In a classic comedy routine entitled “Seventy-Five Dollar Car” Bill Cosby, the physical education major, tells the story of his super-intelligent philosophy major girl friend who goes around asking questions like “Why is there air?” The years may have dulled my memory of the routine, but I remember that his answer went something like this: “I’m a jock. Every jock knows why there’s air. There’s air to blow up volleyballs and basketballs.”
I was reminded of this routine when reading Chapter 10. Martin Copenhaver asks the question “What shall I call you?” On the surface, it seems almost as silly a question as the one posed by Bill Cosby’s girl friend. Unfortunately, it seems just as silly a question when you scratch beneath the surface.
I don’t mean to be crass or overly simplistic, but as ministers we are providers of personal services. Those to whom we provide those serves are, in a very real sense, our customers. To me, that is the end of the analysis. “What shall I call you?” is the same question as “Why is there air?” My response is like Cosby’s, simple, direct and completely prosaic. “I provide a service. What you should call me is whatever makes you most comfortable in consuming that service.”
How I react to what you call me is my problem, not yours.
I Was Looking for a Pastor, but You’ll Do.
Lillian Daniel is really clever. Her essay seems to be aimed at those who are thinking about taking the plunge into assistant pastor-ship. But is it really? I think not. I think she’s really looking through the other end of the telescope. She is talking to senior pastors, and not just to senior pastors, but to all of us who spend any part of our day supervising employees. What she has to say about treatment of newly minted seminarians is just as true about the treatment of secretaries, custodians and organists. They’re people too.
As I travel around the western part of the conference, I seem to spend a lot of my time trying to put out fires caused by my colleagues who temporarily lose sight of this simple fact. In his seminal work A Hierarchy of Needs, Abraham Maslow argued that human behavior is influenced by the desire to satisfy various physical and psychological needs. This hierarchy of needs is often represented as a pyramid. At the bottom of his pyramid of needs are the most basic physical needs, the ones upon which our actual physical survival depends: air to breath, food to eat, water to drink. Once these needs are satisfied, however, behavior is influenced by “higher” hungers: the need for self-esteem, achievement, respect by others.
Whether we are senior pastors in large churches or sole pastors in churches with only part-time employees, we are all managers. One of our jobs, whether we like it or not, is to motivate those we manage. We need to influence their behavior in ways that maximize their performance. We need to remember Maslow.
An “attaboy” or an “attagirl” is a much stronger motivator than telling those we supervise that “The floggings will continue until morale improves.”
Tony Stoik, Associate Conference Minister Western Iowa
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