Tweak It or Fix It

I will admit that the public appeal of this blog will probably be limited. It is my response to the report of the Mission Alignment Coordinating Council (MACC) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

If the MACC is an unknown to you, let me give you some background information on the history and purpose of the Council. This information was shamelessly snatched from a Disciples World article written by my friend Rebecca Bowman Woods. I will delineate the information taken from Rebecca's article with italics.

The MACC was created by the General Board of the Christian Church in April of 2008. Its purpose "was to look at organizational issues hampering the forward movement in our ability to be and to share the Good News as a movement for wholeness," Its work built on the priorities of the denomination's 2020 Vision of launching 1000 new churches and revitalizing 1000 existing churches by the year 2020. Those priorities are: leader development, congregational transformation, establishing new churches, and becoming a pro-reconciliation, anti-racist church.

Last April, the General Board outlined three desired outcomes for the MACC — to clarify the General Board's responsibilities, to help the church embrace diversity, and to resource congregations for ministry. The group met in June, September, and November 2008 and in January 2009.

Rev. Wood's article contained the following quotes. "The MACC didn't want to take on more than it could accomplish", (Disciples President and General Minister, Sharon) Watkins said, "so they decided to focus on general ministries first. Later, they realized that conversations about equipping congregations needed to include Disciples regions. An expanded process will allow this, and other types of broader participation, to happen," Watkins said. Former Disciples Moderator Bill Lee also served on the MACC. While he hoped the group's efforts might go further, "it went about how I expected," he said. He called the MACC's work "a diligent, consistent effort…to really take a look at how we might restructure the church." The MACC's report is "a launching pad for us," Lee said.

I have taken the time to read the MACC report. And I will admit that I read it with the eyes of a church transformation person. I have spent the last 16 years of my life studying, working in, writing about, and leading seminars on the transformation of the local church. In my recently published book, Renew Your Congregation; Heal the Sick and Raise the Dead (Chalice Press) I make note of the fact that church transformation is not a fix-up paint-up redecorating project to make the church look nicer. Transformation is a systemic, total church renovation from the foundation up. Transformation is a spiritually led, vision driven, love enabled, Holy Spirit energized top to bottom change in how and why we do church. When a church (or a District or a Region or a National manifestation of the church) enters into transformation, everything about the church – what we do, why we do it, who does it, does it work, is that what we should be doing – everything is questioned. And until we are ready to ask and honestly answer those difficult questions, transformation is out of the question.

My conclusion after reading the MACC report is that either these hard questions were not asked or, if asked, were not answered. I realized that many very intelligent, spiritual, wonderful church leaders invested many hours of prayer, work, and discussion into this report. And they are to be thanked and commended. But without the correct questions, they will never find the correct answers. They resultant report does look like a careful, thoughtful rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

What we, the Christian Church (DoC), have been doing over the past 30 years has not been working. Every year our missions, ministry, community impact and membership have been shrinking. We can come up with some complex and compelling spiritually worded rationalizations and excuses, but the bottom line is we are fading away as a denomination. It is my studied opinion that we are way past a time that we can tweak what we do and how we are doing it and think this will come out well. We don't need a tweak – we need a fix. And I believe that fix is transformation.

Healthy, transformational, missional, impacting, growing churches are led by a spiritually growing leadership core that is interested only in discerning and following God's vision for that church. Everything the church does is aligned with the vision and mission of the church. There are literally thousands of good things the church could be doing, but the transformational church is choosing to do only those things that help it accomplish the task God has called it to.

This is not rocket science, but it is not easy. When we say yes to some things we must say no to others. And it is the "no's" that bring conflict. There are many good things the church has been and continues to do. But as good as these things may be, they may not be what God is calling us to do and be in this time. May I suggest that the Christian Church (DoC) has been given a clear vision? That vision has been stated in the denomination's priorities that were to drive the MACC's work. Clearly stated by the Council, it said, "Its work built on the priorities of the denomination's 2020 Vision of launching 1000 new churches and revitalizing 1000 existing churches by the year 2020. Those priorities are: leader development, congregational transformation, establishing new churches, and becoming a pro-reconciliation, anti-racist church."

Just as the local church and the Regional Church, the national manifestation of the church must transform itself into an entity that exists to fulfill its mission. That means stopping much of what it is already doing and starting doing many things it is not doing. This makes sense because, if we keep doing what we are doing, we will keep getting what we have. Difficult, unpopular decisions must be made. Jobs will be lost and new positions will open. Offices will close and new offices will be established. Ministries, some long standing, will end and new ministries will begin. It will be difficult. It will be painful. And it will be exciting. It will be wonderful.

I am reminded of the little boy who wrote the letter to God. "Dear God, I want to know what it is like to die. Nobody will tell me. I just want to know. I don't want to do it." I sense that is how we feel about transformation. We know it has to happen. We are just not sure we want to do it.

Thanks to all who have served on the MACC. We appreciate your work. But we don't need tweaking, we need fixing.

Copyright © 2009, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved