I’m flying into Los Angeles next month for a family reunion, and I already know my first stop. It’s always the same: In-N-Out Burger on Century Blvd. The line, any time of day or night, wraps around the block. In-N-Out has been around since I was a kid, and the menu hasn’t changed: burgers, fries, and shakes. No chicken, no bacon-wrapped anything. For vegetarians, you can get a grilled cheese — on a hamburger bun. For vegans, you can get the bun. Maybe some lettuce.
There’s an obsession with simplicity today, and it seems my research into simplicity finally gave the YouTube algorithm the information it needed. Suddenly hundreds of channels about minimalism now infest my YouTube feed — Never Too Small; Minimalist Feast; Cheap RV Living; Nomad-a-holic. My favorite influencer (I never thought I’d utter those words) is a guy name Samauri Matcha. I’ve watched him discover minimalism, get rid of nearly all his material possessions, create minimalist challenges for his viewers, and finally, just this year, find true love with another minimalist. This last chapter documents how two minimalists will never agree on what to throw away.
According to church researchers Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger, most churches are not simple. They’re structured in fine 19th-century fashion, when committees were a fashionable way to organize power. Committees were once radical — a way of giving power to the people! Not so much anymore. So I wonder: are our church structures too complicated? Can we learn something from the simplicity movement? Can a church do a few things so well that people find, in the work itself, the fellowship and togetherness their souls crave?
Or simply, can a few core teams empower more volunteers, more effectively, to the work they enjoy the most?
What does the science say? MIT Media Lab’s John Maeda has spent decades studying complex systems. He identified two competing impulses:
- When you want more, it’s because you want to enjoy and consume.
- When you want less, it’s because “having” involves work or pain.
In church terms, we might say that when people show up, it’s because they are finding connection and purpose. And when they show up less, it’s because showing up is more trouble that it’s worth.
Simplicity, Maeda concluded, lives somewhere between enjoyment and austerity — between wanting more and needing less.
If Maeda is right, we’re working at cross-purposes. We want to enjoy more of the experience we’re having, and yet I’ve never seen a church whose leaders weren’t on the edge of burn out every spring.
My hope, actually, is that our re-invigorated council will help us simplify. As many of our committees shrink to just a couple of people, sometimes only one, rather than beat those bushes—you know the bushes I’m talking about, the ones filled with volunteers—rather than beating them further, perhaps the council will let organizers do what they love, organize, and let volunteers move more freely between activities. One thing we know about younger volunteers is that they volunteer for the impact, not committee work.
This said, I want to be clear about two things:
First, I’m not saying don’t volunteer. I think everyone should volunteer for what brings them joy. And I think volunteering for something is a part of being a member.
Second, sometimes there are genuine needs in the congregation must be met. For example, religious education. Not committee work, but boots on the ground sharing with our children and youth the values we share.
Rainer and Geiger, in their book Simple Church, say the antidote to burnout is a clear mission, faithfully kept. Their research found that vibrant churches and stagnant churches differ on one thing: complexity. Complex churches are declining. Simple churches — built around a clear, process-oriented mission — are thriving.
They outline three stages of a healthy church process, captured in a mission statement: First, a way of moving people from outside to inside. Second, a process for personal and spiritual growth. Third, a pathway from inner work into justice work in the world.
In other words: 1) come join us, 2) thrive in this place, and 3) go out and change the world.
Come in. Be yourself. Go out. Maybe In-N-Out is on to something.
Here are mission statements from some of the thriving churches they studied:
“Love God, love others, serve the world.”
“Foyer, living room, kitchen.” — entry, connection, cooking up justice together.
“Connecting. Growing. Serving.”
Some of my favorites include:
Nurturing the human spirit for a world made whole.
Welcoming All. Inspiring Compassion and Wonder. Serving Community.
Going into the annual meeting I reviewed our mission statement. And here’s what I found: whoever helped you craft your mission and vision statements did a great job — even if the labels got a little switched around.
In other words, your vision statement, to me, reads like your mission, and vise versa, at least according to the research I’m using today, my governance training from Unity Consulting, and the UUA’s Congregational Handbook.
But this flip is OK, and not uncommon. Vision. Mission. What matters is how we use them, and we can work with what we have.
Your vision reads: “The UU Church of Rockford is a loving, spiritual congregation that lives our values through belonging, reason, and action.”
As a mission, it reminds us we are a loving, spiritual place where you can belong, think, and take action.
Love. Belong. Think. Act.
Reiner and Geiger, on the other hand, define a vision statement as something longer to return to and be inspired by. It might be long but worth the reminder.
A mission statement is something so memorable we actually remember it — words we can use over and over to tell the world who we are.
UU Rockford: A loving, spiritual congregation that lives our values through belonging, reason, and action.
As we enter our second year of transition, we will turn back toward your mission and vision statements. As an interim minister, I will not change them. Your new minister will want to do that. But by the time he, she, or they arrives, you should know them, understand them, and have some questions. Is this who we are today? Do these statement communicate clearly our promises to the world? Was Rev. Bret, the UUA, Unity Consulting, Reiner and Geiger off their rockers with their definitions of mission and vision?
That last question is the least important, because what really matters, according to Rainer and Geiger, the UUA, and the rest, is to view mission and vision work as a process, to find who’s falling through the cracks of that process, and to connect ourselves with our purpose for being in this community and world.
We can put each of our programs to the Simple Church simplicity test.
How about the Pantry as a loving act of kindness that says to the community: we belong together. Yes!
How about those donations we send to NPR telling the world who we are and inviting listeners to join us? Absolutely!
How about our Woodsong program, a preschool that shares our values, cares for this land, and nurtures creative, justice-minded young people? Amen and Hallelujah!
“Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau in Walden. “Our life is frittered away in detail.”
What would this church look like as we re-examine how every program supports the mission? What would it feel like if we aligned our energy around our vision and not do things simply because we’ve always done them? Not that we are, but are we? Great questions.
I think it would look a lot like what we have now — but lighter. And instead of people saying, “I love this place but there’s just too much to do,” we might hear: “I love this place, and I know exactly why I’m here — and together we are making the world better.”
UU Rockford: a place of love and belonging, reason and action.
Simple Church.