More than 16 years ago, on the first day of my first real job in higher education, my supervisor treated me to lunch. Over grilled cheese and tomato soup, she said something that has stuck with me all this time: “I believe in you, and I want this job to be an opportunity for your growth and development, so let’s be sure to focus on that.”
I was coming out of a toxic church situation, and my new supervisor’s offer of support and mentorship gave me hope in my new role.
I am grateful for having had many wonderful mentors in my career as a pastor and higher education administrator. Their generous investment in me has inspired me to mentor others.
My first leadership mentor was my mother, who, after serving as a super church volunteer for more than 30 years, finally accepted a call to ordained ministry and served for 15 years as a senior pastor.
My mother modeled inclusion; for example, she took a special interest in the youth group kids. Every year, we hosted a big Halloween party at my parents’ farm in rural Illinois, with my dad driving the hayride tractor. Mom would work the phones, organizing transportation to make sure all the kids could get there.
She frequently disrupted our church system by not only serving as a woman in a leadership role but also including other women in leadership positions.
Achieving inclusion in leadership continues to be a problem across institutions. The number of women, and particularly women of color, who reach senior leadership roles continues to be small. In higher education, a clear majority (58%) of college students are women, yet only 33% of college presidents are women. Approximately half of college students identify as a race other than white, yet 73% of college presidents identify as white.
Representation is not more abundant in the church world, and in many ways, is worse. In my own United Methodist Church, where women are widely accepted for ordination and are a clear majority of members, only 32% of clergy are women. And the church remains one of the most racially segregated institutions in the United States.
This lack of representation in senior leadership roles is a wicked problem that requires individual, institutional and systemic solutions. I’ve come to believe that one important piece of the solution on an individual level is mentoring.
All along the way, I have felt frustrated that I am not making a bigger impact — and a bit terrified that I, as a white male, will do more harm than good by seeking to mentor people with identities different from mine. It puts a knot in my stomach to write publicly about my intentions in this area where I have so much to learn, but it is starting to seem more problematic to be silent. I recognize that white men can play a key role as gatekeepers.
I’ve had successes and failures. I’m happy to say that of the 21 employees I have had the privilege of hiring, most have been women and/or people of color, and most of them are thriving in new leadership roles. One of my proudest professional accomplishments was pivoting the leadership of a church I planted to a woman who has since led that church for more than 10 years.
I’ve also made mistakes. In one instance, I pushed one mentee too hard in my eagerness to develop what I saw to be her talents. In the end, I apologized and acknowledged, “I did a bad job of listening.”
In the academic literature on leadership development for women and people of color, mentoring comes up frequently. Recent studies that center the voices of women and people of color suggest that while mentoring may be helpful, what’s needed most are people who will move beyond merely mentoring to advocacy on their behalf.
I am now convinced that mentoring and advocating for mentees is crucial to progress. I’ve found success with a particular style of mentoring I think of as “mindful mentoring.”
Mindful mentoring moves beyond simply investing in someone to identifying, addressing and dismantling the systems that lead to disparity and inequity. The starting point is awareness of who is in your sphere of influence.
One theory I find useful is Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), which attempts to describe the quality of exchange in the relationship between leaders and the people influenced by them.
It describes an in-group and an out-group. In the workplace, those in the in-group have a deep connection and high-quality relationships with the leader. Studies have shown that being in the in-group leads to higher job satisfaction, commitment, performance and innovative behavior.
Those in the out-group are under the supervision of the leader but lack the high-quality connection of the in-group, and all the outcomes previously mentioned are worse.
The first step to being a mindful mentor is awareness. I know how easy it is for a white male in a senior position to forget his privilege, and I recommend a simple exercise to help leaders be mindful of their relationships.
Take a sheet of paper and draw two large circles, one inside the other. Label the inner circle “in-group” and the outer circle “out-group.” Next, write in the in-group circle the names of the people in your sphere of leadership with whom you have a great connection.
Then fill in the out-group circle. Finally, apply the lens of gender and race to the names on the paper. Who is in your circle(s) of influence? Who is missing?
When I first tried this exercise, I was surprised and disappointed to see how many people in my inner circle looked like me. I now complete this exercise twice a year. It’s helped me be aware of who is in my in-group and to strategize about how to move women and people of color from the out-group to the in-group.
Being a mindful mentor includes doing your own work of self-awareness, striving for cultural humility, uncovering your own implicit biases, and perpetually attempting to understand why these representation disparities exist in the first place.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the scale and scope of the work that needs to be done, but being a mindful mentor is practicing hope by focusing on what is within your control. Be aware of your immediate context and think concretely about what you can do today to make a difference.
