Category Archives: PC(USA)

A Very Preliminary Look At Amendment Voting In The PC(USA)

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The holidays are now behind us and traditionally this is the time when voting on amendments to the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) kicks into high gear.  So I thought that I would take the first, preliminary look at possible trends in the voting.  But first some preliminaries…

Let me first make a couple of comments about the question “why bother?”  Well, beyond the fact that crunching data is the sort of thing that I enjoy doing I also think that it gives one of the best windows into what is going on in the denomination at this time.  It is a widely accepted generalization that the decisions of the General Assembly do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the “people in the pews.”  The usual evidence that is pointed to is the fact that three times previously the GA has sent an amendment to remove or rewrite G-6.0106b in the Book of Order, and three times it has been rejected by the presbyteries.  Another example of a disconnect is the negative reaction from many churches to the GA decision to boycott companies who supply items linked to the Israel-Palestine conflict.  So, while Research Services gives us statistics based on opinion poles of sampled members, the vote counts, both the absolute and relative numbers, give us an insight into how ruling and teaching elders react to the issues the Assembly sends down to them.  In short, I think the vote numbers can give us an insight into how the PC(USA) is changing.

So what is different this year about the vote?  I think there are four things that need to be taken into account.

1) Each year the Assembly sends an amendment with a bit different wording and that might make a difference.  This year the proposed language speaks more about the examination, that the governing body is responsible for it, and that they are to be guided by the Scriptures and the confessions.   One of the more interesting lines is “The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003).” So while the confessions and the Scriptures are to guide the governing body, the candidate’s qualifications seem to be focused on the constitutional questions.  So, how will any individual commissioner view the proposed wording this time around?

2) This vote is coming right after another vote two years ago while the previous interval was seven years from 2001 to 2008.  There are a number of ways that this could manifest itself with two possibilities being the reduced turnout due to a “fatigue factor” and/or little change in the numbers due to less time for the church to evolve.

3) I will not develop this point here, but will just say that in looking at the numbers for the last four votes (96-B, 97-A, 01-A, 08-B ) I consider the vote on amendment 01-A to be a unique case with a turnout of conservative voters in proportions not seen in the other three votes.  I will say that so far for 10-A this observation seems to still hold with the current numbers looking a lot like the last round of voting.

4) Overall, the voting is not just about “fidelity and chastity” this year but there is also the addition of the Belhar Confession to the Book of Confessions and a whole new revision to the Form of Government.  The voting could have different dynamics this year due to this expanded slate and the dynamics of the timing of scheduling the votes.

OK, now the data.  While the official count is always kept by the Office of the General Assembly , it only gives the totals.  For the Amendment A vote I have been comparing the breakdown by presbytery from several sources: the Yes On Amendment A site, Covenant Network, Reclaim Biblical Teaching, and the Layman.  Voting on the Belhar and nFOG are covered by both the Layman and the Reclaim Biblical Teaching site.  Then for breaking news there is always Twitter.  I’ve got my own tally sheet shared online, but I don’t claim to have it updated as quickly as the others.  And if you want a detailed list of resources related to these votes you should start with Robert Austell’s GA Help web site.

So, at the present time the Belhar Confession trails by 17-12 (remember it needs 2/3 for a confession to be approved), nFog is passing 10-7, and after a flurry of voting yesterday Amendment A is currently failing 15-20.  In total, 67 of the 173 presbyteries have voted on at least one of these items, eight have voted on two and three have voted on all three.  You can see that so far the presbyteries are taking the votes deliberately and not usually taking more than one at a time.

Of the four that have voted on both the Belhar and 10-A the votes have been very similar: Alaska – 24% yes Belhar and 31% yes 10-A, Lackawanna – 45% yes Belhar and 40% yes 10-A, New Castle – 72% yes Belhar and 70% yes 10-A, Santa Barbara – 23% yes Belhar and 27% yes 10-A.  While this is not proof that commissioners view Belhar and 10-A as being closely linked, it is suggestive that many may view both of them through a common filter.

Correlations for nFOG with the other two are not as close.  Sometimes there is a similar proportion, like Alaska that had identical 7-22 votes on each, or Des Moines which had 64% yes on Belhar and 70% yes on nFOG. Sometimes it is not as close, such as Eastern Oklahoma that barely passed 10-A but passed nFOG on voice vote, or Northumberland which was 36% yes on Belhar but only 13% yes on nFOG.

But these are early trends of just a small number of votes so we will see what develops over the next six months.

I want to finish by taking a quick look at the repeat voting on G-6.0106b comparing Amendment 10-A to 08-B.  We have reports on 35 presbyteries having held their votes and so far two have moved from “no” to “yes” (Eastern Oklahoma, Eastern Virginia) and one has moved the other way (Lake Huron).  So the net change at this point is one to the yes column.

Looking at the total yes and no votes, we find that there are 6% fewer total votes (3848 versus 4101) for these 33 presbyteries.  It is interesting to note that this 6% decline in commissioners voting exactly matches the overall decline in membership in the PC(USA) over the last two years (3.1% plus 2.9%).  Taken as a whole, the
number of commissioners voting yes is up 5% (1875 this vote versus 1786
in the last vote) while those voting no have declined 15% (1973 down
from 2315).  If the decline in total votes were proportionally represented in the yes and no votes we would expect 88 fewer yes votes and 199 more no votes.  So the decrease in no votes can not be explained only by the increase in yes votes but there must also be a decline in the number of commissioners who favor “fidelity and chastity” who are voting.

For the 33 presbyteries with reported numbers (Northern NY and Cayuga-Syracuse had hand or voice votes without recorded numbers), 23 had a decrease in the number of votes, 9 had an increase and one was exactly the same.  Now, some normal fluctuation in the number of commissioners attending the meeting is to be expected and I have usually placed this at +4%.  Taking this into account,  eight lower totals and five higher totals for a total of 13 more are added to the unchanged category.  This total of 14 is just a bit less than half of all the presbyteries voting so far.  The greatest decline is from Elizabeth Presbytery which had only 76% of the commissioners present as they had for the last vote.  This could easily be attributed to the inclement weather in the northeast this weekend. However, Genesee Valley, which voted at the same time, had only a slight decrease of 3%.  The largest increase was in Newton Presbytery which had 1.14 times the number of commissioners as the last vote.  Of the four increases that I consider significant (in a statistical but only quasi-rigorous sense), there are three presbyteries that voted no and one voted yes.  Tempting but dubious to draw conclusions from such a small sample.

If we look at yes and no votes broken down by presbytery, on average there are 19% more yes voters and 13% less no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted yes there was only a 1% increase in the number of yes voters and 16% decrease in no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted no, the increase in yes voters was 31% while the no voters decreased by 11%.  That increase in no votes was pulled by a couple of large increases, but it suggests that the Yes on A get out the vote campaign is having an effect while the similar effort for No on A is not as effective.

Let me warp up this discussion with the general observation that I am seeing the whole range of behaviors in different presbyteries.  The three presbyteries that switched all had significant increases on the prevailing side with 12%, 21% and 22% increases.  On the other side were varying decreases from 5%, to 14% to 23%.  The switch in position was a two-way street apparently caused by both gains and losses.  There were a couple of presbyteries with uniform change, such as Great Rivers which had a 3% increase in both the number of yes and no votes, or Newton which had a uniform 19% increase in both columns.  There are also presbyteries, like Central Florida and Stockton, where the total number of votes was very constant and the votes shifted columns.  It was into the yes column for Central Florida and towards no for Stockton.  There is only one presbytery, Mississippi, where the no votes were stable (47 versus 49) but the yes votes increased (up to 11 from 2).  And there are two presbyteries, Boston and New Castle, where the yes votes remained constant but the no votes declined significantly.  And then there are the rest of the presbyteries which exhibit more complex changes that can not be explained solely with these simple end-member models.

