Mental Health and Culture Clash

Can an organization have a personality?

I think most of us if we thought about this, would determine that the answer is yes. A political party has a personality, a hospital has a personality, even a restaurant has a personality.

We tend to use the word "culture" to describe this. In fact, a lot of organizations adopt a particular culture for a particular reason. Think about Google and the culture of openness and creativity and fun they try to create for their employees so that said workers do better work.

I think we can even imagine what clashing personalities would look like in this scenario - like when someone who is used to bartering goes to Walmart. Or when you are a relaxed beach bum and go to a swanky gourmet restaurant. There is an obvious culture clash.

In some way or another, your personalities do not mix.

So what does this have to do with the church? I maintain it is everything that goes wrong - we pretend a church does not have a personality when in fact each and every individual congregation has a separate personality and culture.

When I was ordained, lo these many years ago, there was a belief that the training and preparation I received allowed me to serve in any congregation in the United Church in a completely interchangeable way. In fact, that was back in the days when you did two internships, one in a congregation in your home region, and one in a far-flung location... just to prove the point.

I don't know if at one time it was true that every single United Church was the same - But it is certainly true that our personalities and culture continue to grow apart. This is probably true of every denomination.

What if we thought of each congregation as a sibling of every other congregation, who then moved away from home and went out on their own. That might bring us closer to the reality of individual personalities.

Just because we are both United Church Congregations simply means we had the same parents and the same upbringing, but now we are totally different. We are not clones, we are not even twins.

Not only that, but each and every single thing is evolving in its own way.

Back in the 80's the United Church as a national entity appeared to be a pretty easy going parent. I could call up the executive secretary and ask a question over the phone and they would laugh and answer it - both of us would feel our connection growing and I would go off and be a good little kid, basically knowing that I was following in my parent's footsteps.

The institution has grown different in the last couple of decades. I don't mean to argue if it is better or worse, but it is different - sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.

So now, the parent has become more distant, or the children have, and we grow further and further apart.

We have adopted subgroups that delineate us in ways I wish had never happened - things like Affirm and Cruxifusion divide us into liberal and conservative  - and not in a helpful way.

And what we are left with is a bunch of congregations out there in the world, being led by a bunch of ministers, being attended by a bunch of people - all of whom are situationally the same, but globally different.

I preach in Penniac and Marysville and those two congregations in the same charge are different. They are different again then each and every other church in Fredericton, and on it goes.

So no - I am not trained to work in every congregation - I probably never was. There is no uniformity.

Should there be?

I think at the very least we should have more and deeper roots. We should be recognizable as being in the same family. We should be able to look at each other and instantly understand each other in an "insider" way.

Our individuality and congregationalism have led to an identity crisis. We all know this - but for some reason, we pretend it is not true and we pretend that it does not matter. But it does.

I go to McDonald's, when I do because the cheeseburger I get there is identical to the cheeseburger I got there 45 years ago. The decor, the sounds, and sights have changed - the cheeseburger is what I go for.

We have given up on a solid identity as the liberal thinking left-wing social justice church. That is who we were for the longest time, and that is what people expected to find when they walked in the doors.

As we have decreased in numbers some have decided that we need to change the core of our personality in order to attract more people and do more work - I disagree.

We need to go back to fighting for justice and welcoming all - that was what made us a power to be reckoned with, so much so that our moderators consulted with prime ministers on social issues.

I wish it was still true.