Forging new paths
Part 3 of a multi-part series on making constraints beautiful.
“That’s the way we’ve always done it.” It’s a sentiment that pastors hear often, and one we can fall into ourselves. It’s also a signal that we as a congregation have moved from utilizing helpful habits - routines that save us from having to decide over and over how to do things - into path dependence. That dependence can then keep us in a victim mindset when we’re feeling the pinch of limitations such as less money or fewer volunteers. Our biological impulse toward survival might activate if the constraint feels big enough to be an existential threat, and as a result we’re locked out of any creative problem-solving, which (ironically) can augment the sense of threat rather than lessening it.
Adam Morgan and Mark Barden, the authors of A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It's Everyone's Business, define path dependence as “self-reinforcing processes and the cognitive rigidities that come with them” (p. 36). In other words, we become overly identified with how we do things rather than the overall vision toward which we do them. In my most recent post on constraints, though, I noted that Morgan and Barden see this mindset as a stage to move through, not a forever-fixed approach. Here’s how they suggest we move past it:
Recognize that our thinking is closed. Signals are such phrases as, “We’ve always done it this way” (as mentioned above) or “We can’t because…” So, for example, we’ve always had a youth group. We can’t do youth ministry a different way because no families with youth will come to a church without a youth group.
Examine the reasons for our path dependence. Our methods served us well at one time, or else we wouldn’t have put them in place. What were the circumstances for establishing this path? What beliefs or assumptions were we operating under, and are these still useful to us? With the youth ministry example, maybe we started a youth group because there were so many teenagers in our church that they needed dedicated attention and staff. Most churches were establishing youth groups at that time. We assumed that this was the best way to minister to youth (and possibly also to keep them out of the adults’ hair). Whether or not that was true then, do we still believe a separate youth ministry is the best way to form disciples?
Break The Path into smaller parts. There are aspects of how we do things that probably still work really well. Great! There are parts that could be re-thought, likely related to beliefs and assumptions that no longer apply. Here’s where we can focus some creative energy. Youth ministry, to continue the illustration, is not just one thing. It is spiritual formation, community-building, pastoral care, and more. So youth might need some teen-only time for strengthening relationships with peers, but maybe spiritual formation is best done intergenerationally and pastoral care could be done by lay adults with a heart for young people.
Ask a propelling question. Morgan and Barden define this kind of question as one that holds together an audacious vision and a deeply-felt constraint. Propelling questions cannot be answered by doing things we ways we’ve done them before. They nudge us toward the future, not the past. How do we serve well the youth of our church and our larger community, invite them into the fullness of congregational life, and do so without a youth group or a youth minister?
Respond to the propelling question with “can-ifs.” The foil to “We can’t because…” is “We can if…” The field of psychology tells us that negative emotions limit our access to creativity and resources while positive ones broaden our ability to see all the possibilities. “Can-ifs,” then, are both optimism put to work and, more importantly, indicators of our openness to what the Holy Spirit might do in our midst. This “can-if” approach is so key that I will spend more time on it in the next article using the youth ministry example.
This article is part 3 in a multi-part series. Read part 1 here. Read part 2 here.