Redesigning the NAD
by Loren Seibold, November 13, 2015. I told you in a previous column that the most interesting item on the NAD Year-end Meeting agenda was the report of the Church Governance Committee. Within the document were some exciting and courageous proposals—but presenters dropped cautionary warnings. NAD president Dan Jackson said repeatedly that this is just a study document, and nothing here was about to be acted upon. I understand his caution: imagine if the word got out that the NAD was about to do away with your local conference.
I often hear critics say that church leaders find it difficult to make necessary cuts to this top-heavy system because they’re concerned about their own jobs. I don’t think that’s the reason. The denomination rarely needs to fire anyone. They can usually reduce staffing by normal attrition. And there’s plenty of attrition coming up: according to one of the reports at the meeting, 50 percent of NAD pastors (by which they mean not only pastors in churches, but also those in offices, who are still considered pastors even if they’ve not served a parish in 30 years) are due to retire within 10 years.
If you think only pastors are invested in our pyramid of offices full of suited clergy, you’re mistaken. I was in Mid-America back when the first round of conference consolidations happened, and it wasn’t the pastors and administrators, but the lay people who came unglued. I’ll never forget one man fuming, “We bought that truck for South Dakota Conference, and I’ll be damned if they’ll take it up to North Dakota!” Combining conferences may sound simple, but it won’t be. This current Governance Committee did amazing work, but if you think everyone—perhaps anyone—is going to say, “This makes perfect sense. We’ll save $145,000,000 a year. Let’s do it!,” well, you’ve not been around this denomination very long.
According to the 110-page report, the first of the committee’s “driving ideas” is that “the way we do business as a church organization must reflect our mission in contemporary terms, with a vibrant, adaptable model for empowering discipleship.” When have we said anything different? No one who’s worked in this system has thought, “This won’t help the work, but we’re going to do it anyway.” Of course, we justify the way we organize. If for no other reason, it has helped us keep control of the three Ms: mission, message, and money.
And control is a legitimate concern. Denominational leaders from the very beginning intuited, I think, that a group as out-of-the-mainstream as ours is, is vulnerable to reputation-damaging fanaticism. A congregational system works best with a dispassionate, middle-of-the-road mentality. Not so well with a message that has so many opportunities for extremism built into it. We’ve seen that demonstrated throughout our history.
The second driving idea is “that because mission happens at the local-church level, we must find ways to better facilitate local ministry, with clear levels of accountability and efficiency rather than top down approach.” I’ve heard that all my life, too. Especially from people in offices. “You pastors are the most important people in the church,” they say. “The front line.” Then how come so many of you don’t want to be with us on the front line? Why do you want to direct our work from an office, between your committee meetings and travel? One of the big problems, I think, is that we’ve set up a system where to be recognized for achievement in ministry, you have to leave it.
No, there are reasons why we’ve kept our system like this, some of which we’re only dimly aware. Which is why this report is a long, long way from implementation.
The committee (as all committees nowadays must) began with surveys. Listening to that part of the presentation, I concluded (along with the report) that “the survey process didn’t uncover any radical new information.” In summary: most everyone thinks there are too many offices, too many people in them, duplication of effort and useless expenditure.
One interesting opinion, which I couldn’t find in the survey, but the report authors seemed to: They thought it “revealed a strong concern that the organization may have been lax in taking corrective actions to address various declining situations.” What does that mean, you ask? Read down, and you’ll discover that one of their concerns is small churches, where “there is an obvious drain on available resources and no seemingly clear plan for reversing the situation.” I’ve written often about the decline in small churches in our denomination, and the seeming disinterest in them. I’ve long believed that the church administrators who sit in our offices and on our committees have forgotten that these small churches exist. I was wrong. They do know they exist, and here they’re floating the idea that we stop supporting them, and put “available resources into ministries or programs that hold the greater promise.” So more money would be spent at Spencerville, Kettering, and Loma Linda, which makes perfect sense as a capitalistic endeavor—the big churches give most of that tithe money, after all, and they’ll probably have more success with it.
Unfortunately, though for understandable reasons, the denominational leadership doesn’t have much appreciation for these faithful, lonely outposts. Remember that the argument for managing the money from the conference storehouse (a concept which this report strongly affirms) has been the ability to move resources from where they are to where they’re needed. It that doesn’t happen, I wonder if church members might begin to question why they send their tithe to the storehouse at all.
