Everyone Knows.... Or Do They?
by Charlie Smith
In the Kansas town in which I was a pastor, the community arts festival was a big deal. The church that I served was an organizer of the inaugural festival many years before and remained a major benefactor. In gratitude, festival organizers annually provided one of the performing artists for the church’s use during the festival weekend’s Sunday service. I had only been at the church a few months, and I worked hard to craft a sermon that would complement the musicians. As I was practicing the sermon in the sanctuary, only an hour or so before the service, the choir director approached me and said, “Why did you write a sermon? The pastor never preaches on this Sunday! Everybody knows that.”
The “Johari Window” is often cited in leadership circles. (The theory’s title is a mashup of the first names of its creators, Joseph and Harry.) It is presented as four quadrants, or the image of a four-paned window. The four elements are “What Everybody Knows and I Don’t/Blind,” “What I Know and Everybody Else Doesn’t/Hidden,” “What We All Know/Known,” and “What Nobody Knows/Unknown."
As the moderator of the Rotary Newsletter Committee, let me suggest that the newsletter that you are now reading can be a response to our Johari Window experiences. Many preachers will tell you that they wish they could wear a T-shirt each Sunday that says, “IT WAS IN THE NEWSLETTER”
