If You Think You’re Going Too Slowly, Slow Down! – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help – wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative wisdom project featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional interim ministry.
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Wisdom from the Field. I am your host today, Reverend Jim Latimer. And we have the good fortune of having with us Reverend Dr. Terasa Cooley. Terasa is a long-time Unitarian Universalist. She currently serves as the Senior Interim Minister at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, California. And she has also served in a similar role at UU churches in the Midwest, Chicago, Detroit, as well as Hartford, Connecticut, Virginia, and also as a denominational executive. So, she’s got a front seat view of ministry, and the 50,000-foot view of ministry. And I really appreciate her dedication to helping congregations through the interim time. She has a book that’s now in preorder. The title is: “Transforming Conflict: the Blessings of Congregational Turmoil,” published by Rowman and Littlefield. It sounds quite practical and helpful. And when she and I were preparing for this episode today, she used a phrase that caught my attention. It was, If you think you’re going too slowly, slow down. I thought, What? Terasa, if you could speak to that we’d love it.
Terasa Cooley
Sure. That phrase developed for me when I’ve been coaching other young ministers on preaching. Because you know, the first few sermons a new minister gives, they want to talk really fast, because they think they have a lot to say. And they are really anxious and blah, blah, blah. So, one of the phrases that I use with them is, If you think you’re going too slowly, slow down. Because it’s really hard to develop the awareness of, Oh, I’m going too quickly! – because you’re anxious. And so, by doing that, I’m hoping to trigger in them a recognition that even if I feel like it’s slow, for other people, it’s not slow.
I take that and transfer it to congregational life, and recognize that when congregations try or leaders try to make decisions really quickly, it’s almost always a bad decision. That drive to make a decision right now about something, means you don’t really have the reflective capacity to make a good decision. So, unless your steeple is falling down, or your church is on fire, almost always there’s never a reason to make a really quick decision.
I was just reading in Religion News about a congregation – one of the Vineyard congregations – where the minister suddenly decided they’re not going to be a part of Vineyard International anymore. They’re going to cut themselves off from the denomination. And there’s just a huge furor, of course, because there’s been no process for understanding why, and what was this about? And how’s that going to really benefit us? And so, they haven’t been engaging people in it. And that quick decision, in and of itself, really frustrates people.
And so, one of the things I talk about in terms of congregations in conflict is that it’s really our job to develop the congregation’s capacity – the capacity to really see what’s happening, the capacity to really see that and then integrate it in terms of what it’s teaching you, the capacity to engage in dilemmas, to recognize there is no perfect easy path.
And also, to make complexity your friend – to recognize that complexity actually has something to offer, because it’s going to open up possibilities for you. And finally, the capacity to hear and engage voices. So, if a congregation doesn’t have the space and time to do all of that, they’re most likely going to make a polarizing decision. Most likely, they’re not going to really understand where their people are. They’re not going to look at what alternatives might have been in whatever decision they’ve made. They won’t have really learned what’s going on. And instead, they’re making an anxious decision which creates an anxious congregation. So, a lot of this has to do with – and we’ve talked about this before – the physiology of conflict. How that in a conflict situation our body tenses up and reacts. And that tension then engages other people’s tension. And that makes everybody really tense. And so, that kind of process doesn’t make for healthy conversations.
Jim Latimer
That’s good. I really like what you’re saying about how as leaders, a key part of our job – for good decision making – is don’t be in a rush. And we could say, Slow down, slow down. But there’s almost no reason, as you said – and it fits my experience – to be in a rush, unless, as you say, the building is on fire or something like that. And so, not only for us to practice that, but I love this osmosis notion that has come out in this episode and the previous one of, of how what we’re emoting affects those around us. And they don’t even know they’re being affected by it. And we may not know we are affecting them, but we are, right? And so, to be aware of that and harness it to help develop the congregation’s capacity to calm down, to see what’s happening, to hear and engage other voices. And I love what you said there to, Make complexity your friend. Somebody said once, Good decisions lie on the far side of complexity. Not on the near side, the far side.
Terasa Cooley
Absolutely. Yes. And one of the tools that I use for doing this kind of slowing down work is the tool of powerful questions. I don’t know if you’ve engaged with this tool, but there’s a little tiny PDF that you can just Google, The Art of Asking Powerful Questions. It talks about how the way in which you put a question in front of people, changes the way in which they will respond. So, if you ask a question that says, Should we rehab the RE building – the Religious Education Building? Yes or no? Then that’s not going to help people understand why are we even thinking of rehabbing the building? What is the purpose of really rehabbing this building? Is it because there’s safety issues, or because we want to grow the program? – any of those kinds of issues. But if you said something like, How might we renovate our property so that we are more inviting to families and children? That’s a very different kind of question. And that invites people into, Well, let’s talk about what really invites new families and children. Maybe the building doesn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe it’s about our curriculum, or that sort of thing. Or, Oh my gosh, we have to realize that maybe this is a really unwelcoming building. All of those kinds of things. So, how you put a question in front of a congregation really changes the way in which they can respond. And so, almost always, like I was saying, if you’re trying to make decisions quickly, you’re most likely going to be asking yes or no questions, as opposed to a question that’s really going to invite the time and the space, and the reflection that can get you – like you say – to the other end of complexity, which is a better place to be.
Jim Latimer
Yes. I really liked what you said there, Terasa around these yes / no questions that often we’re not aware of it. But a yes / no question – unless there’s a crisis – is often because I’m feeling anxious. And I’m wondering, Do it or not? It disregards complexity. And not only that, it disregards and disrespects the people that this decision is going to affect. And so, my sense is that this art of powerful questions, because they’re not yes or no, then they’re not going to begin with, Do you? or, Shall we? They’re going to begin with, How? or Where? Or what? Or something probably like that to be open ended.
Terasa Cooley
Yes. How might? is a great way to begin a question. Because even if you say something like, What? that’s a concrete thing. How might? is my go-to kind of way. And even doing it that way, just beginning a sentence like that helps open things up. But it’s also kind of testing those questions for, Okay, are there some assumptions built into it?
I was doing a workshop recently with the congregation, and we were trying to play with this powerful question idea. We started thinking about what could be a powerful question for what you’re working on. And somebody said, How might we grow the congregation? So, we kind of play that out a little bit. Well, then almost immediately, it was, Well, why do we want to grow the congregation? I really like the congregation like it is now. And so, there was a big assumption buried in that question about, you know, growth is a good idea, as opposed to going even deeper, and, How might we make this a congregation that is inclusive and welcoming to all? Which is a bit of a different kind of question.
Jim Latimer
That’s good. Well, this is a beautiful place, I think, probably to wrap up this particular episode on, How might? That engages. That’s a calm question. It respects listeners. It engages other thoughts and questions. And this notion that how a question is posed is going to affect people subconsciously. It’s going to affect how they respond, and how they think about it. It kind of frames it. And frames matter a lot!
Terasa Cooley
Absolutely. Right. Right.
Jim Latimer
Wonderful, Terasa. Thank you so much for this episode and sharing your wisdom and knowledge and experience with us. It’s been great.
Terasa Cooley
Absolutely. Thank you for the invitation, Jim.
Jim Latimer
You’re welcome. Okay, bye.
Terasa Cooley
Thank you, Jim. I’m happy to be with you.