THINK TANK OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA (1996-1997)
1996 Report
Eighty-two Presbyterians from across Canada gathered on the south shore of Ontario’s Lake Simcoe in February to carry out the task set by the 1995 General Assembly for a think tank. The gathering’s mandate was “to prepare specific proposals for the future mission and program priorities which need to be carried out at the national structure level.” (1995 A&P, p. 73). In addition, the Assembly Council’s report said that the think tank was to be held for the “purpose of examining and thinking through all the key factors which contribute to the position in which we find ourselves as The Presbyterian Church in Canada today, and [come] up with a set of proposals that will enable our Church to set clear priorities and direction for the future” (ibid., p. 218).
A steering committee sought participants from a broad spectrum across the Church. Commissioners to the 1995 Assembly, and presbyteries, were asked to nominate participants, and the nominees then filled out applications. There were 5 presbyteries from which there were no applications. The moderator and clerks of assembly selected participants from more than 150 applications.
Thirty participants were women, 52 were men. Thirty-eight of 44 presbyteries sent at least one participant. The event included seven members of the steering committee, 11 national staff members and two regional staff. A relatively balanced distribution was achieved in gender, geography, size of congregation, and rural vs. urban. Age and ethnicity were the only categories in which the gathering did not reach the goal of the steering committee.
Throughout its work, the think tank celebrated and sought to respond to God’s presence in its task through worship and prayer.
The steering committee arranged the process with Dr. John Savage, president of L.E.A.D. Consultants Inc. of the US and a minister of the United Methodist Church. He led the group through the five-day event, initiating a small-group process that led to the recommendations below.
Priorities
The think tank identified the following program priorities for the next decade:
I. Education
We shall provide education for clergy and laity that is faithful to the gospel and serves the needs of congregations by considering such items as a) redesigning the model of education b) using electronic means c) using internship programs, and d) examining the appropriateness of the existing colleges.
II. Mission
Mission, including social justice, will be chosen primarily by congregations and presbyteries and done locally, nationally and internationally.
III. Empowering Laity
We affirm the value of the laity’s ministry in the Church and in the world. Each congregation will become a driving force for ministry and mission. We will take the education of laity as seriously as we do that of clergy. We will identify, develop and apply needed skills in the Church, explore the opportunities for creative use of lay gifts within and beyond the Church, and abolish unnecessary restrictions on lay roles in the Church.
IV. Teen and Young Adult Ministries
Teen Ministry
We will create opportunities in congregations, presbyteries, and at the national level for teens to gather and celebrate their place in the family of God. The Church will encourage and inspire teens to grow in Christian faith that is relevant to their lives and help equip them to engage in their own ministry. We will seek excellence in national and regional conferences and deliberately include the wide ethnic mix in the Church.
Young Adult Ministry
The Church will have as a priority the development of programs and resources for young adult ministry. This priority is distinctly separate from teen ministry.
V. Evangelism
The Church will provide more explicit opportunities for people to share their faith with one another. These will give members the confidence to speak about their discipleship in the workplace and community as they serve Christ in the world.
VI. Spirituality
We shall focus on God by initiating regular gatherings at all levels of the denomination to celebrate the Spirit and seek God’s will. Congregations and clusters of congregations (and perhaps presbyteries) will gather regularly for spiritual renewal and fellowship. A gathering for prayer and praise, reflecting our diversity, will occur on the weekend of the opening of General Assembly. We shall promote prayer and fasting as spiritual disciplines.
Methodology
To accomplish these program priorities, the church will need to reorder itself in the following ways:
I. Communication
Communication is central to virtually every aspect of the Church’s life. We shall put in place a communication system for all congregations, which will facilitate and support a mutual connectedness that covenants, shares, listens and challenges. We will use it for sharing resources, encouraging each other, and sharing experiences.
Training:
We will provide for training in communication technology; in turn, the technology will be used to help train and educate the Church.
Additional possibilities:
satellite linkups (distance education)
Internet (e-mail and World Wide Web)
We will equip congregations and regions with communication technology from additional financial resources obtained from selling redundant Church real estate.
II. Structure
At the centre of the Church’s structure is the relationship between congregation and presbytery. We will be a church of presbyteries and congregations. Structures will support and encourage congregations, where Christ’s mission is most fully undertaken. A congregation is entrepreneurial, driven by the Holy Spirit into risky initiatives in worship, vision, social justice, and education.
Presbytery will nurture and oversee the congregation. It is a care-giver. It encourages innovation. It challenges laziness and unfaithfulness and mediates conflict.
Those two dimensions of structure provide almost all that is needed for the congregations to serve Christ as vital, growing, mission-oriented communities of faith. Supplementary support for congregations and presbyteries may be offered by making national and regional structures peripheral.
