Archive for the ‘Congregational Culture’ Category

 

The Collaboration Continuum: Re-Igniting the Conversation for Congregations

Posted on: July 3rd, 2013 by Hayim Herring

 

Cross-posted to eJewish Philanthropy

by Debra Brosan and Rabbi Hayim Herring

 

Recently, we conducted thirteen informal phone interviews with federation directors, rabbis and lay leaders from around the country to learn first hand about the landscape of synagogue collaborations and potential mergers.

 

We spoke with leaders primarily along the East Coast and in the Midwest. Some had experienced population decline by snowbirds who had permanently moved to warmer parts of the country or had lost a significant percentage of the Jewish population because of the economic recession. We also spoke with a few other community leaders in areas that we suspected were potentially ripe for collaboration because it’s just good business to partner, collaborate and consolidate.

 

We weren’t interested in conducting a rigorous scientific study, but simply wanted to gain an impressionistic view of the level of discussion and activity around collaboration. We had read several recent stories in the Jewish press about creative congregational collaborations and were also aware of consolidations happening in the broader nonprofit community. Collaboration is one of our deep interests, and we have helped shepherd a number of congregations, Jewish organizations and nonprofit organizations through fruitful partnerships. We know that there is ample room for more collaboration, but we wanted to conduct some due diligence before drawing conclusions.

 

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Resetting the Rabbinate

Posted on: May 20th, 2013 by Hayim Herring

 

 

In the past few months, I’ve read at least six articles or blogs about rabbis and the contemporary rabbinate. (Just search sites like eJewishPhilanthropy, The Jewish Week, the JTA and the Jewish Daily Forward for a sampling of results.) Any rabbi will tell you that there’s structural change occurring and the media now seems to have picked up this story. Some of the stories suggest new roles that rabbis are fulfilling, others are about gender and the rabbinate, or prognostications about the future of the rabbinate and the rabbinical seminaries’ challenge in keeping up with what they perceive as new skills that rabbis require.

 

(Disclaimer: I’ve written about the rabbinate over the years as well in publications like Tomorrow’s Synagogue Today. Creating Vibrant Centers of Jewish Life and “The Rabbi as Moreh Derekh Chayim: Reconceptualizing Today’s Rabbinate”. But why so many articles in such a short time?

 

Rabbis are experiencing significant role ambiguity and the 20th Century paradigm of what defines a rabbi is clearly inadequate for this century. A few examples will suffice:

Rabbis used to have primary or heavy involvement in the examples above but now, much less so.

 

And it isn’t just that functions are changing. Relationships are changing as well. In speaking with colleagues, they sense that they are increasingly being treated more as employees and less as individuals with a sacred profession. As one colleague wryly commented, he felt that “evaluations” had become “devaluations.”

 

This lack of role clarity is a symptom of a paradigm change. As renowned futurist, Joel Barker, says: “When a paradigm shifts, everyone goes back to zero. Your past success guarantees nothing in your future.” And all of these conversations about rabbis’ roles certainly have the feel of “going back to zero,” that is, accepting that the assumptions that undergird last centuries’ rabbinate will not support today’s rabbinate.

 

I believe that rabbis have significant roles to play. Some will be the same as the last generation of rabbis, and others haven’t even yet been imagined. But I’d like to hear your thoughts about the unique roles that rabbis can play. By unique, I mean what is it by virtue of their training that they alone can do, or that they can do with greater ability than others with Judaic knowledge and experience? All are invited to respectfully weigh in and thanks!

 

 

Make your sermon like a shofar blast

Posted on: September 22nd, 2011 by Hayim Herring
Shofar Blowing

From Joe King on flickr

Rosh Hashanah is less than a week away.  Synagogues are in crunch mode.  Rabbis are putting the finishing touches on their sermons. Congregational leaders will be working extra hard during the next several weeks and more congregants will engage with the synagogue than at any other time during the year.

People will be looking for a meaningful message that they can take away from their yamim noraim (High Holy Day) experience, and rabbis, other synagogue professionals and volunteer leaders should consider both the content of their messages and the most impactful way to communicate them. They need to think strategically about how they are communicating with their audiences—during the coming High Holy Days and in the long-term.

Strategic communication is not just about trying to get people more involved in your synagogue’s programming.  Everybody will be doing that in one way or another.  It is about being more intentional in how you share your synagogue’s message with others.

Strategic communication is also not the same as “marketing.”  Marketing focuses on getting different demographics of congregants interested in a specific program or service. Strategic communication, on the other hand, relates programs and projects to the overall mission and goals of the congregation.

