For the past several years I have been part of a handful of different church ministries. What I’m about to discuss here, however, reaches beyond ministerial leadership and into any type of endeavor.
I’ve been reflecting on James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations. The subtitle says it all. Surowiecki has provided a helpful book along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference or Levitt and Dubner’s Freakanomics. Wisdom of Crowds is a smart book that makes us think about group dynamics, leadership, and the sheer complexity of the world in which we live. It is a book about an idea–the idea that all of us are smarter than one of us. You might say, “duh.”
If you accept the maxim that all of us are smarter than one of us, the question immediately becomes this, “how is one able to tap the collective wisdom present within diverse groups of people?” Such a task is difficult, as anyone in leadership can attest that collaborative efforts commonly produce only the sum of their parts–and seemingly nothing more. Some of us may be able to recount a time or two when a group we were part of did seem to generate more than perhaps was thought possible. The wisdom of the crowd was tapped, and the collective decision which resulted was better than what one person–or even a small group of persons–at the top of the hierarchy could have discerned.
One aspect of Surowiecki’s discussion that I found interesting was the importance of diversity in groups for making sound decisions. When a group becomes homogeneous, “they are great at doing what they do well, but they become less able to investigate alternatives.” It is possible to assemble a “dream team” that excels in one way of operating, leading, or generating certain types of concepts or ideas. Once that group reaches the peak of excellence in leadership, they move on to perfecting their particular way of doing things. The world may be changing around them, but the group becomes insulated and too homogeneous, thus leaving them unaware of adaptations that should be made.
Perhaps I’m being too vague. As far as this relates to church leadership, I think of large, booming churches that have committed themselves to excellence. Once such churches reach the pinnacle of perfecting their method, they constantly face the challenge of innovation. Someone within the organization must constantly be pushing the creative envelope, encouraging those on the leadership team to expand their thinking, remain sensitive to the people who are part of their communities, and adapt and change in order to best communicate the gospel. This isn’t easy. Once you perfect a form of church or a style of leadership, both the elders/pastors/leadership team and the congregation can become comfortable with that style. The decision to remain static will ultimately lead to decline, as the world outside of the homogeneous group continues to change. As was the case with the American car industry in the 1970s and 80s, who “manag[ed] its way into economic decline,” it is possible for church communities to maintain and manage their organizations into decline and even death.
One way to avoid this, I would argue, would be in agreement with Surowiecki’s claim that “Bringing new members into the organization, even if they’re less experienced and less capable, actually makes the group smarter simply because what little the new members do know is not redundant with what everyone else knows”(31). You must be careful in who you include on your team, however, as “cognitive diversity does not mean that if you assemble a group of diverse but thoroughly uniformed people, their collective wisdom will be smarter than the expert’s.” He goes on to say that “if you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you’re better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are.”
I admit, most of this is fairly common sense. In my experience, however, I have seen churches commonly rely on the expert–most of the time this is the Sr. Pastor or a small group of paid pastoral leaders. These people may be able to make good decisions on a fairly consistent basis. As church organizations become increasingly hierarchical, however, much of the congregation becomes passive and distant from the way in which decisions are discerned. Direction is entrusted into the hands of the few, rather than through created spaces within the life of the church where the Holy Spirit can be actively guiding the totality of the body. In large church communities, how many stories have you heard of “bottom up” movements of the Spirit, where a movement among a layperson or a group of lay persons eventually permeates the life of the church? I would love to hear those stories. Most examples I see of spiritual leadership are done in a top down fashion–the pastor or a small group of leaders spell out a vision, and hope that the people as a whole come on board.
The bottom line in my argument is this: how do we tap the wisdom of the crowd within a church community? How do church leadership bodies maintain diversity within their structure, allowing for people who represent differing viewpoints and perspectives to have a meaningful voice in discerning direction? One answer to this question, surely, is to continue to emphasize evangelism. If new Christ-followers come into the fellowship of believers, the church should pause long enough to hear their perspectives and be attentive to how this person sees the world. How might the perspective of new Christ-followers help us to more effectively minister and communicate the gospel to the world?
There are no easy answers. I would hope that church leaders would reflect carefully on the cognitive diversity which has been gathered in their decision making bodies. Would you say that diverse viewpoints are represented? Is the congregation able to discern, as a whole, the direction of the church, or is it in the hands of the experts? Are we tapping the resources of the entire body, among whom each member has been gifted with the Spirit of God?