So, that is what I am seeing so far.  As I said, this is preliminary because with only around 30-40 presbyteries having voted on each amendment drawing statistical conclusions would be a bit early.  However, there are interesting trends developing and we will see how those play out.  Stay tuned… I’ll get out the white board and draw geeky charts and graphs next time.

Constitutional Voting In The PC(USA)

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It will be a busy seven months for the presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The 219th General Assembly sent three high-profile constitutional changes down to the presbyteries for their concurrence and then there are all the rest of the amendments.

My first reaction was to take these as four different packages, each at a different presbytery meeting.  The problem of course is that while my presbytery has the meetings to do that most others do not.  So it looks like they will be doubling up on some of these debates.

It is still early in the voting on all the amendments so I’m not really ready to start drilling down into the data just yet.  But I will make some observations about the process so far.

First, where am I getting my data?  Well, with the proliferation of Twitter I think many of us are getting our own real-time updates on presbytery meetings.  But in terms of compiling the data for later reference, I know of two sources:  1) The Layman is publishing charts of voting on all three high-profile amendments:  Amendment 10-A, new Form of Government, and the Belhar Confession. 2) More Light Presbyterians is maintaining their own chart of presbytery voting at their Yes on Amendment A blog, but as the name suggests that is specific to that issue.  From these various sources I am compiling and posting my own spreadsheet for analysis with the emphasis on my preferred focus of correlations between the different issues and with no promise that the chart will be updated in a timely manner.  Finally, we can not forget the official voting report which does not have a break down by presbytery but which has been updated today to reflect that the Belhar Confession needs a 2/3 vote to pass.  (It was originally listed as simple majority.)

At this juncture it is interesting to note that with almost two months of voting behind us six presbyteries have voted on nFOG (4 yes, 2 no), fifteen have voted on 10-A (4 yes, 11 no), and nineteen have voted on Belhar (13 yes, 6 no).  While it is far too early to predict outcomes it is interesting to note that on 10-A no presbytery has switched votes yet from the last “fidelity and chastity” vote but for some presbyteries voting “no” the votes have been closer.  (Presbytery of the James had a 153-153 tie.)  It is also interesting to see that the Belhar is just barely making the 2/3 ratio it needs to pass.

In my mind it is easy to see why the nFOG has been tackled by the fewest presbyteries — It is the most complex and the longest and probably has the greatest long-term implications.  Extended time for study and discussion is warranted.  The Belhar being the furthest along?  I have to think that it is viewed as the last controversial of the three and a good one to begin with.  In a couple of presbyteries it has passed by an overwhelming margin, unanimously in Cimarron Presbytery .

It is also interesting to observe that two presbyteries, Alaska and Santa Barbara, each knocked out all three in one meeting and in both cases did not concur with all three.  No other presbytery has taken on more than one of these yet.

But with this many items in a time period in which we usually just track one high-profile amendment it will become very busy soon, probably just into the new year.  Stay tuned.

Officers Of The Church — Prepetual Or Three-And-Out?

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In my recent reading I found a convergence of ideas that I want to spend some time musing about.  The basic theme of this is the nature of the ordained offices of Ruling Elder and Deacon in branches where the office is perpetual but the service on the local board is not.  I have not done a comprehensive survey of this point of Presbyterian polity but in my experience the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the only branch I am aware of that has terms with limits as the only option, in their case six years, then requiring an individual to go off the board (session for elders, board of deacons for a deacon) for one year before serving again on that board.  For many branches, and historically for mainline American Presbyterians, once your are called as a Ruling Elder of the church you continue serving on the session without limit.  You can voluntarily step down due to personal circumstances, and if you move churches you remain an elder but you do not automatically go on to the new church’s session.  And usually there is a process to remove you from the session should circumstances warrant.  But it is not the case that you leave because “your time is up.”  (The exception there would be in the sense of joining the Church Triumphant.    )

Personally, my service as an elder on session lasted five years (I was first elected to fill a vacant partial term) and in the 12 years since I have not been invited back onto my church’s session.  I state this only as fact and not as complaint because in those 12 years I have never ceased serving the church in the capacity of a ruling elder in other governing bodies of the church.

But my experience, vis a vis the congregation, is not unique based upon the numbers in the Presbyterian Panel background summary. PC(USA) Research Services, in what I consider a misleading and inaccurate division, categorizes their sample population into “elders” and “members.”  If you dive into the data you find that when they refer to elders they mean elders currently serving on session.  Furthermore, they report that of what they classify as members, more than one-third (38%), are ordained Ruling Elders.  If you take all the individuals that have been ordained as Ruling Elders or Deacons (or both) it turns out to be more than half of the “members.” There is a very large population within the PC(USA) that have been ordained to church office.  As we will see in a minute this is such a large group that within a congregation it is difficult to effectively use them to serve on the session.  The Panel survey is silent on other ways that this large pool of ordained officers live out their call in the life of the church if they are not serving on session.

Now consider how the survey question is worded:

Have you ever been ordained an elder in a Presbyterian church?
Have you ever been ordained a deacon in a Presbyterian church?

I’m not sure if they are trying to capture those who have demitted and are no longer ordained officers, but in my experience that is a pretty small number, probably so small it would not be statistically significant.  I would think that they could better reinforce the perpetual nature of the ordained office by asking “Are you an ordained elder (or deacon) in a Presbyterian church?” Or maybe they are recognizing that individuals may not realize the office is perpetual and phrase the question so that it still captures the respondents correctly. In that case we need to do a better job of educating our ordained officers.  But either way, the nature of the survey questions do nothing to reinforce the perpetual nature of the office.

OK, that is a particular point in the ethos in the PC(USA) that really rubs me the wrong way (in case you couldn’t tell) and that I have ranted about before.  But it is not just me… In the resource piece by the Rev. Joseph Small that was posted for the Special Commission on Middle Governing Bodies I found this (as part of a longer section beginning on page 4 that is well worth the read)(my emphasis added):

What led to the bureaucratization of sessions and presbyteries? At root, it was the bureaucratization of American society, and the church’s endemic eagerness to follow culture’s lead. But there are proximate symptoms and causes. In the 1950’s, Presbyterian polity was changed at several points for the very best of reasons, but with unintended, unfortunate consequences.

First, the understanding of “elder” as a called ministry within the congregation was weakened by the introduction of a regulation stipulating that elders could serve no more than two consecutive three-year terms on the session. This mandatory rotation of elders was instituted for one very good reason and one of questionable intention. The ordination of women as ruling elders had been part of (northern) Presbyterian polity since 1930, but most sessions had few if any women serving. Limiting terms of service on sessions was one way of opening the eldership to new persons, notably women. The regulation had its desired result, but this appropriate motive was joined by another, less noble one. It was thought that mandatory rotation would break the hold of “bull elders” on the life of the church, reducing the capacity of sessions to thwart pastors in their attempts to modernize and renew congregational life.