Strategic communication does not happen overnight, of course.  Many organizations go through the process of creating a “strategic communications plan,” which is developed and used by all levels of the organization.

In other words, ideally your communications are not limited to your congregational newsletter or information on your website, but in every interaction that your staff and lay leadership have with congregants, potential members, or local media outlets.  It represents a consistency in your organizational message, driven by your mission. It is about telling your story in an effective way.  (The SPIN Project offers a free online template for creating a strategic communications plan that you may find useful, though it is targeted to organizations engaged in advocacy work.)

Even though this process does not happen overnight, you can use the High Holidays as an opportunity to begin thinking more strategically and proactively about how you communicate with your various audiences.  Once you start engaging in these critical conversations around communications, you will begin to see a meaningful transformation in the way your congregation’s message is communicated and how it is perceived.

The blast of the shofar during the High Holy Days calls us out of our complacency and inspires us to return.  With a little bit of planning, your communications can have a similar impact on your audience in the new year.

Please contact us to learn how we can help take your organization through a unique, engaging process of creating your own strategic communications plan.

L’shanah Tovah,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

 

Free Social Media Tools for Your Organization

Posted on: September 6th, 2011 by Hayim Herring
Social Media Logos

Image courtesy of prlog.org

This summer, Facebook surpassed 750 million users worldwide. In the past year alone, the average number of tweets per day nearly tripled from 50 million to 140 million.[1] Simply put: if your organization is not yet engaging with social media, you are missing out.  But chances are you know that social media are valuable, and that the real looming question is how your organization can maximize the benefits of social media while minimizing the time needed to devote to these platforms.

The short answer is that with a little more time invested up front, your organization can have a social media presence that will add value to the organization and its stakeholders.  And the best part—most social media are free for individuals and organizations alike!

HCN advocates creating a social media strategy before jumping into the social media game.  Having a clear strategy will help keep you focused on why you are using social media in the first place and keep you from getting distracted by the chaotic environment of the World Wide Web.

In order to help you in the process, we have posted a free guide for creating your social media strategy.  You can also download our social media glossary (in case you still don’t know what an “RSS Feed” is…).  Please click here to access these free resources.

By spending the time now to create a social media strategy for your organization, you will hopefully begin seeing real results in the near future, such as driving more traffic to your website, attracting new event attendees or enhancing relationships with your existing constituency.[2]  Social media will never obviate the need for meaningful face-to-face interactions.  Yet in today’s digital environment, can your organization really afford not to make this small yet critical investment?

[1] As of March 14, 2011 (http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html).

[2] See a recent survey by Idealware on the impact of Facebook on non-profit organizations: http://idealware.org/sites/idealware.org/files/Facebook_survey_2011_v2.pdf.

Mission Statement: Missing in Action?

Posted on: August 18th, 2011 by Hayim Herring

I just had the pleasure of teaching an outstanding group of rabbinical students who are participating in the Schusterman Rabbinical Fellowship program. While preparing for­­­ a session on the importance of synagogue mission statements, I discovered something curious about them: only two of the roughly dozen synagogue websites that I reviewed featured their mission statements on the home page. In the other cases, I needed to hunt for them on the website. And that’s only those synagogue websites that even had mission statements!

We’re getting to the time of year when people who are not a regular part of the synagogue community will be “shul shopping.” Rosh ha-Shanah begins on the evening of Wednesday, September 28. The first place that people look to learn about anything today is on the web. If your mission statement, the most basic expression of your synagogue identity, does not readily appear on your website, what message are you communicating to potential congregants?

By the way, if you work for a national synagogue denominational office, you might want to check if your denomination’s mission is featured on the website’s home page.  You may be surprised by what you find.

B’shalom,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Prayer on Rosh ha-Shanah: Eternal or Eternally Long?