I have two little daughters, and my deep desire is that they will grow up in a world where their gender will not limit the leaders they can be. Currently, their primary care physician is a woman, and we have many female family friends who are medical professionals. The other day, one of my daughters asked me, “Daddy, can boys be doctors too?”
I said, “Yes, boys can choose to be doctors too.” This kind of upside-down thinking motivates me to be the best mindful mentor I can be.
Have you ever entered a space and immediately understood what it was all about? Like you just got the vibe?
Maybe it was a specialty retailer that carries your favorite brands. Or it could have been a giant IKEA warehouse, where you walked through the sliding glass entrance and thought, “I’d better stick to my list!” Or maybe it was the Chick-fil-A drive-thru, where you pulled away blessed by your server’s “My pleasure!” benediction.
In each of our lives, there are places and spaces that feel like home. They get us, and we get them. And for me, one of those places is my local coffee shop, Bean Traders, in Durham, North Carolina.
When I’m at Bean Traders, I am in my “third place”; I feel safe and productive, and my mind wanders freely. More than once, I’ve asked myself, “What does this place teach us by the way we are treated? How do the behavior and actions of the staff embody the shop’s culture?” And even more than that, “What could Bean Traders teach congregations?”
It’s people, not coffee
Any store can sell a cup of coffee. The elements are simple. But in 2008, Howard Schultz, then the CEO of Starbucks, wrote, “We are not in the coffee business serving people. We are in the people business serving coffee.” Bean Traders gets this, at least as well as the local Starbucks does. And I can see that Bean Traders “gets it” because it’s reflected by everyone in the shop, not just the owner or a few employees.
Recently, waiting for a drink, I heard a crash behind me. It sounded like a grid of Connect 4 discs spilling onto the tile floor. Imagining the bitter end of an epic battle, I peeked around the corner expecting to see two competitive children. Instead, I saw plastic cups scattered everywhere. Christine, a Bean Traders employee, had dropped the cups while restocking the coffee bar. She rushed toward the counter before any more of the teetering cups in her arms could tumble to the floor.
I and three other customers immediately jumped up. Folks started collecting the cups and neatly stacking them. The whole thing happened so quickly — it felt like seconds.
As we returned the stacks to Christine, she thanked us and then said the most remarkable thing. It was something like, “I knew that when I got back, they would all be cleaned up.”
How did she know this? Has this happened before? Did staff orientation cover the role of patrons in cup cleanup situations? Was this a test? Did we pass?
I think it was much more than this.
I suspect that she knew she would get help because Bean Traders has cultivated a culture of hospitality, care and community for more than two decades. She knew she would get help because here, “This is our place, and it is just what we do.” We meet each other’s needs; we watch each other’s stuff, and we take care of each other. We do this because it’s built into the Bean Traders culture and ethos.
A chat with Dave
As I reflected on this event, I wanted to know more. I reached out to David Chapman, who co-owns Bean Traders with his wife, Christy. He’s the head barista; she’s the lead chef.
Over the years, Dave and I have had many conversations across the espresso machine, and we’ve crossed paths at middle school sporting events as our children competed for rival schools. Ultimately, though, what I knew about Bean Traders culture and history I learned as a loyal customer. So after the spilled-cups incident, I asked Dave a little bit about his view from behind the espresso machine.
We met for coffee one afternoon. (Drip for me; “VIC,” or vanilla iced coffee, for him). I wondered whether there was a secret strategy behind my beloved hangout. However, throughout the conversation, Dave’s answers were simple. They never evolved into high-minded strategy or devolved into business jargon. Dave spoke from the heart.
Dave and Christy met at a Charlotte, North Carolina, coffee shop and were inspired by its owner, Bruce Howell, who became a friend and mentor.
“We loved the busyness of the shop, wanted to do a shop of our own, and we’ve just figured it out along the way,” Dave said. “Christy and I have always treated the shop like our home. We are inviting folks into our kitchen.”
Eventually, we talked about the Great Cup Spill. Dave wasn’t surprised at all by the incident. But he also said he didn’t have much magic to share.
“I work the espresso bar every day from open until about noon. I also hire and train everyone. Christy does the back-end business management and all the baking. We keep the culture by being here, living it, modeling it and sharing it,” he said.
“Coffee is for everyone,” Dave said. “Whether it is simple or decadent. A ritual or a treat. Everyone can enjoy coffee, and they are welcome to make Bean Traders their third place.”
