Communion and Conversation

Reflections on the Gathering in Albuquerque

By Zane K. Buxton (Synod of the Rocky Mountains and GAMC Corresponding Member)

Snow modified plans for many on February 14, 2007, including quite a few people who planned to participate in the “Communion and Conversation” concerning the vision and viability of middle governing bodies in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The task force guiding the gathering decided to modify the schedule a bit to allow a few more participants to arrive in Albuquerque.  When the conversation resumed three hours late, many more participants were present (the Albuquerque airport reopened after several hours of closure due to snow). I’m sure they went home glad that they made it.  I’m sure, as well, that many who didn’t make it will look forward to the next stages in the conversation. In all, approximately 150 colleagues from across the church participated (a mixture of executives, stated clerks and moderators).

These reflections are mine. But I hope they reflect the generally positive response from participants to the time we spent together. The task force will have the official results of the evaluation responses. I’ll let them worry about that.
 
The task force, in preparation for the gathering, set six goals for the time together.  They are worth repeating:

1. We will have taken a fresh look at our changing environment and what our context for ministry is likely to look like in the future.
2. We will have explored what kind of leadership we need or desire from MGBs.
3. We will have addressed how much conformity we expect and how much flexibility we can tolerate.
4. We will have begun conversation about the shape and core values of MGBs.
5. We will have begun conversation leading to changes in the Book of Order as it relates to MGBs.
6. We will have come to some sense of what needs to happen for the PC(USA) to become a covenant community in which visionary leadership can occur.

Under the guidance of the task force and the leadership of Gil Rendle, Senior Consultant for the Alban Institute, the gathering came together with worship, reflected on a picture of denominational reinvention, gave thought to appropriate responses from the leadership of the church and spent significant time in “communities of practice.”

Rendle outlined the generational, demographic and congregational shifts that redefine the contexts in which our church does ministry.  In summary, the paradigm for directing ministry and mission has shifted from top to bottom in the corporate church era to bottom to top in the new, yet to named, way of being church. It is probable that little of this sketch was new to participants.  But it was useful to have it clearly articulated.

When it came time to consider how leaders might respond to the changing context for ministry, Rendle noted that the questions can become dangerous. MGBs live in the middle. Congregations are at the leading edge of change. The national church can still largely define its mission. But MGBs face pressures from both directions. And leaders serving those bodies have to be open to the reality that the future is not primarily about our positions. One of my colleagues spoke at one point to say that synod executives didn’t come to this meeting to defend the existence of synods or our positions. We can’t operate from a position of defending how we’ve done things in recent memory.

We came together motivated, at least in part, by a problem: the declining resources to keep functioning as we have as MGBs. But Rendle suggested that problem solving is not going to be the most fruitful approach to our changing circumstances.  Problem solving will only help us do what we know. At the moment we really don’t know what to do.

The role of leadership, Rendle suggests, is finding better questions and helping people learning.  He calls this “Adaptive Work” and “Deep Change.” If we ask better questions everyone learns.

What are the most important questions we need to ask?  Consider these:

• Who are we?
• What has God called us to do now?
• Who is our neighbor (what is our context)?

I think that this is the challenge for us as leaders in the church. Are we willing to ask such questions about presbyteries and synods? Who are we as Presbyterians? What is our authentic contribution to the life of the Body of Christ as Presbyterians? What does it mean to identify with a presbytery?  To be the “Presbytery of Where You Live”? What might it mean to be part of a synod in 2010 and beyond?

For several hours in the afternoon and evening on Thursday we talked in what Rendle calls “Communities of Practice.” It seems that one of the best ways of moving forward in any area of thinking and practice is simply to get together and talk to one another, so long as we address the important questions and listen to one another. So we talked in groups of our own making. And we made commitments for ways to continue the conversations.

What we did not do was to focus much energy on the viability of MGBs or rush to propose changes to the Book of Order related to MGBs. That would have been our typical approach. But it would have tried, once again, to come up with the solution to the questions of the future.

Instead, with some exceptions, we accepted that the deep change that might address the future context for ministry is inherently messy. I liked these statements that identify our challenge:  “Tidyness does not produce change.”  “Order does not produce agility.” “We need to escape the tyranny of the ‘all’.” “We are dying of ‘terminal seriousness.’”

We owe thanks to the GAMC for setting up the task force and for their vision to see that we should share Communion and Conversation. The worship, the fellowship, and the frank discussion helped us move ahead into the messy future, trusting that we do not walk alone.