The unintended result of mandatory rotation was the loss of an understanding of elders as persons called to one of the ordered ministries of the church. Term limits for service on the church session produced brief tenure by an ever expanding circle of members. In many congregations, one three-year term became the norm, and the understanding of the eldership was transformed from a called ministry to merely taking one’s turn on the board. Short-term, inexperienced elders also increased the influence of pastors by diminishing the ministry of called, knowledgeable elders. This imbalance, evident in sessions, became especially pronounced in presbyteries where well-informed pastors were accompanied by revolving elders who knew less and less about matters before the assembly.

My thanks to Rev. Small for including the historical context along with his concurrence on the effect that I have seen of rotating elders.  I’m glad to know that this is a recognized issue and not something I’m just reading into the polity.

What are the positives?  As Rev. Small points out it encourages (forces?) diversity and additional voices on the session.  What are the negatives?  Personally, I am especially concerned about the loss of the understanding of the roll of elders and on this I believe the other problems hinge.  And, in addition to the lack of experience and the loss, in some cases, of the joint governance, I have seen another issue where nominating committees have to find someone to “fill the position” and it becomes more of an issue of who will say yes as opposed to who has a sense of call.  I, and others I have met who are in congregations with similar happenings, would rather see the position left vacant until it can be filled by someone who does have the sense of call.  In some times and places the position of ruling elder has become just another position for someone to help out with.

In his 1897 book The Ruling Elder at Work, the Rev. J. Aspinwall Hodge captures the weight of the office and the nature of it as he writes as a fictionalized elder nominee in the opening paragraphs:

The Pastor of our church has just informed me, that the Session has decided
that the number of Elders should be increased. This has long been
regarded necessary. A meeting of the church will soon be called for that
purpose. I am troubled, because the Session desire to nominate me as
one of the new Elders. I wanted to decline at once, but the Pastor
informs me that I should with care and prayer consider what may be my
duty. He urges that, while the communicants have the privilege to
nominate and elect their own representatives, they have the right to
expect the advice of the Session, as its members are in a position to
consider the questions involved more fully than the communicants can.
They are required constantly to observe the christian character and
efficiency of the members of the church, and are thus prepared to judge
of the personal qualifications of those to be nominated. From their
intimate knowledge of the people, they should be able to propose those
who would be most acceptable to the various classes in the congregation, and
who can best represent them. And being well acquainted with the
peculiarities of themselves and of the Pastor, they can best select
those who are qualified to cooperate with them in maintaining the unity
of the church and the spirituality of the members. On the other hand,
the Session ought not to be a self-perpetuating body. It should impart
the information which it possesses, and give advice, but the
communicants can nominate and elect whom they please. Our Session,
feeling the responsibility, had, after long and serious consideration,
by a unanimous vote, determined to nominate me as one of the new Elders.

The question is, therefore, distinctly before me,
and I must consider it. The deliberate judgment of the officers of the
church demands respect, and my Pastor adds that he knows that the desire
is general in the congregation to have me an Elder.

I recently found out about a training program for ruling elders at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  This program, designed to be completed in two years of full-time study, leads to a Master of Ministry for the Ruling Elder degree.  The program is described to “help the
Ruling Elder function on the Session, Presbytery, and General Assembly levels in a biblical fashion.”  But they do add the qualifier that “the fact that Greenville Seminary offers these programs for the training and/or continuing education of Ruling Elders in no way implies that a seminary education is needed for the Ruling Elder to function properly in his office.”  I wonder if SFTS or Fuller will every bring a program like this to the Left Coast? (Or if there are enough other interested ruling elders to make that worthwhile?)

Before I finish this post let me present a thought exercise:  Consider a congregation of 240 members.  If we use the Panel information and figure that one-third of the members are ordained elders that would mean that there are 80 elders in the congregation.  I modeled this exercise on a congregation roughly the size of my own and my first reaction was that 80 was way too high.  However, after thinking about it some more I am now inclined to think that it is high, but not by too much.  For this thought exercise I will continue to use it. (And you will probably figure out that while the numbers are pretty close to my church, for this exercise I have selected numbers that give round numbers for us to talk about.)

Now consider a session of 12 members.  This is a reasonable number for this size congregation.  It represents 5% of the members and would be organized into three classes of four.  If we have a situation where every elder serves only one term so four elders from our pool of 80 go onto the session each year then each elder in the pool would wait 20 years between their terms on the session.  (So I have another eight years to wait.)

Of course, the situation is not that simple.  In the case where each year two of the four were eligible to serve a second term and agree to do so, only two elders would need to be drawn from the pool so the rotation would be 40 years between terms.  To add one more level of complexity what if we say that of the two “open” spots each year, one is filled from the pool but one is filled by a new elder, someone who is ordained to the office that year, then it would be 80 years between terms for those in the pool and the pool would grow by one new elder each year.

Now, this model does not take into account those that leave the pool by death or transfer, and of course it does not include elders joining the pool by transfer into the church.  In addition, it does not include those who due to age, health, or other circumstance are in the pool but not up to the responsibilities of serving the church any more.  (And I know several very faithful and dedicated elders who have inspired me who are now in this category.)

The bottom line though is that, if the Panel data is correct, each congregation has an abundance of called and ordained individuals, ruling elders and deacons, sitting out there in the pews every week.  How does the congregation continue to give them opportunities to live out their call?  How do we reinforce to them, and the church as a whole, that the office is perpetual?  If we are going to limit service on the session, how do we intentionally find ways to uses elders in other appropriate roles?  Should the denomination’s polity include provisions for limiting the number of elders so such a large back-log does not build up and individuals are able to serve on the session, and thus more often use the spiritual gifts that were recognized in them when they were originally called to serve on the session?

I want to leave you with one last image:  In about a month-and-a-half at least a couple of the elders in my church who are going off of the session will have to give up their name tags that also identify them as “Elder.”   What message does this send to them and other ordained officers not serving on boards about the perpetual nature of the office?  What message does this send to the congregation about the nature of the ordained office?  Just because they are not on the session and have stopped wearing the name tag do they stop functioning as elders or stop thinking of themselves as such?  What does this mean for the PC(USA) as a whole?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Special Commission On Middle Governing Bodies Gets To Work

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Over the last two weeks the Special Commission on Middle Governing Bodies created by the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) got down to work.  The 21 members of the Commission were named by the Moderators of the 218th and 219th Assemblies.

For historical perspective, the last General Assembly level commission in the American mainline Presbyterian church was the Special Commission of 1925 created by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  In the report of that Special Commission we are told that their charge was:

[T]o study the present spiritual condition of our Church and the causes making for unrest, and to report to the next General Assembly, to the end that the purity, peace, unity and progress of the Church may be assured.

The charge that the 219th GA gave the present commission is a bit more detailed:

1.  The commission will consult with sessions, presbyteries, synods and the wider church on the mission and function of middle governing bodies.  Such a process should include:

a.  current diversity in the role and functions of middle governing bodies.
b.  demographics and financial realities that affect the role and function of synods and presbyteries.
c.  the role of each governing body in its oversight role–presbyteries of congregations, synods of presbyteries, and General Assembly of synods–both historically and in present experience.
d.  relationships with General Assembly agencies in role and function.

2.  The commission will develop models that reflect the roles of middle governing bodies in our polity and the changing context of our witness in the United States and their relationships with other governing bodies.

3.  The commission will prepare a report to the 220th General Assembly (2012) of its findings and any recommended Book of Order changes. Recommendation for future roles and responsibilities will also be made to the 220th General Assembly about changes in middle governing bodies that may best serve the PCUSA [sic] in the 21st century.

