Five-Finger Reflections part 2

Last week I shared some observations about the five-finger vote in Kansas and Nebraska to gauge support for becoming one conference. A common question asked was "how will becoming one conference result in the changes that you say will happen?" That is the single most important question that we should be asking. Moving from three conferences to one conference is a big deal. It will take a lot of effort. I'm sure every person in the area, myself included, will find at least one change that they will disagree with. We will miss some of what we have right now. If transitioning to one annual conference doesn't help produce some signficant results it's not worth doing. And, unfortunately, simply merging annual conference won't produce a signficant result.

A structural change cannot, by itself, produce a missional change. All three conferences have undergone changes in structure over the years, and yet here we are again. To use language familiar to many of you, the question of how we structure can be a simple technical question. We have X number of moving parts, X dollars to manage, etc., so how do we refine our structure to be more efficient with what we have? When we deal with technical questions, we produce surface answers. It would be a waste of time to delve more deeply. The truism that "a system produces what it is designed to produce" remains in effect and we get more of the same thing. If it's a good thing, then more of it is good.

The question of structure can also be phrased as an adaptive question: "Given our mission, how should we be structured?" The root question here is what is our mission, not how should we be structured. Asking the question of mission again, and committing to a structure that makes us responsive to that mission, encourages us to take a step back to do some much more intentional, deep thinking.

In Exodus 18 Moses visits with his father-in-law Jethro. Moses is getting worn out from all the work he was doing judging between the people, but he knew this was something that had to be done. What could be done? If he was the only person wise enough for the task, he would have no choice. There was no "fix" for the problem. But Jethro was able to take the birds-eye view. Moses' technical question was "how can I judge the people?" Jethro's adaptive question was "How can the people be fairly judged?" The answer was for Moses to train up others to judge most cases saving only the hardest ones for Moses himself. Moses could never have come to this solution because he was asking the wrong question.

I believe that we are asking the wrong questions. "How will (fill in the conference group of your choice) work in one large conference?" is the wrong question. "How can (the group) help make disciples of Christ?" is a better question. "How can we find a place large enough for us to hold Annual Conference?" is the wrong question. "How does holding an Annual Conference help us make disciples?" is a better question.

Structural change in and of itself is not enough to bring missional change. But it is a prerequisite for missional change. A system produces what it is designed to produce. If we are not producing what God wants us to produce then the system must change. This is why the language of creating one new annual conference, rather than merging existing conferences, is so important. Merging three strucutures into one is not the solution - it's a bigger problem. Creating one new structure, a new system, from as close to scratch as we can get while still being United Methodists, gives us the ability to ask questions that we otherwise would not be able to ask. It will be as freeing for us as Moses giving away the right to judge everybody was for him.

We don't exactly have a Jethro to give us the right answer. Gil Rendle has been a great consultant to work with. We have examples of other conferences, most notably Indiana, who have done some things very well, but ultimately we have to find our own way. That's why the transition team doesn't have as many answers as most people would like us to have. If we had all the details figured out already the answers would be wrong. We're looking at creating 5 dream teams this summer or fall that will be able to explore specific adaptive questions more fully, giving them the time and attention that each question deserves.

We are still early on in the process. The whole experience has, for me, been terrifying and exhilerating at the same time. Terrifying because one way or another there will be a real, tangible effect from the work that we are doing. Exhilerating because I believe that the effect has the real possibility of being transformative for the states of Kansas and Nebraska. Please continue to hold the transition team and all of those who will be working on the transition in your prayers.

Five-Finger Reflections, part 1

I'm grateful for the overwhelming support that the Kansas East, Kansas West, and Nebraska Annual Conferences gave in moving forward with plans to create one new annual conference. It was also clear from the comments received that we have a lot of work to do. I was on a mission trip during the latest Transition Team meeting so I don't know all the ground that was covered there, but I want to share here a couple of my own personal reflections after the "five-finger vote". These are my observations, not the opinion of the transition team as a whole.

1. In his excellent book Journey in the Wilderness Gil Rendle says, "As in all difficult moments, the starting point of change is finally to name the tension or conflict between expressed values and actual behavior." I think this is the crux of the problem we face. We state that we value the mission of the church, but in reality we value the institution of the church. We know what we should value, but our actual practices don't back this up. For example, who would not support risk taking for the sake of the mission? But how often have clergy second-guessed an appointment of another pastor as one that doesn't fit in the system or privately criticized a pastor when the church struggles after the appointment (a natural pattern if the pastor is really trying to change things)? How many times have laity challenged a significant change in direction from their church rather than embracing the risk?

Many of the comments that came back to us ask for answers to questions like where will annual conference be held? Where will the episcopal office be? How will pensions and health insurance be affected? What committees will go away? These are all critical questions that we need to answer for the sake of the institution. Beginning in August I'll be part of a smaller group that will begin to seek how to find answers to some of these questions. They do need to be answered. I want answers to them also. But they are almost irrevelant to the mission of the church. Our annual meeting accounts for 4 out of every 365 days. As currently formulated, we hear reports from instiutional committees and take votes on institutuinal matters. The most important missional component of Annual Conference is worship, which is also the lightest attended part of Conference. In a world with more efficient travel and technology, the location of the conference office and bishop's residence will have very little affect on the bishop's performance. Pensions and health insurance are important to our clergy now, but with the exception of the burden of the cost of health insurance to the local churches the changes we make now will hardly be remembered 20 years from now.

Again, these are important questions that need to be answered - we are an instiution, after all. But the instiution needs to help us fulfill the mission. Our focus needs to continue to be raising questions that move our mission forward. Questions like "how can we make sure that the right pastor is appointed to the right church? How can the bishop and cabinet best support our local churches? How can we raise up our laity as spiritual leaders inside and outside the church? How can smaller churches make a bigger impact in their communities? How can a new generation of United Methodists build and improve on the heritage that we leave behind?" These are the questions that will lead us towards renewal. They are much harder to answer than the technical questions, but when we look back 50 or 100 years from now our answers to these questions will matter much more.

2. Several people said that we are moving too fast. I expected that. But many others said we are moving too slow. They say that we need bold, radical change now and the transition team is holding back too much. This also speaks to the tension that we face. Very few people believe that we don't need to change. A large majority seem to believe that we need significant change. But how much change is needed how soon is where the debate lies. My own bias: knowing that all of us tend to push against change more than we should I'm in favor of the most change that we can make.

One other comment was very common - "You make some good points and I agree we need to change, but how will becoming one conference result in the change we need?" I'll address this next week in part 2.