Bicycles for Fish

April 30, 2012

4:20 PM

Bicycles for Fish

Bicycle for Fish

Let me share a frustration. Our church needs radical change. Our church needs new structures and processes. Our church needs time to focus on identity, purpose, and priorities. Our church needs a serious focus on leadership effectiveness and incisive processes for evaluation and accountability… and General Conference is poorly designed to accomplish any of these critical objectives.

What is General Conference good for? Rules, guidelines, policies, resource allocation decisions, goal setting, and the establishment of programs and initiatives for the denomination. It is a management vehicle expected to fill leadership needs. Vision, values, missional identity, and spiritual ethos are not best served by legislative process. Voting on God’s will and the movement of the Holy Spirit is just wrong. Our General Conference is about governing our very human institution and the corporate structure we call The United Methodist Church. It deals with the administration and management of the monolith. Yet, we try to use it to legislate spirituality, morality, ethics, relationships, and integrity. It often feels as if our task is to compose a beautiful symphony using the equipment from an automobile factory or use a chainsaw to prepare a gourmet meal. Bicycles for fish…the wrong tools and processes to address the real issues.

We will devote two full weeks to intensive and complex parliamentary maneuverings that will leave our church confused, conflicted and confounded with a sense that we missed an important opportunity to make a difference. Inadvertently, we are set at odds with one another through a system founded upon the notion that in all important things there must be winners and there must be losers. “United” goes right out the window when we have business that needs taking care of…

No, I don’t have the answer to this problem, but I do offer it as the problem we must address if we are to have a future. Sacred community is mired in polity and politics. Is this really what we believe Jesus had in mind? There is a pressing urgency to separate the visionary leadership functions from the futuring and managing functions. The essence of our functional relationships depends not on our structures and processes, but on our ability to organize around our values rather than our volume. We are the body of Christ — everything else is details. But we would rather debate “issues” than forge a foundation upon which to build a future.

As long as we can make something like “the homosexuality issue” our main focus, we have absolutely no time to model the kingdom of God to a dying world and a consumer culture. We are way too busy for that. Sadly, we are busy fiddling with our own limitations rather than embodying the abundant love and grace of God.

Original Post: http://doroteos2.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/general-conference-bicycles-for-fish/#more-4560

Comments (2)

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Methodism and Communism should never be synonyms or how to get rid of bureaucracy

I came to this GC with anticipation of the promised lightening up of the Book of Discipline. Instead, the work of the legislative committees didn't differ from 2008. To my horror, I saw more additions than removals. Sad. Precious time of all delegates is wasted for voting and discussions of things that have nothing to do with 49% of delegates from Central Conferences. I especially I agree that human sexuality should never be a major subject of the discussion! All people are included, all people are loved, it is clear to a child. The more we talk about it, the less people we have on the pews!
In some cultures it is very unethical to even mention sexuality or anything related to the subject. Did anybody think how uncomfortable we made our brothers and sisters from other countries? Is it what radical hospitality is about? African, Asian and European delegates go home feeling very uneasy about many things they heard and witnessed at the GC 2012. Will that help our denomination to stay together?
I agree that these two weeks should be used for visioning rather than management. Our denomination needs to get away from Barna institute's leadership approach, we need to stop spending money on management trainings that turn the church more and more into the organization than the living Body Of Christ. We need to forget numbers and reports that were typical for Communist countries and we all know what happened to their economic and social "progress!" For 70 years Communists reported that they were ahead of other countries until the system collapsed. We should become a Church filled with the Spirit. But, unfortunately, the GC gathering reminds more of a Communist Party Congress...
I am doing my doctorate on Revitalizing Congregations and I expected that the GC 2012 would give more freedom to local churches. They know better what and how to do things in their context. Should we not trust that local leaders have enough faith, ethics, integrity, and morals to do ministry in their local context or we would continue to drive them nuts, telling them what to do and how to do what they do without the authorities anyway?
Many years ago we started Methodism movement in Russia and it choked under a heavy foot of a Bishop. The country was not ready yet for a structure.
My present church in Raytown, MO never seen a Bishop in our worship in 30 years, but we get lots of instructions and reprimands. Telling small churches what to do, the hierarchy suppresses people's creativity, and kills the Spirit. The General Conference did not have time to discuss that.

Lydia Istomina more than 11 years ago

General Conference& Bicycles for Fish

I pretty muchagree with D. Dick.
Personally, from all I have read about General Conference ithas been a big waste of money with little of any worth accomplished.
Not sure the UM continues to be what I would call "my" church.

Barbara Kiser more than 11 years ago