I left the conversation with Dave with the abiding belief that actually there is a secret strategy to the shop’s culture: it comes from how they live and lead every day. Dave and Christy faithfully and authentically show up and surround themselves with others who want to do the same. They set the tone.
Taking coffee to church
Bean Traders has built the kind of culture we all want to be a part of. The staff makes us feel at home and cared for, so in return, when the cups fall, we step in to help.
It reminds me of a quote from Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer: “The culture you have in your organization is the sum of all the wanted behaviors that you celebrate minus all the unwanted behaviors that you tolerate.”
But with that in mind, what do places like Bean Traders have to teach our local churches? What do the behaviors we celebrate and tolerate tell us about the culture that has been cultivated?
Churches appear to want to welcome folks in. Everywhere you look there are vinyl signs strung between metal poles. Flashy ads displaying worship times: “All are welcome, see you at 11.” Not a one puts up a sign saying, “Maybe this place isn’t for you.”
But do we send that message in other ways? Churches say we want to welcome everyone, but do we really? Do our congregational cultures truly lead to behaviors that are as welcoming as third places like Bean Traders?
Our signs, bulletin boards and worship guides inform, but are they truly clear and hospitable? Do they reflect embodied values? Or do they exist for church folks to feel that they have done something, even if it’s the least they could do? When folks are brave enough to walk through the doors of a church, are they treated as well in worship as they are at the coffee shop? Are our leaders showing up, like Christy and Dave, to model and guide our congregational culture?
In our shared church life, with every act, big or small, we set our culture. Far too often, what we see and experience in church reflects a culture for insiders that doesn’t account for (or welcome) outsiders.
If we want to change that, we need to think about every door we open, weed we pull, greeting we offer, sign we refresh, coffee cup we fill, sidewalk we sweep, preschool space we renovate, letter we send — and even every cost-of-living increase we ignore. Each of these acts, large or small, shapes our culture.
If our culture is the sum total of our behaviors — celebrated and tolerated — what is our culture telling us about how we act? Are we OK with the culture we are shaping in our congregational life? Where is there room for improvement?
Unfortunately, in far too many churches, it seems that shaping culture is viewed as someone else’s job. Is it in yours? If so, is it time to make some changes? The answer is up to you. When the cups hit the floor, will anyone rush in to help?
Until the early 2000s, traditional American churches mimicked the communication that congregants saw in their everyday lives. Like businesses and other organizations, churches used a top-down, factory model: leaders dictated communication needs, and workers used technology to produce documents and share them through the community’s delivery system.
Technology has changed that. Since the turn of the current century, new technological options have exploded — both for creation and for distribution. Other institutions have generally adapted to this new shift in communication challenges and needs.
No longer does the audience rely on one channel or platform — newsletter, email, social media, website — to receive information, and no longer does it want that to look a specific and fabricated way. The audience welcomes creativity and individualized messages.
And perhaps most significant, the audience looks for community and enhanced relationships through the delivery platforms. While people have more channels and messages than ever, that does not guarantee deep human connection.
If the church wants to connect with its congregation and community, then congregational leaders must learn modern communication strategies. They must be user-focused, employing a variety of channels, and must be creative, flexible and collaborative.
We should not treat church communication as something that one person handles for the church, nor should we treat it as just about disseminating information.
Ultimately, the goal of communication should be to enable and encourage real-life experiences and relationships. Communication platforms and channels do not exist to replace in-person conversations, but they should point congregants toward these experiences. The desired outcome is always real-life engagement within a communal body of Christ.
Fortunately, congregational leaders understand connection through communication. Every week, they tell stories from the pulpit and in classes and other settings. Even Scripture reminds us of the importance of story: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
However, it is not enough to be a good preacher or group leader or to write a great column these days. A lousy communication system has felled many good ministers.
Despite the ever-changing technology landscape, best practices do exist, and every institution should have a few overall guidelines in place for effective and thoughtful communication. Here are some suggestions for establishing a church communication strategy.
Remember that content is king. This means that your message — the who, what, when, where, why and how — is always more important than the channel or design. And brevity is crucial.
Understand the effect of the congregational leader’s relationship to the audience. When the leader cares for the audience, the audience cares about what the leader has to say. The most effective communication strategy cannot hide a leader’s true feelings; in fact, a failed communication system often highlights disregard, thoughtlessness or lack of engagement.
Use multiple channels. Do not rely on just one outlet; use as many channels as possible, but tailor the message — and its design — to the form that works best for each channel.