4.  The commission will implement, within the powers granted it, any decisions forwarded from the 219th General Assembly (2010) and approved by presbyteries regarding the form and function of middle governing bodies with the report to the 220th General Assembly (2012).

5.  By direction of the 219th General Assembly (2010), or upon a majority affirmative vote of the affected presbytery or presbyteries or a majority affirmative vote of the presbyteries in the affected synod or synods, the commission is authorized to act as the General Assembly according to

a.  G-13.0103m: “to organize new synods and to divide, unite, or otherwise combine synods or portions of synods previously existing;”
b.  G-13.0103n:  “to approve the organization, division, united, or combining of presbyteries or portions of presbyteries by synods.”

6.  The commission will supervise the Special Administrative Review Committee on Puerto Rico and act on any recommendations they may make within the powers given to the commission.

7.  The actions of the commission shall require a two-thirds majority for approval.

Following the naming of the members of the Commission I had the opportunity to be part of the first consultation the Commission held, even before the first face-to-face meeting of the Commission. Maybe it is more accurate to say that the newly appointed Moderator of the Commission, the Rev. Tod Bolsinger, came to our Synod Assembly meeting and in a couple of the break-out sessions tried a few things out on some of us. In return, I think it is fair to say, we introduced him to a few things as well.

It is worth taking a moment to introduce you to Tod, and while the GA Moderators have not elaborated on their decision, I think you will see why Tod got the invite to convene this group.  First, yes that is the correct spelling of his name with only one “d” and I will leave that for him to explain.  Second, his present call is as the senior pastor and head of staff of San Clemente Presbyterian Church in Los Ranchos Presbytery.  He blogs at “It Takes A Church…” which is a reference to one of his books, It Takes A Church To Raise A Christian: How the Community of God Transforms Lives.  He also mentions some church and leadership consulting activity. In addition to all this, he was the Moderator for his presbytery’s Odyssey group to re-imagine the functioning of the presbytery.  So he has a tremendous background in both the redesign part and the leadership aspect making him a good candidate to convene this new group.  (And as I will get to in a minute, the materials for the Commission’s first face-to-face meeting include a white paper from the Odyssey group.)

So at our Synod Assembly meeting Tod conducted two listening sessions as part of the breakouts that we did.  Both were well attended – the second was overflow – and in neither case did he get through his whole set of questions on PowerPoint slides.  Some of the points he wanted to make were:

  • The Commission on Middle Governing Bodies ( MGB ) is not looking for one answer but multiple models for the PC(USA)
  • MGB Commission wants feedback on “How are those governing bodies best organized to be responsive both to the Spirit of Christ & opportunities for discipleship?”
  • “Are the structures of history the best platforms for carrying our mission into the future?”
  • Calvin organized Geneva to “be responsive” to the immigrant community.  How do we organize to be responsive to our communities?
  • The Commission will be listening, experimenting, discerning. Tod says he will be looking for “safe, modest experiments”

Tod then started a discussion around a series of questions he had for us to answer. A few of the better discussion starters were:

  • What is a Synod? Why did you first get involved in Synod work?
  • What do we celebrate about being Synod? Who are the heroes of the Synod?
  • What do we want to preserve in our current MGB system? Conversation must start with what will not change. What is our risk tolerance?

I (@ga_junkie) was live-tweeting this consultation and this last question was rephrased in a response from @davehackett: Conversation must start with what is most valuable to preserve. (And the rephrasing was endorsed by Tod later on.) I should also mention that my tweet about the “safe, modest experiments” raised the question from @KathleenLambert about whether a safe, modest experiment is an oxymoron?

One thing Tod found out from this was that he had way too much material for the time available (one hour).  It also seems that Tod was not expecting me, or anyone else, to be live-tweeting or blogging this consultation.  I didn’t announce it but I was sitting there typing on my laptop throughout it so I was not hiding my activity. (This does raise the question of what is social media etiquette for such meetings — I had not brought my “I’m Blogging This” badge with me.  I think a lot of us presbynerds figure open sessions in the PC(USA) are fair game without need to announce our intentions unless told otherwise.)  The result was that I tweeted with my usual MGB hashtag of #mgb and at the end of the talk Tod (@todbol by the way) told us he would be using #mgbcomm.  A bit later that day he retweeted many of my posts with the “official” hashtag. As I will get to in a minute, the MGB Comm is encouraged, if not outright required, to be Web 2.0 connected.

The next event was the first meeting of the Commission in Baltimore at the end of last week.  Actually, looking at their docket they approved the minutes of an October 14 conference call, so they have been at work for a while now.  This meeting was full of the getting-started sorts of things, including the intro remarks by the GA Moderator and Stated Clerk, team building exercises, and the usual breaking into subgroups to begin discussion and work. The listed sub-groups are the Research Strategy group, the Emerging Models group, and the “Soil Tilling Group:” Preparing the Church for Change.

The meeting did include two presentations: The first was “Middle Governing Bodies in a Changing Religious Cultural Context” by the Rev. Eileen Lindner.  Via @lscanlon  we have tweets about her presentation (and in fact tweets about the whole meeting – THANKS Leslie!), including these two, the second of which was heavily retweeted:

Eileen Lindner: Measure church vitality differently – not by membership. How many come to pray? How many bring food?

Eileen Lindner to #mgbcomm: “Don’t be afraid. Be afraid of doing nothing and hoping for the best.”

The second presentation was by the Rev. Joseph Small titled “What is a Middle Governing Body, really? A Theological Perspective.”  This was tied to a 2008 resource piece by Rev. Small among the Commission’s papers about “The Travail of the Presbytery.”  One tweet about the talk from a member of the Commission, @miriamdolin, said “#mgbcomm ‘s task according to joe small is to recover communion among congregations. Wow, no pressure!”

There was also a discussion about another resource piece titled “’How Did We Get This Bureaucratic Model?’ or ‘What Kind of Presbytery Do We Really Want?’”  This is also known as Odyssey Group White Paper 1 and comes out of the Los Ranchos Presbytery redesign group Tod chaired.

I’ve skimmed these resources and they all seem to provide a good starting point for the Commission to begin discussions and discernment.  There are some points in each that I’d like to explore further but I’ll save that for another time since this post is getting on the longer side. But as the Commission searches for models and experiments it will be interesting to see how such proposals as the New Synod and flexible presbyteries are considered and evaluated, along with the continuation of synods in our structure.

As I mentioned before, this Commission was urged to get connected to Web 2.0 and social media.  Tod has encouraged all interested parties in the PC(USA) to follow him on Twitter with his handle @todbol and the mgbcomm hashtag.  There is a Facebook page which is a place for open discussion about the Commission’s work and it appears to be very active. And at the end of the meeting several members of the Commission popped up on Twitter with brand new accounts — We will see if this is mostly for listening or speaking.

According to tweets from @lscanlon, Tod ended the meeting with three questions the Commission will look at next time:

  1. What’s the function of a middle governing body?
  2. What definitions & terms should they explore?
  3. What are the changing realities of our world that affect our discipleship?

