The power of "Do you think..." in keeping people from leaving your discussion group

When considering our faith, that unrealized hope within us, discussion groups can be a pretty cool venue for growth.

We're talking a small (12ish),  consistent (the same people every time) group of people that we can meet with regularly and get to know, appreciate, respect, and eventually love because of (or more likely in spite of) their ideas and beliefs which may even clash with our own.

A group like this sticks to questions like "Do you think..." (and understands the answer can be "no" and is OK with that).

Instead of "Don't you think..."

Or even the lethal "Don't you think people..."

A group that can speak about personal experiences and beliefs without its members attempting to make those personal ideas normative for everyone else has  a chance of doing some thing.

Do you think we get bogged down by trying to get others to somehow come around to the fact that our ideas and beliefs are really the right ones?

I have found (also good language (I think) for creating a healthy discussion atmosphere) that when we share about our personal experiences and say things like "For me..." less people leave in a huff and talk about never coming back to "that group at the church".

I'm not sure why, in my experience,  having a group that:
     shares about personal experiences
     and how those experiences shape each member's individual faith
     and seeing how those individual faiths might shape the community's faith
is so difficult and scarce.

 After all, I think:

"Don't you think.." is really code for "Shouldn't you think..."

And (unless you know the person you are speaking to pretty well) "Don't you think people..." is really code for I'm not going to do the work of getting to know you and there will be some people who are not going to like this and probably drop out of this group.

Don't you think?

How fine is the line between commodification and community?

When you work for a big ole church or organization with lots of resources, all of a sudden you have great tools to make engagement and connection so efficient and frictionless.

You come to realize that people can be involved in your cause without spending much time or trouble at it.

You start to feeling like McDonald's kind of.

You work extra hard to have signage, sign ups, and customer service.

And then you realize no matter how good at that you can be, you're never as good as a memory or somebody else who is actually is good at it.

You also realize that the real problem is that your members or your supporters or your tribe is trying to spend as little time with your organization as possible.  Because that's how you are going about it.

You become commodified.

There is only so much time and energy in a day, so you have to figure out how to spend it wisely.

How do you create space for people to spend not less time with you, but more time with you?

And attention?

Who are the people who really enjoy the experiences you are having with them in service to your mission?

What if we spent more time with them and less time worried about making the purpose less painful?

What's holding us back isn't a lack of time and attention.

I'm convinced it's some sort of fear that once we got to that point, the people we invited in would be disappointed.

We gotta stop that.

If you focus on the top of the funnel, you might be digging a hole

The Funnel Isn't Just a Cake You Get at the Fair

In sales and marketing circles, there is such thing as a funnel.

You know what the funnel is without having to follow the link.

We see the funnel when a ministry team member (the narrow end of bottom of the funnel) says: We obviously need to get more people involved or we have to get the word out there or hey the announcement wasn't in the bulletin.  These are ideas directed at the top of the funnel.

The top of the funnel is Attention.  This is the advertising end of the funnel.

In between is Interest.  This for us would be the Constant Contact clicks or the phone calls or emails we receive from the "for more information, contact ________________" part of the attention piece.

Then the next step is Desire.  This is when the person signs up or joins, or makes an appointment to pitch the fundraiser or collection drive.

And then there is Action.  This would be when the person buys something in the business funnel, so for us maybe this could be when they show up at the event or when they take on the chair position or in some way "own" the ministry.

So:

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

 This is a top down approach like pouring into a funnel.

The Flip Might Not Be Dead After All

There's been talk of flipping the funnel.

So what we would do is spend a much greater amount of time on the action.  We would focus on the ones in the leadership, active ministry phase.  We would have the 20% percent who do the 80% over for dinner to our house.  We would meet with them for no good reason.  Have coffee.  Send them handwritten notes.  Make sure the bulletin articles got in the bulletin for their sake.  To keep them engaged without regard to the attention thing.  And then these action groups would create desire in the interested and out of that would come lots of attention.
                                                                                    

This is a inside out approach like amplifying your voice through a flipped funnel (which would kind of be a megaphone).

We mostly go top down funnel instead of inside out megaphone.

This is the church.  Our stuff is important.  Come to it.

