On “Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment”

December 12, 2008 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Religion 

This past Tuesday, I participated in a webcast (scroll down and click the picture of two men) by the PC(USA) Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and Professor Beau Weston.  Beau is also a Presbyblogger at Gruntled Center.

Beau has written a paper entitled “Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment” that was published by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship (though not as an official statement).  In his paper, Beau talks about the decline in membership in the Presbyterian Church over the last 40 years or so.  He states that the reason for the decline is that the Presbyterian Establishment has been sidelined over the years.  He defines the Establishment as a group of leaders that “naturally” gravitated to positions such as leadership of denominational agencies and committees, presbytery moderators and stated clerks, and “tall-steeple” pastors.  He states that the church operates best when run as a pyramid-shaped hierarchy with “authoritative leaders” at the top of the pyramid.  He makes the very valid point that these people have built many strong working relationships over the years through their work in colleges, seminaries, camps, retreats, and committees.  Most of the paper is given over to the reasons for the decline in leadership felt by those “tall-steeple pastors” and others.

Beau lists these as factors causing that decline:

  1. Gender Representation Mandates (including the statement that “the era in which women were excluded from the office and councils of the church is a living memory.”)
  2. Racial/Ethnic Representation Mandates (including the statement that “I think it is fair to say that the spirit of racial exclusion and segregation has largely been conquered in the Presbyterian Church.”)
  3. Youth Representation Mandates (including the statement that “Occasionally an ‘old soul’ will appear among the youth whose extraordinary gifts the church can call upon, even ordain as an elder.”)
  4. Theological Representation – the idea that we build committees in order to balance different theological positions

He then goes on to list the group of people that he would have as the “natural” leaders of the church:

  1. Tall-Steeple Pastors – the senior pastors of our largest and richest congregations
  2. Presbytery Stated Clerks and Executive Presbyters

He also makes a recommendation that presbyteries be reduced in size to 12 to 20 congregations.  That would cause New Brunswick presbytery to break into at least 3 new presbyteries, each covering a rather small area.

He also recommends doing away with Synods.

Finally, he recommends recreating the establishment by having the informal structure of personal connections closely match the formal structure of “power”.

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He feels very strongly that the YADs at General Assembly are disruptive to the process because young people are not necessarily qualified to do the work of elders, YADs have vote on commitees and voice on the floor, and YADs are overrepresented becuase there is one per presbytery.  He recommends that instead of Youth Advisory Delegates the youth are invited to participate in General Assembly in a leadership development program without official position with the body.

He also spoke about the problem of presbytery executives – that our presbyteries are larger than they should be in terms of number of congregations because that size is necessary in order to fund the executive’s position.  He feels that presbytery executives should be shared among presbyteries or congregations (perhaps as a local pastor) in order to be able to fund that position, OR that the job of Stated Clerk and executive presbyter should be combined.

I disagree with most of the recommendations.

First, it is clear that there is still gender bias in our congregations.  There are still congregations that will not hire a woman as Senior Pastor or even at all.

Second, it is clear from recent events (including those at a nearby seminary) that racial/ethnic problems remain in the church.  The reaction to the election of Barack Obama as President shows that this is also true in society as a whole.  We are not post-race yet.

Third, I am VERY upset at his dismissal of the abilities and ideas of youth and young adults.  I feel that most of our loss of membership comes from the loss of young people as they graduate from high school or college.  It’s no longer true that our young people will come back to the church when they marry and have children.  I also know how galvanizing the election of Bruce as GA Moderator was to the young adults still present and active in my congregation.  They said things like “finally, our generation is being taken seriously”.  By confining leadership to “tall steeple pastors” and others who have “paid their dues” (I was accused on the Facebook group discussing this paper that I was unwilling to “pay my dues” by a pastor.  “Serve now, be heard later.”) we are telling those outside of that group – women, ethnic leaders, young people – that they are not valued as leadership.  That they do not have good ideas or something important to say.  That this IS your father’s church, and not yours.  We need to draw into leadership the very people that we are missing demographically if we ever want to learn how to reach their peers.  It won’t get done by making our leadership into the “Old Boys’ Club” of older white men again.

In many ways, Bruce is the example that refutes the theory.  Bruce wields great authority with people that goes beyond his position as Moderator.  He has built MANY connections through his work, yet he is young, his fledgling church doesn’t have any steeple yet, he is not white.  His election, and the upswell of interest and excitement that this has caused among young people throughout the church shows that giving the church back exclusively to old white men is not the answer.

I believe that if we were to implement this paper, it would cause a backlash among the young adults that I work with.  They are just starting to see a world beyond the congregation because of Bruce, and our pastor’s service as a GA commissioner, and the connections that our Director of Youth and Young Adult ministries has formed and perhaps even my connections to others.  Our summer trip to the Montreat Youth Conference has produced thoughts of seminary in our youth advisors (who are products of our congregation and youth group).  They see a world today outside of the 4 walls of our church.  If they were to be told that the answer for the future is to give power in the church to pastors of really big churches and people who have risen through the ranks, I fear that they would narrow their horizons again to the walls of our building.

It is clear that we need to do something to reverse the decline of the church.  I don’t believe that Dr. Weston is anywhere near the right solution.  This paper is a desire for a return to the past, when people who were his age and race and position were in charge.  Instead we need a return to the future.

We don’t need to decrease the circle of people who determine direction and make decisions.  We need to INCREASE listening to each other and sharing power in the church in order to give everyone a reason to support our actions.  We need to increase ownership by moving people closer to our decisions, not by pushing them away.

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