Category Archives for "Purpose"

2 Prayer in the Marketplace

Over the last couple of weeks I have explored incarnation in the neighbourhood and incarnation online. Whilst my last post was about working online, my primary focus is spirituality and community development in the local economy. Is there room for prayer in the marketplace?

Let me be clear about what I am not writing about. For many years, a man used to walk up and down Fargate, the main shopping street in Sheffield City Centre, wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was nigh and so we were all doomed. He has many successors and to this day there are often preachers and music groups, reminding us of our sinfulness.

They are one of the few ways the original spirit of the marketplace is still expressed in our modern so-called secular world.  Whilst their practice may be close to my vision of the radical agora where all human interactions focus, it is not what I mean by prayer in the marketplace. It is not that they offer an alternative to shopping so much as they contribute to the mix of activities that should be present in any city centre.

So too are the churches, including Cathedrals that offer a place for prayer, a space to take time out and sit quietly. Perhaps they support prayer in the marketplace but what they offer is not exactly what I mean.

Prayer in the Marketplace

So, what do I mean by prayer in the marketplace? What is prayer? There are many definitions and my Christian friends are likely to disagree with me. Prayer is simply being present. It is being aware of what is happening around you. It is in essence being incarnate, present and in the flesh.

The marketplace is the community in which businesses operate. Our neo-liberal economy has worked tirelessly over many years to drain common spaces of community. Spending no longer benefits the immediate neighbourhood, as multi-nationals extract money from circulation.

So, prayer is being present in this travesty of a marketplace and being aware not only of the destruction wreaked on our communities by unaccountable corporations but also of the green shoots of community fighting back.

The marketplace is, for communities, their heart. Maybe the heart is torn from many neighbourhoods but what else can replace the marketplace?

Sheffield as an Example

Look at Sheffield. The post-war rebuilding resulted by the 1960s in Sheffield City Centre being the best in the UK outside of London. Then they built Meadowhall, an out-of-town shopping centre, and since then the city centre has struggled to fight back. The corporations moved out of the centre and into Meadowhall. Many towns within about an hour’s drive of Meadowhall suffered a similar decline.

Not only are the corporations unreliable but they create what are sometimes called clone towns. Go anywhere and you find the same shops. Places lose their distinctiveness and become vulnerable to rapid decline once the corporations decide the town can no longer support their presence.

Being present, allows us to see all this and where there are green shoots, initiatives that need support. More than that it is those who are present who see new potential and can call on the authorities to change policies.

For example, if business rates are high, expecting the return of the corporations, perhaps local authorities can make premises available to local businesses on more affordable terms.

When we walk through our streets, we must be aware of the human need around us. Some of this need is obvious but how many people are there because they are seeking community, in the only place they know to look?

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go, downtown
When you’ve got worries all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help I know, downtown

0 Hermeneutics in the Marketplace

The Greek God Hermes gave his name to the study of how ancient texts speak to the present.  Hermes was the God of doctors, merchants, travellers and thieves – as far as I can remember.  As such it is fitting we encounter hermeneutics in the marketplace; perhaps there is no better place for it!

Christian academic theology comprises two main activities:

The hermeneutical challenge is to avoid two approaches that do not do justice to either the text or present day human beings:

What we need is a materialist reading of the texts.  This may seem odd.  Surely these are spiritual texts?  They are spiritual but if you think that means these texts are not materialist then you have not understood the meaning of spirituality.

The Christian story is not one of humanity becoming more like God; a path leads to totalitarian readings.  It is the story of God becoming human and so showing us how to be human.

Hermeneutics belong in the marketplace because the Old and New Testaments are preoccupied with money and community.  The marketplace is where these texts test us.  Even the relatively few texts about sex are usually primarily concerned about money and inequality.  Sexual exploitation is an economic activity after all.

The challenge we all face is how to live in community.  We all face temptation to use financial power to our own advantage.  This can be subtle, appearing to be the usual way of doing things.  One major difficulty, when challenging neo-liberal assumptions, is to most people it is simply the way things are.  They meet any challenge with incomprehension, which usually manifests as an attack on some unrelated issue.

Hermeneutical Circulation

One well-known way of allowing ancient texts to challenge our assumptions is by using the hermeneutical circulation.  Here reflection follows each activity and informs the next.  It circulates from action to reflection to action and each turn of the cycle brings us somewhere new.  (The word cycle is often used but it implies a return to the same place.)  The texts aid reflection by introducing new perspectives.

