MikeOharaLive the intersection of faith and life

Clear as Mud

You can never be too clear.  Like a window can never be too clean, or water can never be too clear.

Clarity is something we're working hard on at GBCK.  Here are some things we're learning, and re-learning, about clarity:

• It may be clear in your head (or in your staff meeting) but it takes a whole lot of work to make something clear to the rest of the congregation.
• Clarity can never be assumed.  It's safer to assume things are still unclear, and then keep working at clarity.
• Pop quizzes: one way we want to determine clarity is short "quizzes" that will help determine if something that's being communicated is going in.
• Say it often, differently, and creatively.
• Clarity empowers others and frees them to act.  Lack of clarity paralyzes.
• If the leadership is unclear then it's over; what you're trying to communicate will end at the leadership level and never go to the congregation.
• Use sounding boards to gauge clarity.  One of my most important weekly meetings is our "Word" meeting where Dane and I go over Friday's and Sunday's sermons.  We spend a lot of time clarifying big ideas. "If there's a haze in the pulpit, there's a fog in the pews."

Here are some of the things we're trying to clarify:
1. The vision of GBCK
2. Leadership roles and functions
3. The Gospel

Again, you can never be too clear.