How Institutions Change Their Original Mission, Values, and Practices

We all know that institutions change.  Even when started with clear mission statements, their mission drifts.  Their values change, their practices change, and they change into something very different from what those pouring their lives and money into them at the beginning intended.  The prominence of a chapel at the centre of a secular university is often more an embarrassing, bad joke than the statement of faith that the layout of the university originally intended.  Even when started with orthodox Christian convictions, a generation or so later the institution tolerates and eventually espouses unorthodox views.  We need historians (my preference) to help us understand this change.  Here are some of my own reflections based on nothing else than my own experience over many years of study and ministry with different institutions on three different continents.  As such, this is meant to speak into a conversation that needs to be had at Christian institutions in perhaps the most volatile period of change in the history of the faith.  (I would argue that our generation is seeing far more radical change in Christian institutions than during the Great Reformation.)

The first cause of change to consider might be when people argue for necessary change.  The original vision and activities might actually be inadequate for the mission statement itself.  What is important in setting up institutions, then, is attention to the process for handling this sort of rethinking things and altering or adding new activities.  These need to be part of the original mission itself.  How does the voting take place by clergy, faculty, board members, and so forth?  How does a strong administrator relate to bodies charged with oversight of the institution?  Boards, in my experience, have often been weak.  They want their chief administrator to run the institution and do not get that involved except when crises arise.  Yet they are the ones that are especially tasked with conservation of the institution’s vision.  I’ve also experienced boards in which the members serve on boards for each other’s institutions, which means they are deferential and uncritical when they need to be.  I’ve often said that there are good arguments for different ways in which to elect someone to office, but what is needed is a clear and efficient process for removing a person from office.  Institutions with good processes for processing necessary change will be ones that relate the original mission statement to its form of government.  Suspension of these processes should be defined in detail and limited rather than open ended.  Often, radical change is snuck in the front door behind a stated crisis (financial, e.g.) that requires the chief administrator to have more power.

A second cause of change to consider is that change is sometimes inevitable.  People inevitably come and go within institutions, and some have a significant impact while with the institution.  Their personalities, relationships, and the institutional authority invested in them involve a certain amount of power.  When the founder of an institution retires, for example, the institution will probably transition from an entrepreneurial leader whose personality represented the institution’s values and practices to a maintenance administrator.  Every change of a person with significant authority in an institution brings with it institutional change.  That new administrator may not hold the original vision of the institution as tightly as those who started it had expected and hoped.  I have often worked closely with those who have set up institutions and therefore been closer to the original vision of those institutions, but I have also seen an incredible shift in institutions simply by the appointment of a new leader.  Leaders typically see themselves as persons to bring about change, even if their role is supposed to be more a matter of oversight and administration.  This is why Christians should return to the language of ‘ministry’ (service) and drop the attachment they have grown into with business (and sometimes political) models of ‘leadership’.  If a board of an institution believes some change is inevitable, they should, in that process of discernment, set up a process to remind themselves of their historic values.

A third cause of change is the reordering of values.  The institution may uphold the exact same values, but a reordering of those values will bring change.  Check the statement of faith pages of any number of denominations and you will find that they value Scripture’s authority.  Yet we know that mainline denominations in the West purposefully set out to oppose Scripture on key doctrinal issues and ethics, despite their affirmation of Scriptural authority.  The value of Scripture sits decoratively on the shelf behind an active clergy pursuing their own theological and moral agendas.  Greek ethicists not only sought to explain what values and virtues should be held, but also the right ordering of them.  They spoke, for example, of the cardinal virtues and their own ordering and how other virtues were defined by them.  Reordered values or virtues can cause seismic shifts in the institution, even turning it into the very opposite of what it once was.

A fourth cause of change is the introduction of new values.  An obvious example is how values in modernity have changed in postmodernity.  Modernity valued objective truth, postmodernity subjective relativism.  Modernity valued general principles, postmodernity functional practices.  Modernity valued universality, postmodernity diversity.  Modernity valued expertise, postmodernity personal identities.  In my experience, the introduction of a postmodern understanding of ‘diversity’ into an institution brought about significant change.  This subtle change from unity to diversity has actually entailed a major change—the camel’s nose behind it is the whole body of a postmodern worldview.

