In mid-May I was called by Jennifer Files of the Outlook for
comments on a potential rearrangement of budget priorities by the
General Assembly Council (GAC). I knew nothing beyond what she told me,
and I tried to enunciate some general principles.
Then I communicated with John Detterick, Executive
Director of GAC. According to him, he had a brief interview with
Jennifer Files (driving to and walking through DFW airport), in which he
said he hoped to start a process of prioritizing activities so that
scarce resources could be better allocated, and he would like to start
that learning process next year.
What is more important for the present is that he
pointed out that during the past year there were two priorities. One was
an instruction from the GA to shift additional funding into evangelism.
The other, following up on that, was a consultation with "middle
governing bodies," seeking their guidance on budget matters; this
had the same result, that evangelism was the top priority.
(It now appears that he has already begun implementing that preference.)
That's where things stand for the present. A number of
issues need to be reflected on.
1. The survey. Synod and presbytery
executives were surveyed, to be sure. Mr. Detterick did not want to send
a copy of the results at this stage. Critics point out that evangelism
and church growth were one item, while peacemaking and social justice
were separate items, almost ensuring a "split vote" in this
area.
2. Who was surveyed? These presbytery
and synod executives are understandably concerned with statistical
success in terms of membership figures, budgets, and new church
developments; no wonder church growth is a higher priority for them
than, say, justice for women or racial ethnics or GLBT persons. People
such as these apparently had no voice in this effort to reshape our
church's mission.
3. What changes would be involved?
There has been much talk of "devolution" of many mission and
ministry activities to the synods and presbyteries. National
agencies--the ones now called National Ministries, Congregational
Ministries, and Global Ministries--have been effective since the
nineteenth century in raising money (often from women's organizations,
we should note) and deploying resources where they were needed. At the
same time there can be distrust at the local level, especially when
congregations do not agree with the way money has been spent or when
they have had negative experiences with "outsiders" from the
national office who came into their territory. During the Sixties, many
local churches, especially in the South, began demanding veto power.
Perhaps a more effective partnership between the national, regional, and
local levels is the one developed in the peacemaking and hunger
programs, where money and decision making are shared in imaginative
ways.
4. Conflict of traditions. Adding to
the complexities is the tradition of the old PCUS to organize many of
these activities at the synod rather than the GA level, and the rise of
evangelical "parachurch" organizations which are formed
entirely outside the governing bodies, although three of them have
covenants with them as "validated mission organizations." The
current push for "devolution" may be the latest version of
this southern tradition, which is quite different from that of the
northern church (which was in reality a national church, of course,
actively ministering with African Americans in the South).
5. The new managerial style. The more
"managerial" types among presbytery and synod executives have
recently adopted the language of "outcome-based assessment."
You hear it in local United Way organizations, and in the movement for
"accountability" in public schools, and among foundations that
have been giving grants. The principle is that agencies should no longer
be funded just because they were funded in the past; the burden of proof
is on them. They must assess needs, set goals, and then achieve those
goals.
The Synod of Living Waters recently abolished all
committees and networks, requiring them to petition for continued status
and "sunsetting" them after three years. One consequence will
be maximum pressure on all agencies, not only forcing them to compete
with each other but also making them vulnerable to pressure groups from
every direction. Having seen the attacks at the national level upon
individuals and entire programs, we can only imagine the consequences if
this kind of approach is adopted there.
6. What will happen to national agencies?
Observers in several of the mainline denominations have noted that
conservative organizations focus most of their attention on "wedge
issues" of gender and sexuality, while social pronouncements on
most other issues receive little opposition. Why? It could be, of
course, that conservatives' attention has been distracted by the issues
of gender and sexuality. It could be that they are simply concentrating
on the "wedge issues" they can win. But another theory has
much in its favor--namely that the next step will be to try to do
away with the agencies that advocate and administer the various
statements on social issues--the Washington Office, the Advisory
Committee on Social Witness Policy, the Advocacy Committees for Women
and Racial Ethnic Concerns. When there is no one doing this in a
forceful way, then conservative forces won't have to worry, no matter
how many pronouncements the church makes.
7. Why the focus on the congregation?
In my own Presbytery of Middle Tennessee there was a major restructuring
in the early 1990s, part of which involved asking "what the
congregations are saying to the presbytery" (I kid you not). Quite
naturally the congregations said that they wanted more attention to be
paid to them. And one result was that all forms of ministry to
non-members were ranked "below the line," as of secondary
importance. I understand that we got quite a "rep" around the
church for that.
We must ask to what extent the synod, the presbytery,
and especially the congregation is in fact a "mission unit."
It may be that in "evangelism and church growth"; but when it
comes to compassion and justice ministries, hunger action and
peacemaking, to say nothing of global mission, the congregation is not
where the action is. In areas like these--which, we should emphasize,
are certainly not alien to evangelism and church growth--larger-scale
bodies are needed to coordinate the work of congregations. And when we
look at community ministries, we find that, even when they are supported
by congregations, they are usually carried out by non-profit
organizations with a broader base in the local community, and the role
of the congregation is often to support funding applications to national
agencies of the church.
8. Who is being served? Sometimes
this new approach is justified in terms of a "servant model"
of the church--on the assumption, presumably, that all other governing
bodies are to serve the congregation. And yet it does little to
encourage the congregation to be a servant to anyone outside its own
circle. We need to be careful, then, when we hear about
"devolution" and "evangelism and church growth."
They may help to bring presbyteries and congregations to a new sense of
their responsibilities for mission and ministry. But they may simply
reward narrow and self-centered conceptions of their task, with very
little resemblance to the Great Ends of the Church.