And wrapping up this part, a couple of things @todbol tweeted help set the tone – “The question of the day isn’t what we are going to do, but what is God already doing.” and “There is a yearning for presbyteries etc to do more discernment together. What keeps us from practicing discernment?“

That wraps up my summary of the meetings.  I originally thought I would add a bit of commentary regarding that question number 1 about mgb’s, but considering the length I’ll post separately about that.  I do want to add one comment about something from the meeting…

Based on a section of the White Paper one of the members of the Commission, @johnvest, tweeted “Discussing institutional isomorphism at #mgbcomm.” This piqued my curiosity since in addition to the biological and organizational sense that isomorphism is used here, in my field of geology it has application as well regarding minerals.

In an environmental sense, be it natural or cultural environment, isomorphism refers to the organism or institution taking on a particular shape based on, or dictated by, the environment it is in.  In a mineralogic sense it refers to minerals of different compositions having the same basic shape.

The geologic alternate to this is polymorphism — minerals of the same composition having different shapes.  The best known example is carbon which has one crystal structure for the mineral graphite and another for diamond.  A couple of other examples include the chemical calcium carbonate which some clams make in the form of calcite for their shells and others in the form of the mineral aragonite.  And for different pressure and temperature conditions, there are at least six different naturally occurring crystal structures of silicon dioxide, including the common mineral quartz.

My first question was was to wonder whether our present institutional structure would permit presbyteries to be polymorphic.  Given the same basic ingredients could different judicatories use them to form different shapes based on the local conditions.  Beyond that, does the new Form of Government currently before the presbyteries help us, or even encourage us, to be polymorphic?  Maybe the big question, given that Tod has already helped do something like this in Los Ranchos Presbytery without outside help, is what role does the Commission play to do this across the church?

Let me take this geologic object lesson one step further:  In mineralogy we have some fascinating mineral forms called pseudomorphs.  You probably picked up on the Greek roots and realize that this means “false shape.”  They are a mineral that has taken the shape of another.  But how this typically happens is interesting and possibly instructive.  Under the original conditions a mineral will grow within another rock and fill a space that has the shape typical of its crystal shape.  Then, when conditions change, that mineral alters to another chemically similar mineral.  But in the alteration it keeps the exterior form that the original mineral carved out for itself rather than reshaping the rock around it to its own new form.  There is a great page of pictures of pseudomorphs that shows the results of the iron sulfide mineral pyrite altering to similar iron minerals limonite and goethite but keeping the cubic shape of pyrite.

I probably don’t have to spell out the object lesson here other than to ask the question whether the present presbytery structure is actually a pseudomorph with an outward shape reflecting circumstances under which they were formed at an earlier time but now with a composition that would not naturally take on that shape.

Anyway, you hopefully followed my scientific explanation and maybe it will give you something to think about like it did for me.  Thanks John for sharing that comment on Twitter.

Well this process has a long way to go and the Commission will be traveling around the denomination for both full commission meetings as well as presbytery and synod consultations.  The next meeting is in February in Orlando, then the end of May in Seattle, in Indianapolis in October, and Dallas in February 2012.  Keep watching to see where this process goes.

More Official Presbyterians On Social Media

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It should be no surprise that I take an interest in how Presbyterians world-wide are adopting and using social media, especially those with some official ecclesiastical capacity.  So today I note a few new additions to the roll of Presbyterian officers on web 2.0.

The one that I am most excited about is a new blog from the freshly-installed Moderator of the General Assembly of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa.  The Rev. George Marchinkowski is letting us follow him around on his moderatorial term with a blog appropriately titled Moderatorial Moments.  My own excitement comes from the fact that we now have a window into a Presbyterian branch that doesn’t pop up on the interwebs too much, at least that I have been able to track.  So far Rev. Marchinkowski’s writing has been mostly narration of the visits he has made, but even that provides interesting insights into that particular branch.

As I said, this is one of the Presbyterian churches that does not get as much exposure from what I can tell (although it may have something to do with multiple languages in Southern Africa and there may be more that I can’t read and my searches don’t find).  The denomination was formed eleven years ago with the merger of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, which was established by settlers coming into the region, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, which originated from Scottish missions with the indigenous people.  A good article on the uniting of these churches and the UPCSA’s history can be found on the blog Grace and Mercy, written by the pastor of Centurion West Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Andries Combrink.

Turning to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the Rev. Gradye Parsons, is breaking new ground for that branch with his weekly videos on his own YouTube channel.  So far he has tackled the election of elders, a three-part series on becoming an elder, and this week he posted the second part in his future of the church series.

I also realized that while I have pointed out the monthly columns web page of the PC(USA) General Assembly Moderator, Vice-Moderator and Stated Clerk, I neglected to also inform you of the official blogs for GA Moderator Cynthia Bolbach and Vice-Moderator Landon Whitsitt.

So enjoy these new sources of information and insight into the workings of Presbyterianism.

The 219th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church (USA) — Further Reflection On Not Business As Usual

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Back in July following the meeting of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I commented here about the one item that really stuck out to me as a point where the Assembly diverged from the expectations of “business as usual.”  This item of business was in response to an overture from the Synod of South Atlantic to create a new non-geographic Korean language presbytery.

I think most odds-makers would have considered this a routine item that would have flown through pretty much under the radar considering it was nearly unanimously recommended by the committee and how much other business the Assembly would be spending its time on.  However, two young Korean-American women pastors rose to speak against the item and when the vote was take it was soundly defeated (125-514) by the commissioners.

The first pastor to speak was the Rev. Theresa Cho from San Francisco and following the Assembly she posted a reflection on the meeting that included comments about this particular business item.  Today she has posted a follow-up titled “Both sides of the truth: Non-geographic presbyteries ” where she not only comments in more detail on the action at GA, but as the title suggests, points out that the defeat of the request has implications as well.  If the competing demands a denomination lives with in their non-geographic language presbyteries is of interest to you this is a must-read.  In fact, it is a great window into some aspects of racial-ethnic ministry in general.

The new article was prompted by deeper discussions around this overture and the related issues at a Pastor Theologian Consultation last week.  Rev. Cho writes about her situation and journey from GA to this Consultation.  Talking about her cultural background and the consultation she says:

At this consultation, I had the opportunity to be heard and to listen.As a 2nd generation, the younger doesn’t speak up to share differing opinions with the older. It is seen as disrespectful. At this consultation, I had the opportunity to speak up and to listen.

Then, regrading the contrast to GA she writes:

I’ll be honest, after GA, I had the luxury of going back to my wonderful life. I received the accolades of my colleagues and peers for having the courage to speak up. And although I did hear some of the “gossip” of the effects of how the defeat of overture 04-08 was impacting some of the Korean community, the only personal impact to me was hearing some of the difficult remarks being made to and about one of my colleagues and friend who also spoke against the overture. Besides that, I went back to my life, working in a non-Korean church where I am appreciated for my pastoral skills despite of my racial ethnicity, gender, and age.However, my time [at the consultation] shed a light on how what I intended to be life-giving actions were life-taking for another and vice versa.Throughout these discussions, I felt the extremes of both emotions: joy for speaking out and being heard and grief for knowing that it was at the expense of my parent’s generation; honor for being acknowledged as a voice that matters and shame for participating in “airing out the dirty laundry” and betraying my people; and empowered to know that a few voices can change a vote and powerless when it is perceived as disobedience and disrespect.

I will let you continue reading the article as she discusses the question “What is the real issue regarding non-geographic, Korean-language presbyteries?”  These are not easy issues but they are something any Presbyterian branch needs to consider in the light of modern cultural realities.  I encourage you to read Theresa’s whole article.

