Leading From Strength

A sermon delivered to Eliot Unitarian Chapel

by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell on September 9, 2007

Summer is over, and so we sing ""Summer's Last, Sweet Sad Song." There will still be heat and sun and thunderstorms, but we begin to see the leaves turn color, school is well under way, our church year begins.

Some people say you shouldn’t wear white past Labor Day– but here I am– white suit, shirt, belt– all white. White signifies new beginnings.

It turns out that originally the fashion prohibition was against white shoes after Labor Day. But some overly-cautious people couldn’t remember the shoes part, and so stopped wearing white altogether after Labor Day.

But according to the Columbia, MO Tribune, wearing white after Labor Day is okay. There is the idea of “winter white” which can go well with gold and beige. And as one person put it: “fashion is self-expression. There are no rules.”

Some people think Unitarian Universalism has no “rules.” As UUs tend to wear what we like: whether we are talking about clothes or our theology.

We still have clothes, we still have theology. We still have real religion, with real beliefs– even if it looks funny– like white clothes after Labor Day.

Some people think UU is a funny religion because it breaks "the rules." The “rules” say a religion has to have a single creed, a single scripture, a single prophetic revelation.

But Unitarian Universalists say no– we draw upon many sources– we have more than one creed, more than one scripture, more than one prophetic revelation.

Some religious people picket funerals of gay soldiers, and say AIDs is God’s curse against homosexuals. Universalism says that God is Love and hates no one.

A week ago Friday, two men were married in Des Moines, Iowa by my friend the Reverend Mark Stringer of the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines. This was the first legal gay marriage in the U.S. outside of Massachusetts, where– as the Post Dispatch put it– some 8,000 such couples have tied the knot. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAME_SEX_MARRIAGE?SITE=MOSTP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.

I think it was a step forward in marriage fairness. I know some of you in this room will disagree with me. I know some of you disagreed with me when I performed a wedding service for two women here in this sanctuary a couple of years ago. It is okay to disagree in this church.

Our strength is in our diversity. The strength of our religion is in being willing to continue to ask questions. And it is important to occasionally question our assumptions– not to make a creedal test out of them.

There is a man named Marcus Buckingham, who used to work for the Gallup organization– they are the one who conduct all those polls. And he is changing some of what I pay attention to.

I have noticed that sometimes I pay more attention to weakness than to strength. Let's say your kid comes to you with 3 As, 2 Bs, and an F. What do you spend the most time talking about? Do we make the most progress fixing our weaknesses or building our strengths?

Buckingham’s research overwhelmingly supports the idea that you should work on your strengths and move away from areas of weakness– because you will never make as much progress on your weakness as on your strengths.

This comes up perhaps most clearly in job interviews. We interviewed 3 people over the last week for our membership coordinator position. Buckingham writes:

"Have you ever noticed that when you ask people to describe their weaknesses, they spin them so they sound like strengths?

My weakness is that I care too much.

I'm too much of a perfectionist.

My standards are too high for my own good. "

Putting positive spin is human nature. But this generic-ness when it comes to weakness also applies to our description of our own strengths: "I like dealing with people."

"There's rarely any mention of which people she's good at dealing with– strangers or friends or customers or prospects– and little vividness about what she's actually doing with these people. Is she selling to them, or taking care of them, or coaching them, or calming the down, or inspiring them, or what?"

"I like dealing with people." How?

Or consider another strength people claim: "I'm good at making things happen." But there is no context– original things or following through on things? Making a bunch of little things happen in a row or at random or one big thing happen? There isn't enough context to be useful.

"Your strengths are defined by your actual activities. They are things you do, and more specifically, things you do consistently and near perfectly. Thus, if you are a nurse, one of your strengths might be giving injections that seem almost painless to the patient."

Buckingham notes in his earlier book, Now Discover Your Strengths, that a strength is made up of 3 separate ingredients: talent, skills, and knowledge.

Buckingham uses the term talent to mean things like empathy, assertiveness, or competitiveness. You're born with them.

A skill is knowing how to do something– the steps to take to get a desired result.

He uses the word knowledge to mean information.

Here's an example of how he puts these altogether to form a strength. Take the "talent of empathy, the skill of giving an injection safely, and the knowledge of the right dosage for the patient [to create] the strength of giving injections that seem painless to the patient.

"Your strengths are those activities which make you feel strong." And the flip side: "An activity that makes you feel weak" is a good definition of a weakness. Buckingham advises that if you write out on a card the following phrase and complete it, that the answer may look ordinary to others but could give you a real charge. Here's the phrase:

"I feel strong when..." For example, for me, I feel strong when I am speaking in public like this and feel that I am making a real connection with people.

