The CRCNA and the Local Congregation

I’ve done a lot of writing in the past few years about the relationship between the denomination as institution and the vitality of the local congregation especially in the CRCNA. In this post in particular laid out some of the recent movement of imagining the Sy(nod)-Board as pun on Cyborg organism attempting to save its organic host.

Figuring out how to help local congregations from a denominational position is amazingly difficult. Part of what makes it so difficult is the surprise of the difficulty. Sometimes denominational employees look out and say “I know what they need…” only to discover that the “people in the trenches” aren’t buying what they’re selling.

The same thing works the other way around. Local church pastors, officers and member look to the denomination and say “why can’t they just do…” or “why don’t they stop doing…”. It’s a classic clash of cultures and mismatched conversation.

The Challenge of Diversity

Part of what makes it so challenging is that locality always comes with its own diversity. Even in a denomination with a thick culture like the CRC every single local church is different in surprising and significant ways. While denominational employees see and hear patterns as they try to gather information what gets generated for broad consumption may or may not find traction because of the vast diversity of personalities, cultures and contexts.

The Market as Response to Diversity

If one casts their gaze even beyond one denomination funny things happen on the diversity scale. One some levels it expands even further as theological distinctives and conflicts come into the mix. On the other larger patterns emerge as you realize that politics and sociology are also impacting churches. You find some CRCs aligning on some issues with Baptists, Pentecostals or mainlines all with their own unique CRC twists. Then when you throw ethnic diversity into the mix, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, it all just grows larger.

Part of the American contribution to the world wide church has been the rise of the American evangelical. We are of course challenging further the definitions here, but let’s use probably the most helpful one of the Bebbington’s Quadrilateral

• biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all essential spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
• crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
• conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
• activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort

In the American context the market is used to address the diversity of ministry needs. It is assumed that if there is a need someone will arise to fill it especially if they can make some money doing it.

I remember at one classis someone quipping “If I need resourcing I’ve got Google. Why do I need a denomination?”

This particular pastor did value the denomination but more as ministry home and accountable community than resource provider.

Limits of the Market

The limits of markets are their attachments to money. There is a reason the market only finds cures for the diseases of people with money to spend on medicine and why the Gates Foundation is targeting other diseases.

Because of economies of scale markets also tend to provide “one size fits all” solutions in order to attract the broadest possible market place. A market hopes to provide enough different “one size fits all” “solutions” to match the inherent diversity but it never really gets there again because of the economies of scale. This is why there will always be a need for personal contact, personal touch, personal attention. Some with wisdom, experience, context and history addressing a local situation.

Leveraging Altitude to Knit Together Networks

So when I would think about how denominations could be helpful to local churches I would often think about connecting people together. I want someone who at least shares enough of my communal history, theological filters, and has both some contextual similarity and difference in order to learn with and from. I have always thought that a denomination could be helpful in brokering these kinds of relationships and connections, in building these kinds of network. This is, I think actually one of the most helpful things denominations do. The challenge I always find is the signal-to-noise ratio.

The information age has brought to us unbelievable amounts of information. The challenge is no longer access but filters. Google and other tools have become amazingly good at helping us find things with specificity but that strength struggles to go beyond factoids. I can find data through Google, but a complex situation like “how do I develop leaders” can’t really be resolved by a Google search. Sure you’ll get lots of answers and some helpful ones but part of the reality is that what we need goes beyond technique.

Denominations have tried to work this gap with “best practices”. The CRCNA developed “The Network” which is increasingly becoming a depository of some helpful information, yet it has the challenge of “just in time” and the signal-to-noise ratio conundrum. We also often need the human touch/trust element to really motivate us to change things in real relationships.

Leadership Initiative as Experiment in the next Evolution of Denominations

As I wrote about earlier I had a meeting today to kick off a new initiative between the CRC and the RCA. When I was first approached with this I first thought it was going to be something I typically expect from denominations. “Here (in this box or envelope) is our new magic potion to make leadership development  (fill in the blank with any local need) happen at your church.”

I’ve seen plenty of leadership development programs before with lots of good advice. I was prepared to try to promote this next one. My expectation was to see what it might produce. On average these types of programs do some help but never fully yield the kinds of results everyone hopes for.

I came into this meeting waiting for the big reveal. There wasn’t one. I found that to be a hopeful sign.

Essentially the idea was to work a rather open ended process rather than a program. There will be 6 of these initially with possibly 12 congregations in each grouping from both the CRC and RCA. It looks much more like a community development implementation in that the outcomes aren’t prescribed from the central organization but the local leadership will develop their goals. The central program will provide some coaching and support but the centralization is not in control but connection.

It is likely that even though the goal making will come from the grass roots there will be similaries and groupings that can be had. A church that needs to develop a discipleship leadership development program will find there are other churches like them. They can find access to one another and there can be the possibility of learning from one another. This learning is facilitated by the network but not controlled by it. Hopefully as the network grows the connections grow at an organic pace so as not to swamp the individual participating congregations.

The Age Beyond the Expert

As I thought about this program and thought about its potential it seems to be an experiment, or a prototyping in how denominations can be helpful moving forward in the age beyond the expert.

Modernity imagined that “experts” (imagine lab coats and test tubes) dispensed formulas for success to churches. Formulas were widgets or magic pills that promised to “make ministries grow!” Those of us who have attended conferences or read “how to” churchy books have more “proven formulas for success” than shelves to hold them in my rather unsuccess-like church.

Most of the time what I’d rather have than an “expert” is a community of trustworthy people who are alike enough to help conversation go well yet different enough so that I can learn new things. If denominations can help facilitate and broker these kinds of connections, denominations will be in demand.

Now as someone who has marketed the term “age of decay” with a degree of dour Calvinist realism I am pre-conditioned to lowered expectations, yet even I am excited about seeing what we can learn in this new attempt at a sandbox. The fact that it is RCA/CRC makes it all the more interesting, in that the CRC and RCA have a high degree of “alike and yet different” so that this could be both fun and productive moving forward. Stay tuned.