by Ian Evison

Formerly the Research Director at the Alban Institute, and a founder of the Congregational Resource Guide, Ian Evison now serves as the Congregational Services Director at the Central Midwest District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This article draws upon Dr. Evison's years of experience in identifying, reviewing, and developing resources for leaders in many denominations.

Resourcing is hot. Stated a little more sedately, resourcing has come into focus as a central role for those who serve congregations, including national denominations and most especially middle judicatories. I first noticed this trend during the Alban Institute's Leadership Institute for Bishops and Executives. A large portion of attendees stated that their main function was to "resource" congregations. They were reluctant to describe themselves as "overseeing," "directing," "supervising," or "managing" either congregations or their leaders, but something about the word "resourcing" fit—in spite of its linguistic clumsiness.

I witnessed another sign of this same trend at a conference of resource center directors. After worship one night, I was explaining to a group my idea that resourcing was taking—metaphorically—a more central place in judicatories. One of the resource center directors interjected that for this reason her resource center had been placed literally and physically at the center of their new judicatory office. During a strategic planning session, the judicatory had also noted this metaphorical trend toward resourcing, which then led the resource center director to suggest, "Why not place the resource center literally in the center of the office?"

There are a number of reasons that resourcing has become, at least metaphorically, more central. Four of these reasons are power, money, a generational shift, and a shift in strategy.

Power

Twenty-five years ago denominations and ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches had a more dominant role, sometimes even obscuring the role of the congregation. For example, in that era Gibson Winter wrote an influential book, The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, whose title alone captures a sentiment widely felt at the time. Indeed, Loren Mead observes that the Alban Institute was founded, in part, as a response to his feeling that few people were paying attention to congregations.

In the intervening years there has been a shift. Congregations—especially large ones—have grown in power. A dean of a denominational seminary recently told me that it is often easier for one suburban church to raise a million and a half dollars for a building campaign than it is for an entire synod to raise the same amount of money to endow a new professorship. Very recently the role of congregations got an additional boost as congregations became a focal point in the discussion of Charitable Choice.

The trend toward using the term "resourcing" reflects this rise in the status and power of congregations. The resourcing trend marks a historical shift in primary focus from congregations seeing themselves as representing the denomination locally to seeing themselves as served by the denomination. The rising importance of resourcing indicates that denominations have reframed their identity and purpose to serve congregations.

Money

Denominations, especially Protestant mainline denominations, have less money than they once did. Additionally, the cost of mounting programs and producing resources—such as books and curricula—has risen. Even relatively affluent resource-producing organizations of large denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, cannot afford to provide the full—and increasing—range of resources needed and demanded by congregations. Thus, the second reason for the rise in the use of the term "resourcing" is that it points to the possibility that denominations (and especially middle judicatories) can broker, recommend, and teach congregations to use resources—even when they cannot afford to produce or buy those resources.

Generational Shift

William Strauss, Neil Howe, and other researchers have described the huge impact of the cultural shift from the WW II generation to the Baby Boomers. People in the WW II generation tended to be loyalists: They wanted to know what was required of them and, with incredible reliability, they did it. Boomers are shoppers: They will pay for what they get, but they want to consider their options and choose for themselves—based on expert advice and their understanding of their own needs. In congregations, the shift in leadership from the WW II generation to the Baby Boomers is reflected in a shift away from a willingness to buy "Methodist" because one is Methodist toward a marked suspicion that the house brand might not be quite as good. Barbara Wheeler observes that this shift has had a terrible effect on denominational publishing houses. People like the idea of denominational publishing houses but are frequently unsure they want to buy from them. Doubtless we will see further changes when more Gen X leaders emerge—bringing a shift, perhaps, from a preference for the power of expertise and consumer choice to the power of networking.

Strategy of Change

A final reason propelling the trend toward resourcing is greater thoughtfulness about strategies for change. People now realize more fully that one size does not fit all. Congregations come in a wide variety—big, small, rural, urban, African-American, Asian, young, old, conservative, liberal—and each has different needs. Resources need to be chosen in light of each situation. Moreover, congregations understand more fully that choosing between different resources increases their thoughtfulness about the challenges they face. This process of thoughtful choice helps them claim ownership of the work they are doing and how they have chosen to approach it. Increasing savvy about such dynamics is a fourth reason driving the trend toward resourcing.

Implications for Those Who Resource

The increasing prominence of resourcing is a vote of support for people like resource center directors, who have long seen this as their work. Yet it is far from clear how resource center directors, and others who resource, might best catch the fresh wind of the spirit that is blowing in this work and animating the trend toward resourcing. During a meeting in which one resource center director excitedly suggested placing the resource center literally in the center of the synod office, another woman commented that her judicatory once had a similar inspiration. It built on this plan, only to be confronted with the obvious lesson that the common room in the middle of a group of offices is not a good place for visitors to sit in peace and examine resources. The ways to build most creatively and faithfully on the trend toward resourcing probably are not literal and are likely to be unexpected and even paradoxical.

