“Healthy congregations are clear about what is and what is not beneficial to their well-being. Less healthy congregations will allow more fuzziness, indecisiveness, vagueness, and secrets or disguises.” – Peter Steinke, Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach, 33
There are a number of reasons churches learn to have fuzzy communication and none of them are good and it always goes back to the leadership, or lack there of. In my experience, the most common reason for lack of congregational clarity is that there is an attitude that nothing needs to be defined. Nothing needs to be defined because everything has already been defined. Everyone should know how things operate but no one will say how it is supposed to operate. This passive approach to leadership lacks vision and direction. There isn’t much of a mission or direction. Sense no one know where it is headed there is no clarity. Everyone is stuck right where they are and anyone who branches out from status quo is shut down because they will have to seek clarity in order to move ahead and no one wants to provide it.