Tod Bolsinger

Walls, Fences and Necessary Things

“So, Charlie, when are we going fix that wall that’s falling down?”

Charlie heard the voice from the yard next door. Frankly, he hadn’t noticed that the wall was falling down.  Charlie is not the kind of guy who notices these things. But, Jim, the next door neighbor most definitely does. 

They’d lived next door to each other for seven years.  But until the wall fell down they didn’t know each other. 

When Charlie saw that indeed the wall was in need of serious repair, he assumed that meant that he and Jim would split the cost to pay someone to fix.  You know, be neighborly and cooperative. Jim had other ideas. 

The next week he was out digging up the foundation of the wall and soon, if nothing else besides guilt, Charlie joined in.  Together they replaced that wall with a fence.   Once that fence was finished, Jim noted that the rest of Charlie’s walls and fences were even worse than the one that had crumbled, and he offered to help him put up a new fence all the way around his property.  Charlie, who as a pastor and musician is not exactly skilled at this particular kind of labor, readily agreed.

So Charlie and Jim built some fences together.  And a friendship was born.  As they worked together to make good fences, they found out all kinds of things about each other.  Jim is a retired park ranger and former Vietnam vet.  He can cook as good a paella as he is handy with tools.  He knows a thing or two about good wine and classical music and great literature.  He grew up near the Mokulmne Wilderness in California and loves to backpack.  Jim and Charlie started going on hiking trips together.   Jim’s not particularly religious at all, but when his wife died, he asked Charlie to conduct the funeral. 

Now when Jim is on vacation, Charlie watches his house.  When Jim mows his lawn he also mows Charlie’s.  For seven years they were just neighbors who didn’t know each other.  Then the wall fell down and they built a fence.  In building the fence, they built a friendship. 

Recently, Jim suggested that they put a gate in the fence.  Which of course, you couldn’t do with a wall.  And they wouldn’t have even considered before they built that fence together.  

Wendell Berry wrote, “Community will start again when people begin to do necessary things for each other again.”

As I think about all that is happening around the Presbyterian Church these days and look through the lens of my position on the Middle Governing Body Commission, I have a hunch that there is something for us in this story of wall, fences, gates and friendship and necessary things.

From the MGB Commission Observation Deck #8 #mgbcomm

From the MGB Commission Observation Deck #8

I don’t know who said it first, (Stephen Covey? Paul Batalden? Ed Demming?)  but it gets quoted all the time.  I said it myself yesterday in one of my coaching calls with a pastor.  Here it is:  “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” 

And as our MGB Commission has flown around the country, sat in on conference calls, talked to dozens of EPs and Synod Execs and Elders and Pastors and committee members and GA staff members we have seen the truth of this pithy saying.  And here is our next observation from our travels around the PCUSA:

Our system is perfectly designed to safeguard the status quo.

We want change.  We know we need change.  We are almost desperate for change.  And frankly we know the world is changing faster than we are.   Our Commission was formed to look at that reality squarely and “develop models” for discipleship for changing cultural context.  Everywhere we go, we have been charged, exhorted, prodded and pleaded with to be “be bold”, to “bring change” to “think outside the box”, to “dream, envision, imagine” etc. 

Yet, the system as we have it is perfectly designed to keep things, well… the same.  Even the charge that our Commission was given boils down to this….

• IF you can get every affected Presbytery to agree to a change… and
• IF you can get every affected Synod to agree to a change… and
• IF it is consistent with the constitution as it is currently written…
• THEN…You can come to the Commission and ask for approval to do and ‘experiment’ or re-configure or re-align in a bold, creative, out-of-the-box kind of way. 

Which is at least one reason why one year after we were formed, we have had exactly ZERO proposals come to our Commission for approval.  (And frankly, most innovators are being thwarted by the constitution not presbyteries or synods.)

Because we all believe in the total depravity of humanity, and we all have experienced the pain of someone who ran with the scissors in the church parking lot or dominated the conversation or wouldn’t keep the rules, our system is designed to be a safeguard against dysfunction.  It’s like the structure of our national government (something endless pointed out in seminary classes on polity), that is designed for protecting against the tyranny of the majority and keeping checks and balances in places.  It’s a conservative system meant to preserve what has been, not innovative into what can be.  Our government and our church structure is designed to use regulations to protect each other from the folly or arrogance or blundering bull-headedness of any of our members.  In that way, our structure is designed so that the default answer is “no.”

That is not to say that lots of old guard stakeholders have dug in their heels.  Frankly, that's not what we are hearing.  While there are certainly some, MOST leaders that I talk are simply stuck in a system that has over time stunted our imaginative capacity to actually think and dream of different, new ways of doing things.  (As an architect once said, "First you build your buildings, and then your buildings build you.")

And this is not to say that there is no creative, experimental, out-of-the-box thinking going on out there.  There is.  But they really don’t require a Commission at all.  Those presbyteries and synods that are being led by creative leaders within environments of relatively high degrees of health and trust, filled with “mature and motivated” people are already making changes.  We are trying to learn from them, applaud them and will pass along as we go the key lessons that can be applied to all. 

But even in these places, we have found the ‘default’ in the system is not about serving these healthy leaders so they can continue to be creative, innovative and bold, as they lead their communities toward health, fidelity and fruitfulness, it’s about keeping these innovative change leaders in check. (Which says something about "trust" which will be the next observation.)

(By the way, have you ever noticed that we only have two “official” titles beyond the congregational level?  We have “Moderators” and “Clerks”.  Our structure is designed with one person to insure that everybody takes turn talking and another person checks the rules and takes the notes.  Our structure is not designed for mission, but for conversation.  It’s is not designed for innovation but deliberation.)

But… (And here if there was a soundtrack playing in the background, the strings would start in and your heart would soar just a bit)… but… one of the other truths is that even just “observing something changes it.”  By our raising this observation, we on the Commission hope to also raise some questions about the kinds of structures that we need for actually being part of God's mission to change the world. 

Are we ready to take risks enough to change the design of the system (especially the constitution) to SERVE the healthiest communities, to SERVE the healthiest leaders, to SERVE the mission of the church, and to design for the uncertainties of the future rather than the problems of the past? 

And, what would it take for us to be ready? 

If we don’t...well, we are perfectly designed…for staying right where we are.

Malcolm Gladwell, Spaghetti Sauce and #MGBComm.

 

Malcolm Gladwell, Spaghetti Sauce and #MGBComm. 

It’s worth watching the whole interesting discussion about what we learn from our “tastes” in food.  Here are some of my takeaways as I think about Middle Governing Bodies and the structure of the PCUSA (which is really a LOT of what I think about these days. "To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.")

Some food for thought:

1)      “People Don’t Know What they Want.”  We can’t always explain what we want and we often say we want something different than we actually want.  27% of people actually like weak coffee but they always report that they want “rich, dark coffee”.

2)      MGBs, like mustards, don’t exist on a hierarchy.  One is not better than another, but they exist across a spectrum of differences that need to be attended to.  (Whew.  It’s a good thing that we are looking for models, not a model.)

3)      “Universals” don’t apply in things of human taste.  Variability is the reality about structures, tastes and most of us “cluster” in our diversity.  “Embracing diversity of human beings is the key to happiness.” 

From spaghetti sauce to church structures... what can we learn here? 

 

(with thanks to Kevin Ford of TAG Consulting for sending this to me.)