How might those who resource best ride the wave of the increasing interest in resourcing? To this practical question, the Congregational Resource Guide team provides some limited perspective—a perspective that includes what we have learned from others who resource. With apologies to David Letterman and Moses, and an invitation to others to contribute their thoughts, we offer 10 maxims that have helped us ride the wave. These maxims can be framed as additional trends that are reshaping the work of those who resource:

1. New needs of congregations emerge and change quickly. Keep listening to what congregations say they want, and then listen some more. Sanity requires those doing resourcing to develop durable ideas of what congregations and their leaders want, but these ideas must be open to constant correction—even when limits of time and money make it impossible to respond to every changing interest.



2. Budgets are tighter. Accept it: tight budgets are likely to be a long-term trend. Some years will be better than others. We all will be ever hopeful for better possibilities in next year's budget, but we should ask the question: What different ways might we approach our work if we assume that present trends will continue? It can be liberating to get off the budgetary roller coaster of hope and disappointment and to start making plans for achieving mission that are less dependent on the hope that tight budgets are only a temporary concern. Our consultants have observed that it can be easier to handle a 30 percent budget cut than a 10 percent cut because the temptation to do the same things by working harder is removed.



3. The shelf life of resources is shortening. Figure out ways to creatively ride the trend toward an ever-shorter shelf life of resources. Many resource centers were founded primarily for loaning relatively high-cost resources that had a relatively long shelf life, such as curricula and videos. Today resources tend to stay current for a shorter length of time and users tend to want the latest thing. Older (but still great) resources are not used.



4. Technology is changing and changing again. Figure out ways to build positively on the rising importance of technology and the quick pace of technological change. Those who have been working in resource centers during the last decade are now using technology that ten years ago seemed unimaginable. Formats for resources become obsolete with distressing speed. While an eight-millimeter Bell and Howell movie projector sits unused in a corner somewhere (they were good machines!), we have moved to videos and DVDs. At the same time, great new possibilities emerge, like the resource center directors' online chat group.



5. One-size-fits-all is out. We need to adapt the resources we recommend to the unique characteristics and needs of individual congregations. Once, perhaps, we tailored our recommendations to the average congregation, with some peripheral attention to special needs and special cases. Now we need to make recommendations in light of the huge variety in the sizes of congregations and the situations in which they find themselves.



6. The world of resource suppliers is ever expanding and shifting. Scan widely for resources. There was a time when someone doing resourcing could keep track of new resources by regularly perusing a small group of catalogues—a couple from the relevant denominational publishing houses and a few others. Now the number of suppliers has exploded and is constantly changing. Resource centers must keep track of materials from dozens of suppliers and develop excellent networks of colleagues and congregational leaders as an "early warning system" to learn of the new things people are using and the new sources that are emerging.



7. Users are losing patience. People who resource must find positive ways to adapt to the demand for instant access. Imploring people to be patient is not sufficient. People want something at noon for a meeting at 6:00 p.m. We had a focus group in which people told us that they wanted stuff to be accessible. What's accessible? One fellow said that, to him, it means that if he clicks his computer mouse enough times, the resource will emerge from his printer. Adapting creatively to this sort of expectation is a great challenge for resource centers that were organized on a fairly sedate model of loans, returns, and waiting lists.



8. Forms of cooperation are multiplying. Resource center directors have been pioneers in cooperation for churches and synagogues. They helped build the links upon which larger organizational bridges were later constructed, such as those that were recently created between Lutherans and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Episcopalians. Those who resource need to become even better at cooperation and at inventing new ways to cooperate.



9. Roles are shifting. Those who resource need to keep in view both what their jobs are and how their jobs need to evolve. Judicatory executives are increasingly defining themselves as "resourcers in chief." Does this supplement or supplant the role of the resource center director? In the long run this development will probably accelerate an evolution that was already underway. The focus of a resourcer's role has moved from librarian to teacher. From there it will probably move toward networking (with a challenging detour into the role of computer technician!). These evolutions are likely to continue, and those who resource need to keep these shifts in view while refining their current ways of working.



10. Those who resource are becoming teachers. This point bears emphasizing. Those who resource need to have the courage to teach. They are asked many times a day what the best resource is on a subject. In a way, this is the wrong question. What a congregation gets out of a resource depends more on how it is used than what it contains. A mediocre book on planning that covers the relevant points, which a board reads and discusses chapter by chapter, does more good than an excellent book that a pastor reads for the high points and discusses with nobody.

Adapted from: Alban In Progress, © 2003 The Alban Institute, Inc.