A Few Pie-in-the-Sky (but not unreasonable?) Suggestions:
by Larry Downing, October 1, 2015: Some months ago a friend told me he had been invited by the North America Division (NAD) to serve as a participant on a committee that had been appointed to address the state of the churches in North America. He told me that he had been informed that nothing was off the table, and asked me to send him suggestions that I believed the committee should consider. I took him up on his invitation. I don’t know that anything I sent him was ever mentioned to the committee, much less discussed. When deleting some old computer files, I found the memo I sent to my friend, and decided to share the list.
- Conduct a conference-by-conference asset audit, including the NAD & General Conference. The audit is to include, but not be limited to, personnel and tangible and intangible assets. A personnel audit includes the function and effectiveness of each office holder or conference leader and the personnel in each conference entity. An audit of tangible assets will include real properties, their intended and real use, their condition and present market value. The audit will identify how each asset benefits the local churches. An audit of intangible items will include the purpose and effectiveness of the various departments and will identify how each entity supports and enhances the local parish.
- Authorize a board composed of knowledgeable, non-church employees to act upon the audit findings. Agreed, this is an outlandish and unreasonable suggestion. Under existing church polity, the individuals who have authority to modify or disband a department or dispose of an asset are frequently the ones who are officers in the department or have an office in the building that may no longer be needed. It is not reasonable to expect people to vote themselves out of a job or dispose of the building that houses their office.
- Much of our governance structure and polity is adapted from other religious organizations: Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholics, to name a few. Acknowledging our dependence on religious organizations established before ours may take some of the steam out of those who tout that the SDA ecclesial system is divinely inspired. If the Adventist organizational structure is inspired, the inspiration came via prior denominations.
- Establish term limits for all conference, union and division officers, including General Conference personnel. Adopt a policy that limits the time an individual can hold any elected church position before he/she is assigned to a local parish for a period of at least four years. Under the present system, there are few demotions more traumatic for a conference administrator than to be assigned to parish ministry. Under the proposed system, after four or six years in a non-pastoral assignment, a person is automatically rotated back into a parish. (Such a policy has several benefits: people will have opportunity to work under the policies they create; individuals will be introduced again to real-life as it is in a parish; the local parish will benefit from the talents and abilities of those who now have little or no contact with day-to-day ministry. A disadvantage is that administrative assignments do provide placement for those who have failed in a local parish. To place these individuals in a congregation benefits neither the local church nor the individual.)
- Establish pastoral continuing education requirements designed to enhance sermonic and other pastoral skills. Establish accountability, reward and consequence into the system. It is not effective for a conference to adopt a policy that states pastors are to have a certain number of CEUs, without including rewards for fulfilling the policy and consequences if the pastor does not meet the requirements. The intent of continuing education is to encourage and enable pastors to strive toward excellence in sermonic preparation and delivery. Surveys that track why people attend worship services confirm that good preaching increases church attendance.
- Implement and promote a wide entry point that welcomes people into our congregations. Practice a ministry of acceptance, an attitude of care, love and responsible living, while recognizing there will be divergent views and conclusions related to certain doctrines, beliefs and lifestyles. Emphasize biblical principles with grace; acknowledge areas that are less defined. Learn to accept disagreement, especially on matters that are less defined. Ambiguity is not a sin.
- Give careful attention to the educational system. Numerous elementary and secondary schools are in fragile economic condition. Falling enrollments in the feeder schools impact college enrollment. The educational system may be the one segment of the Adventist church that has potential to impact the financial future of the church. Should an academy or college experience financial default, the consequences would have far-reaching effect. Local conferences own, and are therefore liable for, boarding academy debts. Union conferences own and are responsible for college or university debts, except for Andrews University and Loma Linda University, which are owned by the General Conference, and Oakwood University, which is owned by the NAD. The collective liability these institutions represent runs into the tens of millions of dollars. It is essential to the long-term viability of the church that our educational institutions are financially sound.
- Take seriously that the local church is the most reliable and productive source of revenue within the Adventist organization! If the goose that lays the golden eggs is not kept healthy, the egg production is in trouble. We church members have the opportunity and power to work with church administrators to direct financial and personnel support to the local parish. It is prudent for the future of our local churches to modify or remove those programs, departments or organizations that do not provide direct and measurable support to the local parish.