A simple way of doing this is a three-step reflection:

Snaps – I have just experienced something, does it remind me of a story or any passage in Scripture?

Starters – turn to the passage or passages you identified and find out as much as you can, especially what they meant when written and how people have interpreted them since.  (This is exegesis!)

Spin-offs – do these studies lead to new insights that might change my next action?

I’ve prepared this post in support of my sequence of posts about spirituality in the marketplace.  It is also a precursor to my review of a book about Christian understanding of economics that should appear next week.

1 Incarnation Online

Obviously, incarnation online is a contradiction.  Last Wednesday I discussed why being physically present, “in the flesh” or incarnate is important.

And last Friday, I explored one aspect of this in more detail.  Imbricated roles explores degrees of overlap of physical presence with the formal role of community development. The possibilities range from living in the neighbourhood through to development work without setting foot in the neighbourhood.

The post lists several meaningful ways a development worker can operate without physical presence, including online development work.

Incarnation Online?

Incarnation means “in the flesh”, so is it possible to be truly present online? I market my business as Community Development Online, is this a practical possibility?

On the face of it, it is impossible to be present in any meaningful sense if your relationship is solely online. There is always value in visiting a neighbourhood, even once, to get a sense of how things are and to meet the people.  We pick up many visual and other clues from people and even a video link cannot offer the same experience.

However, this needs to be balanced with the unparalleled access we have via the Internet to people and communities all over the world. It extends our reach and makes sharing experiences all over the world possible.

So, let’s approach this from another angle.

Walking Alongside

I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post that incarnation is “walking alongside” in the sense that followers of Jesus embody Jesus in the practical things they do to support people around them.

George Lovell’s non-directive consultancy for community and church workers, known as AVEC, supported many workers from all over the UK in the 70s and 80s. Lovell did not visit every community he helped. He was able to get alongside practitioners, who were the people present in their communities.

They were people committed to a particular neighbourhood and so were present there. Where the coach or consultant walks alongside the development worker, communicating online does not make a great deal of difference.

Trust

The big issue for any business is trust. The local business builds trusting relationships, perhaps over years.  It is more difficult online. There are many methods websites use to help visitors know like and trust an online business, eg telling personal stories, sharing testimonials, blogging, videos. Whilst these all have their place, the one thing that can really build relationships is personal contact; besides Skype there are many online conferencing facilities.

There are many successful businesses offering coaching over a huge range of activities and it means a coach can extend their reach to practically anywhere in the world.  There is little evidence this is inferior. The skills of the coach are far more important than proximity of coach and client.

Yes, using the Internet to deliver coaching services does mean there is less personal contact. This can be a disadvantage but there are advantages too. Working together on a document or website, may actually be easier online.

One strength of working online is there is less temptation, especially prevalent among development workers, to take over the role of the local person.

Perhaps this is a poor image of God! Many religious people do see God as distant and walking alongside, despite the Christian understanding of God in flesh, living and dying with us.

We must remember everything we encounter online is a machine, not a living thing. Its purpose is to help us live our lives and not replace them with worlds we create in our heads.

The postal service in the past supported relationships that might have ended had they not been able to communicate. The web is a bigger more complex and more seductive version of the same thing.

3 Incarnation and Community Development

Incarnation and community development may seem an incongruous title. However, the debate about the degree to which development workers need to belong to the neighbourhood where they work has been around for several decades.  Should they live there?  Are they one of the people or a guide or mentor?

The theological term, incarnation may help us understand this debate.  It implies total commitment and so certainly challenges my experience.  I’ve found total commitment can lead to confusion between the roles of development workers and local activists.

Incarnation

Incarnation means literally “of the flesh”, “carne” being the root of words like “carnivore”.

Theologians use the word to describe the doctrine that Jesus was both God and human. The exact nature of this union of God and human was the subject of much debate during the early Christian centuries. The issue was apparently resolved at the Council of Chalcedon. I say apparently because it led to the first of the major divisions in the Christian church.  (Follow the link to find out why it’s best not to get involved in this debate!)

I’m not going into this in detail because I want to focus on the impact of the doctrine on real life.

Whatever the detailed nature of God’s presence in flesh, it implies some basic things:

Of these my view is physical presence is far and away the most important. Christian teaching has always been about the immediate presence of God, as one who walks alongside.  Those who believe in or befriend God embody that presence.

Theresa’s Prayer

Many will know the prayer of St Theresa of Avila:

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours …”

What does this actually mean? There are debates between those who believe we must offer God our hearts and those who believe our minds are more important. The latter emphasise belief is important. The former emphasise love.

If what you believe is all important, you are likely to be fundamentalist in your theology. Your problem is the extent to which you are able to cope with challenges to your chosen belief. Ultimately can you cope with reality?

With the heart, the orientation is to a romantic view of faith. The problem here is love rarely begins with attraction. It begins with action and emotional love may follow.

What we learn from the doctrine of incarnation is feet are important, not hearts or minds. Wherever your feet are, there too are your head and heart. St Theresa says as much in the second part of her prayer:

“… yours are the eyes through which Christ compassion cares for the people of this world, yours are the feet through which Christ goes about doing good and yours are the hands through which Christ now brings a blessing.”

Note how Theresa makes incarnational life concrete (or flesh!)  It isn’t head and heart but the practical bits of the body that count.

Community Development

There is a debate among community development workers about imbricated roles. Imbricated means overlapped, in the sense that tiles on a roof must overlap to be watertight.  (I can’t find anything online that uses this term.  Nested roles seem to be closest but has specific management connotations.  “Skills in Neighbourhood Work” by Henderson and Thomas uses this term, at least it was in earlier editions!)

Is a development worker more effective if the worker lives in the community where they work? When I started as a development worker, I believed the answer was obviously yes and indeed it may be yes for many successful development workers.

It didn’t work for me. I discovered community development works as a walk alongside a community; it is not served by pretending to be part of it. People need to understand your role and some distance helps everyone understand it.

Being physically present is essential but also separation in some way helps. When you bring a valued external perspective into a neighbourhood, it doesn’t help to identify totally with the neighbourhood.

Your presence is important. How you practice being present depends on your skill and experience as a development worker. It would be interesting for workers to compare notes on how they walk alongside so that they are present in without becoming of the neighbourhood.

A really interesting question is: does this make community development online impossible? I’ll discuss this next time.

1 Christian Perfection

Methodism belongs to a Christian theological tradition known as Arminianism, which takes its name from the theologian Arminius, usually contrasted with Calvin.

Calvin was a barrister and never ordained. He was a preacher and insisted upon punctuality, so he sold pocket watches. He made a fortune and founded the first bank in Geneva; an entrepreneur as well as a spiritual leader. John Wesley the founder of Methodism had profound problems with Calvin’s followers.

Arminius’ based his theology on Calvin’s. The main difference, in the public mind, is Calvinists believe in the pre-determined election of believers to salvation. Arminians believe salvation is possible for all believers. Fascinating as this debate may be, I do not intend to pursue it here (sighs of relief all round).

Wesleyan Arminianism

This topic is an aspect of Wesleyan Arminianism called Christian Perfection. This is Methodism’s most radical doctrine. What it means is God’s love can be perfected in any believer; they do not stop sinning, indeed they experience greater awareness of their sins, as their life in prayer and devotion to God develops.

So, the first step the believer takes is justification. They enter a relationship with God and then over a lifetime, grow in faith and expression of God’s love. Notice perfection is not an end state, it is essentially ongoing growth into God’s love.

The invitation is to dig deeper; to study the scriptures, pray regularly and above all practice loving in the world.  Believers are aided in this by God’s grace through the Holy Spirit, who acts as a guide.  Some people argue perfection is solely the work of the Spirit; another debate I shall not pursue here.

Christian perfection implies you dig deep into your own tradition to reach out into the world. This doctrine unites Christians because as we explore our own traditions, the stories told by our fellow believers, we find common ground. Unity is common ground discovered and not something negotiated; we discover it by reaching out to others in love.

Truth as Conversation

Note this is an alternative take on what I wrote in my last post about truth as conversation. There I started with  conversation and suggested it generates new insights. Here the point is dig into your tradition, the deeper you go the more you will find common ground with people in other traditions.

This blog is about building community online and in this sequence of posts, I’m exploring how to equip ourselves for working in community. The Internet enables anarchic free-for-alls, through trolling or unethical marketing. It also enables collaboration around the world through non-hierarchical networks. This is not a new vision and it is at the root of many of the greatest thinkers in all religious faiths.

