Church leaders and the Ask Culture
I am clearly building on the foundations of others here. Firstly there is Andrea Donderi whose web post has seems to have generated a few ripples through the blogsphere. This in turn has been picked up by Oliver Burkeman writing in the Guardian, which has in turn been picked up by a few others including now me. The original web post, which you can read by following the link above, lays out two types of people: Askers and Guessers…
In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.
In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.
The post goes on to explore a few of the issues that arise when Guessers and Askers live, work and play together. Whilst these observations are interesting, what struck me was how these two cultures work in the life of a congregation.
The observation in many congregations is that 80%+ of the work is done by >10% of the people. This kind of observation is often true for the finance of the church too, where around 20% of a congregation give 80% of the money. Perhaps ecclesiastical life is being lead by Guessers who only ask the Guessers who can’t say ‘No’. Leaders of congregations can find themselves spending time working out who to ask to do something or give something based on what they know of the person and how likely they are to say “Yes”, which often turns out largely due to the fact that they can’t say “No”. Quite unconsciously, the leader can be perpetuating the congregations dependence on a few Guessers who can’t say “No”. They can’t say “No” because they discern correctly that the leader has asked them because they are likely to say “Yes” and so perpetuate their own position of shoring up the congregation with their effort and availability.
Perhaps it is time for the leader to try on the skills of being an Asker. An Asker spend time thinking about the question. How to ask in a clear and straight forward way, being able to outline the cost of saying “Yes” and the support and training that will be on offer in order for the “Yes” to become attainable and sustainable. They will also need to be able to paint a picture of what life will be like, both for the person being asked and the congregation as a whole, if they say “Yes”. Such Asking leaders will need a think skin, because the will be some “No”s. They will also need to be prepared to be surprised, because there will be a bunch of “Yes”s that they will not have found without asking.
As I reflect on my time in church leadership with this question in mind, it strikes me that most of the times of growth were when I was being predominately an Asker.
I have just spent some time with a new friend Keith Chapel, a fellow post-grad with whom I share a supervisor: Martyn Percy. He tells me that the Portsmouth Diocese of the Catholic Church here in England are currently raising £9M. They have brought in an American fund raising group that have been training and equipping parish priests to ask, yes directly and clearly, all their congregation for extra giving. This is having a remarkable effect, both financially and pastorally. Financially, people are rising to the challenging and pledging more monthly giving. Pastorally, parishioners are taking the open and clear conversation, created by the priest asking clearly and openly for more cash, to ask their own open and clear questions about all kinds of things that would normally not be aired.