- Identify and remove blocking agencies, systems and personnel.
- Create and implement an integrated system that promotes cooperation among the various church entities and organizations. Encourage and support those who are creative and adventuresome.
The above is evidence that there will always a few individuals who are reality challenged, and are oblivious to how the real world works. This document is evidence I am a candidate for citizenship in that la la land. But dreams are cheap. And hope? Well, hope burns eternal, until reality comes along and douses that hope, and who knows? The flame may burn yet again.
“Examine me, God, from head to foot. Order your battery of tests. Make sure I’m fit inside and out.” Psalm 26:2 The Message Bible
In order to really impact others and bring about meaningful change we need PEER REVIEW at all levels. We need to be examined by God first and then to honestly ask our peers in ministry to tell us the truth in all areas of our life and work.
These ideas are all good, but is anyone listening? Since San Antonio tithe and attendance figures are being monitored closely to see if there are any variations. ElderWilson wa blunt and clear in this last issue of Adventist World. He was asked what should those who may disagree with recent decisions by the GC do? His answer was clear. “Where are they going to go?…there is only one remnant…” He is wrong! We need to go to Jesus!
Mr. Downing, I am in agreement with everything you just wrote! It is brilliant! I often wonder about some aspects of our organizational structure; how did they come to be?
I have two (wishful thinking) points I’d include, if ever asked for my two cents (again, very wishful thinking):
1) Review the work/leadership of the thousands of lay pastors who work for the NAD. These pastors, in most cases, carry out the same exact functions of Ordained Ministers, with the exception of performing baptismal/marriage ceremonies. Ordain all qualified Lay Ministers, or discontinue current ordination practices and let all Ministers work as Commissioned Ministers. Shatter the current “glass ceiling” placed above Lay Ministers (as someone else commented on a previous article).
2) Why does one single state need to have two conferences? And why do the majority of SDA churches of a certain race seem to be found in one particular conference, while another race/s represents the majority ofthe churches in the other conference? Why does there need to be two different youth summits, held in two different locations, with two different programs, lead by two different conferences????
I call for the US to have 4 four conferences: The Southern, Eastern, Western and Northern Conferences. Disband all existing conferences and merge them, along with their schools, churches, workers, etc, into one of the four proposed conferences, by territories.
Actually, a fifth conference might be needed: the Central Adventist Conference. I propose that no more than five Conferences should be in existance.
I hear you!
From a management perspective, the functional challenge you’re talking about is what is called “span of control” or the ability of one manager to effectively supervise some number of people. In industry the maximum span of control for most managers is somewhere around 1:8 with 10 or 12 being a practical maximum. God gave Moses a ratio of 1:10 when He organized the Children of Israel with Moses having the greatest span at a dozen with the head from each tribe.
A variety of factors influence the effectiveness of a manager’s span of control so those need to be taken into consideration when defining new boundaries within the church structure. It could be that we need twice or half the number of conferences that we have now and some may be limited to small geographic areas with large populations (EX: Greater New York) while others may be quite large because it takes two or more hours of drive time to get to the next church. So it will be interesting to see what recommendations come from any analysis of the church’s functional structure.
You bring out excellent points, Mr. Noel; many of them I ignored. Thank you!
Larry,
Business guru Peter Drucker is famous for saying that a business owner needs only to answer two questions: What’s my business? and How is business?
I appreciate your suggestions because they detail the analysis required to answer those two questions. As a church in North America (and perhaps in other places) we’ve lost sight of the purpose Jesus wants us to be accomplishing and the methods and tools He gave us with which to do them. Worse than that, we’ve abandoned measurement according to a worker’s achievement of that purpose. When a business stops measuring the performance of its workers, it soon fails. So seeing that happening in the church should come as no surprise. While implementing such changes is laudable, if there is a lesson to be taken from the history of established bureaucracies and ideologies it is that the changes most desperately needed are the ones that will be resisted with the most vigor.
William,
Prof. Peter Drucker is near the top my hero list! His advice to those who manage NFP orgs is priceless. (If only we would implement even a small part of what he wrote.)