Building community means we must cultivate the ability to share with those who do not hold to the same beliefs as we do.  Trolling is one example of behaviour where someone is unsure of their beliefs.  The temptation is to get your retaliation in first.  Encounters between people who are sure of their chosen tradition are quite different.  For them an encounter with a new idea is an opportunity for deeper exploration of their own tradition.

We have a long way to go and my next port of call is at a theological idea, incarnation, literally “in the flesh”. A moment’s reflection and you will see this could be highly relevant!

1 Truth as Conversation

As I expected, start writing about spirituality and the subject proliferates! Last time, describing my spiritual roots, I asked “what is truth?” and promised to explore this question in more depth.

Pilate, an officious and brutal man by all accounts, asked this question; perhaps not someone noted for his concern for truth. The exchange appears only in John’s Gospel (18: 37, 38) and Jesus claims he has come to bear witness to the truth “and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice”. “Truth”, says Pilate, “what is that?” and then walks out without waiting for an answer.

Pilate is a bureaucrat; he’s not interested in answering his own question, he is interested in getting himself out of a difficult situation.

But Jesus does not define truth, he is there to bear witness to it. It’s almost as if truth is out there but somehow beyond our grasp. “I’m sure there is such a thing as truth, just don’t ask me to tell you what it is!”

Truth As Conversation

So, how does this work? The answer is conversation. Truth emerges from conversation, see my post about generative conversation, for example. The conversation between Jesus and Pilate is in John’s Gospel, which begins with the words “In the beginning was the Word”. The English word  is logos in Greek. What exactly does logos mean?

It is not possible to convey the nuances of any word in translation. John wrote in common Greek, the Greek spoken by ordinary people. Logos can be translated as word but if you think about it, words take on meanings in conversation. The first line of John’s Gospel could just as accurately be translated “in the beginning there was the Conversation.”

Truth as conversation emerges from various types of conversation, which can be between people, between a person and God (prayer) or between a person and the world (science).

Truth is a journey, a journey that never arrives at a destination. Sometimes the dead hand of religion or politics tries to silence the conversation and we all know where that leads.

Most genuine religious or spiritual leaders understand this and so value hospitality towards those from other traditions because great conversations happen where people of different traditions start talking. Many traditions actively encourage dialogue because it deepens their insights into their own tradition.

Fundamentalists understand truth as something final and complete. They have texts they believe to be true in the superficial sense of being a historic given. They do not understand these texts are given to us specifically for interpretation – when we question scripture, it encourages us to think in a deeper way.

This is why the radical atheists are so profoundly wrong. They make the same mistake as fundamentalists, believing there is one interpretation of any religious text. My religious text may not be what you would choose, if you are an atheist, but my question, is what challenges your beliefs?

Texts from my tradition challenge my beliefs and help me understand my own deeper motivations. Texts from other traditions can help me understand my own; my appreciation of my tradition deepens as I engage with others. It can be harder if you don’t have a book but a book can be an immense barrier if your interpretation is the last word.

Next time I shall show you how my tradition helps me understand the nature of truth.  How have you found conversations leading to deeper understanding?

1 My Spiritual Roots

When writing about spirituality, how do you put into words perceptions that cannot be fully expressed? Perhaps they are incomplete, part of an ongoing story or cannot be expressed in words.  But it is possible to trace back your spiritual roots.

Too often religion comes across in the media (and religious meeting places) as a done deal. “You are one of us and so this is what you believe”. The same can be said of political views.

For example, I’m 61 years old and if someone interviewed me they might define my economic beliefs but I hesitate to say I’m a Keynesian or a Marxist or anything else because I am still exploring. I am not satisfied with most economic models on offer. There’s a lot of good stuff around but I don’t see why I need to adopt some particular view.

The same is true of religion. I became a Methodist in May 1978, when I was 24 years old and before that I wasn’t anything in particular. I went to see my Methodist Minister and asked him what I had to believe. His reply has been immensely influential over the last forty years. “Nothing”.

Stories

Religious faith is ultimately stories. Some will forcefully argue you must believe these stories are true. I have two problems with this. First, I’m called as a practicing Christian not to believe but to tell these stories. Of course, I believe they are worth telling.

My second problem is what do we mean by true? Fundamentalists usually mean  stories are true if they really happened. One day Jesus healed a demoniac by casting demons into a herd of pigs. How many demoniacs were there? Mark’s Gospel tells me there was one but Matthew’s version has two. Which is true in a historic sense? It’s not likely Jesus on separate occasions sent two herds of pigs over cliffs and Mark records one and Matthew the other.

