Issues Facing Missions Today 28: Three
Models for Ministry
Introduction
Part
of my role in ministry, which especially includes theological education and
involvement with mission groups, has entailed figuring out how to minister
through an intentional community of disciples of Jesus Christ. This has been a life-long pursuit, and I’m
fully aware of the challenges this side of Paradise! In this brief blog post, I would like to
highlight several distinctions that might help others—including myself and my
colleagues. This is not formal research,
and it is not much based on some body of literature. It is mainly born out of my own experience
and thoughts.
I
would like to frame these thoughts around a distinction I first came across decades
ago in Edward LeRoy Long, Jr.’s A Survey
of Recent Christian Ethics.[1] Long suggests that there are three ways in
which to consider and pursue moral change: the institutional, operational, and
intentional community. I have found
these useful when considering issues not only in ethics but also for ministry
and missions.
The Institutional Model
The
institutional model is well represented in the residential seminary, the
institutional Church, a large law firm or business, and so forth. Part of its appeal is often, in fact, its
physical structure and campus. An
institution develops bureaucratically, with its committees and clearly written statements of quality assurance
and procedures. Authority is located in
certain offices, and members of the institution relate to persons in their official
positions. Pay scales are variegated to
reflect the status of the office a person holds, and there is typically a large
discrepancy in pay between the chief executive officer and the secretary. In my experience, the theological seminary
that I have worked for in the US from time to time well represents this model
of organization. Some professors are
paid more than others, administrators may be paid more than professors, and
some serving the institution may be paid close to minimum wage. This model produces a lot of reporting—when applied
to public schools, as it usually is—students are frequently tested and teachers
have to fill out a lot of paperwork to keep a paper trail for an investigating
committee to follow to be assured that students have personal educational plans
and that measures have been taken to implement them. Mission committees that relate to their
supported missionaries by having them fill out forms about goals and
performance are moving in an impersonal, institutional direction.
The institutional model is difficult to
change, and people sometimes find that they are viewed as employees or workers
contributing to a great system. There was
once a president of a seminary that began his brief tenure in that position by
telling his faculty that they are just employees
of the seminary. Churches that
experience growth into mega-church sizes perhaps inevitably gravitate towards
the institutional model. The
institutional model is concerned about what is effective, but at times it
struggles to make this a priority over what is expected. Either way, what is morally right frequently
dissolves before effectiveness and expectations. At times, individuals are ‘sacrificed’ for the
greater good of the institution—the word ‘restructuring’ is often used for
this. Establishing residential
institutions to train ministers can be a way of shaping persons in community,
but the costs often outweigh the benefits, and proper training for ministry
cannot be done by separating people into an academic institution that then
struggles to give its students some slight exposure to actual ministry during
their years of study. An institution
can, alternatively, be non-residential and engage the church in its ministries
more in the training of students.
However, non-residential institutions struggle to develop meaningful
community among the students, who are shaped more by the local church—which is
fine, unless that context is actually unhealthy.
The Operational Model
The
operational model is somewhat more descriptive (although not in every aspect) of
mission organizations. By ‘operational,’
Long means that the means of moral change is what is effective, not what is
official. In military terms, one might
think in terms of the sleek, clandestine, highly trained operations force over
against the air craft carrier. Or one
might think of James Bond, the secret agent—someone operating outside the rules,
guided by what is effective more than anything else. Missionaries often fit into a more operational
model as well, although with a clearer sense of right and wrong than Mr. Bond! They are given freedom to assess the
situation on the ground and take appropriate action. This is why they often chafe at the
expectations of written reporting by supporting churches, mission agencies, or
field directors and much prefer face-to-face reporting—although even that is
difficult for the ‘operator’. Reporting
itself requires being ‘pulled out’ of the ‘field of operation’ in order to do
so. Missionaries struggle immensely with
bureaucracy—and it they do not, they may be ill-suited for mission work. When churches want to peg missionaries in
terms of a precise form of work that they do, a precise place where they work,
or some other such specific definition, this can undercut the reality the
missionary experiences, which may involve starting new works, going to new
places, forming new partnerships, and so forth.
What is needed is not so much an accounting
of work done but a confidence in
the person himself or herself—that he has the skills, calling, heart, and is
rightly equipped and enabled to be effective.
Of paramount importance in evaluating someone in an operational model
for ethics or mission is effectiveness, a slippery term that can be defined in
various ways. (Was Billy Graham’s mass
evangelism more effective than the faithful witness of a believer in a country hostile
to the Gospel who had only a few converts?
It depends on what we mean by ‘effective’!)
Theological
education is going through a crisis as problems arise with the institutional
model—as in much of higher education.
Online education, which ten years ago appeared to be easy and sleazy,
can now produce more effective educational experiences (not just teaching of
content and methods) than many classroom experiences. Professors are finding that online forum
interaction can produce better interaction than in-class discussions, for
example. Technology of various sorts can
improve the presentation of content and methodological material and give
students the opportunity to review the lecture material as often as
necessary. (There are other aspects of
education, though, that online education cannot easily address, particularly
where personal interaction is necessary.)
The institutional model of higher education is terribly expensive, and
Christians are rightfully concerned about the social formation taking place at
secular institutions. Online education
is presently deconstructing residential, institutional approaches to education,
has the potential to bring down the costs of education (provided it is not
delivered by an institution!), and can improve the quality of instruction. On its own, though, it lacks key components
of ‘education,’ particularly when this involves collaborative learning,
acquisition of skills on the job, and character formation—all significant for
ministerial training.
