4.3 The Labor of the Willing
4.3.3 Maintenance
A key source of innovation for heavily institutionalized organizations has long been those practices which arise out of resistance to official procedures (Powell and DiMaggio 1991). These practices gradually become incorporated into the structure of the
organization with sufficient technical and human resources devoted to their maintenance.
With these resources, of course, comes institutional control. My observations during the course of this research indicated that successful implementation of a willing labor force means to keep control of congregational activities in the hands of the individual
congregants so that they cannot become incorporated into official church structure.
Existing organizational research would have us believe that this would come at the expense of resources as organizational actors are by and large reluctant to devote organizational resources to activities that fall beyond their control (Selznick 1948). One can reasonably expect that this effect would only be more exacerbated when the activity not only exists beyond the control of official organizational actors, but exists in such a space purposefully and indefinitely. However, I observed two strategies, a resource focused staff and the utilization of unplanned events, which ensured that organizational resources were continually available to support activities beyond the control of official organizational actors.
Resource Focused Staff
First, these congregations employ resource focused staff. Official staff positions are kept to a minimum and their job descriptions rarely place them in charge of a specific congregational activity or segment of the congregation. These congregations do not hire people to be youth ministers, family ministers, or Sunday school coordinators. Instead, the staff are focused on resource development. This involves creating and developing resources that people in the congregation can use, rather than programs that they can attend. A good example of this is Bob, the building manager at Crossroads. I got a tour
of Crossroads’ building from Bob who explained to me that the building currently hosts two open mic nights each week (one poetry, one music), an art gallery, a professional music and film editing studio, a coffee shop, a book store, a weekly farmer’s market as well as space for artists and classes all in addition to serving as office and gathering space for the congregation. Bob’s job as he explains it is “to make sure that people have what they need when they get here.” He does not do any planning of events. He does not target a specific audience. His job does not require any screening to ensure that there is agreement in ideology (more on this in chapter 6). He simply works to make sure that the space is being used, fees (if any) are collected26, and that the resources continue to evolve to meet the needs of the community. As Bob puts it, “I’m basically just here to make sure the space gets used as much as possible.” Scheduling is done a first come, first served basis, but Bob knows the general rotation of groups (e.g., open mic night for poetry is the first Tuesday of every month.) However, Bob told me that they make a conscious effort to be an available space for spontaneous or relatively spur of the moment events: “Of course, some resources are in more demand than others in terms of space and equipment, but we also recognize the importance of just having space available for walk- ins even if we know we could schedule it out and use it more.” In one of my trips to the coffee shop to conduct an interview, I witnessed this exact thing happening. A man walked into the coffee shop and asked the barista what time the DJ was supposed to start.
The barista indicated that she had no idea what he was talking about and that she was the
26 The farmer’s market, for example, rents the space every week, a move which is necessary for tax purposes. In order to maintain their position as a non-profit organization they needed documentation that the farmer’s market is a separate entity from Crossroads. This, of course, affects the amount of square footage that Crossroads can claim to have taxed at non-profit rates. The farmer’s market then reimburses the
only one working that night. However, the congregant I was interviewing told them both that the DJ was supposed to start at around 8:00. When I asked if there was a schedule of events, my interviewee, Mark, said,
Well, yeah, but we just set this up earlier today…That’s one of the things I love about this place. Come up here and just listen to some poetry if you want or speak some or read your stuff. There’s all kinds of random stuff. A few people the other night were upstairs watching a Battlestar Gallactica marathon, just hanging out together, and that’s one of the good things that can happen here.
Changing the nature of church staff from people whose primary duty is to consume resources to people who are charged with creating resources for others helps to encourage a labor of the willing and ensure that programs are not sustained simply because
someone’s job, position, or prestige relies on the delivery of the program. When church staff are charged with providing programs and services for congregants there is much incentive for such programs to become institutionalized as quickly as possible in order to justify the staff person’s existence and/or status. Decoupling staff and programming effectively removes this incentive and instead places a high value on those people who can make resources as open, flexible and available as possible.
