God Is A Verb: Behavioural Versus Cognitive Approach to Change
Tired of telling your team what they should be doing?
How many sermons does it take to make your church more ‘loving’? How many speeches in Elders meetings does it take to convince elders they should be out visiting members? What do you need to say to motivate members to share their faith? How do you encourage members to commit to practicing spiritual disciplines without putting the guilt’s on them? Trying to convince people to change their behaviour through logical cognitive argument is often futile. I want to suggest to you that the most effective way for leaders to bring about change in their congregations is to do less talking and more strategizing.
I recently raised at church that we have an issue with our Sabbath School (adult Bible discussions) attendance. It was easy to talk about why people don’t come on time or at all. Instead of allowing the discussion to consume the meeting I simply asked for a behaviour change from the leadership group. “Please make it a priority to join a class as soon as you arrive at church”, was my request. Such a request is a simple behaviour change that potentially will have an impact. This simple request made by the pastor is a reasonable one. Most, if not all leaders accepted it as a reasonable request. And some have acted accordingly.
Often simple specific strategies will be accepted and acted upon without any major discussion. Whereas challenging leaders conceptually and hoping they will work out the implications, often fails. Most people are not good at taking new concepts and translating them into new behaviours. It can be too big a leap between concept and action.
As leaders we often focus more on talking about God than on finding ways to involve our congregations in the activity of God. It is as we involve people in God’s work that they experience God and their attitudes and thinking changes. The psychology of this is simple. Our behaviour can alter the way we think just as changing our thinking may alter the way we behave. Typically we focus on the ‘thoughts’ believing if we can change people’s thinking their behaviour will change. It certainly can but it seems to me that people often find their thinking changes after they experience new behaviours.
The gospel commission to “Go into all the world and make disciples”, captures the core method of evangelism. The church is called not to just challenge people’s thinking by making them believers but to also change their behaviour. A church full of believers will struggle to extend God’s kingdom on earth.
While the church continues to work primarily for an intellectual response it will struggle to impact the world. It is the responsibility as Christian leaders to try and make it as easy as possible for members to act in ways that align with their value system.
I am more and more convinced that a ‘behavioural’ approach to change is often more effective than a cognitive approach. Of course we need both but typically we mostly focus on the cognitive. For example – You can tell your congregation they should pray more or you can send them a daily text message with an inspirational thought. The text is likely to have more impact in changing their prayer life than telling them they should pray more often.
It was the famous stock market guru Warren Buffet who said, “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behaviour is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” As pastoral leaders there are many things we can do that create opportunities to support and elevate the vision of our leaders.
Here are some behaviours that can have an impact;
- Have regular leader huddles.
- Practice thanking leaders as often as possible.
- Regular one-on-one chats increases your leader’s sense of importance of their work.
- Share with your team on a regular basis good news stories of what team members are doing.
- Find opportunities to minister with team members individually.
- Ask you leaders what’s on their To Do List.
- ‘Wine and dine’ your leaders to affirm them and model community.