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.

"What issues are most important to your congregation?"
"What resources are most helpful to you in working those issues and why?"

More than five years ago I would not have suspected that these would be difficult or politically dangerous questions. That's when the Alban Institute and the Indianapolis Center for Congregations, with the support of Lilly Endowment Inc., began constructing the Congregational Resource Guide, an online guide to the best resources—books, organizations, Web sites, and people—for assisting congregations with their greatest challenges.

The Congregational Resource Guide was founded on the premise that, since the resources available to congregations have proliferated, congregations need assistance with choosing the resources that fit best their circumstances and with making good use of the resources they choose. We started by looking for resources to help with the issues congregations told us were most pressing: strategic planning, finances, stewardship, discipleship, building maintenance. The list has grown to include over 100 categories (see our site map).

Many fascinating and gratifying features of this venture have emerged: our teamwork; the complex integration of content, graphic design, and technology; and the opportunity to develop a network of wonderful contacts in a wide variety of organizations.

One feature of the work that was unexpected is how the two simple questions with which we began have turned out to be a direct entrée into the most troubling issues of denominational polity.

Indeed, my own thinking about the deeper significances of the Congregational Resource Guide project was brought into focus when representatives of an organization that was a potential partner for helping us create a special resource report decided they could not work with us because (1) their organizational crisis was too great to give attention to the resource report, and (2) they believed that it was too politically dangerous to make specific resource recommendations. If they recommended something of a liberal bent or something associated with a liberal organization, conservatives would dismiss them. If they featured something useful from a conseravative organization, the liberals would likewise dismiss them.

My disappointment over the lost opportunity to work with this organization caused me to pause and reflect. What state have organizations come to when the issues that the congregations they serve want help with become too hot to handle? My first reflections were glum. We know from conflict theory that an organization in which choosing sides—or avoiding choosing sides—replaces mission as the chief priority is an organization in serious trouble.

However, for me and our team, seeing such a stark portrayal of the crisis has brought into focus a larger view: identifying the crisis and gridlock, but also revealing the creative ferment that could grow in exciting ways.

What Users Want vs. What We Think They Want

To show how the issue more typically arises in our work, let me give the example of a booklet on accessibility we created in cooperation with the National Organization on Disability. Congregational Resource Guide staff developed the resource list. We presumed that a list of resources on accessibility for people with disabilities would feature each denomination's accessibility committee or office—whether this was Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, or Union for Reform Judaism. We further presumed that United Methodists would go to the United Methodist office, Presbyterians to the Presbyterian office, and so forth. Understood this way, a good list is one that contains a listing for as many different groups as possible.

The problem with this is that it is not what users want in a list of resources. United Methodists do prefer a United Methodist resource—sometimes. They like to know that their denomination is active on issues that matter to them. However, they would prefer to be steered to the United Methodist resource because it is the best resource, the one most useful to them in their circumstances—not just because it's the United Methodist resource.

Denominational offices are so accustomed to understanding themselves in terms of where they fit in a denominational structure that it has been very hard to get them to mention one thing they do or a resource they have developed that might be useful to a congregation and why. This way of thinking is clearly in evidence if you go to most denominational Web pages. They are organized to help a person navigate a structure. They are rarely organized to answer the questions people have when they come to the site.

Why Helping Is So Hard

The hard work of creating any of our resource reports is to get the specifics. Diligent effort isn't all it takes. It also requires diplomacy and persuasion. While many people think one or another organization should be better represented, fascinating barriers emerge when we ask what specific resource we might recommend and why. Here are six examples:

1. Pointing to any specific resource as good and explaining why is politically difficult. People say things like, "We need to serve a broad spectrum of points of view, so I like to talk to people and feel them out regarding their needs and theological orientation before I recommend a resource."



2. Direct service, or direct technical assistance, is hard to sustain, especially in a time of budget tightening. Someone described this to me in this way: "Of course we want to help congregations; that is our reason for being. However, we don't have the time we once had to work directly with congregational leaders. We are therefore seeking ways to leverage our work by focusing on resourcing the resourcers."



3. Competitiveness prevents sharing even basic information. Some organizations have been so concerned with presenting themselves as the sole provider of a particular kind of resource or service that they have been extremely hesitant to have what they do included in an overview of resources. Interestingly, Jewish and Christian denominational offices have not suffered from this as much as independent organizations.



4. Organizations are often ambivalent about congregations. Some want to be seen as the "go-to" place for their denomination or religious group for a particular issue, but wish they could do this in a way separate from congregations. They fear being "captured" by congregations' concerns, issues, and opinions. Thus, when asked which of their resources might be useful to congregations and why, representatives find themselves tongue-tied. They are likely to remind us that (1) they don't want to serve congregational leaders only and (2) their religious group is more than a group of congregations. These sentiments seem particularly strong among Roman Catholics, Jews, and some National Council of Churches organizations—less so among Protestants and Orthodox Christians.



5. Organizations want a direct connection with people. They are quick to tell us that people don't just want help, they want to be heard. Furthermore, they say, some things need a teacher—they can't be accomplished merely through help from the Internet. Besides, they like the direct connection with people.



6. Low self-esteem often prevents people from saying, "we did this and it is good for this reason or that." Denominational offices often suffer from an impoverished sense of their own value. I would venture, in fact, that most denominational offices have far more to offer than they realize.

I have considerable empathy with each of these barriers to helping congregations in specific ways. We have received angry mail as a result of some of our recommendations. Providing direct help to congregations is hugely time consuming. Congregations can embody a deadening lack of creativity. And we, too, can be reticent when it comes to tooting our own horns. Yet in the world I see emerging, I think the cost of allowing ourselves to be ruled by these concerns is too great.

