Coordination and communication

1. Introduction

If you are to give a devotion to your YS students, you should think carefully about how you want to proceed during the preparation time. You divide the text into different sections, highlight the main messages, think about how you want to involve the YS students and which songs and other activities should frame the devotion. In short, you coordinate the individual sub-activities into a meaningful whole.

Just as you coordinate the individual parts and the course of your devotion, the individual activities in a congregation must also be coordinated to create a meaningful whole. However, because many different people with different training, experience and values work together in a congregation, the coordination between the individual activities is no longer as automatic and smooth as it was in the example with the prayer service. As soon as several people are involved in an overall activity, the participants have to think carefully and agree among themselves how the individual parts should fit together to form a whole. In order for this coordination process to take place, there needs to be an exchange of ideas, i.e. communication.

2. Internal and external effects of coordination and communication

In this section, I would like to discuss some fundamental aspects of coordination and communication. This should enable you to assess the situation in your congregation yourself and to understand what influence coordination and communication have on daily congregational life. If you are not particularly interested in these more theoretical explanations, you can skip this section and move on to the practical methods in section 3.

2.1 Community climate

Has it ever happened to you that you planned something and then had to reorganize or even cancel it because something came up that you didn't know about? Then you know how annoying and frustrating such situations can be. All too easily, they lead to everyone starting to find fault with each other and thinking that everything would have worked out if the other person had informed you earlier. If such situations occur frequently, a bad climate characterized by mistrust develops in the community. Typical statements from those affected include: "The church leadership is hardly interested in how things are going in the youth club" or on the other hand: "The youth club leaders hardly ever inform us; they do what they want anyway". Both statements indicate a poor community climate and a lack of coordination and communication skills. Sensible coordination and communication mechanisms therefore initially have the effect within the municipality of preventing misunderstandings or, if something does go wrong, the resulting conflict can be resolved. Coordination and communication are therefore a prerequisite for a lasting good community climate.

2.2 Community identity (corporate identity)

Coordination and communication fulfill important tasks not only internally, but also externally. If a municipality wants to appear credible to its own members and especially to the public, it should make sure that there is a certain uniformity in its statements as a distinguishing feature. There is a broad consensus in the scientific community that communication in all its forms can and should contribute to forming, conveying and consolidating the identity of the community. Put simply, this happens when the self-image (corporate personality) can be harmonized with the external image (corporate image), i.e. when the goals, content and activities of the municipality can be successfully communicated to all members on the one hand and to the public on the other. Or to put it simply: if what the majority of people imagine the congregation to be matches what the congregation wants to be, then there is a formative identity. The methods for achieving this are communication and coordination within the community and with the outside world.

2.3 Employee identification

The identification of employees with their task is an issue that is of great importance in organizations with predominantly voluntary employees. Because there are no material incentives, it is all the more important that the organization itself provides identification features, which in turn requires an organizational identity (corporate identity). Of course, it can be argued that employee identification can also take place at the level of the management team and can be promoted with team-internal community-building measures. This type of identification is undoubtedly valuable and can be very beneficial to a certain extent. However, the identity of the Jungschar should not become too strong in the sense of integrative community work. Therefore, the identification of the staff member with the congregation must be encouraged in any case. Every youth group leader (and of course the members of all other sub-groups in the congregation) must be aware that their work is first and foremost congregational development work.

3. Methods for improving coordination and communication in the municipality

After the more theoretical, fundamental considerations in the last section, it is now time to get practical. I would like to show you some methods for improving coordination and communication within the municipality.

3.1 In the beginning, the objective

According to biblical understanding, a church is not a leisure club but a purposeful social system that has a divine mission to fulfill, namely to make disciples of Jesus. However, this mission of Jesus is formulated too generally to be implemented directly in the daily work of the church. Every church must therefore carefully consider what this mission entails in relation to its cultural and social environment, the gifts of the existing staff and the resources available. These considerations should result in objectives that define the focus of community work. These objectives should cover a time horizon of around 5 years. The following applies: the more short-term, the more concrete. A division into short-term (1 year), medium-term (2-3 years) and long-term (5 years) objectives is particularly suitable. The leading employees of each group within the municipality should actively participate in the development and revision of the objectives, which is carried out every year, so that the objectives are observed and supported by as many groups as possible.