A fifth cause of change is the introduction of some discipline with a clashing worldview.  In this, I think mostly of institutions for theological education.  In my experience, I have seen seminaries with a clear vision for training ministers for the Church develop into ‘Christian’ universities.  The pressures on the seminary with such a change are significant.  New disciplines bring with them their history and academic requirements that are different from theology and the Church.  Perhaps the most serious challenge to theological seminaries is the change from courses in pastoral counselling to the introduction of therapeutic counselling.  Pastoral counselling was based on Scripture and the Church’s theology and ethics, whereas therapeutic counselling is based on secularism through and through.  The necessary accreditation of therapeutic degrees by secular accrediting bodies and licensing boards introduces into the seminary radically conflicting views to the Christian faith.  This is not a challenge to be worked out; it is an impossible conflict of worldviews.  Psychology does not work with the notion of sin, does not believe in spiritual forces, does not accept divine healing, rejects Biblical authority about right and wrong behaviour, rejects the authoritative role in pastoral care of the Church, holds to a different understanding of values and virtues, affirms sinful, sexual practices as expressions of identity that should be accepted, etc.  Seminary administrators expand counselling programmes first because they value pastoral care and do not think through the fundamental differences between it and therapeutic counselling, and second because they see that a counselling degree is a cash cow for the seminary.  This is in part because women are often forced to find ministry as counsellors rather than as pastors and teachers in a number of denominations—and this only drives a deeper wedge in pastoral care in the churches themselves between theology and counselling.  The larger point here, though, is that the introduction of disciplines into an existing theological institution is not a matter of ‘all truth is God’s truth’ but is a matter of conflicting worldviews that need a thorough critique from the perspective of orthodox, Biblical theology.

A sixth possible cause of change is a concern for quality.  A Christian college that wants to develop a competitive literature department may find that faculty from this field of study are often trained in ways that are resistant to the Christian faith.  A reigning theory in literature approaches interpretation from the reader’s perspective, whereas those pursuing theology through the centuries have held the Biblical text to be authoritative over against interpreter’s interests and views.  There are incommensurable hermeneutical convictions between these two approaches.  So far, this example has to do with the fourth cause of change.  The next step, however, is when the institution makes small compromises of its own views in order to pursue quality in different fields of study.  Quality, of course, is an important value, especially for academic institutions.  Yet, time and again, the pursuit of quality has led to a compromise of institutional values.  I have seen this take place in political ways, where hiring processes are skirted by individuals—senior faculty or presidents—pushing their candidates through in the name of quality.  ‘Quality’ was, of course, defined one way during modernity and another way in postmodernity, with the latter focussed more on an individual’s group identity and the relative values ascribed to different groups.  A seminary may shift from values that pertain to the strengthening of the church and the denomination to values that focus on academic quality (modernity) or identities (postmodernity).

A seventh cause of change is relational and experiential.  It is one thing to hold to a system of belief, it is another thing to relate to others.  In our own families, we negotiate relationships rather than relate to each other through systems of belief, although these can cause clashes.  Institutions, however, are not families.  They should embody the convictions they profess.  Christian denominations, mission agencies, seminaries, and colleges should understand that their core identities are not shaped by experience and relationships more than by their commitment to Biblical truth and orthodox faith.  One of the major changes that has taken place in the West has been the sexual revolution in its various phases since the 1960s.  Each phase has brought a new challenge to the traditional teaching of the Church to the point that some denominations are indistinguishable from the culture and have no continuity with the historic Church.  One of the reasons for this dramatic shift in the Church has been relational and experiential.  In fact, not a few ‘Evangelical’ scholars and pastors have changed their views on homosexuality and transgenderism because they have a child, sibling, or friend who is homosexual or transgender.  They then say to the faculty or to the denomination, ‘We need to have a conversation about …,’ and that ‘conversation’ turns into a protracted ‘listening’ to the experiences of ‘victims,’ followed by conversations, the introduction of pastoral care procedures that are not corrective but inclusive and loving (‘welcoming’), and so forth.  That is, the process is driven by experience and relationships that sideline Scripture, theology, and the historical teaching of the Church.  Similarly, relationships on faculties or among clergies exercise their own authority over against the original values of the institution.  We see this working out with the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis or the Church of England at this time: a radical shift in teaching and practice on homosexuality and transgenderism that breaks from the definitive teaching of the Church, thanks to the defining of teaching through relationships and experiences.  Especially when an older faculty member who, in some ways, ostensibly embodies the values of the seminary (simply because of many years on the faculty) suddenly pressures others to change, there is a kind of legitimization of radical change.  Out of the mouth of persons representing history and conservation comes a call to give ear to experience and prioritize relationships over previous values.  Someone arguing against this is considered a prude.

