This range of work that Alban does with middle judicatories also, by the way, follows the rough pattern of types of outside assistance available from a variety of sources. In recent years the Leadership Network has become a key source of such assistance, as have a number of independent consultants-including prominently George Bullard and Alan Klaas (both of whom have been wonderful colleagues to us at Alban).

The Key Challenges

Throughout all of Alban’s work with middle judicatories, five key challenges or dilemmas emerge repeatedly. Other challenges are mentioned, but when examined closely these usually turn out to be the same challenges seen from another angle or from the experience of a different religious body.

1. How do we identify our core functions? What are the key things we do and how can we do them well? Or, more formally, what are the core processes of our judicatories? While judicatory leaders do many things well, they often have little clarity about what should be their basic roles. This isn’t because they are not capable, dedicated, thoughtful people. It is rather because there is frequently little consensus about what their core functions should be. What consensus there is only stays in place by dint of considerable skill and exertion and is always in danger of slipping away. As you might expect, when it is hard to get agreement that will stay in place on the core processes, it is harder still to examine those processes and to figure out how to do them better. We are, for example, consulting in a number of judicatories about their role in the entry of new ministers into ministry-through the process, discernment, formation, theological education, and first call to a congregation. Middle judicatories agree that working with ministry students through their education and first call should be a core process for them. Yet, so many other agendas compete that attending to this process from start to finish is often very difficult. When judicatories do manage to give it attention, they find that having an impact on the process requires great effort-particularly in building partnerships with congregations, seminaries, national bodies, and the candidates for ordination themselves. Any sustained work on the development of a process for work with those entering ministry tends to be trumped by the immediate. There is an addictive quality to crisis response work. Denominational offices must demonstrate their usefulness; responding to a high-visibility crisis is a uniquely effective way to do so.
   
   
2. How can we be effective stewards of the human resources for ministry in our judicatories? In episcopally organized systems, the middle judicatory appoints or has a strong role in appointing ministers. In congregationally organized polities, the middle judicatories advise the process. In both middle judicatory executives devote a large portion of their energy to personnel issues related to religious professionals-both in placement and in handling ministerial misconduct.
   
   
3. How do we lead faithfully and effectively when little authority is given to us but much is presumed? There is a great contrast between the grand-even regal-trappings of a modern bishop and the reality. Ironically, people may expect their bishop to wield great authority when they want something done, and yet grant little authority when the bishop wants cooperation. This disjunction causes pain. Ascribed power or power implied by the trappings of office has remained great while real power has decline. Some would argue that this diminution of power is something that simply must be or should be accepted. Others argue that there is much opportunity to earn authority through networking and relationship building. Both agree that, if it is possible to be effective in these executive roles, each executive must develop the necessary tools and use these tools patiently and persistently. This consumes huge amounts of energy and time.
   
   
4. How do we shape and implement a vision for the middle judicatory? There are many agendas to juggle. Many people serve middle judicatories as volunteers. Even if they are professional staff employed by a congregations, their service to the judicatory is often as a volunteer. Thus, this involvement often must take second or third place behind often commitments. Among both laity and clergy there is-in Protestantism and Roman Catholicism at least-a strong dissipation of denominational identification. Especially with the fading of the World War II generation, it becomes increasingly hard to explain what it would mean to be a committed Presbyterian or Lutheran. Shaping a vision is possible. Some are doing it effectively. But judicatory leaders no longer have the tools handed to them for the task.
   
   
5. How do we equip congregations for a changed future? This is the largest challenge; the one in which the best judicatory leaders feel the greatest investment. How do we make a difference in congregations-not just fine-tuning practices, but creatively responding to the new unfolding of Creation.

Considering the radical differences between middle judicatory offices-from a single administrator (with a part-time assistant) of a Protestant denomination in the West to a large Roman Catholic diocesan office in a major Eastern city; and from Southern Baptist to Reform Jewish-there is remarkable consistency in these concerns. Some concerns aren’t shared. The Southern Baptists have struggles over the role of women in leadership that the Unitarian Universalists don’t have. Yet, remarkably, these differences between denominations don’t so much change the struggles as change the way the same struggles are expressed.

