I wonder about lots of things. I believe wonder has been a part of my life since childhood. My wonder is not in the sense of being awestruck by something (though that occasionally happens), but of wondering why something is the way that something is. In adulthood, I found myself wondering why organizations do the things that they do and whether what they are doing is beneficial or detrimental to the cause.

My bent toward wondering is a big reason why I enjoyed reading Patrick Lencioni’s book The Six Types of Working Genius (2022). Lencioni writes that there are six required activities for any kind of team-based work – namely, wonder, Discernment, Enablement, Invention, Galvanizing, and Tenacity. Further, he asserts that, of these six required activities, each team member is likely to be good at and energized by two of them, to be competent but not necessarily energized by two others, and to be frustrated when asked to do the remaining two. I recommend his book highly having found it helpful for me and other teams to understand and act in accordance with these concepts.

I wondered where I would place related to these six activities, so I took a brief assessment and came out like this:

• Geniuses: Discernment and Tenacity.
• Competencies: Enablement and Wonder
• Frustrations: Galvanizing and Invention.

I thought the assessment was pretty accurate until I began to wonder why wonder wasn’t a genius because I like wondering and do it often and typically do it pretty well and with good results. Yes, I was wondering about wonder.

Here’s how Lencioni described what he calls “wonder” – “(Wonder) calls for someone to ask a big question, ponder the possibility of greater potential, raise a red flag, or simply speculate about the state of things. “Is there a better way?” “Is this the best company we can be?” “Does anyone else feel like something is wrong with the way we deal with customers?””

For this month’s article, I decided to focus upon wonder and to do so in, perhaps, a playful way. So, I collected a number of things related to church and leadership about which I have often wondered. Here’s the list I came up with, and I hope they provide you and your team with something to talk about. Please note that this is not judgmental – it’s just wondering.

• I wonder why worship leaders decided that we should all stand every time we sing a song and why some people must seemingly spontaneously pop up to their feet when all others are sitting. I wonder why I feel a little guilty when I just want to sit there and melodically soak in the goodness of God rather than springing to my feet with everyone else.
• I wonder why the cracker and juice in single-use disposable communion cups must taste so bad. Didn’t Jesus make great wine? And I assume he made great bread, too.
• I wonder what I am supposed to do while church musicians ooh and ahh and thank Jesus during musical interludes in a worship song.
• I wonder why so many pastors and board members complain about their board and staff meetings but don’t do anything to make them better.
• I wonder why so many churches don’t update their bylaws.
• I wonder why churches put their doctrinal statements on their websites. Is it to invite people in or to keep people out?
• I wonder why so many churches have such a hard time finding volunteers to serve in positions of leadership.
• I wonder why so many senior citizen Christians are not more focused upon sharing the Gospel with their friends. Their unsaved friends are closer to death and hell than they were when they were in their thirties and forties.
• I wonder why it is so hard for slide changers to get the lyric slides changed before we have already passed by the first line on the next slide.
• I wonder why prayer and public Bible reading occur less frequently during church services and if they will ever make a comeback.
• I wonder why it is so hard for me to sing “testimony songs” during the workshop service when the testimonial lyrics are foreign to my life. Do I sing about something I have not experienced, or keep quiet?
• I wonder why, when I visit alone a church for the first time, the greeters act like they don’t know that I’ve never been there before, especially in a small church. It is so painfully obvious that we have never met, and it is awkward to act like we have.
• I wonder why no church ever seems to describe themselves as cold, indifferent, or aloof? See the item above.
• I wonder why we allow problematic “Christian” people to persist in their sinful and disruptive behaviors, apparently assuming they will improve on their own?
• I wonder whether addressing any of my wonderings would have a positive impact in your church or mine.

These are but a few of my wonderings. How about you? What do you and your team wonder about? What are you wondering about my list? Our wonderings are something to talk about.

Let us know if we can help and how your conversation goes. Contact Bob Osborne by e-mail at bob.osborne@efca.org. 

This is one of a series of articles intended to facilitate and guide church leaders’ conversations about significant issues that often are not talked about among pastors, boards, and church leadership teams. Visit the EFCA West website to see prior Something to Talk About articles.