The Congregational Consulting Group, organized in 2014 by former consultants of the Alban Institute, is a network of independent consultants. We publish PERSPECTIVES — weekly thoughts on topics of interest to leaders of congregations and other purpose-driven organizations. — Dan Hotchkiss, editor.
Buildings are reopening and in-person engagement is slowly coming back. As leaders look to the future, many wonder how to build consensus about the next chapter. Over the past several weeks, my phone has been ringing off the hook with clients looking for help with planning. It’s not surprising. Planning has traditionally been our go to approach for getting people motivated to move together from point A to point B.
But getting everyone to agree on a direction should not be your objective now.
The coronavirus is horrifying, and sometimes it feels that congregations are not doing their best to meet the challenge. But there are signs that God is at work, helping us to learn and to transform ourselves.
Most ministers, me included, probably discovered early in our careers that we don’t have the full set of skills essential to congregational leadership, skills that include not only preaching and pastoral care but also congregational governance, employee supervision and evaluation, fundraising, change management, long-range planning, marketing/brand development, and budgeting. When this is true, where do we go? What can we do to gain the skills we need?