You can sum up the two goals of the report quite simply: streamline the bureaucracy, and redistribute the money saved down to front-line ministries. Virtually everyone liked these ideas in principle, and thought the rest of the church should do precisely that. But, naturally, there were doubts expressed from the microphone about whether it would work in our particular case.
As for the restructuring part, the most ambitious plan is to do away with the conferences and administer pastors and churches from the Union Conference office—an option allowed in our polity, and in use in Europe. That’s the scenario that would save $145,000,000 each year. There’s an intermediate plan to combine some conferences and save about half that, and a modest list of possible economies without closing any offices.
But these are paper numbers. Estimates. What would actually result, we don’t know. My fear is that the fuss attending such big changes would be so great—angry constituency meetings, territorial fights, some leaders aligning their followers against others—that it would inflame feelings, polarize opinion, and do more damage than it’s worth. You’d think that everyone would be anxious to put more money to work in front-line ministries. But you might be surprised. You might see that the lay people are surprisingly defensive of our institutions, perhaps more than they are of their local congregation. Imagine the outcry if consolidation means selling a favorite camp or choosing another boarding school for the territory instead of yours.
The surveys (compared to similar surveys done in the mid-1990s) made the committee feel that the mood had evolved in the direction of significant structural change. I hope they’re right. But as long as we overvalue these offices, as long as they seem like the easiest way to address problems, we’re going to keep doing things as we have been.
An example: a friend told me about a GC committee he was on whose members felt there wasn’t a clear enough understanding of stewardship in the church. So they allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars so that every division could have a stewardship director. He asked them, “And when every division has a stewardship director, then what? Do you have any evidence that a man in an office in St. Albans, UK [headquarters for the Trans-European Division] is going to make stewardship better in, say, Reykjavik?” No, they admitted. But money was what they had to work with, and so they went ahead with it.
So we stick a man in an office three flights up from where the problem is. He’ll print a few pamphlets and bookmarks and bulletin inserts and mail them out, do some spots on DVD that will be sent to all the churches (which most won’t play), preach at some camp meetings, authorize a stewardship Sabbath with a ready-to-use sermon, and somehow things will change. Or not. We’ll never know, because we rarely check to see if our man-in-an-office made a difference.
There’s a simpler explanation for why this organizational sprawl has happened to us: our church judicatories grow because they can. They receive the church’s money, and budget it where they want it to be. And those percentages have been quite generous. Until they don’t have that flexibility there will be little incentive to control administrative costs. With the best of intentions they’ll cut back, but after awhile administration costs will creep back up again.
The closest thing to a conclusion was a list called “Consensus and Commitments.” It’s six carefully-worded recommendations, none of which goes too far out on a limb, surely not as adventurous as some of the ideas in the document. I’ll attach the recommendations here, for you to read. In the end, the vote was to pass it all on to another committee. I’m praying for the best, but my expectations aren’t high.
Rule No. 1 in any bureaucracy including that of the Adventist Church: Support restructuring of your institution if your position is not eliminated and your budget is not decreased.
I thought that for a long time, too, Ervin. After watching it for awhile, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s more complicated than that. It’s not just people protecting their jobs, but protecting a whole way of doing things. It’s part habit/tradition, part lack of imagination, part distrust (that the church can work without oversight), part control, part lay expectations, part fear of what change would bring. What I’ve tried to say, above, is that all of those things that have created this system have roots in real problems. But the way to attack it is probably as simple as cutting off the money.
Loren, our church has had mega problems in the Middle East Region for decades. I worked there as President of two fields, and four countries. To claim otherwise is either to be ignorant or to be in denial. Neither of which is helpful. I tried to figure out the heart of the problem and after four years of research, and a D.Min (Dissertation: Towards the Financial Self-Support of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Egypt), at the end of it, I came to the same conclusion as yours, “to attack it (the problem) is probably as simple as cutting off the money.” In the case of the Middle East Union it was to cut off generous appropriations from the GC, put nationals in charge, and let the church there be the church. I received strong reactions from the locals for daring to suggest that two decades ago. To this day, nothing has changed. The culture of dependency and “keep it the way it’s always been” is far too embedded in Adventism in that part of the world.
Many church members have not waited for more distribution of tithe to churches. They pay their tithe to their closest “storehouse” their own church where they KNOW the needs better than any bureaucrat.