The Gospel writers were not concerned about literal truth. I know why Matthew has two demoniacs. But even if we all agree there was originally one, it does not follow that a herd of pigs was ever stampeded by Jesus.

You know what? It really doesn’t matter whether it really happened. When I tell the story I never ask whether it really happened. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the meaning of the story.

But even that is not the full truth. You see there is not one single plain meaning of scripture. Whatever meaning you favour is your interpretation of the story. There are other interpretations. How many? They are uncountable, effectively infinite. You can always find another.

So, as Pilate asked, what is truth? I’ll return to this question in my next post.

Radical Methodism

So, how would I describe my spiritual roots? The way I see it is you need to be something because you need something to argue with. It is about wrestling with the tradition, not swallowing a party line.

So, I would describe myself as a radical Methodist. Methodism is the body of teaching I wrestle with, my aim is to go deeper into the roots of Methodism. Radical means literally to go to the roots. One thing about the roots of any plant is you find it increasingly difficult, as you look closely, to see where the roots end and soil begins. Radical is not about pulling up the plant but understanding how the plant grows and thrives. I shall return to this in a couple of weeks.

1 Why Spirituality?

Why spirituality? After all, it is not an obvious topic in a blog about community development online.

One obvious, prosaic reason is one of my markets is churches and faith groups. However, this sequence is not solely for the religious.

Spirituality has, for better or worse, become a word used beyond the confines of established religious institutions. Perhaps as more people became estranged from formal religion, they found meaning in spiritual experience.

So, allow me to set out my stall before you decide whether to follow this sequence.

What is spirituality?

My definition in two words is: paying attention. In one word it is: awareness.  As well as their advantage in terms of memorability, these definitions are remarkable because these three words

My Spirituality Sequence

I’m planning to cover three main spirituality topics over the next few months.  (The link takes you to a cornerstone page, listing the posts in this sequence.)  I shall:

This is a basic outline; I’ve no idea where it will take me because that is the nature of spirituality. So, whatever your religious tradition, keep an eye on what I’m writing in this sequence, you never know what I might stumble upon!

0 Capacity for Website Development

Last Wednesday I wrote about how organisations can lack capacity in four dimensions. Low capacity in one dimension might be offset by high capacity in the others but equally low capacity in one might inhibit an otherwise healthy organisation.

Today I shall review the four dimensions and show how organisational capacity can enhance or break a website.

Finance

With money you can pay someone to look after your site. However, plenty of money does not guarantee a good website. That depends on the other three dimensions.

If you can afford to pay someone to do the work it is worth asking whether this is the best use of resources. It will depend upon the purpose of the website. So, if it is primarily about sharing well-defined information, one person may be able to maintain it. However, if you want social interaction, for example, a team or whole organisation approach may be better.

Websites are not improved by throwing money at them. They are best when they a planned with care. Don’t do what one of my customers did and run the website by issuing edicts from on high to a sole worker. A good website is best designed through open conversations based on accurate information about the organisation.

Lack of finance is not necessarily a problem. If you cannot afford professional help, then you will sacrifice quality or it will take longer. A simple site with a blog facility might be all you need to start. A few people on a casual basis may be able to figure out what they need to do to progress the site.  When you have money you may have a better appreciation of how to spend it.

Personnel

People are essential to website development and maintenance.   If you are clear about the purpose of your site and know the contributions staff, members and others can offer, it should be possible to match people to specific tasks.

Professional assistance will save you time and well-managed can help you develop an effective site fast.  Small expenditure, if money is tight, on premium services with good support can bring expertise closer to your site at relatively little cost.

Paid staff can with training maintain your website and maybe help develop it.  Volunteers, who may be Trustees or helpers, can develop and maintain a site.

And don’t forget your customers, clients or visitors to the site. There are many ways in which they can contribute, eg through comments, testimonials or as guest bloggers.

Being pro-active finding people who are willing and able to help out is possible where there may be people who are willing to give their time to the cause.

Time

Time is a real constraint, especially for voluntary organisations with no paid staff. Looking after a significant website these days can be equivalent to a full-time job.

I have written about site maintenance and in these posts I show there is more to it than marshalling content.