Posted on: July 21st, 2010 by Hayim Herring
They are only about seven weeks before Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish new year. We might refer to a synagogue during Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur as a house of perpetual prayer. Imagine yourself sitting in the pews on parts of these days, for at least a few hours at a time. Overall, what has that experience felt like for you? Did you feel God’s presence or at least a sense of being part of something larger, more purposeful?  Did these experiences open up new insights into dimensions of your life that you don’t usually think about?
These aren’t only asked by those involved in the synagogue community ask; they are also questions that people of other faith traditions ask.  Just go to a recent blog post on The Alban Institute’s website, authored by Graham Standish, who asks: “Why Do We Worship The Way We Always Have Worshiped When People Keep Changing?” For many Americans raised and educated in our primarily secular culture, prayer is tough, regardless of your their faith tradition.
I encourage you to read the Standish’s full post and the comments on it. Here are some thought-provoking excerpts:
•“…what I think is paramount in a worship service [(is)]: encountering and experiencing God in a way that transforms us, even if just a little bit.
•Most generations approach worship differently from previous ones. They are not always looking to reinvent worship, but they are seeking a renewed sense of relevance to their context.
•Ultimately, the problem isn’t that each generation keeps changing. The problem is that as time passes congregations and their leaders forget to keep the focus of worship on the encounter with the Holy.
•Being intentional means…asking whether what we are offering actually connects members of each generation with the Holy. It means asking a simple question: Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?
Prayer, as currently presented, works for some people. And we know that good music, participation, less Hebrew or more Hebrew (depending upon the makeup of the congregation), a little meditation, teaching the meaning and the melodies—these tactics can enrich prayer, but they mask Standish’s question, “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?”
While we have some time before Rosh ha-Shanah, please answer Standish’s question: “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?” And more importantly, what can you do so that your congregation can answer this question with a resounding “yes”?
Thanks, in advance, for your reflections,
Rabbi Hayim Herring

There are only about seven weeks before Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish new year. We might refer to a synagogue during Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur as a house of perpetual prayer. Imagine yourself sitting in the pews on parts of these days, for at least a few hours at a time. Overall, what has that experience felt like for you? Did you feel God’s presence or at least a sense of being part of something larger, more purposeful?  Did these experiences bring insights into dimensions of your life that you don’t usually think about?

These aren’t only asked by those involved in the synagogue community; they are also questions people of other faith traditions ask.  Just go to a recent blog post on The Alban Institute’s website, authored by Graham Standish, who asks: “Why Do We Worship The Way We Always Have Worshiped When People Keep Changing?” For many Americans raised and educated in our primarily secular culture, prayer is tough, regardless of your their faith tradition.

I encourage you to read the Standish’s full post and the comments on it. Here are some thought-provoking excerpts:

Prayer, as currently presented, works for some people. And we know that good music, participation, less Hebrew or more Hebrew (depending upon the makeup of the congregation), a little meditation, teaching the meaning and the melodies—these tactics can enrich prayer, but they mask Standish’s question, “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?”

While we have some time before Rosh ha-Shanah, please answer: “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?” What can you do so that your congregation can answer this question with a resounding “Yes”?

Thanks, in advance, for your reflections,

Rabbi Hayim Herring

flickr.com trodel

Renewal Efforts: Synagogue Friend or Foe?

Posted on: June 11th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

Rather than focusing on a particular organizational topic this week, I wanted to make sure you’ve seen a fascinating online debate about synagogue renewal efforts.

It was initiated by a post by Rabbi Gerald Skolnik on Synagogue 3000’s Synablog entitled Synagogue 3000: A Concurring Dissent; Or, Of Babies and Bathwater.  Rabbi Skolnik first describes his Orthodox childhood and education and his journey to becoming a Conservative Rabbi. 

Rabbi Skolnik writes:

It is from this vantage point that I approach the work of Synagogue 3000, STAR, and similar organizations dedicated to the re-creation and re-vitalization of the American synagogue. I understand the challenge at hand. I work with those “Jews in the pews” (or not in the pews!) every day, and know the deep sense of alienation that so many of them feel from traditional synagogue worship and ritual. They are profoundly disconnected from that world of Jewish practice that I live, breathe, and so value. But I have a nagging feeling that, though I understand the goals of organizations like Synagogue 3000 and appreciate what they are trying to accomplish, re-creating the synagogue and its worship is, at its core, a flawed enterprise. That’s why I’ve called this piece a “concurring dissent:” an oxymoron if ever there was one. I agree with the problem, but I’m uncomfortable with the solution. We are changing the davening to suit the daveners, and in so doing, we are losing something precious and irretrievable.

STAR is mentioned specifically in the post and I’ve responded fully to Rabbi Skolnik’s comments. Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve offered to meet with Rabbi Skolnik in Minneapolis or New York to explore the rich, independent data we’ve gathered over the years which tell a story of positive impact that our initiatives have had on congregations of all denominations across North America.  We have a good grasp on what has been successful and what has not, and we think that it’s important to have conversations with others who share our passion for Jewish life and the synagogue which are informed both by feeling and fact. 

We are inspired by the rabbis and synagogues with whom we work – their willingness to hold on to two goals simultaneously: 

These goals can be compatible.

We encourage you to take a few minutes to weigh in on these issues.  Read the Synablog post and comments.

Rabbi Hayim Herring