Missing the point of college and religion
Freakonomics had a podcast
ᔥ in which one of the people interviewed mentioned something about college that got me thinking about church.
College is that place where most students are not learning a set of skills but different ways of seeing. We learn what it means to be a product of the Enlightenment and how that influences a great number of things that we "know". We gain a new language with words like "post-modern", "historical-critical", "behaviorism" and "meta-narrative" in order to understand the world in new ways. We are invited to see that as we sail closer to the island of the known the broader the shore of mystery becomes. We have reduced going to college to getting a degree, a slip of paper, a certificate of completion. As a means to an end, rather than a end unto itself.
Similarly, many of us (religious and atheist) view religion in the same way. As a means to an end.
I hear that people don't need religion to lean to be a good person or a moral individual. True.
But this is not the point of religion.
Like college religion at its best is designed not to get you somewhere but to teach you to see.
It is a shame that so many of us view college and religion as only worth it if it will provide me something in the future. The fact of the matter is, neither religion or college is set up to do that. They are institutions that are in place to help people see in ways they could not get on their own.
He mentioned that those who attend college do so to obtain credit hours, but too many attend college for a degree. Think about that.
College is that place where most students are not learning a set of skills but different ways of seeing. We learn what it means to be a product of the Enlightenment and how that influences a great number of things that we "know". We gain a new language with words like "post-modern", "historical-critical", "behaviorism" and "meta-narrative" in order to understand the world in new ways. We are invited to see that as we sail closer to the island of the known the broader the shore of mystery becomes. We have reduced going to college to getting a degree, a slip of paper, a certificate of completion. As a means to an end, rather than a end unto itself.Similarly, many of us (religious and atheist) view religion in the same way. As a means to an end.
I hear that people don't need religion to lean to be a good person or a moral individual. True.
But this is not the point of religion.
Like college religion at its best is designed not to get you somewhere but to teach you to see.
It is a shame that so many of us view college and religion as only worth it if it will provide me something in the future. The fact of the matter is, neither religion or college is set up to do that. They are institutions that are in place to help people see in ways they could not get on their own.
Not ready for prime time newsletters
I wrote this article for the church newsletter but after talking with Estee about this, we agreed it might be too technical for the newsletter. So instead of trashing the work I have done here, I want to post it here for thoughts as well as keeping it somewhere I can access later.
What do you think, is this too technical or too critical?
We want to share with the church what has been shared with the Administrative council and long range planning committee because the following deeply impacts the way we at SUMC will “do” ministry. We are relying heavily upon the Rev. Gil Rendle (a consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation as well as an elder in the UMC) who teaches about systems.
What do you think, is this too technical or too critical?
We want to share with the church what has been shared with the Administrative council and long range planning committee because the following deeply impacts the way we at SUMC will “do” ministry. We are relying heavily upon the Rev. Gil Rendle (a consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation as well as an elder in the UMC) who teaches about systems.
A church is a system that is made up of three basic parts - inputs, throughputs and outputs. At SUMC we might say the inputs are the resources we have (members, money, building, etc.) and throughputs are the things we do with those resources (create ministries, develop programs, conduct worship, etc.). The resources and ministries of SUMC are very important to the mission we are called by God to accomplish.
However, collecting resources and building ministries are not the end, rather they are the means to an end. We call this “end” the outputs or our outcomes. Too often churches do not know what their outcomes are and so instead the church focuses on the inputs and throughputs. Consider how many times you have been in a meeting and the conversation has focused on how much/little money or volunteers you have. Or perhaps you might have thought that SUMC would grow if only a certain ministry existed. These are not bad conversations, but when allowed to be the only conversation then we never talk about what the outcomes God expects from SUMC. So when SUMC sets goals for the year, the goals reflect a desire to “grow” and that growth often looks like gathering more inputs (people and money) and throughputs (ministries), but the goals do not reflect any desire for outcomes. Popular goals of a church are to have in increased worship attendance or creating an age specific ministry. The funny thing is that getting more resources and ministries is easy work compared to achieving the outcomes that God desires. Jesus never took the time to try to get more resources or ministries but took a lot of time trying to transform peoples lives. SUMC is not in the “business” of accumulating inputs and throughputs, if anything we are in the “business” of the output of transformation.
However, collecting resources and building ministries are not the end, rather they are the means to an end. We call this “end” the outputs or our outcomes. Too often churches do not know what their outcomes are and so instead the church focuses on the inputs and throughputs. Consider how many times you have been in a meeting and the conversation has focused on how much/little money or volunteers you have. Or perhaps you might have thought that SUMC would grow if only a certain ministry existed. These are not bad conversations, but when allowed to be the only conversation then we never talk about what the outcomes God expects from SUMC. So when SUMC sets goals for the year, the goals reflect a desire to “grow” and that growth often looks like gathering more inputs (people and money) and throughputs (ministries), but the goals do not reflect any desire for outcomes. Popular goals of a church are to have in increased worship attendance or creating an age specific ministry. The funny thing is that getting more resources and ministries is easy work compared to achieving the outcomes that God desires. Jesus never took the time to try to get more resources or ministries but took a lot of time trying to transform peoples lives. SUMC is not in the “business” of accumulating inputs and throughputs, if anything we are in the “business” of the output of transformation.
We are inviting everyone to prayerfully consider what outcomes God is calling SUMC to achieve. We encourage you to think beyond inputs and throughputs and focus on outputs. Here is an example to consider that might help direct your thought. If we were no longer counting worship attendance but counted only those people who are more peaceful or more joyful because of their time participating in SUMC, would you be counted?
Picking up pole vaulting
Setting goals in a church has, historically been for me, about setting goals that are reachable so that the church can celebrate "what we accomplished together". Churches don't do well with bad news and not meeting a goal is generally seen as bad news. It is as if we are unable to hurdle every goal then we lose.
The metaphor that I think about is that of a hurdler. When a hurdler does not leap over the hurdle then finishing the race is in real jeopardy. See video to the right for a fun nine seconds as an example.
I want to encourage our churches to view goal setting not as a hurdle that is to be jumped over in order to win the race, but more like pole vaulting.
Pole vaulting requires that the bar be placed too high for anyone to jump over without assistance. Additionally, in pole vaulting if the vaulter comes up short there and does not make it over the bar, then they do not loose, they only register the highest vault. Knowing they will be higher then they would ever by on their own, vaulters also prepare a place for landing BEFORE they vault. They know, even if they vault over the bar, they will come back down and they ensure the fall will not injure them for the next vault. Pole Vaulters know that they will only become better if they raise the bar higher and higher.
Arguably the best vaulter of all time, Sergey Bubka, only was able to achieve the 6.4 meter (over 20 feet) world record by elevating the bar time and time again.
Personally I am tired of hurdling and am looking forward to vaulting. If the church is going to do anything in the next generations it has to trade in low achievable goals for goals that we may not be able to reach but will continue to try.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.