“Much of our governance structure and polity is adapted from other religious organizations: Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholics, to name a few. Acknowledging our dependence on religious organizations established before ours may take some of the steam out of those who tout that the SDA ecclesial system is divinely inspired. If the Adventist organizational structure is inspired, the inspiration came via prior denominations.”
Just because you implement ideas from many sources does not mean it is not “divinely inspired.”
” Ambiguity is not a sin.”
Ambiguity is a sin when it claims clear objective givens are not known, when then are. And in this area, just who will decide what is ambiguous and what is a non-negotiable objective given?
Most of what goes in the SDA church today is clearly and purely political. How can we make ourselves liked, and acceptable to the world? How can we play down our differences in the church and the world to avoid controversy?
This is the major goal. Not, what is truth, and how can we present it in a way the Holy Spirit can bear witness as it is presented in harmony with the bible?
Truth goes by confrontation more than by infiltration. The purpose of finding out areas of agreement in the church and the world, is to then move to areas of disagreement and affirm clear bible truth in opposition to error. But that’s not “politically correct” is it?
Those are all excellent “hopes.” The failure of leaders is not only to listen to those they lead, but to take heed that it could be important to have their pulse.
Nos. 2, 4, and 8 are what first should be implemented; yet are the least likely to get honest attention.
The church is a business and members are the customers. If there is no belt-tightening when our financial contributions lessen, there will inevitably by changes made. The apparent utter disregard of the majority of members in the greatest tithe and offering contributors is no different than a company with products which are unsold because of customer dissatisfaction. Ignoring the goose that lays the golden egg is at the business’ peril. This is shown by the attrition rate and decreasing membership in the NAD and European conferences.
It is ludicrous to support such a heavy group of administrators who are duplicating work that could be done much nearer to the membership.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Larry, the following re: your suggestions.
1. For an audit to have full disclosure, it must be administered by a totally free, outside the church authority. Which the church hierarchy will not permit. It has it’s inside Treasurer to audit each conference monies, and assets. Each conference should have a seamless
audit, administered by the Conference Executive Audit Committee, of which there would be no church employees as
members, who could be coerced.
2. Agree. I sat on a Conf. Exec. Com. composed of half employees, of which tithe funds had been used for non-tithe purposes. Just two of us voted negative, and refused to sign off, while 27 voted yea. The Committee being chaired by the Conf. Pres.
3. no comment
4. Yes, a maximum 5 years (to prevent mediocrity of being elected for another term.) 5 years is enough for a CEO to make his contribution.
5. Disagree. Pastors should be chosen for their humility, social graces, total commitment to witnessing (personally)
to every single member, the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.If they have these attributes, the “preaching” will come naturally. Ability to organize the Elders into his program.
6. no comment
7. The Church at large should offer education to all Kinder thru Hi School Adventist family children for a $50. per month per child. The G.C. has a $Billion or more in reserve. What are they saving it for?? a rainy day??
(CONT)
(continued)
8. In the interest of putting funds where they do the most good in preparing souls for the kingdom, a new distribution system ****MUST**** be brought into being whereby the majority of funds are kept at the Local Churches. The problem current is that the SDA HIERARCHY
have become dictatorial, because they have control of approx. 2-3 BILLION DOLLARS. The “tail is wagging the dog”. There must be a total revamping of the G.C. LEVEL.
It has outlived it’s traditional structure, and if the church is to move forward, it must be streamlined and reduced greatly in numbers and responsibilities. It must have totally ethical Business trained experts, the UNIONS and or Conferences, will provide the Religious input. As a matter of fact, the G.C. could be eliminated, with the Business role provided by a family of UNIONS, and the Conferences carrying responsibility for the Soul winning and care. But the family at large must inaugurate this proposal, as the G.C. will fight it to the last breath.
Many, if not most of the members have accepted that the “church” is the administrative body: the G.C., divisions, unions, and their local conference. Their duty as members is to furnish the funds and let the administrators take care of all the business of the church. As long as the members are comfortable and comply with this arrangement, the leaders will continue as in the past; only taking more duties and money for “leading” the church.
Until members begin to claim a more active part in the tithes and offerings which they continue to send out from their local congregation, nothing will change. The only actions so far has been for many members to give both their tithes and offerings to their local congregation, knowing better of the needs than far-away G.C.
All administrative offices from the G.C. to the local conference are top heavy with too many duplicating duties.