A small national office will function as a clearing house, which will provide a national linkage or connectedness. This linkage will also be provided by the Presbyterian Record, the colleges and annual national gatherings, which will be held alternately for judicial decisions and for planning and dreaming.
Access to the Internet and satellite communications will become essential for every congregation. Through this technology, we will initiate mission enterprises and form coalitions for social action.
III. De-Centralization
As needs are identified, we will de-centralize the mission, ministry, theological education and program functions of the PCC.
As needs are identified, we will create regional services for leadership development and education.
IV. Planning
Every congregation shall engage in long-range planning for its goals, purposes and activities.
…
INFORMING THE CHURCH
The Think-tank Steering Committee was authorized to implement the ideas generated for informing the Church. The Think-tank participants decided that its Report would be widely distributed so that the Church would be well informed. The Think-tank Report has been made available to the presbyteries, Assembly Council, Life and Mission Agency Committee, the colleges, the Women’s Missionary Society (Western Division), the Atlantic Mission Society, Renewal Fellowship, staff of General Assembly agencies and committees, and via the internet. Members of the Think-tank also accepted personal responsibility to communicate the results.
1997 Report
THINK-TANK: RESPONSES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Council appointed a Task Force, convened by the Rev. Dr. Terry Ingram, to collate the responses of congregations and presbyteries to the report of the Think-tank and to make recommendations. Its report has been reviewed by the Life and Mission Agency Committee, the Long Range Planning Committee and the Assembly Council. The following report and recommendations are for the General Assembly’s action.
INTRODUCTORY REFLECTIONS
The responses reveal once again that our Church has a great diversity of opinion. Some believed the Think-tank was on target and others cynically wondered why we wasted our money. Our pluralism has created polarities on just about any given issue. There was a substantial consensus around the listed priorities and the need for more effective communication within the Church. No one took any of these priorities to task nor was there any effort to add other priorities to the list. The list of priorities seems to have wide acceptance.
We were pleased to note that the process has moved some congregations and presbyteries into greater action already. The document is being used as a basis for planning and future events. In some quarters of the Church, there is a real desire to get on with doing the ministry and mission of the Church at the local level. For others, while the willingness lingers there is a great deal of frustration over how to proceed. Many of our congregations are doing wonderful things; it is sad that this information cannot be readily shared and celebrated.
We note that there is a considerable amount of inaccurate information within our denomination. Some returns show a marked lack of accurate information surrounding this process and the work of the Church Office and Assembly committees.
The recommendations in this report are intended to deal with matters which can properly be administered by the Assembly and it’s Council. Only in a limited way do they seek to offer direction to congregations or presbyteries. They should not be understood as the “final” product. They are to be understood as “in process”. There will be a continued need for dialogue and development with all concerned in order to ensure that all eventualities are properly covered. They act as guiding recommendations which hopefully point us in some firm directions in response to the needs of the Church.
SUMMARY OF REPLIES
The Committee was disappointed by the number of responses to the Think-tank. We report that 36 percent (16) of the presbyteries replied as did 6 percent (61) of the congregations. We believe that this is a statistically valid representation of our denomination.
The first two questions asked of presbyteries and Congregations had to do with priorities and who might effectively accomplish them. The priorities listed were as follows:
EDUCATION for clergy and Laity.
MISSION inclusive of international, national and justice.
EMPOWERING LAITY
TEEN AND YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY
EVANGELISM
SPIRITUALITY
The concerns of Empowering Laity, Teen/Young Adult Ministry and Spirituality received the most comment, although all of them received attention from a significant number of replies. Most indicated that the education of clergy is a “national church” concern as was Mission for international work. The remainder of the priorities can be accomplished at the local level. This is an important discovery! The Church at large believes that for the most part, those issues of importance to the Church must be and fundamentally only can be dealt with at the local level and not the national level. We believe that this has significant implications in focusing the work of national staff.
The submissions suggest that the national Church needs to work on these goals in the following order: education, mission, evangelism, spirituality, empowering laity, teens/young adult [note: this list differs in order from the first list which was the order presented by the Think-tank]. We believe the these areas of focus can all be worked on by our denomination without any particular need to place in priority listing.
The issue of communication sparked considerable discussion revealing itself to be a very important concern. There was much debate over methodology with many seeing technological solutions. Many more were simply concerned with just communicating. Be it on the net or face to face (often with preference to the latter) we need to speak to one another to transfer information and to share our ideas, our joys and our pains. Any effort at dealing with communications must be balanced to be able to reach all generations. As some noted, while the move to technological communication is good, it will not solve the “communication” issue in our denomination. We must seek better ways to improve our ability to communicate with one another.
IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
There seems to be a significant consensus around the priorities identified by the Think-tank. Respondents concurred with their importance to the ongoing ministry of our denomination at the local level. It may not be considered by all to be a complete list, but to develop a larger list would likely mean that we incorporate everything that everyone believes important or essential. These priorities would be well used to focus our work at all levels of the denomination.
Recommendation No. 4 (reworded and adopted, p. 29)
That the following priorities for ministry be agreed to in principle and that they act as a focus for our church offices, Assembly Council, and Colleges: EDUCATION for clergy and Laity, MISSION inclusive of international, national and justice, EVANGELISM, SPIRITUALITY, EMPOWERING LAITY, and TEEN AND YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY.
There is a sense in which our Church Office might better serve the work of congregations and presbyteries by acting as a resource centre and a co-ordinating body. In some ways, our Church Office does this but not to the degree that congregations and presbyteries might hope for. A frequent complaint is that voice mail is more common than not. It is important when a congregation calls the Church Office with a question about material or needing assistance on a program that someone be able to offer them several resources at the time of the call. It is not critical that the person have a keen, first hand knowledge of the same. General knowledge as well as the ability to refer them to someone “in the field” who might help would be of great service to the Church. One solution would be to employ more national staff in order to more fully accomplish this. However this is not likely given our limited resources. Further, the development of resources and policies to guide our denomination can be done by local task forces or individuals who have a wealth of skills and interest and coordinated by church offices as required. We recognize that some executive staff positions are administrative in nature (for example, Communications, Finance).
Recommendation No. 5 (referred back)
That the national executive staff be organized on the basis of a resource centre and coordinating body to assist congregations, presbyteries and synods in achieving the identified priorities.
Recommendation No. 6 (referred back)
The resource co-ordinating function of national staff would be comprised of linking available written, audio-visual, human and other resources in service of the Church as well as to coordinate the development of resources for the Church, but would not normally include the actual development of such resources, nor meetings to produce or develop policies for such resources.
Recommendation No. 7 (referred back)
That during the normal review of Church Office staffing by the Assembly Council, staffing levels should be reviewed in the light of this resource co-ordinating model for our Church Office.
Recommendation No. 8 (adopted)
That a project team be established, comprised of staff and volunteers, to develop a resource database which would be accessible to all.
Recommendation No. 9 (adopted)
That this project team include in the database the ideas and issues from the Think-tank and the responses to the Think-tank.
Time and again communications were raised as a concern. They were not focused as much on methodology as they were on the lack of simple communication at all levels of the Church. The purpose of such communication is to share resources, offer mutual support and encouragement, facilitate mutual learning and decrease the potential for conflict. This is a significant issue that cannot get lost in our deliberations.
Recommendation No. 10 (adopted)
That Assembly Council develop a strategic plan to enhance all communication within the Church, including existing avenues (for example, Presbyterian Record, PCCWeb, PCPak, other mailings) with special attention toward the creation of new avenues of communication.
In successive reports, it has been affirmed that a trained and educated clergy is important for the life of our congregations. However, there has been some question as to how well equipped graduates are for pastoral ministry and congregational leadership. Congregations and graduates themselves are expressing a need for theological and practical education more closely tied to the mission, vision and needs of our Church. The Vision Statement says, “their education for servant ministry will be practical”.
Recommendation No. 11 (adopted)
That the Committee on Theological Education create a strategy for implementing the concerns regarding the training of clergy and laity in this and previous reports and report this strategy to Assembly Council within one year.
Recommendation No. 12 (adopted)
That the Committee on Theological Education begin work immediately on developing indicators for measuring the colleges’ achievements of such strategies, reporting such indicators to the Assembly Council by October 31, 1998, and to a subsequent General Assembly.
Recommendation No. 13 (defeated)
That the budgeting process use such strategies as a basis for deciding grant allocations for the year 2,000 and on.
The above recommendations tend to deal with those particular segments of Church life over which the Council has some jurisdiction. The work of ministry has and always will be primarily carried on at the local level.
Recommendation No. 14 (adopted)
That congregations, presbyteries and synods be encouraged to continue developing their long range plans with a view toward incorporating the above priorities.
There was much evidence in the replies to a great deal of conflict, confusion and pain within our denomination at all of its levels. It is apparent that such things not only cause a great deal of personal turmoil and hurt, they are a barrier to our ability to meet the future as Christ’s people. This concern is ongoing and is of critical importance.
Recommendation No. 15 (defeated)
That presbyteries review their oversight and support in the light of these priorities and the need to reduce conflict and promote healing.
