner, Frederick (2009-10-13). Beyond Words (Buechner, Frederick) (p. 405). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.)

But the question that I’ve asked and what has often been asked of me is how do I recognize this call. This article in the HBR gives some helpful and practical advice. Look for what is strong and persistently showing up in your life. Look for what springs from you and your life. The principle of incarnation is fundamental to the Christian faith (and unfortunately often ignored, misunderstood, or denied). God came to us a human in Jesus his followers believe and so God will continue to “speak” through our human experience.

But Buechner makes explicit what the the HBR article perhaps only hints in calling being personal. Calling comes from—or manifests itself in—our deep gladness or joy. When we are giving ourselves to our calling we have the experience of being what we are made to be and do. That doesn’t always equate to happiness or satisfaction. I sometimes would love to get out of my calling but its where I find and discover (help to uncover) my best self.  That is always part of offering good food to the world’s great hunger.

How have you recognized a call or moment of obligation?

The Core Self

Brennan Manning passed away this weekend. Brennan was a Catholic priest who was most widely known for his writing with books like The Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba’s Child. His personality and drive brought much success and acclamation in his career but at some point he realized that these things were just cover-ups and cheap substitutes for his core self. For Brennan his core being child of his Father in heaven.

My dignity as Abba’s child (Abba means something like “dear father” in Aramaic) is my most coherent sense of self. When I seek to fashion a self-image from the adulation of others and the inner voice whispers “You’ve arrived; you’re a player in the Kingdom enterprise,” there is no truth in that self-concept. When I sink into despondency and the inner voice whispers “You are no good, a fraud, a hypocrite and a dilettante,” there is no truth in any image shaped from that message. Abba’s Child

Identifying and knowing who we are at our core is probably the most significant work any human can do. If we don’t do it then we will always be looking for others to tell us who we are. Now if those people had healthy and big core selfs then they might be helpful to us. But many of the people we look to would just use this opportunity to define themselves by telling us who we are! Those outside voices get internalized into the whispers Brennan mentions.

 

People with strong core selves have a both-and-ness about them:

• confidence AND humility (I know some things but I don’t have the only knowledge)
• embrace their strengths AND weaknesses (know what they are good at but can admit what they can’t do—although I’m not sure that weakness is the right word)
• speak their perspectives AND encourage and welcome others to do the same
• value their individuality AND the vital connections with others
• seek their own success AND the success of others (don’t see themselves in competition)

Only when we know who we are and whose child we are (that can mean an overtly spiritual and religious answer like Brennan’s “I am Abba’s child” or recognizing that I am rooted deeply in my family and tradition without being determined by them) can we lead, speak, respond, make decisions, and take action in life with authenticity.

How would you describe someone who has a large core self? How did they develop that core?

Jesus said to Peter, “Get my sheep high”

Two studies of mega-churches (I don’t know how big a church has to be to considered mega but that’s beside the point) have something to say to us churches who aren’t “mega.”  Unfortunately leaders of smaller, non-mega, churches–often struggling to maintain energy, budget, focus, and future–have a sour grapes attitude toward mega churches.  Comments are often “well they just entertain people and dumb down the Bible”, “they don’t interact with their communities”, “there is no relationship in a church that big”.   There is evidence for these opinions but just as much that refutes them.

The first study was actually an internal one done by the Willowcreek Community Church several years on their own programs and level of spiritual maturity in their members.   They found that there was no direct correlation between involvement in church activities and the self-reported level of spiritual growth among attenders of those programs.  Attendance of programs alone was not enough to produce spiritual growth.  Most pastors and leaders should have read this and said, “Of course!”  Feeding sheep as Jesus commanded Peter to do is a great metaphor…but the picture doesn’t contain the complexity involved in feeding human sheep.  Relationships, time constraints, LIFE, developmental differences and changes, the mysterious nature of the spiritual growth all say that a good programs are just one piece of the puzzle.

Mega church leaders are not the only ones in danger of making the error of assuming that involvement in programs will result in spiritual maturity.  Think of how many times we have heard of the news of some young person leaving the church, drifting away from Christian practice…or going completely off the rails and we’ve said “I just don’t see how this could happen, he came to Sunday school and youth group every week.”

The second study  was just reported in the Christian Century in the September 19 issue.  It was done by U. of Washington researchers who found that attenders of mega church worship services experienced something akin to euphoria brought on by brain chemicals such as oxytocin.  The use of high energy music, live shots of the congregation, and charismatic leadership lead to this release of oxytocin.  The context of spiritual worship causes this release to be experienced as transcendence and connection to God.   I could use some of that, myself!  People want to come back for more.  To get another hit.  In some ways these two insights in church goers reveal the same characteristic.  We are often dependent on the resources of the organization–whether its a program or the media.

I’m wondering–from the intersection of these two studies–if Jesus should have told Peter “Get my sheep high and then teach them to feed themselves when they get the munchies.”  Great heights of worship and transformational experiences of God’s Holy Otherness and great depths of spiritual maturity.  Can we get both of them…in the the same congregation?  Acts 2:42-47 says that the church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.  They were also in awe of the work of God done through the apostles and met every day praising God.  We’re not sure how deep their spiritual maturity was, however.  Letter to churches in the New Testament often address one of these issues…the need for greater passion, but more often the need for greater depth.

The challenge of height and depth is still with this earth bound church which Jesus left behind to continue his work.

Clarifying Core Values

Statements on the crucial importance of vision and mission statements abound with church leadership circles. I don’t argue with them at all. But I’ve begun to realize how equally important identifying our values are. Values are the guidelines we use to make regular decisions within the life of the church.

These are just some of the decisions the leadership of my congregation is making: Do we spend time and energy (though not necessarily much money) on revamping a unused room for a coffee and fellowship space easily accessible from the sanctuary? This would be an easy decision but we also have stained glass windows that need attention (and need some money to buy that attention) and a roof that will need major repair or replacement in the next few years. Shall we have an all-congregation retreat (what are the costs, benefits, opportunities, and drawbacks)? How shall we be good stewards of a piece of property recently purchased—mow and leave it alone, put in a community garden?

It would be easy to take each of these and make a decision based on finances and energy. But a better way would be to ask ourselves how do our values guide us. At a recent board meeting of our ruling elders we narrowed a list of 20 some values down to five: faith (the content of what we believe), forgiveness, stewardship (everything we have has been given to us by God), community, and outreach. Its a healthy exercise to discover and clarify these deepest and most important things we value about ourselves and life. I used a modified version from this document.

What has been your experience clarifying your values as an individual or in group you’re part of? Was it helpful? Did it affect the decisions you made and how you made them? Were there any sticking points in the values discovery?