A Brother Asks: Quantity or Quality?

A Brother Asks: Coach, should we be more interested in quantity or quality?

Coach: Good question!  Let's first put something out on the table that needs to be understood in light of the nature of organizations.  There's a serious survival versus thriving game that has to be both understood and played out by every lodge.  That game is first focused upon making sure there are enough bodies in the Lodge organization to accomplish all the tasks necessary to keep the doors open. 

In that vein, there is a specific base line number of members that has to be available for this to occur.  Once that base line is met though, if the lodge doesn't focus upon improving quality, not just numbers, then they will continually be focusing upon quantity just to survive.  Far too many lodges are caught upon in the survival aspect of lodge management to clear the base line numbers necessary to even start focusing on quality.  Some never get past it.  Some do but continue to focus on numbers and never bring quality into their focus.

Brother: I had not thought of it this way?

Coach: Many members don't.  They came up through survival mode lodges and never experienced lodges that are in thriving mode.

Brother: I see that happening all too often.

Coach: Exactly! That being said, I'm never impressed by the quantity of men who show up. I am always impressed by the quality of the men showing up. Their quality tells me what kind of lodge experience that can be expected.  I believe all good men are impressed in this way.  When a lodge is thriving, it also tells me the right men are attracted to what is offered.

Brother: So, what's the problem?

Coach: It's a cascade of problems.  The first thing that gets in the way is our lodges being dominated by men who selectively ignore the very things that bring about quality men.  That leads us to the central problem:  Very few members are actually doing the Work that ritual directs them to do in improve themselves.  Ignoring the Work and not doing the Work are innovations to the Craft.  These collective undesirable innovations rule lodge activities in covert ways that undermine the very ideas that founded this society - making good men better. 

Brother: Innovations?

Coach: Yes.  Innovations.  The support staff is going through the motions but they are not practicing what they preach and they are not supporting what needs to be done to improve our members.  These are innovations and contrary to the very essence of our Craft's "being true to one's word". 

Brother: So, they're not walking the talk? They are not abiding by their obligations.

Coach: Exactly!  But let's get into that a little...  which obligations?

Brother: The ones that focuses upon not wronging, cheating or defrauding.

Coach: So how is ignoring the Work that ritual directs us to do and not supporting doing this Work wronging, cheating and defrauding?

Brother: When members don't do the Work that ritual directs them to do, they don't get the benefits that such Work provides.  They don't improve.  The don't get better.  They are wronged, cheated and defrauded out of the value they would have received had they done the Work.  What's more, when they are in charge, they progress other members who likewise don't follow suit in doing the Work ritual directs them to do and are likewise wronged, cheated and defrauded as a result. 

Coach: Yes.  We have countless generations of members who have no clue that being Masterful and being a titled Master are two entirely different things.  Each has been wronged, cheated and defrauded and, when they get involved in progressing candidates, they support the same for their Brothers.

Brother: What do we do about it?

Coach: To attract the kind of men the Fraternity needs to transform good men to better men, our lodges must show signs of Masonic Life, not just Freemasonic Activities designed to keep the doors open.  Brothers must demonstrate Masonry in our everyday living and be an example of what transformation is possible.
 
These quality men in turn shall Attract the Attention and Support of Good quality men and bring the fraternity from just surviving to thriving.

Here are questions for you to perpend:  Are you a member of a lodge that's in constant survival mode, or is it thriving and for all the right reasons?  How do you tell the difference?
 
F&S,

Brother John S Nagy