The Key Trends

What are the key trends that bring these challenges to the fore? It is harder to speak with assurance about this. There more concensus about the challenges than about the trends which underlie them. The following five seem to be very important:

1. Rising Importance of Middle Judicatories - As Loren Mead observed some time ago, part of the same phenomena that has made national denominational bodies less important has made middle judicatories more important. At one time, a key role of denominations was to represent their groups nationally. We see vestiges of this role in Washington, DC, with the historic national churches-of which the Episcopal National Cathedral is perhaps the most important. As this role has faded, serving congregations (especially the increasingly independent mid-size to large congregations) has attained higher priority. As it has, middle judicatories have grown at least in potential importance.
   
   
2. Downsizing - Downsizing may not be a trend in all middle judicatories, but it is a trend affecting them. Some say that the proportion of resources that denominations devote to direct service to congregations, and hence to middle judicatories, may even be increasing to go along with some of the developments that I have mentioned. Yet, on the whole, denominations have less. Even when middle judicatories themselves are not being down-sized, they find themselves part of larger systems that are undergoing more or less continuous rounds of reorganizations. Even keeping a current contact list for denominational officials is a daunting task.
   
   
3. Affinity Groups - It can be difficult to work with affinity groups (who share an enthusiasm or problem) without taking on the group’s agenda as your own. When groups from within (or beyond) the denomination want congregational support for something, middle judicatory executives are a first stop. Middle judicatory executives are seen as people who can get congregations to do things. Middle judicatory leaders suffer from an overabundance of good causes that can be neither adopted nor dismissed. Alternate paths must be found.
   
   
4. Limited Resources -In the aftermath of down-sizing, judicatory leaders find themselves stuck on the issue of competition for limited resources. They also work with people who are stuck on this issue. In the most creative judicatories, the frustration over this has left to a new movement for finding ministry resources outside the denominational structure. In one judicatory the bishop abolished the old system of annually dividing up the resource pie through leadership meetings. Instead, he created a booklet in which all the programs were given the opportunity to describe themselves. These descriptions were distributed to congregations, who decided what to support. Conflict ensued. People complained that the bishop wasn’t leading. People said that congregations would not support the “right” things if given the choice (a view which itself betrays an interesting mindset!). In the end, the new system led to increased support and to what politicians would call increased “approval ratings.”
   
   
5. Turn to resourcing - In the work they do and even more in how they describe their work middle judicatory executives adjudicating and polity management roles are being minimized in favor of resourcing roles. When we talk to judicatory leaders about what is hopeful in what is emerging, it is this turn to resourcing. It is also the key direction pointed by the three of the main things that have been written on this subject of late: George Bullard’s collection of articles, Payne and Beasley’s Reclaiming the Great Commission, and Alan Klaas’ A Fork in the Road: Emerging Trends in Judicatory Operations.

The Help Judicatories Need:

Given these challenges and this understanding of the basic trends giving rise to these challenges, how do we understand what help judicatories most need? We do not presume to offer one set of answers to this question. Alban itself approaches this work from a variety of perspectives. Our is constantly evolving and is shaped by the individual people who work in this area the most-Gil Rendle, Roy Oswald, Speed Leas, and Alban’s current and former presidents (Jim Wind and Loren Mead). Yet, some generalizations are possible concerning what we think congregations need. Perhaps presenting these things that we see will help spur a discussion among the various groups working to make middle judicatories more effective, including the middle judicatories themselves.

• Create homemade solutions. Middle judicatories need to create their own solutions. Although we have lots of ideas about trends, and lots of opinions about what works, we believe that middle judicatories need help and support to find their own solutions. What works in individual situations is highly variable. It depends on differences between religious traditions, localities, and personalities. If a solution works in fifty places, it will only work in the fifty-first if it fits and if the people involved believe it fits. I am encouraged by those who describe replicable models for judicatory revitalization. Yet local solutions need to be locally built-or, at least, locally adapted.
  