This is archaic as their order originated more than 100 years ago when both travel and communication was so much slower. With Skype and all the modern communication possibilities it is an obsolete way of doing business for which the tithe goes, rather than for actual soul winning.
A financial audit should be required and reported each year as to the actual uses of the monies which all the offices receive from the G.C. to the local conference.
From a church growth standpoint, No. 6 is the most important, in my humble opinion.
I’m especially interested in term limits for Pastors. How about Dwight Nelson who has been in the same “parish” 30 years?
Let’s move them to another “parish” after 4 to 5 years.
It sounds like both you and I remember the days when pastors got moved frequently, often about the time they seemed to wear-out their welcome in a place.
If God is blessing the ministry of a pastor in a particular place, why should they be moved? As Larry Downing has described, we need standards of measurement by which to see if a pastor is performing as needed. Here are a few of my suggestions for measures to apply:
1) Is the church growing, both in total membership and attendance? (This might not apply to Dwight Nelson because campus churches tend to have a large percentage of attendees being there for limited periods.)
2) Is the number of youth ages 15-24 growing?
3) Has a new congregation been established within the past four years? Or, are plans being made to establish a new congregation within the next two years?
4) Is the church focused on helping members discover and develop the gifts of the Holy Spirit in them, applying those gifts in the church and developing new ministries as a result of those gifts?
If the answer to any one of those questions is negative, I think that pastor should be put on probation or brought under the mentorship of a senior pastor who has been successful in all of those areas. If the answer to two or more is negative, fire them.
Such requirements for growth, young demographic increase, & daughter congregations are absolutely impossible for most NAD congregations. 60% of the NAD membership is in 10% of the churches, which means that 90% of churches share the remaining 40% of members. That’s a lot of small churches. Most churches are not only small with few financial & people resources, but they’re in shrinking communities.
The NAD is experiencing decline—even slowing in ethnic membership growth, the only strong growth we’ve had. The old standards of growth as markers of “success” are dying, but we don’t have a different paradigm ready. Not helpful is that Silver Spring admins belong to strong churches & when they travel visit only other strong churches.
Has anyone calculated the costs of moving pastors so often in the past? They not only had to pay for moving expenses of household goods, but the children were often pulled out of school in the middle of the year without thought of the disruption to the family and congregation.
Did the congregation they leave experience new growth with a new pastor every four years? I have seen at a church that had an on-going building program for enlarging the church building that was immediately stopped while the new pastor took inventory of the members to see how the members responded; usually it was put on hold and a few years later the cost was nearly double!
I’m a PK and during the time my dad was in one conference, he was moved many times over a very few years, regardless of the members’ response which was not even considered!
If the congregation is happy with their pastor, there is absolutely no guarantee that a new pastor will be able to attract new members simply because he is new.
Some pastorates in SdA university settings have a rapid turnover with students, making it difficult to establish good relations in a short time.
Many remember how Des Ford was loved by students and members, but the leaders NEVER consulted the members. This is WRONG to ignore members who pay leaders salary. It leads to the deserved assumption that the leaders pay little heed to its members; they do so at loss of both confidence and membership.
We could reduce church bureaucracy, but much of it is untouchable because no one wants to cut back on salaries. As a church we need less administrative costs associated with waste and greater efficiency. We must also have realistic expectations about the potential impact this will have on all of us as church members. Cutting costs on the administrative church machinery funds begins with salaries on the chopping block.
We are witnessing local church outreach projects taking drastic budget measures but sadly we are also witnessing the reluctance on the part of many in administration to cut operating costs. If a department in the conference cannot streamline their layers at the very top and reduce their budgets by 13%-21% now they need to be eliminated. It must start at the top. Any department/agency that is allegedly too critical to be subjected to budget control measures AND streamlining the top of their bureaucratic pet rocks need to be immediately placed on the chopping block.
It is not a matter of being too big/fat to fail but a matter of being too big/fat to effectively function at a reasonable cost demonstrating operational efficiency. Our local and union conference church leaders need to respond in writing within 30 days to what they are doing to cut costs/streamline
operations and be more efficient.
Why are we so afraid of doing our best for God?
Most of the “complaints” I hear from SdAs are from the perspective that the denomination is too “liberal” or too “conservative”. What if what we should be asking, instead: 1. What goals are most important? 2. What are the best ways to pursue those goals?
