How To Talk About Our Buildings – Transcript

Jim Latimer: Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help from interims for interims –
wisdom from the field. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Reverend Dr. Jill Small. Jill, what best practice, would you like to share with our listeners? I know you’ve done a lot of research and writing around buildings and identity.

Jill: You know, Jim, we have three principal questions in the interim process: Who are we? Who are our neighbors? and Who is God calling us to be or to become? And I really would advocate for a fourth question, which is, What to do our buildings say about who we are, as God’s people in our communities? I’d like to start there if that’s okay with you.

Jim Latimer: So you’re adding a fourth question to the core three?

Jill: Yes, adding a fourth question having to do with our physical facilities, the nexus entity and facility, because we are so identified with our facilities our buildings and grounds. People, our neighbors, identify us as that building and we identify ourselves with our experiences in that in that facility. So I think I can offer some guidelines about how to talk about our buildings in interim time.

I think it would be a good place to start by asking what are your congregation’s mission statement and its primary goals, and in what way do your facilities either foster or perhaps inhibit your ability to do mission and Ministry? If your buildings are such that you are able to invite the community into your space, if you have 12-step programs, if you have yoga and meditation groups, if you, for instance, have the Red Cross do blood drives in your space, that is opening your space to the Community. And I think it’s important to recognize up front that that does not automatically translate into the idea that if we have people who are not our members in our building, somehow they will become our Members. I don’t think that’s a good reason to to do that. You know, it’s about service to the community, not about what you’re going to necessarily get from the Community.

So the first question is, what’s your mission statement and your primary goals, and how does your building facilitate, or perhaps constrain those things?

Jim Latimer: Nice.

Jill: So second question, then, would be, if that building does facilitate those goals, how does it do that? And likewise if your space constrains your ability to do mission and ministry, how is that the case, and how can you address those things? Is there way to make your signage better? Would that facilitate your goal of being welcoming to the Community? If you have a really dark structure and it constrains or makes it difficult for you to have meetings, because there is a dark space, or kids feel uncomfortable in the space because it’s kind of creepy, what can you do about lighting? If you have in your congregation people who have expertise in these areas I’d say tap them. If you have an architect or a sound on acoustic engineer, ask if they can you offer some some insight.

A third thing is to put yourself in the place of a visitor. I have an interim clergy colleague who talks about this in a really wonderful way. She says
when you have a guest come to your house, you make sure that they can see the way to get into the house, where to park. And we’re going to greet you at the door. We’re not just going to have you walk in and wander around the house for a while. We’re going to to greet you. We will have some flowers and some food. Now I know that we’re having this conversation in Covid time, so that’s a special consideration. But, I think all of those things are important.

If you’re talking about your house, and when people walk in the first thing they notice is the smell of the cat box, you might need to address that.
If you’re building your building as a multi-sensory space, it’s what you see, it’s what you hear, it’s what you smell when you invite people in to eat. There’s going to be taste and physical sensation and all that, so don’t be afraid to look at your building as a sensual expression of who you are, and how people will perceive you when they come to your space.

Jim Latimer: Really beautiful.

Jill: And then I think it’s useful to think of some language to use when having a conversation about this fourth question of what our building says about who we are, to have some input from the congregation about what words reflect their identity as a congregation.

And what would we say if we ask those questions? If we say we’re friendly, is our building friendly? If we say we’re welcoming, is our building welcoming?
Those kinds of things.

Jim Latimer: Yes, those questions really articulate it.

Jill: It may give rise to someone wanting to take that into a deeper conversation. Maybe you’ll create another temporary action group for somebody to just take a look and walk around the facilities and do some assessment. There are plenty of tools in the realm, the world, of architecture design and build, there are all kinds of tools that can be used to say, how many windows are there? How many walls are there? What’s our carpeting look like? Is there a drip that is always going to land on somebody’s head every time they come in that door if it’s raining? Really take a look at those kinds of things. Do an in depth assessment of the facility, building and grounds. And talk about how the congregation’s identity is reflected, or isn’t reflected, by those those facilities.

That’s a box to unpack. In the interim time, I think it’s worth opening that box and doing a little exploration and seeing what questions are generated by the congregation for further discussion and thought.

Jim Latimer: So, vis-a-vis the congregation’s facilities, what words most reflect your congregation’s identity, especially as people of God, right?

Jill: That’s right. And following that, then, how does your facility represent your congregation to the wider community? What might the wider community say in that question about who are we? In that question about who are we, and who are our neighbors, I think within each one of those three questions you can also position this fourth question. It can be a stand alone question, but that fourth question also can be, “Who are we in this space and who are we outside of this space?” Who are our neighbors when we think about being in this location? And who are our neighbors beyond this physical space? Who is God calling us to be here, within the confines of our walls, and who is God calling us to be outside of this building?

Those things I think can can overlap, but there may be some really surprising a-ha’s in those conversations as well.

Jim Latimer: Nice. Thank you very much, Jill, and could you once more just for our listeners, run through the five questions again? Real succinctly, what are they?

Jill: Okay, so the five questions will be (the “Identity and Facility Discussion Guide”) –

1) What are your congregation’s mission statement and its primary goals?
2) How does your congregation’s space facilitate those goals or how does your space constrain making those goals?
3) What are the impressions a visitor would get of your facilities, and what would a visitor recognize as important in your mission and ministry based on how the building looks and sounds and smells and feels?
4) What three words most reflect your congregation’s facilities and your identity, and do those things meld?
5) How has thinking about your congregation’s facilities influenced thinking about your congregation’s identity, especially in the interim season?

Jim Latimer: Thank you very much for that Jill. I’m taking notes myself as an interim minister to use this very helpful discussion guide of identity and facility. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Jill: You’re very welcome, Jim. Thanks for asking me to share with you.

More Bits Of Wisdom from Rev. Dr. Jill H. Small
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