Rather than, Hey watcha doing?

Why is that?

What Does Oscar Wilde Know About Ministry?

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde.

There is only one thing worse than not getting anyone involved to the depths of your ministry:
Getting someone involved in the depths of your ministry.

We are afraid of what they will find out.

That really I don't know the answers or I'm really not that interesting or people don't really want to change.

It reminded me recently as I spoke about it of a guy who was given something important that he was to take good care of and that others were multiplying.

And he just dug a hole and buried it.

Not because the guy who gave it to him was a hard man or that he was afraid of losing it and being punished.

He dug a hole and buried it because spending so much time trying to get people who weren't interested in it kept the people who were living it from changing who he already was.

A live faith moves under its own power

Studies have revealed that children identify something as alive by whether or not it can move on its own.

Children think clouds are alive until it is explained to them that the wind, not the cloud, is moving the cloud.

A car is alive until the child realizes there is such thing as a combustion engine that makes the car move and that a person steers and controls the car.

At some point any child realizes her faith is alive.

And then the world and classmates and family members and teachers and philosophers and preachers and small group leaders and missionaries and the child herself might begin to speak about all the things that actually move the faith.

Church can be the place where people come to fully realize their faith as alive.

Or it can be the place that convinces people that in actuality their faith is simply an inanimate object moved around by religion, selfishness, complacency, and certainty.

When asked if an alive turtle would be just as much alive if it was a robot instead of a turtle, a youngster replies:

"It would be alive enough."

I wonder how often that child goes to our church.

What the Who's Were Thinking After The Grinch Stole Christmas

When the Who's joined hands and sang together after realizing there wasn't any stuff for Christmas, it reminded me of the importance of understanding the mission- why you are doing whatever.

I get so worried about people coming and doing, I forget the importance of the people who decide not to come and not to do.

Something profound happens when someone makes up her mind not to participate.

It frees her up do to something else that she may come to realize was or was not more important.

If someone decides not to go on the mission trip because of a change of location, it reminds the ones who go why they are going on a mission trip and that it isn't about where you go.

If someone decides not to come back to the group because it makes him uncomfortable to talk with people who believe different things, it causes the ones who come to take another look at their faith.

When we make a circle and hold hands, the reason we will be singing is for the opportunities we share to provide decision making opportunities.  Lots of people think we only sing when people and preferably lots of people come to stuff.

If you had a thing that was really important, would you give it to your ministry team?

Objectively:

If you had a really important message to share, an idea to promote, or a story to spread, would you give it to your ministry team?

There are other options you know.

You could get the important politician that your uncle knows to talk about it and write some letters.

You could start up a non-profit and put people on the board who could really get things done.

The clout of the head guy at the church is important.
If you could win her over to make an announcement and hold up your thing and talk about it, that would really get things going.  And of course, the piece de resistance: talking about it in the sermon. (Poignant.)

You could do a whole social media thing and get some viral buzz with You Tube uploads, facebook groups and pages, and take a look at google ad pages.

But asking a ministry team to take it on.

Even your ministry team?

It would be slow and maybe nobody would really get it and maybe it wouldn't even fit into the plan.

So unless it was just a nice little idea and not that important to you, neither one of us would give it to your ministry team.

Unless ministry was important to you.

So your ministry leader thinks he's a chicken: How badly do you need the eggs?

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office and says his brother has gone crazy.

"He thinks he is a chicken," the man tells the psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist asks the man if he has told his brother that he is not a chicken.

"I would," replies the man, "but we need the eggs."

There is a chance that you colleague, ministry lay leader, program participant, and even your self is, well, crazy.

Deluded.

Personality disordered.

Misguided theologically.

Selfish.

Passive agressive.

And so now what?

Can you really have that honest conversation and get everything out there on the table and find a place of wholeness and healing?

How badly do you need the eggs.

In any given situation, that is a determination you have to make.

And only you can make it.

You can get lots of input and feed back and suggestions.

But if the hours upon hours of devoted time put in working on planning the event (even though it's completely for reasons contradictory to why you are involved) are necessary to the success of the ministry, are you going to call a chicken a chicken?

What do you think you are?