One common example of a disconnect between message design and delivery channel is a print newsletter that is emailed as a PDF attachment. A print newsletter is intended to be held and read in your hands; an email is designed to be read on a digital device. Sending a printed piece as an email attachment may be a convenience for the staff, but it’s a hindrance for the audience.
Limit insider language. Often, church communication includes abbreviations, partial information or references to previously mentioned news. All of this, unfortunately, implies that some of the audience is knowledgeable and the rest is out of the loop. It feels exclusive, and instead of encouraging people to become more informed, it turns them away.
Another form of insider language is a focus solely on events. Leaders may neglect to tell the stories, trials, joys and journeys of the faith community because they forget that not everyone has lived those experiences with them. But when churches share only programming, they lose the opportunity to connect, be personable and provide entry points for those who would like to join in.
Develop staff, volunteer and community communication policies. While templates do exist, it is best to create these collaboratively and to include different audience members.
A social media policy, for example, should be designed with staff, lay leader, congregational and community input. An 80-year-old in the congregation cannot alone determine what is acceptable on Snapchat for a 25-year-old youth minister whose audience has particular expectations, norms and rules. However, the wisdom of the elder is useful, and the younger minister could benefit by creating the policy in collaboration with such audience representatives.
This focus on the audience — often described as “user-centered” — is a crucial element to successful communication. The primary way to understand the audience is to solicit feedback.
Feedback could be in the form of surveys, metrics, and analytics provided by digital channels, social media engagement, and informal and formal conversations. The goal of feedback is to learn which channels to use for various communication needs and how the audience accepts them.
Ideally, congregational leadership will talk about communication policy goals in person and online with the congregation and enfold this conversation into elements of community worship. Together, you can determine your particular concerns and focus on how the congregation can be more involved and engaged with one another and the online community.
What permissions and freedoms does the congregation need to give to the ministers? How can you set guidelines and boundaries for yourself and all congregants, including the children? How can you make sure your messaging is accessible to people of different abilities?
Using as many channels as possible, congregational leaders can ask how effective their church communication is, whether people feel informed, and how the church can do better. In this way, they may reach even the “nones” and “dones” of religious faith. The landscape of modern communication allows for even more opportunities for evangelism and relationships if leaders navigate these platforms with open minds.
Seek out examples of successful church communication strategies in your community. Finally, take a moment to look at a successfully communicating church — perhaps the megachurch nearest you. Visit their website, sign up for their e-newsletter, like their Facebook page, get on their mailing list and watch their YouTube videos. Visit their church on a Sunday morning, observing the way they engage visitors.
Most likely, you’ll find that they won’t shout about upcoming events; instead, they will convey a purpose. They won’t advertise services; instead, they will connect relationships. They won’t confuse people with insider language; they will assume that everyone is new and needs help. It will be apparent that their reason for reaching out is not attendance at the latest program but a desire for the audience to feel known.
Study them, not for their worship style, theological perspective or facility arrangements. Instead, learn how they use communication styles in the 21st century to reach and connect with their audience. Any 150-year-old congregation can do the same without changing its worship elements, theology or traditional facilities. It is communication strategy that can make the biggest impact.
Want to learn more?
Background articles
Pew Research Center: “10 Facts About Americans and Facebook”
The New York Times Magazine: “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy”
Marketing Teacher.com: “The Six Living Generations in America”
World Religion News: “You’ve Heard of the Religious ‘Nones’; Here Are the Religious ‘Dones’”
Interaction Design Foundation: “What Are Personas?”
Books
“The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World,” by Max Fisher
“Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” by Roger McNamee
Podcasts
Vox: “Land of the Giants”
Crooked Media: “Offline With Jon Favreau”
Center for Humane Technology: “Your Undivided Attention”
The Verge: “Decoder with Nilay Patel”
Videos
Michael Wesch: “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube”
TED: “Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. Collaboration”
Websites and resources
Ultimately, the goal of communication should be to enable and encourage real-life experiences and relationships.
“Will I have a job in five years?”
“What will happen to this ministry in the long term?”
I hear leaders worrying about long-term viability, uncertain about how to plan for it.
Beyond wringing hands, some are experimenting by launching a new degree, starting a new worship service or selling a new curriculum. Others are begging donors for more financial support to cover expenses or provide scholarships to reduce fees. A few are exploring mergers with like-minded organizations to consolidate costs and expand ministry work.
Viability is tied to the services offered, the income generated and the related expenses carefully managed.
In a startup or turnaround phase, employees are asked to invest long work hours and offer their best creatively. When successful, such efforts generate more income and keep expenses low. This works for a season but is nearly impossible to maintain for the long haul. People wear down and eventually burn out.
