Affirmation Or Challenge?

Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

Here’s the focus question we were building to at that point in the training:

What does your church need during this Spring ministry season in order to rise up and live into its best expression of church? What does your church need from its leadership in order to take its next steps in mission and ministry? What does your church need from its leadership in order to join God’s movement in your community and the world, signaling the coming of the kingdom of God?

Last week, while training church leaders in the Peoplemap Communication System, we came to the slide on leadership competencies. I love describing the Hard and Soft People Skills to groups of clergy, church staff, and lay leaders, since they always perk up and lean forward. I can’t share the Hard and Soft People Skills themselves in this article, since they are a copyrighted part of the Peoplemap training, yet I can how we apply them to church leadership. In a few words, the Soft People Skills are about affirmation; receiving God’s deep love for us, just as we are. Conversely, the Hard People Skills are about mission; calling us up, challenging us to partner with God to change this world. Both are part of the gospel, yet are like different sides of a multi-sided diamond. The challenge for church leadership is to discern which side our church needs most right now. Both are good and essential. Both are communicated in equal measure over time in healthy churches. Yet, during any one season, we typically need more of one than the other in order to live into our best selves as churches. As I describe their application below, perhaps this will equip your church leadership to enter this dialogue, discerning their role in leading the unfolding story of your church with intentionality.

Soft and Hard Theology

God loves us, period. End of story. We cannot do anything to make God love us more since God’s love is full and complete already. Nor can we do anything to make God love us less, since it’s about God’s love rather than our deservedness. So receive God’s love deep in your bones and live out this clear awareness that we are children of God. This is the theological meaning of the Soft People Skills.

God loves us so much that God is unwilling to leave us as we are. God sees wonderful potential in each of us, having given us gifts and talents, calling us to get busy using these for the transformation of this world. God is on the move, reshaping this world toward the kingdom, and has chosen to include us in this mission. So let’s rise up, living into our callings, making the most of the time we are given! This is Hard People Skills Theology. Which does your church need right about now?

Soft and Hard People Development

To move forward as individuals, sometimes we need the soft approach. There are times when we feel beat up by the world, hoping someone will empathize, offering words of comfort and affirmation. Sometimes we just need to know we are loved. Then we are ready to get back on the field of life again.

To move forward as individuals, sometimes we need the hard approach. How long do we need to blow off steam before we are simply whining? There comes a time when describing our difficulties further doesn’t help. This is when we need challenged to get up off the couch and get out there to make something of ourselves. Sometimes we need confronted, called up to action.

Soft and Hard Pastor Selection

What happens during the interim period when a church doesn’t do its due diligence before calling the next pastor? Typically, they swing to the other side of the pendulum, calling someone who’s on the other side of the Soft or Hard People Skills continuum. Either extreme, over time, has its strengths and weaknesses.

The outcome of calling a strong Soft People Skills pastor, given time, is:

increased fellowship, loving church environment, strong sense of community, positive feelings in the group, encouraging atmosphere, grace emphasis.

The outcome of calling a strong Hard People Skills pastor, given time, is:

an activated church, greater levels of service, visioning and intentional goal-seeking, clear call to transformation, serving to make a difference in the world.

As one might note, both of these outcomes are necessary in a church over time. Typically though, pastoral leaders are greater expressions of either the Hard or Soft People Skills. So know your church and its needs well before calling your next pastor.

We could go on describing the many ways Soft and Hard People Skills relate to church functioning and leadership (host a Peoplemap Training to learn more!). Yet, this leads us back to the initial questions we shared. What does our church need now from its leadership in order to take its next steps forward; to live into its best expression of church right here and right now?

Answer this question and watch your church gain focus and direction, right here and right now.