Adair Lummis
VISION and IDENTITY
Connections and Unity Among and Between Congregations,
Middle (Regional) Judicatories and their National Church
by Adair Lummis of the Hartford Institute for Religious Research
www.hirr.hartsem.edu
These reports have been based partly on findings from a 1999 survey of 1,077 regional leaders in seven denominations, but primarily on subsequent open-ended telephone interviews conducted between the fall of 2000 and the summer of 2001 with about eighty-five of these regional leaders. This report also uses insights and information from Nancy Ammerman and David Roozen (2002, 2003), whose research has focused on the congregational and national levels respectively of these denominations.
Moving from Autonomy to Community: Holding the Denomination Together in Unity and Diversity
Congregations, judicatories, and national church offices and agencies each struggle for operating autonomy in defining their mission and ministry priorities. Although each level is concerned about their own survival and favorite programs, it is safe to say most officials on each level realize that they must communicate and work in concert to achieve common mission goals if the denomination itself is to survive. Because middle judicatory and national church leaders carry the major responsibility for sustaining a functioning system of connections among congregational, regional and national denominational levels, they likely care more about denominational survival per se than do many clergy and church members.
When asked how an effective system of connection can be developed and maintained so that the denomination as a whole survives and thrives...
Regional executives in different denominations suggested the following strategies of developing better connections throughout their judicatories. Those strategies most often mentioned in interviews are ensuring that judicatory executives or their senior staff:
- Engage in face-to-face interaction with pastors and lay leaders regularly. This helps to demonstrate that the judicatory officials care what clergy and members see as important—so, as one regional leader put it, the judicatory is “not being seen as a distant denominational taxing agency.”
- Give congregations some choice in which of a number of judicatory missions or programs they would most like to support.
- Help congregations get the kind of support that meets their basic survival goals such as assistance in congregational renewal or growth, conflict resolution, and getting a good pastor. Then the judicatory staff will have more success in getting their congregations to support judicatory programs and fund raising drives.
- Explain to congregations that if they contribute money and people to exciting missions sponsored by their judicatory, their congregation may be energized in the process. Several mentioned their overseas mission project which had direct interaction among persons and churches in both countries as particularly helpful in increasing connections within their judicatory.
On the national level, several denominations are embarking on a series of similar steps to improve connections with their judicatories. Among these strategies are having the national church offices and leaders:
- Fund speakers to come to regular denomination-wide meetings of middle judicatory executives or senior staff to share their wisdom in areas that are seen by these regional officials as important to their job effectiveness or overall health and well-being.
- Go to regional judicatories and listen to what the regional judicatory officials feel their judicatory offices and congregations need and what issues they would like (and not like) to have their national church address in policies, programs, and position statements.
- Offer a range of national church resources (consultants, publications, or funds) to their middle judicatory executives in areas such church growth and revitalization, clergy programs, lay leader training, youth ministries, and other programs—but not insist that their judicatories make use of these resources.
- Develop mission endeavors that capture the interest (and participation) of regional leaders across the denomination. This can also be an opportunity to encourage the formation of new partnerships among these regional leaders in mission and ministry programs, as well as with national church leaders and offices.
These strategies may not always eventuate in closing the “gaps” in communication between congregational, judicatory and national church leaders. However, consistent and careful use of such procedures are likely to be seen by these leaders as at least positive steps in creating community and covenant within and between levels of their denominational system.
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