The power of persuasion (and food bribes)

by Sheryl Johnson
SCM Co-Chair

Over the first weekend in October, the SCM board met in Toronto. After a summer of jobs, rest, holidays, travel, work, and not-so ordinary schedules, the “order” of fall seemed certainly upon us as we met to discern SCM’s path this year.

While much of our time was spent addressing emerging concerns and programmes already underway, we also worked to discern the “priorities” for SCM. Oh priorities. Personally, I struggle with that, although on a pragmatic level, it certainly makes sense. We have limited numbers of people, limited time, limited resources, etc. Yet also it is so hard to put one thing above another, as the very nature of priority setting requires.

It is also a challenge, as a board of people highly committed to SCM, to really determine what those are for everyone who is touched by our movement. For the person who picks up a button that has fallen off someone’s backpack (okay, quite likely mine!) on the sidewalk, would they really consider networking with denominations of central importance? For someone reading ATN articles online from a rural community, does building strong local units have any effect for them? Many of the people who we might reach will never be at a board meeting to make their needs known. Sorting through thematic foci is also difficult, though somewhat differently. How can we focus on it all, yet how can’t we, when it’s all so connected?

Another related issue that’s been on my mind is the nebulous nature of just what SCM is. I often find it so hard to explain to people, and even harder to embody it somehow in an 8.5 × 11 two dimensional sheet. How can I express the richness of what I’ve experienced and share it, while also being clear that others can bring in their own shaping and moulding ideas as they enter the movement? And how to convince people, with so many competing activities and commitments, that it is worthwhile? If only it were possible to contain the essence of SCM in such a fashion that it could be communicated succinctly yet representing its richness and its full complexity. But maybe that in itself is counter-intuitive!

It seems that the work of convincing others to become involved is left to the power of persuasion, story-telling, food bribing, and small attempts at embodying SCM’s essence in material format! And, I believe, to uphold the value of the varieties of ways that people can engage with SCM and to keep multiple avenues for becoming involved open. But not so many that we exhaust ourselves…!

Blessings on the year ahead – and in your SCM involvement, whatever form that might be in!