The Intentional Community Model
Long’s
third type of a means to moral change is the intentional community model. This model has been explored through the
ethical writings of Stanley Hauerwas perhaps more than any other—although we
need to say that John Howard Yoder was greatly influential for him. The intentional model focuses on significance
of a community in bringing about change.
This should be the story of the local church in a larger social
setting. Hauerwas is fond of saying, ‘The
church does not have a social ethic;
it is a social ethic.’ The oldline denominations, operating out of
an institutional model, have concerned themselves with having a social programme that it supports. Picture the difference between a wealthy
Episcopal church concerned to have a programme to help the poor on the other
side of town, rather than the Pauline church in which are found home owners,
the poor, and slaves as part of the same community in Christ.
In
the history of missions, there are many examples of intentional
communities. Some were dead-ends, out of
which no ministry flowed, whereas others were both vibrant communities that
made a significant difference by the nature of their very existence and the
ministry that bubbled up out of the community into the surrounding areas. Jesus himself first banded together a group
of followers and took them as a micro-community into the villages and towns for
ministry. They were a travelling,
ministering, missional community, learning together, ministering together, and
developing spiritually together. What we
have proposed to do in our approach to mission work is to establish such
intentional communities in various areas.
To describe this would be difficult, since description reduces what is
experienced to speaing of programmes and types of relationships. I am reminded of my dear professor, Gordon
Fee, saying that one cannot watch worship
(he compared this to pornography!): one can and only should experience it.
Intentional
communities can be awful experiences—this should not be absolutized as a
perfect alternative to institutions and operations. Families are intentional communities. Paul’s churches—the ones who received his corrective
correspondence—were intentional communities.
And his own missionary team was an intentional community. Some intentional communities define their
existence around community itself—always a mistake—rather than their
relationship to God and their purpose of following his call into mission. Community is the means, not the end
itself. We’ve seen movements of
intentional community that have been hopelessly abusive, with dictatorial
leaders exerting their personal power over miserable members—intentional communities
can become cultic, even. Thus, getting
the focus, balance, and relationships right in intentional communities is very
important. That focus can only come if
people in positions of oversight understand their roles not as leaders
exercising authority (as in the institutional model) but as persons in more
specific roles (teachers, pastors, e.g.) with responsibility (a different word
from authority, mind you) to help others and the community itself flourish—and all
this under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Almost
invariably, as intentional communities form, some individual or individuals
emerge as leaders with personal power. They
intentionally try to ‘shepherd’ the ‘sheep’ in the community along their ‘paths
of righteousness’—their own foci not related to the purpose and function of the ministry. They coerce and cajole,
try to exert communal pressure on others, call everyone to engage in a certain
task that is not really what the community is all about and then shame persons
for not participating, and so forth. All
this can only be avoided if people keep their focus on what they are really
about, not the personal agenda of the emergent community ‘leader’, and, a
Christian would add, keep their focus on glorifying God in all that is said and
done. Even so, coercion and manipulation
must be opposed at every turn in every intentional community. One way an intentional community moves in
such a direction can be contrasted with the institutional model. Pay levels distinguish people on the
institutional model, whereas an intentional community model is more likely to
determine pay levels in terms of the sizes of families. A mission agency, as opposed to a seminary,
is likely to have a pay scale in which an elderly director is paid less monthly
than the family of five that has just joined the mission.
If
ministerial training were to start with a model of intentional community, its
focus would be more on retreats, communal living, formation of character, ministry
together, and relationships that include teachers. This last point needs expansion. In the institutional and operational models,
education is personal: one studies to attain a degree that certifies a person
has reached a certain level of training (institutional model) or can perform to
a certain level of competency (operational model). The intentional community model of learning
understands that people are gifted differently, and one person who struggles
academically or who simply lacks sufficient education can still function well
by being in the same community as someone who is highly capable academically
and knows the Scriptures well. The
teacher is a resource to the student—or the pastor, or evangelist, or prophet—in
the community. Education in community
relies much more on trusted teachers who know the tradition, who are
academically capable, and who are role models for others in the community. Teachers, moreover, function collaboratively
in the community—and this should involve disagreement in the process rather
than affirmation of what has become a politically (communally) correct position
on a matter.
Conclusion
The
specific thoughts in this post are clearly somewhat random, but they are
intended to try to flesh out three fairly distinct models of going about
education, ministry, and missions. The three
models are the institutional, operational, and intentional community models. My primary purpose has been to explain these
three models for ministry. Others may also
find them useful to form the ongoing discussions they have as they are involved in
mission and ministry. I also hope that particular
examples given—out of personal experience—will prove helpful to some. Finally, I hope that the examples offered
show where there are some strengths and dangers in each of the various models. While my own focus is on developing ministry
out of an intentional community, my own personality is likely more comfortable
with the operational model: none of us likely functions fully in only one of
these models. Problems arise when we
confuse matters, such as when weekly written reporting becomes a tool used to
check on others in an intentional community, or when a 'chief administrative officer' in an institution tries to function as though the institution were an intentional community. And so the conversation might go, using these categories, for others
involved in ministry together.
[1] Edward
LeRoy Long, Jr., A Survey of Recent
Christian Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
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