Back to Egypt Committees
I have seen it happen in countless local churches and annual conferences. Someone casts a compelling vision of God’s future. Most of the members get excited. They want a better future! Then a few months later the details of that future are released. What looked and sounded exciting in the abstract and vague language of a visionary future now entails change.
That is when the back to Egypt committee gets organized. In Numbers 14:4 many of the Israelites looked at the promised land and got scared. They said, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.” The old saying has been repeated many times: “The only one who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper.” Change is hard.
The Connectional Table has endorsed some specific proposals to implement the Call to Action. I hope the Council of Bishops will endorse them in our meeting next month. My only problem with the Call to Action and the proposals from the Connectional Table is that they do not go far enough fast enough. My concern with the Council of Bishops is that we may avoid taking concrete action to be a leadership group rather than a group of leaders.
Our general agencies need to be realigned and streamlined with more integration. They need to be significantly downsized in board membership and staff. Their mission has changed—they should be facilitators of networks rather than repositories of experts. In many respects they have begun moving that direction, but the move now must be accelerated.
The general agencies have a difficult legacy that they are slowly leaving behind. They were different in the 1950’s because America was different. It was the age of big government, big labor, and big business. A generation raised on military discipline and societal focus on winning the war was quite accustomed to large national plans and direction from those who know best at headquarters. It wasn’t all harmonious—the people in the field complained about headquarters the way they do in any large organization. But in a pre-networked culture, it worked. The best practitioners in any field were often found at headquarters.
In the 21st century, the best practitioners are working in the field and are networked with their colleagues. We need general agencies and their staffs to provide the infrastructure for networking and communication that can only be done at the general church level. The rise of direct conference-to-conference relationships for global mission is one indicator of this new direction. Such relationships are powered by conference leaders, but they rely upon coordinating resources of general agencies. The School of Congregational Development (when it relies on the best practitioners) is another example of excellent service rendered by these groups.
Yet, I have already begun to hear complaints about the agency reorganization proposal. Some are saying “Go ahead and reorganize, but leave my agency and its budget alone. My work is too important.” All of the work being done by general agencies is good work. But there is more important work that should be given priority and our connectional work should be done in new ways.
This will require realignment, restructure and downsizing in board memberships and staffs.
The biggest change must come in the Council of Bishops. We must, in the words of a consultant, move from being “a group of leaders to being a leadership group.” We are downsizing. We will have fewer active bishops next quadrennium and the active bishops must find time and discipline to act as a team. We need the coordinating leadership of a set-aside active bishop as president. We must spend less time in our “family” activities and more time organizing and holding each other accountable for decisions we make. We must lead the conferences in our episcopal areas to implement the Call to Action.
In any adaptive change process, there will always be resistance. The job of leadership—bishops, General Secretaries, General Conference delegates and those who support them—is to gently but firmly move forward to the promised land. We must not stay where we are, or go back to Egypt.