At some point, we have to pay attention to the organizational capacities that undergird a ministry — things like the pay and benefits offered to employees; the hours of work expected; the methods of communication to constituents, donors and other stakeholders; the systems that store, manage and access data; and the skills needed by the board and the staff to operate year after year.
We know that such things are important. However, in an extended period of transition and related uncertainty, we often push off strategic decisions in order to accomplish the urgent. The donors, board members and other stakeholders can lose sight of the time and money required to keep the ministry functioning in healthy ways. The employees and volunteers grow so accustomed to working in overdrive that they may not even point out these longer-term needs.
Over and over again, I meet ministry leaders who have sacrificed the time and money necessary to provide for themselves and their families for the sake of launching and maintaining a ministry. They depend on pay and benefits provided by spouses and partners. They take risks with inadequate health care or borrowed housing.
They can make these choices, but should donors turn a blind eye to such sacrifices? Do those of us who have influence over resources question the decisions and their consequences for the people involved? Do we recognize the problems inherent in unsustainably low salaries and expenses?
Practically speaking, higher expenses require more revenue. Increasing revenue has consequences. For many ministries, the main sources of revenue, and the consequences of dependency on them, include the following:
- Fees paid by those served. Fee-based ministry serves those who have money and are willing to spend it. Even modest fees can exclude some groups from the services offered.
- Sponsor fees paid by those who have money in order to provide a service for those who don’t. Sponsors often determine whom the ministry serves. Sponsors also often have stipulations about how the work is done.
- Contributions from supporters of the ministry. Those who contribute again and again want to know the impact the ministry is making and how their donations are spent. Developing the initial connection that leads to recurring gifts requires a deep commitment on both sides. Ongoing fundraising often becomes a substantial part of the ministry’s work.
- Grants, usually one-time gifts for specific projects. Grants typically require reports to the grantors and are seldom renewed more than one time; the general expectation is that grants are a way to fund startup costs or launch experiments. With some notable exceptions, like government grants, ongoing grant funding is unlikely.
Occasionally, a ministry will have assets like property or endowments that can generate revenue. Such assets often take years to acquire as well as skills to manage.
The wisdom from 20th-century nonprofit work was that if 20% of an organization’s income comes from a single external source — a person or organization — then the organization is dependent on staying in alignment with that source’s expectations. Perhaps the percentage is different for your organization, but if the loss of a single source of income would require you to make significant strategic changes, then your organization is dependent. The governance structure might indicate independence, but the financial statement does not. For the sake of clear expectations, the board, staff and volunteers need to know the influence of any single funder on the ministry.
Another factor related to viability (and connected to revenue) is often labeled scale. What quantity of services can we provide that are both affordable and of good quality? This might be the number of congregations a consultant can serve or the number of people in a learning experience. Congregations have to discern the number of staff that can be adequately paid and what those staff members can accomplish. The questions about scale are specific to each organization, but the concern is across the board.
Our recent experiences with quarantines have changed the scale questions in so many different industries. For example, who knows now how much office space a business needs? Each business answers that question differently. Airlines are now cutting and adding flights continually to adjust to changing passenger needs while doing their best to fill up every flight. Congregations can no longer rely on counting the average in-person worship attendance as an indicator of staffing and services.
While capacities, revenue and expenses, and the scale of services are the most obvious questions to explore, the only way to get clear about long-term viability is to get clear about your organization’s mission and vision, along with your part in that mission.
In our work, we often use five questions based on the ideas of business theorist Roger Martin and former Proctor & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley to develop a strategy. These questions function as a cascade, the answer to each in turn providing structure for the one that follows.
- Why? What is the deepest aspiration?
- Where and with whom are we serving/transforming?
- How will we serve? What activities are needed?
- What capacities do we need to do “it”?
- What management systems are required to ensure that the capacities are in place?
If your organization gets stuck on any of the questions, back up and review the responses to the earlier questions. What has changed? How should that change affect answers to the other questions?
Too often, ministries stop after answering the third question. But when we focus on the long term, we also have to address questions four and five, which take us back to capacities. If boards and donors don’t encourage and support ministries in addressing these questions, then the employees have to answer them out of their own resources. That leads to exhaustion. Insisting that these questions be addressed is a great gift that donors and other stakeholders can provide.
Questions about capacities, revenue and scale are difficult, but those who care about our ministries must do our part to raise them with a view to the organization’s mission and vision. Long-term viability is important to all of us.