3.2 Coordination at the planning stage

The individual groups, e.g. the Jungschi team, can plan their activities based on the objectives of the community as a whole. Here too, a time horizon of two to three years should be taken into account for rough planning, and four to five years for major events. In concrete terms, this means that a Jungschi team should know at this stage which types of camp will be offered in the next two to three years. This planning data from the individual groups is now collected centrally within the municipality and entered into a municipal calendar. Possible overlaps or an accumulation of events within a period of time, which can lead to an overload of staff and unsatisfactory preparation of the planned events, are thus recognized at an early stage and can be avoided relatively easily during the planning phase.

3.3 Coordination of communication

The main task of communication in the municipality is to provide municipality-related information to the right recipient via the right medium at the right time. This means that communication cannot simply be left to its own devices, but must be consistently planned.

Community-related information includes, for example, the defined objectives, planned events and activities of the various community groups, prayer requests from the various groups, etc. The media used to convey the information can be of a formal nature, e.g. the church newsletter, information board, announcements in church services, staff meetings, etc., or of an informal nature, e.g. the "bush telephone". The time at which information is disseminated should be as early as possible to allow the recipients to think about it. Depending on the type of information, however, a delay may also be justified if the information is not yet complete and could lead the recipient to the wrong conclusions. The group of recipients depends on the type of information.

In principle, those responsible at each level are responsible for disseminating information from their community group. In concrete terms, this means, for example, that the main YS leader is responsible for ensuring that the prayer requests for the next camp reach the leader of the prayer meeting in good time, or the church leadership is responsible for ensuring that the YS leaders know which priorities should be set in the church work. Or the youth leader is responsible for making sure that the main leader knows what difficulties he has to deal with in his group.

3.4 Organization of formal communication

The organization of formal communication is a task of the church leadership and the leadership of the various church groups. The aim is to create official communication channels for periodic or community group or project-related information. A possible communication concept for a municipality can be found in the appendix. From my point of view, formal communication at community level minimally includes

• regular meetings of the leaders of the individual church groups and the church leadership with the purpose of assessing the realization of the church goals and developing new goals and involving the employees in the responsibility for the church.
• regular meetings of all church employees with the purpose of communicating the objectives of the church and improving the view of the individual employees for the other parts of the church
• regular member information with the aim of informing all members of the congregation in good time about planned activities in all congregational groups.
• regular public information with the purpose of improving the public's awareness of the congregation and inviting them to participate in certain activities.

At the level of the YS leadership team (or other community groups), formal communication minimally includes

• regular preparatory meetings for the YS afternoons
• regular planning meetings for future quarterly and camp programs
• regular contribution of information for community communications to all staff and members

3.5 Informal communication creates the glue between employees

Informal communication is a tool that is unfortunately often used incorrectly, with mainly negative information (usually about others) being conveyed. Used correctly, however, it can make a significant contribution to improving the community climate. In informal conversations with employees and members of the congregation, information can be obtained, praise, thanks and recognition expressed, decisions justified, advice given or even discreet criticism voiced. The result of targeted and positive informal communication is better human relations, greater mutual trust, higher motivation and therefore a better working environment.

Worksheet "Communication and coordination in the municipality"

Procedure: First, the church leadership and the YS leadership team should answer the relevant questions for themselves and, where necessary, make appropriate inquiries. Afterwards, it makes sense for the church leadership and the YS leadership team, and possibly also the leadership teams of the other church groups, to present the results to each other and discuss different views.

Version "YS leadership team"

1. What are your goals for

• this year?
• the next 1 to 2 years?
• the next 3 to 5 years?

2. What goals has the community defined for

• this year
• the next 1 to 2 years?
• the next 3 to 5 years?

3. Are the goals of the Jungschar in line with the goals of the congregation or are there contradictions?

4. How are the goals worked out in the church and in the youth group?

5. Through whom and how often are you informed about what is going on in the church and in other groups besides the Jungschar?

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Version "Parish leadership"

1. Name the most important goals of the church leadership and the individual church groups, e.g. Jungschar, youth group, etc. for this year?

• this year?
• the next 1 to 2 years?
• the next 3 to 5 years?

2. Are the goals of the church as a whole and the individual church groups coordinated? Where are there contradictions?

3. How, how often and by whom are the goals of the overall congregation determined?

4. How are the objectives communicated to the individual community groups?

5. How does the municipality ensure that the individual community groups strive to achieve the objectives?

References:

Contents: Annual focus 1993 "Community", Peter Blaser, Siegfried Nüesch, Martin Bihr, Hansruedi Tanner, Ueli Obrist, Johannes Wallmeroth, Peter Schulthess

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Cover picture: Clipart courtesy of the publishing house buch+musik ejw-service gmbh, Stuttgart - www.ejw-buch.de