Problem or Issue?

The trouble with problems is, they're unwieldy.  Think about a few: poverty; world hunger; violence.  They're so darn big, just thinking about them becomes exhausting.  So we think, we get exhausted and depressed, and we go back to watching tv.  

The organizing model refines problems into issues.  Instead of being amorphous and incomprehensible, issues can be defined and approached.  We can take specific steps to address them - especially as a united community committed to dealing with whatever the issues might be.  

Michael Gecan told the story last week of a church with whom he was working that just wasn't growing (church growth is often one of those mammoth problems that churchy leader types spend lots of time worrying about).  Michael sat down with the leaders of the church, and asked them how often in the past year each one of them had invited someone to their church; of those, he asked how many had joined.  One person in this church's leadership had brought one new member to the church.  Then, he asked what people do, when they see new people at church.  Do they say hello?  Do they introduce themselves?  Do they initiate a 3-4 minute conversation?  These are all practical, low-risk behaviors...and yet, the leaders of this church didn't have the habit of doing them.

I should stop here and say that many churches don't welcome new folks as we should.  All of us in the Christian faith have something to learn about practicing the hospitality Jesus calls us to.

Anyway.  Whether the issue was a specific aspect of church growth or a particular need of undocumented workers, Michael offered us illustrations of the need to look at certain, discrete realities - and then find ways to fix them.  We may not solve the whole problem - in fact, we likely won't - but we can find concrete ways to change our communities for the better.  And I think that beats depressed tv-watching any day of the week.