The Hidden Secrets to Dialogue and her strange cousins:. Part 1

Youth Pastors, Emerging types, and leaders from various aspects of the world we live in are often in a quest for dialogue. Dialogue is actually such a rare thing with in church staffs, or business meetings, or "brainstorm" sessions that when it happens it's almost miraculous.

In this series I'll be taking us on the road to dialogue and the sad reality that we all fall into when it comes to working together. The launching point for these is based on the work of Diana McLain Smith.

The setting, unless otherwise stated is a staff meeting. (aw, the wonderful times in staff meetings!) Think about a problem that arises and the team is trying to solve it. (more on this later)

A couple quick prep statements:
Dialogue is about Exploration and Supportiveness.

Exploration is the ability to legitimately explore the ideas of others with an open mind and without judgment.

Supportiveness is the the ability to support the ideas of the person you are talking to.


Ok. Let's get started. But be careful, you'll see yourself in some of these.

The Sick cousin of Dialogue is Observing.
In case you didn't know, observation is not dialogue. It truly is it's sick cousin.

Observation is marked by low levels of exploration and supportiveness.

In a staff meeting this takes three forms:
1. Bystanding: The bystander might talk, but his/her comments pertain to the group process, but not the goal or content of the conversation.

The Bystander sees it as his responsibility to comment on how the conversation is going, how different people are engaging and how it could be better a "conversation." This is pretend dialogue, it often makes the rest of the staff feel like crap, and think that the bystander is an arrogant jerk.

The bystander isn't on the team, they are in the stands. No desire for exploration of the ideas people are contributing, nor are they supportive of what others are saying. They instead choose to talk about something else.

2. Sensing: The Sensor is the person in the staff meeting taking it all in. They see everything. But they don't contribute. They might feel supportive of someone in the group, but because they never express it, they really aren't. They definitely are not exploring the ideas of others.

Sensors won't share the risk of the conversation, so they short circuit dialogue. They kill teams. Sadly these are often nice people.

3. Withdrawing: The person who withdraws from the conversation is dysfunctional. In youth ministry, these are the people who are near the end of the time with a church. Their body may be in staff meeting, but their mind is somewhere else. They have checked-out. This is the ugliest of the sick cousin.

The is no secret: You can't really understand people simply by observing and you can't move forward together by bystanding, sensing or withdrawing.

In your quest for dialogue, you have to find ways within you to inquire about what other people really mean. The inquiring is as good for them as it is for you. You (we) also need to champion the ideas of others even if we think we will ultimately disagree.

Tomorrow we discuss the the tall cousin of dialogue in Part 2.