Perhaps I see the church as far more organic than our Western, specifically American, lenses regarding the way that organizations should be structured will allow. When I read the New Testament, however, I see a group of people who are sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and have a simplistic enough structure to allow for collective wisdom to be shared and acted upon. There are clearly leaders within the Jesus movement, but all involved seem to be actively engaged in mission, not maintenance. The group seems to become increasingly diversified, and because of this fact it is radically engaging new understandings of reality. The life of discipleship I read about in the New Testament seems to be vibrant, alive, and on the move. It is my hope that the church communities of today would exhibit this same type of life.
What do you think?
Grace and peace.
Thanks, Ben. This sounds like an interesting book, and I appreciate your summary and your thoughts on it. This touches on many things that I have been thinking about recently. While it likely fits an American perspective better, there are many points that touch the British perspective, too. There were many places I wanted to shout out, ‘Yes!’ So, here are some thoughts (from a slightly British perspective):
1) Many churches in Britain have become, more or less, the homogenous groups you described. The age profile for the UK has as it’s largest population those in their 30s and 40s. For the British Methodist Church, we in our 60s, 70s, and 80s. That is an outrageous discrepancy. We have become insulated, and are increasingly so.
2) The insulation creates a sense of ‘We must protect what is familiar’. Mention organ and pews to many here and you can feel the tension rise and the wagons circled. While this frustrates me to no end, I understand it. The world ‘outside’ the church is changing rapidly. ‘Inside’ the church is what we know. Why change it if those who come enjoy it and it feeds them in their remaining years? These sentiments paradoxically run parallel to the community wondering why more people don’t come and if the odd new person did show up, we don’t know how to react and let them in the community (even more so if they are part of the population who aren’t like us).
3) Part of this comes down to a generation thing. Many older people are used to the minister coming in and telling them what to do (because usually it went along with their understanding of what church was anyway) and they did it. An Anglican colleague of mine (also in his 30s) and I often get frustrated with the structured format to Churches Together where there ‘needs’ to be a chair, a vice chair, etc., when he and I want to work more on a conversational way. The same works at a church level with the stewards (lay leaders) have been used to the ‘maintenance’ side of church business and not used to looking ahead visionally.
4) All that makes it hard to ‘tap the common wisdom’, or at least move beyond the common wisdom that says, ‘but we’ve always done it that way’. I can’t speak for the congregation of 10 people, all women and the ‘youngest’ is in her late 60s, but in churches there are some younger people who have not had the chance to think differently. Coming along side them, and while not necessarily giving a vision whole sale, but talking about how things could be different. Perhaps they have just got so used to the way things have been they couldn’t imagine working outside them. This is a different model of ministry than one that was modelled in the in the US for me, where the minister kept a ‘professional distance’ (a term I now hate!) with church members. Admittedly, this does mean blurring the boundaries a little, as I have been a part of a House Group who get more of my time than many and with whom I openly talk a little more (it’s a balancing act, but one I think worth it).
5) Despite what I have read in Will Willimon saying about believing in resurrection and dying churches, I believe there is honour in dying well. When churches finally close it does not mean they did not have enough faith in the resurrection and it is not a statement on the life of that church. They may see resurrection in how they released resources for another by sacrificing. That has no easy answers, either, though.
6) Patience. My superintendent constantly tells me I want to see the kingdom NOW. She’s right in some ways – while not expecting the kingdom, I want to see something move! Yet, we may not see the results until long after we have left.
Sorry about the long comment, and if I chased rabbits from what you originally said!
Will:
I think you hit a point I could touch on in another blog post: imagination. I find it fascinating that if you ask a church group, “what are your dreams?” that can be a real challenge. This is a question we must ask, however. Asking people, “what kind of impact do you want this community to make on this city/town/county in the name of Jesus Christ” can get the wheels turning for folks. This is a way of involving others and bringing them into the active nature of discipleship.
Thanks for the comment and the insights you’ve provided!
BAS
This is an interesting topic. Working in a place with a large number of staff I think that you are right on with the characterization of large churches and how leadership happens. I struggle with how it might be different…
Einstein remarked, “”We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” It is hard to imagine a different way of organizing oneself as an entity. I do think there are ways, however, in which you can create spaces for coorporate discernment. This requires work, imagination, and encouragement.
People like to outsource thinking about hard problems to a collective of experts, if possible. This results in passivity. I want to see churches were people are actively engaged in discipleship and discernment. It won’t happen if vision for this type of engagement isn’t cast.