Eighth, institutional change can also occur because of pressure for validation.  Like peer pressure in relationships, this pressure is because of concerns over accreditation, or it can also be felt in the concerns that drive the admissions department.  Accrediting bodies that are unfriendly to an institution’s own values and admission departments that want to attract a wider variety of students have often led the institution away from its initial values and purpose.

Ninth, financial pressures can lead to a change of mission and established practices.  This has already been noted but needs its own focus.  The introduction of new programmes, the attraction of new students, the deemphasis of past practices, the desire to attract certain faculty, and so forth can all be the  result of making financial pressures primary in institutional decision making.  Financial concerns can introduce new degree programmes (the Doctor of Ministry, Therapeutic Counselling, and degrees in ‘Leadership’).  The new programmes require new faculty and new courses.  Like a boulder falling into a pond, the ripple effects of this are felt throughout the institution.

Tenth, change often comes because people at all levels of the institution can be disconnected to the history of the institution.  Some have spoken of the importance of people in institutions who are tasked with reminding everyone and teaching newcomers the story of the institution.  Such people can be sidelined, even maligned, as stuck-in-the-mud.  They represent resistance to the dynamic, exciting, change agents in the institution.  Students sometimes show up without any understanding of a college’s or seminary’s history and mission and seek to bring about change in conformity with their limited vision adopted, more than likely, from the airwaves of contemporary culture, only to fly away after graduation.  Students can play a role in holding the institution to the values it advertises; they should have no role in trying to change the values of the institution.  (If they want something different, they should go to a different institution.)

Eleventh, change comes when an institution does not serve or relate directly to its clearly defined constituencies.  (This is a basic point in business: 'who are our customers?')  This disconnect sometimes happens when an elite group forms that is not in agreement with, even despises, those whom the institution initially served.  This is a typical problem with denominations, when an administrative elite forms and increasingly wishes to  manipulate the rest of those in the denomination.  Typically, seminary faculty are more liberal theologically than average people in the congregations.  To be sure, they know more than average people do about theology and ministry, but if they themselves are not involved in ministry, they sit critically above others.  Denominational administrators focus on serving the institution itself rather than existing to serve the mission of the institution.  An elite group can look down on others, as is also at times the case of news outlets.  This is a dynamic that happens regularly in society at large, and it happens in church ministries as well.  A variation on this is when a seminary serves individual students ('we need more students' rather than 'what does this core constituency need from us?') and teaches for the curriculum more than seeks to serve denominations and core groups.  This redirects energies to financial survival ('we need more students') and to meeting academic goals ('our accrediting body requires this of us;' 'we teach these courses and do not need to teach for particular denominations, mission organizations, parachurch ministries that are our core constituencies'; etc.).  The problem here is that the institution does not serve clearly defined groups.  This is a problem because it leaves the mission of the institution too undefined.  Scholars pursue their own academic interests, students are told to take certain courses, and there is little concern for ministerial formation for the key partners.  One cannot teach a 'preaching course,' for example, without focussing on the nature of preaching in particular denominations and regions.