I salute the NAD leadership for their courage in looking at the structure and functionality of the church and seeking to work better. However, I am concerned about the concept of creating “…a vibrant, adaptable model for empowering discipleship” because, as a church we have no real functional concept of discipleship as anything more than preaching a defined set of doctrines. In contrast with that, the Bible model is believers seeking the empowerment and guidance of the Holy Spirit so they can become God’s hands in ministering His redeeming love. Indeed, the church has virtually zero emphasis on the Holy Spirit as more than a theological idea about a power who will be poured-out just before Jesus returns instead of present and available to us today. None of the objectives for change in the church will deliver full benefit until our central focus is on the Holy Spirit.
William,
I would put that emphasis on Christ and His salvation. The Holy Spirit as part of the Godhead witnesses to Christ rather than to be glorified Himself. If we build our relationship with Christ first through prayer, study, and contemplation, He will send the Spirit to empower us. Otherwise our work is just work. This is how I understand it, and it is the most difficult thing to do because of our busyness and distractions.
EM,
If we follow the instructions Jesus gave us then our primary relationship with God will be with the Holy Spirit because He is God, is here and is promised to live in and empower all who believe.
Loren,
You have offered some excellent comments and I would like to write a detailed response.
However the commenting mechanism as it currently operates makes that well-nigh impossible.
If indeed you are interested in a detailed response, in what manner should this happen?
Send manuscript as attached DOC file to atoday@atoday.org. — Monte Sahlin, CEO of AT
So what might redesign look like?
The quick, simple, big-money saving solution is to dispense with the conferences and attach all congregations directly to Union Conferences as Europe does.
This, though, preserves all of the weaknesses of geographical limits. Place and substance are Greek thoughts, while action across time being the Hebraic way of experiencing God.
One of the reasons that God was disinclined to organize Israel as a kingdom was that kings always controlled access to God through a temple the king made and personally owned. Until there were Kings, God was much more directly accessible to the people under the Judges.
So instead of physical territory, how about we reorganize in such a way that every individual congregation can seek to be supported by any Local Conference and every Local Conference can seek to be associated with any Union Conference. Physicality can no longer be justified as a communication or span of control advantage
Local and Union conferences would be defined by minimum and maximum levels of financial well-being. Too big, they must split to preempt ‘kingly’ power and too small, they would dissolve and the congregations would re-associate with one of the other Conferences.
Bill, that’s an interesting thought! The Episcopal church apparently allows that: congregations that are too conservative for the US diocese, for example, attach themselves to one in Africa. I can imagine certain San Francisco Bay Area congregations that I knew, that would attach themselves to a more progressive conference like Southeastern CA. Then congregational goals would be defined by the philosophy of mission, rather than geography.
Of course, that would mean admitting that we have a diversity of philosophies of mission.
Loren,
The history of proposals to modify the Adventist bureaucracy is long and mostly a record of failure. Ray Cottrell, and others with him, produced a comprehensive structural proposal. The report rests somewhere in someone’s file cabinet.
Before Cottrell’s, Paul Cone, at the request of then-GC president Neal Wilson, prepared a governance document. Dr. Cone reported that when he had presented his report to one of the GC committees, Wilson came up to him, put his arm around his shoulder and said, “Brother Cone, we are a church, not a business.” Paul replied, “Eder Wilson, you have just put a wet blanket on this presentation.” (There is a copy of the Cone document in my file cabinet.)
Bottom line: prospects for change are inversely proportional to available funds. The more money, the more things stay the same!
Outstanding report and commentary! This is such an important topic, yet discussed over and over without action. Partly because 1900/1901 has the imprimatur of EGW, I suppose.
Regarding the idea suggested by Bill Garber, which, if I understand correctly, is arguing for conferences based on shared values rather than geography, there is much to like. On the other hand, some political commentators attribute the polarization in congress to the creation of safe districts for conservatives and liberals, via redistricting including gerrymandering. It seems that this makes politicians push hard on wedge issues to help their party, rather than work on issues that we can come together on as a nation. I fear that if churches were to band together by values instead of geography, we might have a similar effect. Paralysis at union or NAD level due to creation of too many subunits that are ideologically pure and unwilling to compromise. Still, as long as resources stayed down the org chart, it might not matter, since then we’d see which ideologies result in the best churches and results (however defined). Interesting idea.
