By Laura Stephens-Reed
One of the classes I teach is on tools for life coaching. The first concept I introduce to the coaches in this course is that of needs. What is it that we require to feel safe, cared for and oriented toward meaning? Reflecting on this question isn’t just navel-gazing. God created us in the divine image and wants us to tend to the humanity that carries that holy glimmer out into the world.
The truth is, whether we realize it or not, both our existence and actions are motivated by our attempts to fulfill our needs. We cannot show up as our best selves unless we know what our needs are with healthy and appropriate ways of meeting them. Then, we are freed up to live into our deepest values and to be fully present to others.
Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman has given us a model for identifying what our needs are. His sailboat metaphor imagines our most basic needs as the hull of a boat. Together these parts of the hull provide us with a sense of security:
Safety. Do we have the resources we need to survive? These include shelter, clean air and water, food, clothing, rest and a sense of bodily autonomy (e.g., no concerns about physical threats).
Connections. Do we have at least a few people who know and respect us for who we are? These could include family and peers but also mentors/mentees, and professional supports (e.g., medical and mental health providers). It’s important as well for us to have recipients of the care we offer.
Self-esteem. Do we, at least on our best days, like who we are? Do we believe we are worthy of love and belonging? Do we actively celebrate authentic parts of ourselves, like a specific talent or personality trait?
When these security needs are fulfilled, our hull is stable, and our sail can propel us toward growth (which to me looks a lot like following Jesus. It involves:
Exploration. There’s a bit of room to spread our wings, to try new things, to fail and to learn from that failure.
Love. This is a more general orientation toward humankind and the world than the “connections” part of the boat hull. We see the good in others, and we pursue the good of others – including people we have never met.
Purpose. We have conviction about the difference we want to make in the world, and we actively work toward making that happen.
Most of us don’t feel totally secure all the time. The good news is that even when the waters of life are a little choppy and the hull our boat isn’t completely stable, the wind can still catch our sail.
Think about how these kinds of needs track with your own experience. Take some time with this if needed. I’ve found that many of us have rarely been invited to consider what our needs are. They make sense, don’t they? And yet, our culture often actively discourages us to deny the needs that are driving our behaviors.
Our spirits might cry out for rest, but the messages around us encourage us to push through because our worth is in our productivity. Our bodies might need nutritious food to fuel us, but commercials tell us to eat processed products, images of the ideal body type dissuade us from consuming enough calories or food deserts might make fresh produce unattainable. Our souls might need deeply meaningful relationships, but social pressures to belong to certain networks or the lack of leisure time make these friendships hard to start or maintain. Our minds might need challenge, but instead we get sucked into doomscrolling on social media and find ourselves angry, frustrated or numbed.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that the denial of our truest needs has influenced our effectiveness as a Church. Church, after all, is a collection of people with needs, trying to live the call of Christ to meet others’ needs. I would suggest that many of the things that keep us from being Church such as conflicts, an inward focus or lack of success at connecting with the larger community are at root issues about unrecognized and unmet needs at individual and group levels.
Think about it. Every individual who comes through the door of the Church has the needs reflected in the sailboat. This includes members, guests, vendors, staff members and even the pastor. Within the congregation there are clusters of people, whether formal or informal. They might be committees, age cohorts or those with shared interests or concerns. All these collectives have needs such as to be seen, to develop relationships and to find their place in the Church.
The congregation has needs, including funding for ministries, confidence that the church matters to the larger community, partners, room to experiment and a vision for what could be. Then there is the surrounding community, full of people with personal needs and with systems and structures that both support citizens and themselves require tending and adaptation.
With all this need at so many different points, it’s easy to see why we might find ourselves ornery at each other, moving into self-preservation mode or at cross purposes. So I’d like to offer a simple question that we can ask when we find ourselves in one of these states: what is the unmet need here? Taking us back to where we started, if we can identify the need in ourselves or in others, we can work on ways to meet it. When that happens, there is a much greater likelihood of both loving self and loving neighbor, much to the delight of God’s heart.
Image of the sailboat metaphor from https://scottbarrykaufman.com/sailboat-metaphor/is by Andy Ogden.