Twelfth, change often comes because people within an institution who maintain continuity with its original convictions and values are not united and/or trickle away, giving up the fight to start a new institution--like a new denomination.  This is no endorsement of those who remain, just an observation as to how things play out.  The New Testament offers no encouragement to those who wish to maintain an institution.  It offers much encouragement to make decisions based on unwavering fidelity to God and obedience to His Word that people may remain pure.  Paul says, 'Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers...' (2 Corinthians 6.14).  He is likely talking about Christians somehow engaged with pagan temples (such as a celebratory meal with unbelieving neighbours, eating food sacrificed to idols).  His words apply to fellowship with false believers, those advocating doctrinal change and immorality.  He continues, with a quotation from Isaiah 52.11: 'Therefore, go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing, then I will welcome you...' (v. 17).  Isaiah was speaking of Israel's departure from the idolatrous nations after the exile and captivity.  The problem holders on have is to know when to leave.  Paul offers some further direction.  The issue has to do with becoming 'unclean' through the defilement of body or spirit (7.1).  False teaching and immorality do not only affect those advocating and practicing such things.  As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5.6, '... a little leaven leavens the whole lump,' and he advocated removing an immoral person from the church.  Others can and will hinder the righteous from obeying the truth, as Paul says in Galatians 5.9 when warning believers about their association with false teachers.  Such texts are not the only ones to consider in a decision to separate from those seeking to change the denomination, church, seminary, mission organization, or parachurch ministry, but it is a start.  The point here, however, is that people debate these things, and what happens is a weakening on the part of those wishing to maintain continuity.  Some leave, some stay.  Of those who stay, some take one approach, others another.  Staying typically involves some sort of compromise.  The weakening of those trying to conserve the institution, in numbers, unity in their own ranks, or in resolve, means the strengthening of the forces relentlessly pushing for change.  The goal, however, must not be to remain united and stay but to remain united in truth.  The Church must never be so confused with the institutional denomination that its testimony and purity are compromised, that its children are misled, or that its mission is undermined.  There is a time to leave to maintain continuity with 'the true Church' rather than the denominational institution.  Some read Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in John 17 as an encouragement towards unity with the latter, but the prayer is all about maintaining unity together by being united to Christ and to His unity with the Father.  Indeed, Jesus' attack on institutional Judaism produced a new religion.  Unity with Christ will often mean separation from the changing institution.  When the trajectory of change becomes so entrenched within an institution, it is time for the Church (the 'City of God,' as St. Augustine put it) to separate.  This same scenario plays out in other institutions than the denomination.  Faculty trickle away from an institution being led by a few administrators who are intent on changing it in one way or another.  Focussed on their research and teaching, faculty may be too disunited to oppose the redirection of an institution by a few top administrators whose day-to-day efforts are to redirect the institution.  Indeed, the disunity of the majority often leads to the tyranny of the minority who seek change.  This may be the very story of the past two Archbishops of Canterbury in the Church of England, driving an old institution off the theological and moral cliff.

Thirteenth, sin is personal, social, and spiritual, and each involves a pressure against the good of Christian institutions in their pursuits of justice and holiness.  This seems to be such a powerful dynamic that virtually every institution ultimately succumbs to change from righteousness because of sin.  This is why it is important that congregations, not denominations, own the assets of local congregations.  This is why I prefer to see Christian ‘houses’ with Christian tutors operate alongside universities than to see people pour money into ‘Christian colleges’ that eventually become secular universities, unless the donors are happy with influencing just three or four generations before the college takes such a turn away from its founding values.  And this is why the Church needs to oversee the seminaries rather than seminaries operate apart from the Church as academic institutions in their own right.

In conclusion, the focus here has been on how change comes to institutions, such as denominations, mission agencies, theological seminaries, and Christian colleges.  At times, a conserving perspective has come through, but this should not be read as a broad endorsement of institutional identity and practices.  There is more to ministry than institutions—there are operational means of change as well as intentional communities that bring change, for good or for ill.  Institutions can be set up poorly or even to do harm from their very beginning.  The motivation for this study, however, is to give some thought, during a time of radical change, to how good institutions’ vision and mission might be maintained and how they are lost.  At times, we simply have to abandon institutions that have strayed too far from their original purposes.  It is sad to see people distorting the mission and vision of great institutions, although there is a certain inevitability to this if history is our guide.  Staving off these distortions, at least for a time, is possible, however, and perhaps the thoughts offered here about institutional change are of some help to that end.