Case study: Tensions over a church’s future
“Key Ring Consulting helped our church’s property development task force create a clear roadmap for our process, an FAQ to help us communicate with our congregation, and a detailed volunteer recruitment plan with tasks and roles. Sarah’s facilitation was inclusive, human, and outcomes-oriented. She helped us do our best work by surfacing the diversity of ideas in the room while identifying shared themes we could build on to move forward. With her help, we had clarity of purpose and unity even as we brought different perspectives.”
– Rev. Stephen Shaver
Client
Church of the Incarnation, a 150-year-old mainline urban Episcopalian church in downtown Santa Rosa.
Problem summary
Some church campus buildings were no longer usable, and the overall layout of the grounds was outdated. A committee’s initial exploration raised tensions and revealed a need for a more inclusive approach. The leadership wanted an engagement strategy for their whole congregation to create readiness for a campus revamp, potential fundraising, and working with an architect.
Results summary
The result was a “community brief” crafted in real time during three large convenings of the congregation. It identified strengths, key challenges, and a future vision that unified and energized participants for a campus redesign.
Problem detail
Physical campus:
Two main buildings were nearing end of life.
The front face of the church to the main street was not inviting.
There is a large courtyard, but it has security issues and was underutilized.
Leaders wondered whether the time was right to address other campus physical challenges as well.
Congregation community:
Creation of a Property Development Task Force led to anxiety and rumors about the future among congregation members.
Newsletters, reports, announcements, and informal discussions were not adequate to create understanding and surface the congregation's wisdom and opinions.
Active individuals and interest groups in the church lobbied vocally for their perspectives and opinions, while the majority were not engaged.
Leadership:
Leadership wanted involvement by the congregation to inform decisions, healing of division among congregants, and energy for volunteers and fundraising for the project, but needed more guidance.
Their questions included:
How do we plan for the needs of future generations of our congregation and community while preserving the best of our current culture and campus?
How do we effectively communicate why this change is happening, and the process we will follow?
How can we listen and value all voices and interest groups while not heightening polarization as people share their impassioned opinions?
Results
A shared narrative across the congregation on the history, mission, campus challenges, and initial campus vision.
Consensus Statements compiled at convenings, answering:
What is the best of us?
What needs to change?
What are possible futures?
Who do we need to be to succeed?
A final “Community Design Brief” that encapsulated the journey and statements while including outlier opinions.
Community support for The Property Development Task Force to create an RFP and hire a designer for the next phase of the work.
“I enjoyed the exchange of ideas! I met new people and had fun.”
“There is a spirit of connection with everyone, excitement and expectation — a feeling that we're really going to do all this, although it will take a while, fundraising, patience, planning. We’re setting priorities now and it's good.”
“The amount of care in this process reflects the best of our history.”
How we did it
Designed and facilitated three congregation convenings.
Led, trained, planned, facilitated, and supported volunteer leaders to:
Plan and execute effective agenda, presentations, and logistics for three dynamic congregation conversations.
Create safe and engaging intimate conversations at each small group table, with all ideas of parishioners at tables recorded on laptops and iPads in real time at meetings for review and theming into consensus statements.
Gather and theme hundreds of comments from tables into high-quality consensus statements, and then during the same meeting, share via large screen back to the congregation for reflection and confirmation.
Create virtual and in-person “state of the campus” tours including drone flythroughs, and presentations including comments from community members, Google maps, historical photos, and narrations.
Convening Format
Format alternated between short presentations about campus challenges, history, mission, and a key question prompt for conversation at tables.
“Appreciated the fact that we asked questions and got input rather than just being told by leaders about how it would be.”
“I liked bringing our history forward — it is energizing!”
“We expanded our thinking together with seeing the map drawing and electronic tour.”
“People are focused on good vision, creative thinking, and a lot of good, solid ideas that could be implemented to some degree. None of it is too ‘out there’.”
As each person shared their views, trained facilitators from the congregation typed their comments into an electronic survey form.
“I liked the facilitator typing comments who was trained and designated ahead of time. I can't think of improvements. It was the best group forum like this that I’ve attended so far. It was handled nicely.”
“Facilitator training makes a big difference!”
Presentations and community conversation questions centered on the current state of the campus, the church’s overall mission, the church’s 150-year history, new possibilities inspired by other church campus rebuilding successes, and how to work together to create success.
“Exciting to me is the sense of emergence — like a rumble, creation. Excited and feeling more included and wanting to be more included.”
“People are often quiet but this forum has given a good place to share.”
“There are more options that people are thinking of than originally thought — and more of an open process than anticipated.”
The recorded comments coming in from the dozens of tables were received in real time by a “theme team.”
“Others had some of the same ideas at my table and other tables — a general church-wide feeling.”
Comments were synthesized into themes and projected back to the group in real time, so people could sense what was important to the whole congregation — where there was agreement, where there was a diversity of viewpoints. Real-time feedback meant connection between individual views to the whole group views, all in the same meeting.
“The instant theming is a very fun feature.”
“I appreciated the live table input along with simultaneous compilation of results.”
