Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices - Blogs

July 18, 2013

Why?

“Instead of asking how to keep going, change the question to why.”

During the Discernment Phase for a capital c

ampaign, we seek to ask what God is calling a parish to do. This often comes in the collective wisdom of a parish community. Meaning—one person may have a vision, but most often the parish community has strong (and potentially diverse) feelings about capital improvement projects.

I once took a series of conflict negotiation courses at NYU. Given that both my husband and I work in the Church, I thought it a prudent move. There I learned that the first step to any conversation involving conflict is to identify shared values. For example, we may not agree on the type of nametags to be used during a worship service, but we could agree that welcoming newcomers is a shared value held by those at the church.

Parishes often are so busy keeping things going, they forget to ask why. What is of value that we can offer the world?

With this in mind, I often begin my work with clients by asking the parish to answer together some of following types of questions:

What is it that brought you to your parish?
What keeps you here?
What is it you value most about your parish?
When your parish is at its best, what does it look like?
For your parish to be at its best, what does it need to do?
What needs to be done for your parish to live more fully into its vision?

By front ending the discernment phase with questions of value, we can navigate a road full of diverse opinions, curmudgeons, and vested interests. When a list of potential capital projects is created, we can look at each of the projects and weigh them against our articulated shared values.