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October 8, 2009

Eliminating Dangerous Routines

My experience with rock climbing has been limited to the artificial rock walls and high ropes courses. But I appreciate that rock climbing, like small groups, is an activity that is risky enough that it should be done in community.

If you are not familiar with rock climbing, you typically have one person climbing while someone else holds the safety ropes. The person holding the safety ropes is called the “belay.” When the climber is ready to proceed up the rock, the procedure is to communicate with the belayer. "On belay" means that the belayer is operating the belay device, ready to "catch" the climber in the event of a fall. "On belay" essentially means, "I've got you, it is safe to proceed." "Off belay" means the opposite: "I am not manning the belay device, so exercise extreme caution." Many climbing accidents happen because of poor communication between the climber and belayer.

I was reading an article on BusinessWeek.com that talked about the routines of rock climbers and noted the risk involved as climbers interact: “Can you think of two phrases that sound more alike than ‘on belay’ and ‘off belay?’ While they might be distinguished easily in an indoor climbing gym, put two competitive, adrenaline-filled people on a sheer cliff with the wind whistling by, a waterfall in the distance, gear clacking against the rock—and it's not difficult to see how such errors occur. Why on earth, I wondered, would climbers continue to use the terms when they are obviously not the best signals for the task? ‘I guess climbers have always done it that way,’ was their uneasy answer. The terms are remnants of a stupid routine.”

This article made me think about our small groups. How many stupid routines are we doing in our small groups that, at best, are creating ineffective Christian community—and at worst, creating dangerous spiritual situations in our groups? Things like breaking confidentiality, gossip, being more focused on curriculum than relationships, running out of time for prayer, and the like.

One way to eliminate dangerous routines is to start talking about our routines regularly—meaning more than just once a year. There’s no better time to evaluate than right now! The Business Week article also suggested some evaluation questions to help start conversations about routines. I have adapted these questions to a small group setting:

• In the past 90 days, what were our three most important accomplishments together? [Push the group to not settle for answers like "we finished the curriculum." Instead, teach them that accomplishment is about life change.]


• In the past 90 days, what were the three most important ways we fell short of our potential? [Here, you are tapping people's discernment about important things the group ought to be emphasizing, but isn't.]


• In the past 90 days, what are the three most important things we have learned about our routine? [This is the toughest one—asking people to learn and apply what they've learned about routine life in Christian community.]

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posted by Dan Lentz on October 8, 2009 8:21 AM