Thinking Differently about Call to Action

As delegation after delegation endorses the proposal, it looks quite likely that at least the structural and general agency changes will be passed, and we will move away from General Agencies as we currently understand them. With consolidation comes lack of staff, and one of my main critiques of this whole business has come from my history as a staff person at a jurisdictional agency. The role I played at that agency (UMVIM, SEJ), I have said, could not adequately be performed by a pastor with local church responsibilities. I say this as a pastor with local church responsibilities who is asked, more and more, to perform duties which used to be performed by dedicated staff people. It can be exhausting. So eliminating staff, as I have said, runs the risk of even further taxing the very pastors who are already overtaxed.

I still don't feel entirely comfortable with such a momentous systemic shift. We sometimes make huge shifts in church systems and pretend they will not affect the mission and nature of the church, when in reality the mission and nature of the church flow directly from how we arrange ourselves. The mission is the "what" and the systems are the "how." It does not matter how often you invoke the Holy Spirit: you cannot make pancakes by vacuuming the carpet. The "what" (pancakes) flows directly from the "how" (gathering ingredients, mixing, cooking). When you change the "how," your "what" looks different.

So I think we're jumping onto a train whose direction we're not totally sure of, but my concerns were alleviated a bit this morning upon reading Ken Carter's most recent blog post about the CTA report. He proposes this:

    [W]hat if the adaptive challenge, inspired by the Call to Action, is that nothing happens at the district, annual conference or general church level that is not in partnership with some local church or small network of local churches? There are evidences of strong partnerships already (note the Ginghamsburg Church's mission work in the Sudan with UMCOR), but the idea would be that this becomes normative, and a key measure in how funds are allocated (and perhaps matched).