Comments on: leading from values vs. goals

By: values vs. goals « Eikon Church

values vs. goals « Eikon Church — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:12:20 +0000

[...] on his blog, he talked about leading from values vs. goals, which spawned from a facebook group about his new book, youth ministry 3.0. in essence, he [...]

By: ryanByrd

ryanByrd — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:23:12 +0000

…follow-up comment…somehow the link i included goes back to marko’s blog…not my website. (??) if you’d like to check out the blog post i referenced, you can check it out here. that should do the trick. :)

By: ryanByrd

ryanByrd — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:20:13 +0000

hello all. long time reader, first time commenter.

i really enjoyed the post (and comments) and deeply connected with what you’ve laid out here. i think this shift has been occurring within the church for quite some time, not just in youth ministry but the church as a whole.

further, i see this not just as a leadership shift, but a worldview shift that could be argued as another facet of the emerging conversation. i think many people have reached such a level of frustration with the factory nature of the church, seeing it as paternalistic and stripped down to mindless thought repetition.

i’m currently planting a church in little rock, arkansas and we’re in the very, very early phases of planning and growing. on our blog, i’ve expanded on your thoughts and “prettied up” your graphics. :) you can check it out here

By: Joel Mayward

Joel Mayward — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:13:16 +0000

@Chris, I think love has a great deal to do with it, especially in discerning what values are most Christ-like. It’s not formulaic or static, but it does paint a clear picture of who we’re supposed to be in a relational and dynamic way.

This also feels a bit like a “doing” vs. “being” discussion, with goals being more action-oriented and external, and values focusing on identity and the internal. A lot has been said about goals stemming from values, but it might be more complex than that. We do need to have some form of tangible, concrete direction or else we can end up floundering. But I don’t think that values-based leadership is directionless; it just becomes less about moving up to the next step and more about maturity.

In Rick McKinley’s book “This Beautiful Mess” he talks about the difference between levels and dimensions in relation to the kingdom of God. Quote:

“The kingdom is a dimension I acknowledge, I live in, I participate in. Yet it’s never a level I achieve. It is a lot less like building the business of Christianity and a lot more like slipping into the matrix of Jesus.”

By: Chris Cummings

Chris Cummings — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:51:39 +0000

Joel, I really like what you said. I believe it is a very scary thing to say that we are going to do away with goals.

One thing I have really started to do is think about everything around the idea of love. (I am refering to unconditional God love, not romantic love) I was thinking about how love is not a set thing, or even really a set way of doing things. Love reacts to everything and everyone differently. Love, well go read 1 Corinthians 13…you will get the idea.

Anyway, if God is love, then maybe this is more how we should look at youth ministry too. There is no set way, it must react to each situation differently. It gets dirty, and it must be about relationships because it is the only way it can exist.

I don’t know how to end, so here you go. Thoughts?

By: Joel Mayward

Joel Mayward — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:03:32 +0000

There’s a lot of “goals aren’t necessarily bad” language in both the comments and the Facebook discussion, which makes me wonder a few things. I wonder if we say that because we’re so comfortable with goals-based ministry and still aren’t entirely sure about values/vision. Goals are a lot more concrete and tangible, while values are much deeper and philosophical and messy.

To go back to the factory/garden metaphor, factories aren’t necessarily bad, but they won’t bring about the same life and growth as a garden would. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is more of a full-blown paradigm shift than a new methodology or just new language for the same thing.

By: scott b

scott b — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:01:23 +0000

i’m not sure that goals are a bad thing. the problem mainly comes, i think, when goals are sought after at the expense of values–and more importantly–at the expense of people. in order to have proper goals, you have to first establish your values. so… what i’m getting at is… lead from values first, then develop goals that birthed from those values. goals help an organization track whether or not you’re living out your values. that’s my 2 cents anyhow.

By: aaron

aaron — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:04:21 +0000

I am a children and youth pastor and we just had our big mission vision meeting for the children’s ministry. Aubrey Malphurs has written a book that we used called Ministry nuts and bolts. he talks about core values at the very beginning of the book as being the things that cause action, influence decision and basically answer the “why” question in a family, organization, school, church etc. Our job is more along the lines of identifying and guiding value change so that decisions are simply made in accordance with good values. Its kind of similar to Kuhn’s theory of paradigms in that the worldview/paradigm/core value system you work in develops everything that you do. If your goals match your values, your goals will be successful. If they don’t match, the goal will fail. We have to make sure that goals and values match. goals are not bad in themselves, but forcing goals almost always is. The bible makes it clear that real change happens at the core and in a weird way even organizations can be sanctified or changed from the ground up. I love the garden metaphor in that there are different outcomes for everyone and no students’ faith will look like anyone elses. Our goal is not conformity but shared beauty.

By: brock

brock — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:56:23 +0000

A very interesting discussion. Adam I would agree with you that leading from goals seems to produce guilt and hierarchy in many groups. One of the best articles I have read on this subject is Sally Morgenthaler’s article in the Emergent Manifesto of Hope, “Leadership in a Flattened World.” According to Morgenthaler in many areas of the business world a shift is occuring: from a Ceo model of leadership to what she calls a “collective intelligence” model. She wants to argue that the church is lagging behind the business world in this regard(continuing to maintain the CEO model).

While her article is talking about leadership styles and structures, it could easily be applied to a discussion on values vs goals. While a shift to values certainly seems appropriate, it always scares me when the church begins to mimic the business world to form its structure. I wish the goal model would have never made its ways into the church (thanks Constantine, thanks Roman Empire), and while I am excited about a shift to a values model, I am also fearful of any leadership shift that is driven by the world around.
The best way to fix a broken structure, is not to return to the same place that caused the break to begin with.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:48:50 +0000

Adam and I are feeling the same thing I think. I would say that when I set goals and they aren’t met, I am more unhappy with myself than other people are with me (internal value). For me, this is a case of good/better. Really, where goals break down for me is my ability to meet my goals. I wouldn’t want my goals to be something like a numbers alone or whatever, so I would have to set my goals on things like transformed lives, discipleship relationships, etc. The problem with most goals I set is that only God can do them and I can only participate in them. So I like the idea of values because it let’s me have a less concrete goal and still have a target to shoot for.