We’ve got to stop meeting like this…..
The church has a LOT of meetings but do we stop to really consider whether our default assumption that meeting is the way to go is the right one? There is a case for the opposition …. Meetings can be a huge use of resource when you add up the hours burned, they can convey relatively little information per minute and even less creative synergy unless carefully crafted, easily go off-track, regularly involve such unwieldy agendas that the suspicion is no-one has done the prep necessary to hit the ground running, generate further meetings easily, provide forums for axe-grinding repetition and unenlightening cameo performances, and so on and so depressingly on.
What’s the answer? Dunno. But a plea to at least consider whether we can’t have as our default question “must we meet to crank through a long agenda or is there a more effective way of doing what we want to do?” Think about it in terms of creativity, where were the most creative ideas hatched that YOU were involved in? I bet they were 1-1 or at least small group discussions, if not on-the-job light bulbs going on as surprising connections were made, and most interestingly, often we can’t even trace where the creative stuff was really founded. Seems to me we’ve got to make space for this and it’s easily pushed out by a knee-jerk planning of meetings rooted in part in a lack of imagination, boldness and fear, fear of not keeping everyone in the loop all the time, fear of going out on a limb, fear of doing it differently, fear of what will be said in other meetings….
Of course there are good reasons for meeting sometimes, and I’ve been in some great ones, well put-together, participatory, thought through and generative, vivifying. Which brings me to a whole other question relating to the culture we generate through our meetings. Presumably as Christians who identify our dependence on God and seek to live out of that dependence there should be a focus throughout on discernment and worship. That needs careful handling so that for example individuals don’t use statements like “I feel it’s my vocation” or “this is what God is calling us to” as trump cards to foreclose rather than open conversation. But surely there’s something important about practices such as corporate discernment, a mindfulness bell now and then, 5 mins of breathing meditation on God’s abundance and our inability to cope with it, scripture not used at the beginning, put to one side and brought in again at the end but carefully considered verses offered which are shot through the discussion, by one and all, corporate silence at crunchy moments to reflect rather than simply to re-load(!), laughter as an innoculation against the drift to taking our Pelagian tendencies too seriously etc etc. Meeting which reinforces our identity as children of God upon whom we depend and in relationship with whom we are energised, directed and sent.
Thoughts as ever very welcome….









I'm Mike, welcome to a place of rumination and reflection on the Christian way, lots of trial and plenty of error, but nothing ventured.....