Musings On Middle Governing Bodies

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Well, the Moderators have done their job and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has their Special Commission on Middle Governing Bodies.  There are 21 members of the commission and they look like a good bunch.  I know a couple of the members well and they are good choices for this work.  My prayers and best wishes are with all of you as you begin your work in two weeks.

This commission commencing its work, and the analysis I did last week, got me thinking about middle governing bodies and Presbyterian structure.  In particular I started wondering further about the size of presbyteries and where the PC(USA) falls in the spectrum.

After looking at some numbers I thought it would be a worthwhile thought exercise to consider the following option for reorganizing the PC(USA):

The presbyteries in the PC(USA) should be divided up so there are more, smaller presbyteries.

Oh, gosh, yes, this is counter-cultural and possibly counter-intuitive. The current thinking around the church is that with our declining membership we need to adjust our structure accordingly, combining presbyteries to keep them sustainable and eliminating parts of our structure. But this is only a thought experiment so stick with me for a few minutes.

What started me on this path were the following data.  Consider the following Presbyterian branches and their average presbytery sizes:

  Churches Presbyteries Churches/Presbytery
PC(USA)  10,657  173  61.6
 PC Taiwan  1208  20  60.4
 PCA  1740  79  22.0
 EPC  298  10  29.8
 PC Canada  952  45  21.2
 Church of Scotland  1200  43  27.9
 PC Ireland  550  19  28.9
Historic      
 PCUSA
Synod of New York
1888 		 822  29  28.3

Now I don’t know if these data got your attention, but obviously they got me thinking.  At the present time the PC(USA) has presbyteries that are on average a bit more than twice as large as these other branches and as they have been historically.  That is not to say that these other branches have uniform size presbyteries — Edinburgh Presbytery has 81 congregations and in 1888 the Presbytery of New York had 52 churches.  But today the largest PC(USA) presbytery is Coastal Carolina with 188 churches, and there are twenty more larger than 100 churches.  The smallest current presbyteries in the PC(USA) are San Juan and Cimarron with 14 churches and there are five more with less than 20.

So if smaller presbyteries are more of the norm, what if the PC(USA) were to reorganize so that it has lots more smaller presbyteries?  If we chose a target average of 25 churches per presbytery that would mean about 426 presbyteries in the denomination.  (Yes, I just saw a bunch of you flinch.)

Now I have no idea if this is a worthwhile thing to do — after all, the discussion on all levels has been to combine smaller presbyteries to make them sustainable.  But let me continue this thought experiment for a few more minutes to explore the implications.

It is interesting to note how the PC(USA) and its predecessor branches got here.  Finding the 1888 records was in some ways providential because, as the report of the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church and the Practice of Governance, approved by the 205th General Assembly (1993), tells us (p. 18):

Until the late nineteenth century, the denomination was “a ‘constitutional confederacy’ of congregations loosely connected by relatively weak institutional structures and a broadly defined constitution.”

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the church became a corporate denomination.

It goes on to clarify that the “corporate denomination” is not necessarily a negative because it could deliver goods and services to congregations and devote resources to mission causes.  But then in the mid-1970’s there was a decentralization of the corporate structure (p. 22):

Twenty years ago [1973] major reorganizations took place in the predecessor denominations of the PC(USA). A basic principle of reorganization was that mission was done best by the governing body closest to the area of mission.
…
In the UPCUSA, this reorganization led to the development of large regional synods where there had been smaller synods generally following state boundaries. Presbyteries and synods had full-time executives and offices… Presbyteries and synods linked sessions and congregations with the General Assembly. The UPCUSA saw this interrelatedness as program and polity, demonstrating the oneness of the church.

This is the background to how the PC(USA) got to its current structure.  Now, this thought experiment is about changing the structure but I do not fully discuss how much the underlying model on which the current structure is based would need to be changed to fit the new model.  Probably the model would need to be changed, but maybe not.

As I said earlier, the conventional wisdom in the PC(USA) right now seems to be that we need to find combinations of presbyteries to keep them sustainable as they loose members and resources.  But what is it about the institution we need to sustain?  The word that keeps flying around the PC(USA) right now, and what the new Form of Government is supposed to encourage, is to be missional.  We also keep hearing that we should not be stuck in the old ways but to find new and innovative ways of doing things.  With that in mind let’s consider what a structure loaded with small presbyteries would bring.

The benefits of the smaller presbytery model that I see are that they are more flexible and potentially more connectional among the member congregations.  For some presbyteries there would be no change — they are already in the target range.  For others, particularly in metropolitan areas, there would be significant reorganization.  Maybe San Francisco would remain unchanged (78 churches) but presbyteries over 80 (arbitrarily chosen from the size of Edinburgh) would be divided so Greater Atlanta and National Capital would each be divided into two presbyteries with slightly more than 50 congregations in each one.  Something like this is done in Toronto by the PC Canada where they have an East Toronto and West Toronto Presbytery with 23 churches.  It would seem that with a smaller more compact presbytery groups could meet more frequently, there would be less business so meetings could include a greater part of education, fellowship or visioning, and the smaller size would help make them more attuned, flexible, and responsive to local needs.  In other words — less business, more focus, more flexibility in addressing mission needs.  Isn’t that what the nFOG is supposed to be all about?

There are a number of issues I could see going either way depending on your perspective.  One of these is the institutional infrastructure.  On the one hand there are presbyteries in the target size range now that sustain their paid staffing needs beyond the stated clerk.  On the other hand, this suggestion is partly modeled on the way that the PCUSA was before it became a “corporate church” so paid support and resource staff at the presbytery level beyond the stated clerk may not necessarily be a desired part of the new structure.

Another issue that could  be subjective regarding the benefits and outcome is whether this would decrease connectionalism between middle governing bodies.  The structure back in 1888 was described as a “constitutional confederacy.”  Depending on your ideas for the PC(USA) and what your goals for the new structure are, that looser affiliation could be viewed as either a positive or a negative.

The issues on the negative side are significant as well.  With 426 presbyteries there would be an increase in the ecclesiastical review necessary, including records review and polity consultation.  One would expect the number of judicial cases to remain constant.

OK, that is where my thought experiment brings me and I have to admit I’m not entirely sure I like it in that form.  I did not address synods and for today let me simply say that something like synods would be needed in this model for a variety of reasons, including the fact that judicial and records review for 426 presbyteries would overwhelm the General Assembly.  There could be the same number of synods, there could be more – I don’t think that part of it is important right at the moment.

Now the discussion currently circulating in the wider church is about what the appropriate size of a presbytery should be so that it is sustainable.  Let me ask it a different way – What is the appropriate size to be able to conduct the necessary mission?  Remember, mission is to be done by the governing body closest to the mission.  I am more than ready to acknowledge that a presbytery of 25 churches could be too small to carry out the mission needs they see in a region.  What about a larger grouping?

Let me suggest another grouping here — for the sake of this discussion let’s call it a “district.” (FYI – districts are a perfectly good Presbyterian concept for non-governing body groupings, although some branches use it for subdivisions within a presbytery and some use it for groupings of presbyteries.)

The district would not be a governing body, no commissioners would be sent to it, it would have none of the powers or responsibilities of a governing body.  A district would exist for the purpose of presbyteries mutually coming together to conduct mission or other business that requires a scale larger than a presbytery but smaller than a synod.  Groupings like this already operate, such as the Sierra Mission Partnership between three presbyteries in California and Nevada.