What if we were to pursue the goal of spiritual growth, encouraging each other to grow beyond the traditions to which we are accustomed and let numerical/denominational growth occur as a byproduct of that?
In the mean time,
What ever happened to pastors serving the laity and conference officers serving the pastors and the laity. What ever happened to pastors and conference officers functioning as resource people, helping the laity do what the Lord calls the laity to do?
How about retaining a system that can equitably distribute tithe funds only for the support of full-time gospel ministers but replace a system that was created when global communication took months instead of seconds. If there are individual members who aren’t connected via the Internet, let them communicate through the nearest pastor or conference office but everybody else “vote” by contributing to whatever project or projects he considers important. How about creating LAY evangelism associations the success of which is measured by how many people become Christians and how many people become protestants, not just how many people join our denomination?
LEAVE NO ONE IGNORANT OF OUR LORD JESUS, THE CHRIST. In every conversation, after meeting, ask,”Do you know Jesus”?? “Do you have Jesus”?? Don’t be shy, and don’t be embarrassed; It may be the very moment, the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD, is moving that person to decision.
“How about using a large part of tithe funds to support fulltime gospel workers, including ministers; & also volunteers should be encouraged, to go door to door, offering specially prepared materials, and Bible Studies if wanted, leaving a postage paid post card, but selling nothing (Paraphased). Every home in the USA possible, to be visited. This should be administered by local conferences. Every Conference worker to offer one day a week in this program. Every chosen Conference worker, should be a soul winner for Jesus Christ. A greater amount of the tithe to be used locally, Bible Workers and ministers to be paid locally. Should you wish not to steer a prospect to SDA, offer them instead, Bible Studies to the world-wide body of Christian believers, unnumbered and anonymous, but God knows each one intimately, and offers the Holy Spirit to each one.
I would definitely resent have mere acquaintances to ask such a very personal question: “Are your a Christian? “Do you know Jesus? It’s no different than being asked by someone you just met: “Are you married?” Or “Are you gay”?
Only when there has built a friendly relationship and you both respect and have much in common, that only such personal questions should be asked. THEN, and only then, there may be an opportunity for discussion; which is not trying to convince someone he should accept Christ.
Too any “quick conversions” also become “quick exits out the door.”
You win some, you lose some. In selling, a salesman who closes the sale 1 out of 4 times can make a good living. that means he has 3 refusals out of 4. But to deliver the Gospel of the Christ, requires a Spirit inspired person to confront strangers with the message of life. Some are called and respond, others have perhaps different talents. The initial contact is not thinking of conversion, but to find those impressed to have the materials, as well as any interest in studies.
How has that been working for you? Has no stranger resented it? It is an abrasive and very personal question to ask of strangers who may easily feel they are being “used” to meet the questioner’s quota.
Is this the manner used by Christ or the apostles?
Once, I knew a pastor who said that he would much rather someone come to him and ask to be baptized that “rounding up the friends of Adventists and church school children to “fill” the visiting evangelist’s quota. Most of those left after a few months or years
In earlier years I would spend some time walking around my part of town knocking on doors with offers of free Bible Studies, also taking card leads returned for Bible Studies. I never walked up to a prospect and lead out with
“Do you know Jesus”??. I was a professional salesman. A teacher of Salesmanship, the “DALE CARNEGIE WAY”. After meeting and speaking for awhile, usually the opportunity to ask “Do you know Jesus” would become evident, or the prospect admitted already to be a Christian, attending another Church, or not attending. As another mentioned above, we the seekers do not “quickly” convert a person to the Baptismal Font. It is only after interest is displayed that we follow up with Bible Studies. It is the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD WHO CONVERTS THE HEART OF MAN. One prospect I met, was the wife of a man in the commercial office cleaning business. She said her family (two boys and invalid mother) was desperately in need of Jesus. That her husband drank to much beer with the guys who worked with him, and lately had been losing money gambling. She was able to get him to agree to talk with me. After about 30 minutes he broke down crying. We followed up with the 15 Bible studies, and he, the wife, and two boys were baptized. Two years ago this man retired, being disabled, after training, specializing in prison ministry, and 25 years as a Pastor in the SDA Church.