I still think the better idea is to get rid of the union offices and keep the local conferences. What does the union do for us out in our congregations??? I have not seen much from the union that helps or supports us but our local conference seems to attuned more to our needs. Than again why do we even need all these levels of bureaucracy? Those pastors holding administrative offices could be assigned to pastor churches. I am sure most would do an excellent job
When Ted said it isn’t a business–he was right. Businesses are more efficient, goal-oriented, and have more accountability. They seek to serve and keep customers. Church organizations are like the government–political, have too many regulations, tend to control, duplicate services, waste money, have lobbyists.
Church organizations are not divine–they are man-made. The structure is set up by men for the purpose of serving ministry. It is to make it more efficient. Therefore, it needs to change with the times, be flexible, and cannot be subject to various interests. It is to be for the good of all.
I would suggest that the idea this is the “remnant” church has caused this resistance to change. It’s my understanding it was organized for efficiency and not for any theological reason. It was and is a remnant movement. At some point the movement will encompass all believers, and logistically they cannot be on church membership books. The church is not the means of salvation. It is purely for the function of ministry which includes wellness centers, hospitals, education, local church work, missions, etc. Maybe we need to be teaching this truth.
Just another opinion on structure. It would be simpler to me if conferences were based on the states and provinces. I agree that the unions seem the least necessary and duplicate services best done on a more local level. States with smaller memberships such as North and South Dakota, could be merged into “the Dakotas.” This would be less confusing.
I’m not sure what I’m thinking is exactly what EM has written but I grew up thinking “the remnant” was a reference to commandment keeping believers as opposed to antinomians.
During the decades of the 1840s and 1850s, there weren’t any adventists who thought of an ORGANIZATION as “the remnant church”. The word “remnant” could only be considered a reference to believers when there was no denominational organization.
So put yourself in the shoes of the pioneers. If there was no organization, what kind of an organization would you want? Would you want to create an evangelistic association to promote adventist concepts of the nature of the kingdom and the manner and purpose of the second ADVENT? James White envisioned a publishing association. What if it had been allowed to morph into an evangelistic association instead of an hierarchical organization membership in which is based on affirmation of a creed (aka Fundamental Beliefs)?
If that’s the kind of organization you would prefer to support, why not create one?
One suggestion though. Maybe it would be better to support only LAY evangelists. I fear that providing funds for clergy might prove self-defeating unless they could be carefully screened to determine which of them sees “ministry” as a form of service rather than as an excuse to tell people what to believe and what to do.
Roger,
You’re asking good questions. However, I don’t think there is much to be gained from trying to gain a historic viewpoint because I think the most important issue before us today is how each of us individually relates to doing the work God wants us doing. We can minister God’s love independent of any organization and when enough of us are focused on connecting with God for direct guidance in our ministries, the organization will adapt as a result.
In my view the elimination of Union Conferences would be a good first step.
Why aren’t my comments being posted?
William,
I think I agree with your last post except for one thing. I think the present situation with regard to SdA organization is due partly (to what extent is debatable) to the assumption on the part of many that what now exist is “how it has always been” and that what now exits is, therefore, how things “should” be. An understanding of the history of the movement–especially it’s humble beginnings–could go a long wag to impinge on that inertia.
Where I agree with you includes that “change” of any hierarchical system needs to begin at the grass roots.
What is “personal ministry”? My wife and I engage in it often. We think HOW we encourage faith in God could be adopted or adapted by many Christians including Adventists.
The problem in some places is that when some people say, “personal ministries”, they don’t even seem to realize that it means anything else than conference programs.
Conference programs might serve a purpose for individuals who have yet to recognize that the Lord is calling them–as individuals–to a specific ministry. There is a danger, however, that even conference programs can create a false sense of “busyness” that virtually precludes any sense of the priesthood of all believers. I think people need to be encouraged to think in terms of how they would do evangelistic work if there wasn’t already an organization in place.
Roger,
Probably the most frustrating church office to which I was ever appointed was Personal Ministries Leader at the Thousand Oaks SDA Church in Thousand Oaks, CA back in 1984. At the time it was the “home church” to the Adventist Media Center and there were no less than 22 ordained ministers in the congregation! Asking them to do anything more for God than what they did during the week at their job gave new definition to “futile.” Yet God used that experience to teach me that “personal ministries” is NOT what the conference wants you doing, but learning what the Holy Spirit wants YOU and not someone else doing. God has a thousand ways for us to share His love that we’ve never imagined, so that’s why I tell people to forget about distributing literature, preaching evangelistic sermons, giving Bible studies or the dozen other things the church has been promoting as “personal ministries” because there’s at least a 98% chance the Holy Spirit wants you doing something else. I never imagined God wanted me doing a ministry where I help people with home repairs, yet it has been an utterly amazing experience of watching God working through me and touching hearts with His love.
