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Apathy Can't be Bothered to Rule - OK?

By Hedgehog.

Why? Because if our people are apathetic, whose fault is that? Presumably ours as church leaders (well, OK, perhaps our predecessor's), for forgetting to win their hearts before their heads, neglecting to connect with their needs and aspirations, failing to encourage and enable them to dream dreams and develop a bold vision of the future, and failing to set them on fire with a vision of the future that puts new strength and energy into tired bones and hearts.

Apathy is usually apparent in the way people respond to new ideas. They simply don't sign up and don't volunteer to put in the hours and cash needed to make things happen. They make comments like, "It'll never work in this parish", or, "We tried that (think of a number of) years ago and it didn't work". They vote against proposed change with their bottoms, by not getting off them to help the process along.

But why do they respond in that way? Surely for the same reason that we respond with equal inactivity to the unsolicited mail we receive with monotonous regularity. They feel they've heard it all before and that the people with these bright ideas can't possibly understand the challenges they are facing. They're tired of being offered 'magic bullets' which will solve all their problems, but don't. They're especially cynical about church leaders who ride into town like the US cavalry to tell them how to run their church, and how to evangelize their parish.

So they respond to new ideas with all the enthusiasm of a small child being dragged kicking and screaming to the dentist. They make comments like, "Over my dead body", and, when those words are spoken, woe betide the minister who excuses his own laziness with the equally lazy conclusion that they are apathetic.

I can't remember who first said it, but I am convinced that "the accusation of apathy is the last refuge of the failed communicator". Spot on!

Far better, far more constructive and far more loving is to ask whether the fault lies with us as church leaders. Upon closer examination, we will usually find that we have made a few very basic errors. First, we may have tried to do too much too soon (even Hedgehogs have made this mistake). Church Growth research in the 1980s showed that a leader's most productive ministry begins after about five years in post. So we might be advised to save our best ideas and most revolutionary plans until the people have learned to trust our judgement. Patience is indeed a virtue in pastoral ministry.

Second, we may well have simply failed to take the communication process seriously. In marketing, the rule of thumb is that, if you want people to respond to a new idea, they have to be told ten times in eleven different ways. So we're being a bit optimistic if we expect our people to jump at a new idea after one sermon or one article in the church magazine. As Paul Beasley-Murray's story of their building project in this edition of Ministry Today amply demonstrates, it usually needs many months of painstaking work, winning over the key influencers in the church, having open discussions with those who've lived there for many years, allowing the seed to fall into this prepared soil and waiting for it to germinate and grow to the point where they can 'own' the idea for themselves and perhaps even think it was their idea in the first place!

Most of the so-called apathy then evaporates like the morning mist.

Why don't we do these very obvious things? Why do we so easily fall back on the excuse that our people are apathetic? Could it be that it is we who are apathetic, not the congregation - too apathetic to put our energy into the communication process, or too apathetic to be patient?

Of course, in any congregation, there will be those who fail to claim the plan for themselves, or who refuse to allow themselves to do so by setting their faces firmly against it. Such people will still stretch the patience and love of their leaders until they either embrace change for themselves or become so hardened that they choose to depart. When that happens, it is always painful, but sadly not always avoidable.

But let us please repent of the tendency to blame people for being apathetic when they don't take our visions seriously. That's a bit like the DIY store owner blaming the customer for not buying the hammer he just hit them over the head with! Selling hammers requires greater subtlety and patience, and less apathy on the part of the salesman

So does church leadership.

If you have something you'd like to sound off about, you could be Hedgehog in a future edition of Ministry Today. Contact details for articles are on the back cover of this edition of the journal.