Resources e-letter 11/2 - April 2011

Beware committees  (TN58)

Committees can seriously damage your church’s health.  But you will probably need some set of groups if you are concerned with collaborative planning, clear decisions and definite action.  Here are 12 pieces of advice to ensure your groups are effective.  They include the following:

• Avoid the word! (committee)
• Define the overall purpose
• Treasure simplicity
• Keep numbers small
• Structure by church purpose
• Give each group clear powers
• Build teams

and so on.  Test your ‘committee structure’ against the list – but don’t then set up a committee to decide what to do....

Go to it here: http://www.john-truscott.co.uk/Resources/Training-Notes/Beware-committees.
  
  

Don’t you dare change anything!  (TN59)

When proposing a change in church (whether in buildings, routines or attitudes), we are all familiar with the OMDB brigade (Over My Dead Body).  But some people oppose change for very good reasons, usually connected with their personality, background or present circumstances.  The successful change-manager needs to be able to understand where people are coming from and then help them through what may well be a painful process.

Here are ten case studies.  Put yourself in the shoes of Alf, Beryl, Callum, Debbie, Evan, Fran, George, Helen, Iris and Jack and you will realise that their opposition is quite understandable.  These notes are ideal for group use as there are questions to work through on each of the ten characters.

Find it here: http://www.john-truscott.co.uk/Resources/Training-Notes/Don-t-you-dare-change-anything.
   
  

Please register and join the debate

The new website at last gives an opportunity for interaction on all 90 resource items.  There is now a comment facility on each one and I am particularly keen for people to start commenting!  Readers of these e-letters are the most likely to do so, so here is my plea.

If you are keen on the kind of issues I am dealing with (‘creative organisation’ is the umbrella theme), and have things to say about some of the topics I am writing about, please start reacting to them.  I am not looking so much for praise or criticism on the items (though I will take both!), but debate or comment on the issues.

To take part you first need to register as a website user (a one-off action).  If you have not done so already, go to Login (right hand column on every page) and click the red ‘Create a user account’ – or go here – and follow instructions.  Once you have activated your registration you have access to all the Comment facilities and the Web forum in the Dialogue section too. All you have to do is to Log in (right hand column on each page) each time.
 
  

Follow my Twitter feeds

If you are already on Twitter, follow me @johnnvtruscott.  I put out about eight tweets a week which act as either micro-articles on my theme of creative organisation, or link you to the website in some way.  If you are not on Twitter and do not want to join, simply click the Twitter icon (left hand column on every page of my website) each time you visit and you will see a complete listing of all my tweets.