One solution is to pay someone to look after the site, so volunteers can focus on content, confident their site will rarely crash and someone will rescue it if it does.  Many site designers and consultants offer a low-cost site maintenance service.  You should own the site and pay the host, which means you can change your maintenance service if you are not happy with it.

The key is to develop a routine for work on the site and sticking to it. This might be a few hours a week or daily activity and each person should agree a role and work out how they are going to do it. Everyone should be alert to potential problems and know what to do if they encounter one.  Occasional meetings of all those who work on the site, help you review your routine and bring new ideas and people on board.

Knowledge and Understanding

Whilst knowledge and understanding of how the site works may be important, it is not essential that everyone working on the site has in-depth knowledge.

It is important though that the organisation is in command of knowledge and understanding of the site’s purpose and content. Good content will draw traffic to the site and so help your organisation achieve its goals.  But if you are not clear about purpose, then visitors to the site will not know how to interpret the site or respond to your offer.

Whether your site is simply information about your organisation’s activities or offers a valuable information service, accuracy is important.  If your site advertises events for members, it is still possible to mis-type dates, times and venues.  So, you may find some provision for proof reading is important, even for a simple site.  The good news is mistakes can be quickly changed, although you don’t know how many have seen the inaccurate information.

If you provide information where accuracy is important, eg legal or medical advice, you may need to take further precautions.  Many organisations use a disclaimer that the site is for guidance only and the visitor should take professional advice before committing to a course of action.  Even if you have professionals working on the site who are confident the information provided is accurate, you still cannot be responsible for how a visitor might interpret the information they read.

Websites provide knowledge and depend upon the visitor to provide understanding.  What you can do is provide guidance so the visitor is shown how to use the information they glean from the site.  Some organisations offer one-to-one support, so visitors can make contact and discuss their issue with someone who understands it.  This type of consultancy or coaching can be charged at premium rates although many organisations offer a range of support packages to meet a range of pockets.

If you enjoyed this post, you can sign up to my email list at the top of the right-hand column. You will receive a weekly summary of my posts, an email sequence about community development and occasional emails about community development online.

2 Humour and Organisations

One simple thing I’ve seen over the years is laughter as a sign of healthy organisations.  Laughter is not always a positive.  It can be cruel and discriminatory.  The excuse the insensitive or exclusive person makes, “I was only joking”, rarely rings true. Genuine laughter makes for an organisation at ease with itself.  So, what is a healthy relationship between humour and organisations?

Tedious Meetings

Look at this way.  I have sat through thousands of meetings and most of them are a complete waste of time.  People sit around a table, poe-faced, grinding their way through a remorseless agenda.

From time to time, someone will climb onto their hobby-horse and take it for a swift canter around the table.  Agenda items return time and again because no-one actually wants to deal with them.  Then someone tells a joke that falls flat.  I’ve been told off for not taking things seriously enough.  I do take losing the will to live very seriously indeed.

The Clique

Another pitfall is the clique.  A group of people run the organisation and have done so for years.  They have no interest in opening up to outsiders.  There may be humour as between friends but not the humour of a group genuinely open to others.  People who get on with one another are likely to get the job done, they should be aware though, they may like each other so much they become closed to outsiders.

Hospitality and Fear

To be light-hearted does not mean you don’t take things seriously.  Hospitality is at the centre.  The stranger should feel welcome and valued.  They may not always agree with the organisation but they will go away with a spring in their step if they receive respectful listening.  A group in good humour knows when to stop laughing, how to pay attention and build up even those they send away empty-handed.

Lack of humour is common where there is fear, where the organisation has taken a place in the hearts of its leaders, where they are clinging to power.  The ironic thing is the power to which they cling is illusory.  People who bully to maintain their place in a twopence halfpenny organisation that’s going nowhere in the real world and every which way in its leaders heads, will find they’ve wasted their time.

In a healthy organisation, people know their limitations, they greet an ironic comment with recognition of our common humanity and not as a threat to their oh so important authority.

Yesterday someone shared a dream project with me.  It might work.  I told him one of my rules of community development: “Most things don’t work”.  He could invest in his dream and the likelihood is it will not work.  But look closely at that phrase.  The fact is the only way you can find the things that do work is to try them.  When you try things, most will not work.  Ironic, but somehow liberating.  Perhaps he will try his idea and perhaps when it fails he’ll remember what I said and smile and be encouraged to try it another way.