Improv Leadership

A few weeks ago, I invited all of the leaders in our congregation to join me as we kicked off another year in ministry.  While we had everyone together I delivered an equipping session that preceded dinner and breakouts.  How can you make church leadership interesting?  Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  I love to learn about it, practice it, teach it, and share it.  I thought it would be really fun to talk about our work as congregational leaders to talk about what we are to do in terms of improvisational comedy.  I used material from the Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual.  I know nothing says improv like a manual.

But here is where we went with this:

…If church leadership is like long-form improv, then we look at the two primary components…Base Reality and the game  

What is base reality?  In a way, it is the context that you build. In improv, it is the beginning of the scene, which is usually short and establishes the norm if you will…it is the backdrop through which the first unusual thing happens.  And when the first unusual thing happens, then the game is afoot.

If we go back to the diagram, you will see the words, yes &...Base reality begins with a degree of agreement, YES, and connects that with new information meaning that you are adding to...this helps establish your base reality.  It is the FIRST TASK..in improv and church leadership 

What is our base reality?  If we are all in this together…we cannot operate in separate base realities…between different committees and teams…We are all in this scene together, so we establish our base reality. For our congregation, as leaders, our base reality is best originated through our culture:  Missional Mandate, Missional Vision, and Missional Motives.  For the scene to continue, we say “yes, and.”  To do this, we must listen!  Listening is crucial…you can’t “yes, and” something without hearing it.

First Two rules for church leadership:  Keep saying Yes…and Be a good listener.  What kills the scene can also kill the leadership and progress:  Denial (always a no person or a devil’s advocate), inattention, and dueling initiations (someone refuses to let go of his/her idea or initiation).

Rule #3:   Find your team…which I hope you have, but perhaps, I should say, be a great teammate. Find your people…Once you have a base reality, then something happens…something unusual…that in improv is the beginning of the game.  But you have to find the game…and play the game (remember, good teammate). When the first unusual thing happens, we shift from “yes, and”  to “if, then”  (if this unusual thing is true then what else is true?)

Rule #4:  Find the game.  When you find the game with your teammates, it’s time to keep playing…keep going…because it is at this time when you begin to bring others along in the scene…the game begins when the first odd thing happens…The game for your team might be that thing that you all are working on!

Rule #5: You can’t be halfway in.  If you are not all in, people won’t follow you and you let down your team.

Rule #6: Don’t bail on your partners. It almost matters more that you do it together, than you accomplish a great deal of things.  Goals are the win, people are the win.  Remember our base reality?  The work, our work as the church,  is always about people…not the work.  Don’t bail on your people.

Rule #7:  Take up space.  If you are there, be there.  Taking up space means that you want to make sure that you are present.  You are where you are because someone thought you, your gifts, experience, talents, graces, and your voice were needed…there is a reason you are in the room…so do the thing! Don’t be a bump on a log…you aren’t serving the church when you do that. It is in your interaction as a team, where you are bouncing off of each other that is when great things can happen.

Over the past several months, I have been exploring the structure of comedy, and when I came across improvisation, I was reminded of a brief workshop that a cohort used as a team-building exercise.  It stuck with me, and it was truly helpful for us to talk about leadership in a very relational way.  There were also a couple of exercises that we did that created a lot of great laughter and energy in the room. 

I wonder what else is out there to encourage more synergy among people…What ways are there to help us connect in authentic ways within the church?  For me, I love to laugh and to hear people laugh.  So I went with this, but I am sure there is more out there.