All of this must happen within constraints, however. As the example with Bob shows above, there is still some scheduling that must get done and some budgeting that must occur. The goal is not to provide a completely blank slate to begin each and every day, to abolish all planning, but rather to structure in disruptions to routine. No
organization can be devoid of routine, but organizations can employ specific strategies aimed at making sure that the underlying reasons for engaging in an activity are always present. As I argued in Chapter 1, resistant organizations do not resist routines and patterns, but rather the taken for granted logic that supports an institutionalized routine.
Rearticulating the role of church staff to focus on providing resources rather than providing programs is a key component of such resistance.
The Unplanned Event
Finally, the unplanned event is a key way that these organizations are able to get widespread participation in congregational activities. It is important that we not confuse
“unplanned” with another term such as unscheduled or unprogrammed. An unplanned event is a regularly scheduled activity where people arrive knowing basically what to expect. However, these events are not planned out regarding exactly who is to do or say what. A good example of a deliberately unplanned event in many Emerging Churches is the weekly worship. In these services it is not uncommon for tasks, both repetitive and creative, to be carried out by a person who was unaware of the role he/she would be playing when he/she walked through the door. A good example of this is from Incarnate Word which has what they call “creative worship” where supplies are provided for drawing or painting and people are encouraged to journal or be creative in some way during the service. For some people that means actually sharing something with the rest of the congregation. Of course, this corporate participation is made possible by the relatively small number of people in the congregation (25 on a given week). However, this same strategy of the unplanned event can be utilized in larger congregations as well.
At Living Word a tremendous percentage of the congregation participates in any given service. In each of the six services I attended, there were between 15 and 20 people participating in the worship and 100 to 120 people were in the “audience.” My observations about the large participation were confirmed in the interviews with
congregants. Megan pointed out that the lack of planning and indeed the lack of even the potential for planning due to a very small and underpaid staff, meant that most people come knowing that they need to participate in order for the service to happen.
We need everybody to participate in order for this church to run and given that our paid staff is not paid to an extent to where they can be making everything happen and there’s not this huge support system there so if the community doesn’t do it then this church would not happen. Because it is such a small church and it’s such a grassroots thing you do feel very compelled to participate and help actually make the service happen I think because it is like “If I don’t do it nobody is going to do it” because it is such a small group. I mean I’ve met so many people who were like I went to Living Word three times and the fourth time I was serving communion.
It’s a lot different playing in the band. It’s just a whole different level of
engagement seeing what’s going on behind the scenes not that there’s a whole lot hidden, I mean it’s kind of like Do it Yourself church but it definitely makes me feel much more connected and much more engaged in the whole process and connected to the people there.
The interesting thing to note about Megan’s comments is how she connects the way work is done to the kind of relationships that are formed. In her opinion, taking advantage of the unplanned event to compel the utilization of willing labor is a good thing because it promotes people feeling “engaged” and “connected.” As we have seen throughout this chapter and will continue to see in the sections below, it is the reliance on personal relationships which underlies nearly every effort to resist institutionalization.
The only thing my respondents seemed to know for sure when they arrived was that they had better be prepared to contribute in some way. My fieldnotes and informal interactions confirm that these activities included but were not limited to routinized work such as greeting people at the door, serving communion, and setting up the worship space. On several occasions I witnessed people engaging in the creative work necessary for the worship service on little or no prior notice. In addition to the creative worships at Incarnate Word, one of the worship gatherings I attended at Calvary opened with the
pastor asking the group what they wanted to do that night. While this is not interesting as an isolated occurrence, nobody reacted in a surprised or shocked manner. In fact, people were ready with suggestions even though they had no prior warning, indicating that this sort of thing might not be so surprising.
The unplanned event compels people who might otherwise not have the time or inclination to be involved in the planning of an event to be a participant and offer his/her talents to the proceedings. The unpredictability created by this strategy makes it very difficult to institutionalize any official position (e.g., Greeter, Communion Server, etc.), and thus, the routines and procedures that develop along with these official positions in mainstream organizations are avoided while relationships are strengthened.