Good point on the no organization issue.
We hear the call , “come out of Babylon..MY PEOPLE”
So evidently some remnant people are not in the SDA denomination.
I remember visiting one of the local SDA churches where the women who was handing out the bulletins did not believe she needed to observe the Sabbath.
A notion held by some who often post on sites like this one.
While I do not profess to be an organization expert it seems that the abolition of Unions would be a good start.
In my view the elimination of Unions would be a good first step in making the church operation more efficient.
Duplicate comments are the fault of this program which does not promptly show my response and caused me to believe I was not properly logged in. Apparently I was logged in but I had no way of determining that I was logged in.
The site needs some “fixing” or we need some clarification about comments. Thanks.
Loren and Monte,
You recently sent out a SurveyMonkey to us about this publication & site.
Loren, I see mention in your article about surveys.
Yesterday in our large (60-100) Sabbath school class I asked what ONE measure of reform would you implement if you had kingly power (like Josiah) over the SDA church.
I told the teacher, who rubs shoulders with GC conference officials, that I would implement/initiate QUARTERLY surveys from ministerial secretaries to their pastors and from pastors to all of their members.
The questions/items on the surveys are crucial to get an accurate pulse on the attitude and concerns of those taking it.
This article basically makes people not to want to return tithe to the conference but to only the local church or other causes.
This stewardship drive is nonsense. People are smart enough to know to give where it makes sense. Who wants to give $$$$ to lost/inept causes or programs ..including local churches where shallow/superficial/cliché/warmed over sermons are presented? Who wants to outreach to others so they can just become lukewarm Laodiceans like the rest of the members?
I attended an SDA church yesterday where I am regularly involved.
Today I will again attend the largest NON-DENOM church in the area. It is that way because the sermons are head & shoulders above the rest of the other churches in the area of VARIOUS denominations.
People spend their time & $$ where they think it is worth it.
This quarter SS lessons are about a prophet countering people contaminated by idolatry.
Idolatry takes various forms… world, creatures, emotions, self, and also organizations. People whose idols are organizations are called institutionals.
“Instinctively, we know we need a “power greater that ourselves” but unfortunately, when we’ve adopted the institutional mentality, we begin to look for something or someone to place on a pedestal. Something to assume responsibility for getting us fixed and keeping us safe.”
Forgive my senility if I’ve made this comment before but…..
For several decades, I was under the impression that local conferences (SdA) exist for the purpose of 1) providing resources for pastors and laity, 2) insuring that pastors are periodically reassigned (to minimize the danger of laity placing their faith in a person instead of in the Bible) and 3) creating or maintaining a secondary boarding school.
I was under the impression that union conferences (SdA) exist for the purpose of creating or maintaining a college (or/and publishing a monthly magazine to keep members informed about events in the Union territory).
Can the people who are advocating for eliminating either of those levels of ministry please explain how those things would be done–and by whom–under the organizational format you envision?
Roger,
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a specific description of why the conferences and unions existed other than for “church administration.” Still, I think you’re touching on a good point where we would do well to examine the function of each role in church administration and measure their contribution to the achievement of the church’s purpose. A lot of things have been done with a specific purpose in mind, but have they actually done that?
In the New Testament we find church leaders performing three primary roles: planting and nurturing new churches, charitable ministry to widows and others in need, and spiritual teachers. I don’t think any of us will argue with the need for a treasurer and education leaders. Are all the others “carrying their weight?” That’s a hard question that needs to be answered if our church structure is to be truly efficient and optimally functional.
Roger Metzger: One other function of the Unions is to decide who is ordained or not based on a conference recommendation. This is key to the vote last summer. The vote was not on ordination of women but was about putting more power (with 0.001% to no lay input) to the division which is controlled by the GC. Conferences actually know who is an effective minister (usually) and should make the decisions regarding ordination.
Personally I think conferences in an area could band together to publish their PR magazine. Colleges could be supported in the same manner – The money comes from the local churches to the conferences anyway. Some of the colleges need to be closed anyway but each union has their pet college.
It is sad when in the NAD administrators (conference and union level) are around 5700 and local pastors are around 4300. Where is the need? Local churches – what else really matters. That is where the people relate and form community. (I do like the system of paying ministers so they don’t have to beg a church board and can receive health and retirement benefits.