Beyond that I really wouldn’t specify anything for a district.  Maybe it would be a formal division, such as covering three present presbyteries, or maybe it would be ad hoc and formed of presbyteries interested in a specific mutual mission.  (That latter concept could actually lead to overlapping districts each based on a mission need.)  It might or might not have staff.  The essential point is that it would be a larger grouping to help presbyteries facilitate mission of mutual interest.

Now, I have some dear friends who are presbytery execs and I don’t want to put this in a negative light for them, so let me suggest that there are places in this thought experiment for denominational staff if it is phased out at the presbytery level.  As I indicated, the place for sharing resources would be at the synod or district level.  While not every district would need/want/afford one or more professionals, that would be a place that someone would be beneficial to coordinate, encourage and oversee the joint mission. That would be a place for resource staff.  The other thing that I would imagine happening under this scenario is the expansion of professionals shared between or across presbyteries much like Sierra Blanca and Santa Fe do now.  The positions would not be the same, but it is probably a safe bet that not too far into the future the current professional positions will be different one way or another — We just need to figure out how.

So there is one model or option: We turn the PC(USA) into a collection of smaller, flexible and more intimate presbyteries.  We give up the idea of economies of scale for more relational groups that can focus on specific ways to be missional as God is calling them.

Anyway, I just throw this out there after looking at presbytery sizes in other Presbyterian branches.  It is only one of the options.  I don’t know if this is the route God is calling us since that is the task of all of us joining together to seek the will of God.

Digging Into Presbyterian Statistics — PC(USA) Presbytery Growth Rates

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Well, I see that the U.N. Secretary General has declared that today, October 20, is the first Worldwide Statistics Day.  Now, I am not sure if that is a recognition of worldwide statistics, or a worldwide recognition of statistics, but I am only too happy to add my contribution in the spirit of the latter interpretation.

As regular readers are aware I am a bit, OK a lot, of a PresbyGeek or PresbyNerd when it comes to denominational statistics.  And I have the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services to thank as by “enabler.”  If you are not aware, they put out a daily Tweet with some tidbit or factoid of information.  I sometimes think that what they tweet is superficial or incomplete, but just like I do the best I can with Presbyterian History in 140 characters, they do the best that they can in that space as well.

Back about three weeks ago they put out the following tweet –

Membership increased in 2009 in 13 presbyteries. Does that include yours? http://bit.ly/cxn1mn #pcusa

That factoid got me wondering about what growth rates were long-term, and not just for 2009.

So, time to dig out some data.  Presbytery size for 2008 and 2009 came from the annual Comparative Research reports, Table 4.  The oldest edition of Table 4 that I am aware of is 1996, so turning to the trusty WayBack Machine, that data is also available.  So all of that was fed into a spreadsheet and the annualized growth rate over the 13 year period 1996-2009 was calculated along with the annual rate for 2009.

Now, looking at the data, two presbyteries (Atlantic Korean-American, Eastern Korean) were excluded because they were formed after 1996 so there is not a long-term growth rate for them over the same time period as the other presbyteries.  Two more presbyteries were seen as significant outliers and removed from the analysis as well.  In the long-term growth category Midwest Hanmi had a growth rate of 4.4%, over twice the growth rate of its next closest presbytery.  In the short-term column San Joaquin dismissed several churches in 2009 and so had a growth rate of -24.3%, ten percentage points higher than the next closest presbytery.  The concern was that when the correlation was calculated these significant outliers would leverage the correlation result.

So what do we get for these 169 presbyteries?  Here are the descriptive statistics:

  Annualized
Long-term		 2009
Short-term
Mean -1.7%  -3.0%
 Median -1.9%  -2.6%
 St. Dev.  0.8  2.4

As you can see there is generally good agreement in each distribution between the mean and median.  Between the two distributions the mean and median are significantly lower and the standard deviation of the short-term is significantly higher indicating a much broader distribution.  Visually, here are the two distributions.  Both horizontal and vertical axes are scaled the same to facilitate direct comparison of the charts.

The broader nature of the short-term distribution is now apparent but without other short-term distributions to compare it to drawing specific conclusions from this is a bit more challenging.  If fluctuations have a random nature to them stacking multiple broad annual distributions to produce the long-term distribution will generally result in a decrease in the standard deviation.

The left-ward shift in the distribution, or higher rate of decline, is statistically significant, and whether this represents a one-time higher decline or the end-member of a trend towards increasing rate of decline can not be told from this graph alone, my previous analysis of the decline rates suggests the latter.

But my main interest is in a comparison of short-term and long-term rates and particularly looking at specific presbyteries.  So, here is the graph of the correlation of short-term versus long-term growth rates.

As you can see there is noticeable scatter in the data but a general positive trend.  However, with an R-squared correlation coefficient of 0.14 the correlation is not strong.  With a slope of >1 there is the suggestion that for all presbyteries the short-term rate is of greater magnitude than the long-term rate.

But here is what I really wanted to get at:  The Research Services tweet pointed out that in 2009 13 presbyteries increased in size. (And the three with the largest percentage membership increases were excluded from this analysis as described above.) Over the long-term the membership has increased in five presbyteries (Charleston-Atlantic, Middle Tennessee, Northwest, Seattle, and the excluded Midwest Hanmi).  Of those, only Northwest (Puerto Rico) and Midwest Hanmi have shown an increase in membership over both the 13 year long-term and 2009 short-term periods.  In fact, it was probably not necessary to exclude Midwest Hanmi since for a long-term growth rate of 4.4%, the trend-line calculated above predicts a short-term rate of 6.0%, reasonably close to the actual of 5.4%.  The leverage would not have been too great.

Well, lots more could be done with this but that is enough for Worldwide Statistics Day.  If you looked carefully at the spreadsheet you can see that what I really prepared it for was my own tracking of the presbytery voting trends in the next few months.  In particular, I am very interested to see how the votes on the three big issues, the Belhar Confession, the new Form of Government, and Amendment 10-A correlate, or don’t as the case may be.  You are welcome to check back but I don’t intend it to be the “up to the minute latest and greatest source of news.”  I’ll probably update it weekly with what I can find and it will be my base for further statistical analysis.  If you are interested in that feel free to follow along.  Stay tuned…

All Churches Great And Small — Congregation Size Distribution And Changes In The PC(USA)

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I have been poking around with some data for a little bit now and I think it might be time for some of it to be discussed here…

One of the things that has interested me recently in the vast multitude of data that that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services puts out is the size distributions of congregations.  Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that I have been looking at it is because in my professional work with earthquakes there is a very well-established and useful relationship for magnitude distribution of quakes.  I have found that a similar, though proportionately different, relationship seems to hold for congregation size distribution in churches.  More on the details of that another time, but here I want to take a first look at congregation size in the PC(USA) over time.

As I said, Research Services puts out a whole bunch of information about the church every year and for this post I want to focus on two particular data sets — Table 2: Distribution of PC(USA) Congregations by Membership Size and Synod (2009 data ) and Table 6: Fifteen Largest PC(USA) Congregations Based on Membership Size (2009 data ).

Unfortunately, with the revamped PC(USA) web site it appears that a lot of this older data is no longer on-line from the church, but thanks to the Internet Archive and the Way Back Machine we can get data back to 1994. The equivalent of Table 6 is there, while Table 2 goes back to 1995.