Letting Go

I once heard someone say that, to survive, an electrician must learn to overcome the natural neurological impulse to grip more tightly in response to electrical shock, and instead must let go. I believe that the same is true for providing resources to congregations today. While there are times when an open approach to resourcing may not be advisable, an organization needs to make its decisions in light of the emerging big picture, as outlined below.

• Networking has become far more important than warehousing information. Libraries are learning to relinquish their role of stockpiling information in favor of gaining quick access to information for their clients. Both the quantity of information available and the speed with which it becomes stale require this.



• Earned status now takes priority over ascribed status. The authority you get because of who you are is declining everywhere in favor of the authority you earn because of what you do. Being the Methodist office of this or the Presbyterian office of that confers little authority today. What works is to show how you can be helpful. Help in one specific instance and people will come to you for other things.



• Shared experience trumps shared affiliation. To a United Methodist starting a new congregation, it is less relevant that you are a United Methodist than that you have experience starting a new congregation.



• A boutique approach is preferable to a department store approach. Those seeking to assist congregations with resources need to take a lesson from old-style department stores. Montgomery Ward and Sears are going broke trying to be everything to everyone.

Thriving in the Long Run

The challenge is that the practices that help "resourcing" organizations function well in the short run often run counter to what makes these organizations survive—and thrive—in the long run. Choosing the long run over the short run will take leadership. And there is a direction in which to lead. In many situations, the energy from the pressures experienced as deadening can be turned to creative effect. Our own experience of putting our recommendations on the Internet—while opening us to criticism—has led to discussions that have been, on the whole, salutary. Openness is good for resourcing for some of the same reasons it is good for government:

• Knowing that the information we have will be open to critique creates an incentive to make it as good as possible.



• Others are provided an opportunity to correct and challenge.



• Public information enables us to avoid answering the same question repeatedly.



• We can create a community of resource providers—both within and beyond the organization.



• We have a wonderful overview of the whole world of resources, enabling us to see our gifts and our limitations, as well as provide a continuous stream of ideas about what new resources are needed.

What is more, this approach fits with how we want to relate to each other as people of faith. We are called to live life through an economy of abundance, not one of scarcity. From a faith point of view, we live in a land of milk and honey, not a valley of dry bones.

How What We Have Learned Has Changed Our Project

In the beginning, we saw the Congregational Resource Guide as a necessary but subsidiary tool for assisting congregations. We are determined that the basic question, "What helps congregations?" will always guide the project. Helping Alban and the Indianapolis Center capture what they know about resources—and bringing this into conversation with what others know—has made us more of a learning organization. We have been able to more broadly and systematically gather, critique, and develop what we know in many areas. Grappling with the bigger questions that the guide raises has made us part of a larger transformation in how congregations find and use resources across the continent and worldwide.

The project has helped us grasp a vision for how our learning can help transform the larger community of those who resource congregations. It has encouraged openness in others. In some instances, this has helped create communities of conversation. Each description of a resource is—potentially—an invitation to create networks that sometimes include us, sometimes exclude us, and sometimes extend far beyond us.

The growing edges of this project are to provide a deeper context for the resources we recommend, to help congregations use those resources effectively and faithfully, and to help congregations help each other.

10 Ways to Help

While it is dangerous to draw lessons from a project as much in development as this one (and fully recognizing that a chief function of stating lessons is to better learn them ourselves), I venture 10 maxims for how to really help:

1. Organize information from the point of view of those you seek to serve. Users don't, generally, want to find the Department of Ministry. They choose the Department of Ministry because they think they will find answers to a question they might have, such as: "How much should we pay our minister?" or "How, as a minister, can I get assistance for continuing education?"



2. Think of how to take advantage of the best wisdom that your organization has on a subject. Most of the time, somebody in your organization has a good answer to the question. The trouble is that this usually is not the person answering the phone.



3. When providing answers to the questions posed to your organization, provide the best information available anywhere, not just the best information you have. Remember, people are coming to you for an answer to a question. Develop a reputation for having access to the best answers available, even when they are not your own.



4. Don't avoid criticism—use it. Gil Rendle, Alban senior consultant, reminds us frequently that criticism is information. Invite critics to help. Sometimes they do help. The invitation to turn general criticism into specific suggestions helps to separate those who are merely having a bad day from those who have a suggestion that will enrich the project.



5. Use technology—appropriately. In this project we have been graced by technology colleagues who remind us frequently that technology is the means, not the end. While the pace of technological change requires that what is to be done be considered along with how it could be done, the focus should be kept on the end.



6. Think of yourself as part of a community of resource providers. Invest in that community. In the end, an organization can develop excellent resources in only a small number of areas. This range is most effectively extended by actively supporting others in providing what you do not provide.



7. Build for sustainability. Focus on building streams of information or resources and on ways of making these available that are as easy and inexpensive as possible.



8. Involve users. The idea of users generating content may have burst with the Internet bubble, but involving users broadens content and maintains connections.



9. Remember who you want to serve, not just who you do serve. While serving current clients well—and better—is crucial, be creative about finding ways to reach out beyond that circle to the larger group that your mission says you aim to serve.



10. Don't be afraid to make a claim about what ought to be important to congregations. Those who resource congregations must be able to respond to congregations where they are on their individual and unique journeys of faith. Yet excellence in resourcing goes beyond giving the clients what they want. Excellence also often requires asking questions or suggesting directions that lead to a larger vision of vitality and faithfulness.

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