Selling Your Soul?
Does change come from within or without? That tension is illustrated by Adam Werbach was the young star of the environmental movement, prior to him choosing to work with Walmart (the enemy). The angst of that change is captured well in the cover story of Fast Company in this month’s issue. In it he makes some crisp observations which can be well applied to my world - non-profit and church.
Adam is quoted as saying “Make executive directors [of environmental groups] go to a red state and try to explain environmentalism to the average American. If they don’t have a plan to activate the values we share [with] the majoriy of Americans, then they need to move on”. This statement can apply to most non-profit work - we become enraptured by our cause that we think everyone should do, act, say because our cause is so important, compelling, necessary, etc. Rather we as non-profit communicators must find ways to connect the values we espouse with those that are already important to our audiences. Real buy-in and momentum is the result and our mission is advanced.
Adam lived the above quote by signing on with Wal-Mart. “It seemed pretty clear that [by signing on] I would get a level of access that I would never get as an outsider”
The tension of his decision is described further on in the article, “Werbach knows he’s straddling two contradictory cultures. He is a complicated blend of creativity, idealism and pragmatism; sometimes he admits, that puts him at war with himself. . . ‘There’s an interesting book called Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity‘, he says. ‘I guess that’s where I live, somewhere between all those places. I don’t know whether it’s irony or hypocrisy.’”
The church in the West is in a transitory phase, the world we knew no longer exists and there are many different responses. CRM reflects a number of those responses amongst our diversity - from rescuing “old churches” to pioneering completely new ones. In my role of leading communications I have to be able to work wholeheartedly with all our diversity. Some days I wonder if it would be just easier to go and do “my thing” and be done with it. Yet I think God has called me to be one of these people that helps build bridges and to live in tension - it doesn’t feel as neat or perhaps “holy” as people on the front-lines who get to focus on one thing on the “cutting edge”. But I know it is needed.