  
• See the big picture. Middle judicatory leaders don’t get enough opportunity to see the big picture. Providing that opportunity is one of the most important things we do and one of the most important things anyone working with middle judicatories can do. We allow them to look over the fence and see their issues as part of a larger picture. The broadly interdenominational nature of our work allows us to do this well. Alban’s Gil Rendle recalled a time when two judicatory leaders seated next to each other-one Jewish, one Southern Baptist-were astonished to discover that they were facing very similar challenges. The point here is not to create ecumenical or interfaith understanding. Amid the fog of details surrounding their individual work, judicatory leaders find it very difficult to see the larger patterns in their work. When we can help them see similarity, especially similarity across a large gap of differences, they are enabled to begin to grasp their problems on a systemic level rather than on the level of the blur of phone messages or emails to be answered.
  
  
• See their situation as normal. Seeing the big picture gives the participants insight and it also normalizes their situations, taking the blame and guilt out of them. It is natural for frustrations to become personalized and for the personalization to turn to judgment. Seeing the big picture can assist those who are ready to move forward by enabling them to look beyond personalities.
  
  
• Create safe space. Creating a safe space outside denominational structures is important. Alban is in an especially good position to see this because we often do similar training in denominational groups and in interdenominational groups. Alban trains groups of judicatory leaders from individual denominations and there is often a strong argument for this. A denomination often wants us to come, for example, to do one day of a three-day training in which new judicatory leaders learn about denominationally specific matters on the other two days. This can be valuable but it can rob the training of the key element of being a safe space outside their structure. I don’t think that what operates here is so much the confidentiality of the setting as the fact that the different setting and different personalities allow people a little extra space to test different ways of thinking and to say things which they find themselves surprised to hear themselves say.
  
  
• Give a systems perspective. A systems perspective gives participants a way of seeing that transcends their political lives and gives them an understanding of resistance to change and strategies for influencing systems. The specific content of the systems theory which we present changes from year to year and from leader to leader, but a key element that judicatory leaders find very helpful is the systems perspective.
  
  
• Teach process skills. Along with a systems perspective for understanding, we also each process skills for intervening. Middle judicatory executives don’t just need clear goals. They need tools for accomplishing them with their teams. Middle judicatory executives need also to learn how to strategize with their systems to make things different. And yet, middle judicatory executives must learn to be change agents without attempting to be consultants to systems of which they are a part.
  
  
• Create a holding environment. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we find that middle judicatories need what Ronald Heifetz calls a “natural holding environment.” What Alban and other effective programs provide more than a safe environment, some perspective and some tools. Effective event also must be structured as containers in which processes of thinking, learning, and experimenting are accelerated. This container begins to be created by expectations. Middle judicatory executives come to our events to be oriented to a new job and to practice how to do things differently. At the events we give content and structure, but we also give space to allow participants to choose to do things differently. Allowing this space can produce anxiety for event participants and leaders alike. But it is also, we believe, a thing-maybe the thing-that middle judicatory leaders most need.

What We Wish We Knew

While it is useful to clarify, as much as possible, the problems of middle judicatories and their solutions, much still remains unclear. Middle judicatories remain a subject hidden behind the two larger realities of congregational life and national denominations. There is far more that we don’t know than we do know. As we look to our future work, here are a few of the key things we wish we knew, or could see more clearly:

1. Balance Between Its Mission and Supporting Congregations in Their Missions. What should be the balance between supporting the mission and purpose of local congregations and working on its own mission?
   
   
2. Work of the Middle Judicatory. What-apart from dealing with deployment and employment issues for clergy and social agendas like homosexuality-are the core roles? Often, roles like supporting missions or youth experiences are mentioned. But those seem to be tasks that the judicatory accepts more because of the advantages of scale inherent in doing those programs regionally than because middle judicatories have decided that there should be core roles.
   
   
3. Economics. Judicatories seem to be moving towards a resourcing role, and yet recommending resources must lead to being able to provide them. Moving beyond recommending resources to providing them will take money. Can middle judicatories follow through in helping congregations obtain the resources they recommend?
   
   
4. Role in Spirituality and Worship. What is the appropriate role for middle judicatories in supporting the worship and spiritual life of the clergy and other leaders? In the Methodist system, the District Superintendent is the minister to the clergy. In the Presbyterian Church, the Presbytery is the church for the clergy. What are good models for the exercise of these roles?