I know that for other people, public speaking is a fear, not a strength. So, we're different, and that's good.

One member of our staff hates public speaking and won't do it. Now, in their evaluation, a supervisor might say that this is a weakness. And that it ought to be fixed. And that we should use resources and that person's time in order for them to improve the weakness to get better at speaking in public.

But Buckingham's work suggests that we are far better off building on strengths than working on weakness. That more satisfaction, more growth, more value added to the organization, more accomplishment and peace of mind will come from building on strength than on trying to fix weakness.

This is especially important for staff teams. As you may know, we have a full time staff of 5 and a part time staff of 5. So, it's not important for everyone to be good at public speaking or at accounting, but we want a diverse enough group that– as a staff team– we can accomplish those things and more.

But every year, when individuals evaluate the ministers or the staff or when the board evaluates the ministers or when I evaluate the staff, it is easy to get caught up in focusing on weakness instead of strength.

For example, when I met with the board personnel committee last spring. I got a sheet listing their view of my strengths and weakness. I quickly glanced at the strength list, nodded my head at the strengths, well of course! And moved right on to the 'weakness' area where I spent the most time thinking and planning, and so forth.

Buckingham's work suggests this is a mistake. Yes, there need to be minimum standards for particular jobs, whether it's church secretary or lead minister, but the greatest gains and all round satisfaction will come from leading from strength.

If we have individuals with different strengths and weakness, then how do we create a strong team? How do we create a strong church?

One answer seems to be: Diversity! Do what you do best. Make a contribution in your areas of strength– it will make you feel better, you will likely do your best work, and your church will grow.

Teams work best when strengths and weakness are acknowledged and when we assemble teams where each person can lead from strength. That means we will have diversity of strength and weakness on our team, and that’s a good thing. Even the very strong have weakness, and it’s good to recognized that instead of being ashamed of it– and then we can make allowance for it.

Consider this: some people think that billionaire investor Warren Buffet– the world's second richest man - was strange to simply give away most of his fortune– $37 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation about a year ago.

But Buffet would rather spend his time in his strengths– finding undervalued companies and building them up to be more profitable– than in philanthropy– figuring out who to give to and how much to give. And he decided to do it before he died. So, he could make a contribution now.

He likes growing businesses, but he also acknowledges the call to charity. You too, can be like Warren Buffet.

And by that I don’t mean giving away 85% of your fortune– I mean in leading with your strengths while acknowledging the call to help leave the world a better place than before your arrival.

You can decide how to best use your strengths before you’re gone. So you can make a contribution now.

We have strengths and weakness as individuals. And we have strengths and weakness as a church. It’s good to figure which is which and how we can make our greatest contribution.

I was talking with one of you last week about the coming year. We were wondering what could happen that we would get excited about as a church. What does the year hold in store?

We will hear wonderful instrumental music. It is great to have the Kim Portnoy Trio back– buy their CD if they brought it. This year we are likely to hear woodwinds, a hand bell choir, vocal soloists of all sorts, the children’s choir, special music here and there, and of course our two choirs– which have the power to move and inspire us.

There are dozens of programs and events, from feeding and housing the homeless right here at Eliot 3 times a month to serving in the Madrigal–our December renaissance dinner fund raiser.

As a member or friend, you are called to pick one or two. Find a role that can fit with your strengths so you can make a contribution that helps our mission and feeds your spirit.

There are many ways to connect and grow your spirit, increase your confidence and ease your conscience.

Almost 300 children and their 100 teachers will explore liberal religion and develop spiritually. We will raise thousands of dollars for local and international charities. We will make a difference in our community and in the world.

We will do all these things and more because we want to live out our faith– we are a people of deeds not creeds.

We have a good senior high youth program, but there is a missing element– their relationship with the senior minister. So, this year, I will be spending some Sundays with them. Ordinarily, this is difficult given that they meet during the 2^nd service.

But as we have an intern this year and with help from others, on some Sundays, I will spend the first part of the 2^nd service with the youth, and the last part here in the sanctuary.

Furthermore, one Sunday per month, the youth have been invited to participate in the service in a variety of ways– so hopefully, we will see more of them here.

This year I hope we add strength to our voice. This year we will welcome newcomers and new members. Some will become friends we don’t even know yet.

We were all new once, and today is someone's first experience of Eliot. May we acknowledge our limitations and lead from strength.

Let us begin our new year with a flourish, by Building A New Way, #1017.