First, as usual, a couple of technical notes about the data.  Concerning Table 2:  1) For my own purposes it would be helpful to have the distributions reported in equal size ranges (e.g. 0-50, 51-100,… 301-350, etc.) rather than the uneven ones in the table (0-50, 51-100, … 301-500…). (They are pretty evenly spaced on a logrithmic scale which does work well for some of my calculations.)  2) It is interesting that the largest range used is >1600 when going to >2000 would correspond to the usual definition of a megachurch.  But it is also important to note that the PC(USA) tables are based on membership while the megachurch definition is based on worship attendance.

Now, I have taken the sixteen available annual reports for Table 6 and put together a spreadsheet covering 1994-2009. For those years when a church was not one of the top fifteen there is no entry in the rank column for that year and the membership number is taken from the on-line statistical report for that church.  Since that is only a 10 year report numbers were directly reported for 1999-2009 and 1998 was calculated from the 1999 membership and the gains and losses reported that year.  Those numbers are not included before 1998.  And yes, I did graph up all the data but most of the lines are so tightly clustered that I did not think it added anything to include here.  At a future date I may present it as groups of churches and include graphs of the subsets then.

OK, I think that does it for the obligatory introduction and geeky details — on to the data.

Turning first to the large churches over the course of these 16 annual reports (1994 – 2009) nineteen different churches have appeared on the list of 15 largest.  Of those, nine have been on the list all 16 years, five were on the list at the beginning and have dropped off, one left the list and later returned, and four have been added.  A couple of the congregations have held fairly steady positions on the list, only moving up or down four places or less in 16 years, and Peachtree (Atlanta) has held the number one spot for all 16 reports.  All 19 churches were part of the PC(USA) in 2009.

Looking at membership numbers, five of the original 15 are larger than they were in 1996, a couple of them significantly larger.  For the other ten, one has a minimal (<5%) decrease, but looking at the churches whole histories over this time most show fluctuations and it is not unusual to see periods of several years with very stable membership numbers.  Over the whole time range one church, Fourth (Chicago) showed no declining years and two churches that joined the list had no declines in the time they were on the list – Second (Indianapolis, 99-09) and Christ (Edina, MN, 02-09).  While some of the churches showed significant declines from 1994 to 2009, no church had declines all 15 intervals.

One of the most interesting properties of this list over time is that for the 15 largest churches there is a fairly constant total membership.  The combined membership begins at 73,689, increases to a peak of 75,872 in 1998, generally decreases to 71,368 in 2004, and then moves up and down again until finishing at 71,722.  This represents a 2.7% decline over 15 years and a 5.9% total variation.

But when looking at this pattern it is clear that the variation is less a function of the general decline of the PC(USA) and more a reflection of significant membership changes in individual congregations occasioned by some event or transition in the congregation, usually a change in the senior pastor.  For instance, the 1998 peak marks the year just before changes at both Peachtree and Menlo Park.

In fact, maybe the thing I find most interesting in this analysis is the response of membership at these churches to changes, particularly in pastoral leadership.  While I won’t explore this in depth now, here is the graph of church membership for three churches, Peachtree, First (Orlando), and First (Nashville).  I have normalized the membership numbers to the peak just before the transition and placed that peak at Year 5 on the graph.  The similarity of the growth-transition/drop-growth pattern is strikingly similar and I’ll be looking at it in more detail in the future.

normalized church membership change

But for our purposes today, what this analysis does show is that for the largest churches in the denomination over the last 15 years the decline as a group is nowhere near what it was for the denomination as a whole and factors that are usually cited for decline in the denomination are subordinate to local influences when it comes to changes in the size of the membership at these churches.  It is not so much that the 15 largest churches at any given time are necessarily declining, but that there is rotation in the members of the list and the total size of the churches on the list remain relatively constant, or at least fluctuate within a certain narrow (+/- 3%) range.

Turning now to the other data set, it is important to note that for the largest churches in the denomination there has been a decline when viewed as the number of churches with membership >1600.  I have compiled the data for the whole PC(USA) from Table 2 from 1995 to 2009 into another spreadsheet and looking at the top category we can see that the number of large churches held fairly steady from 1995 to 2003 (in the range of 113 to 124 churches) and then from 2003 has steadily declined to 91 churches in 2009.

Looking at all the data ranges we see that only the lowest two ranges, churches with memberships of 0-50 and 51-100 have increased over the range of the chart.

Because of the large scale differences between the lower ranges and the largest ranges I also plotted the distributions normalized to their size in 1995.

Now it is easier to see that the number of churches with memberships of 50 or less increased almost 30% and the next higher range (51-100 members) increased slightly (5%).  All other ranges showed a decrease of between 13% and 36%.  And while the largest churches showed significant decrease in numbers, the greatest percentage decrease was with the slightly smaller churches in the range of 301-1200 members.

Clearly what is happening is that as members have left the PC(USA) individual congregations have remained active and the churches have been slipping from the larger size ranges to the smaller ranges.  This is not an unexpected conclusion since membership has declined 22.1% in this time period, but the number of churches has only declined 6.2%.  With this change the mean size of congregations has dropped from 235 to 195 and the median size has gone from 128 to 97.  This increasing concentration in the lower size ranges is a reflection of the Presbyterian tendency to let a congregation continue until the membership drops to a point where the members themselves realize that the church can no longer sustain itself.

That is probably enough data for today and by now you have probably come up with some of your own applications from this exercise.  Let me mention two of concern to me: 

1) Are we training our seminary students for this world of lots and lots of very small churches?  If more than one-quarter are 50 members or less and half have less than 100 members what should seminary students know about the world they will be stepping into.  Taking this a step further, what are the best models for a pastor in small churches?  Yoked ministry?  Tent-making? Commissioned Lay Pastor? House churches? Something else?  If the future is full of lots of very-small churches what should pastoral leadership look like?

2) Should the future be full of lots of very small churches?  Should presbyteries be considering what is the best model for congregations?  Should the number of congregations decrease in proportion to the decrease in total membership?  Should governing bodies at all levels be more aggressive about counseling and shepherding congregations into a new reality?  I don’t know, but these are questions Presbyterians around the world are asking.

So two ends of the size spectra – two differing behaviors in membership variation.  But what does each suggest to us about ministry at that end of the distribution?

Synod PJC Ruling In The Case Of Caledonia And Others v. Knox

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This past weekend the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies heard and decided the complaint of The Session, Caledonia Presbyterian Church, Paula Bremer, James Gunn, Alan Crandall, Jerry Indermark, James F Scaife, The Presbytery of Central Florida, The Presbytery of Prospect Hill, and Stockton Presbytery v. John Knox Presbytery.  (And thanks to the Covenant Network for posting a PDF of the decision)

The case involves the examination for ordination and declaration of an exception by Mr. Scott Anderson approved by John Knox Presbytery last Spring. Not a lot of intro needed here because the background, context, and implications are nearly identical to the Parnell decision I commented on a week ago.  Check that post out for the relevant polity comments. In this case there were three specifications of error regarding the process and the application of ordination standards.  By a 7-2 vote the PJC found that the Presbytery had followed the correct procedure:

The John Knox Presbytery acted within its authority following G-13.0103(r) using the most recent Authoritative Interpretation (Al) (2008)…
…
The SPJC finds that John Knox Presbytery properly took responsibility for that decision. Therefore, permitting Anderson to declare a departure or exception from Section G-6.0106(b) was within the authority of the Presbytery.

There was a dissenting opinion which said, in part:

The majority finds that as the Presbytery followed the provisions of G-6.0108 and the PUP and Knox AIs, it could vote to ordain Scott Anderson as he declared a scruple to the application at least some of the ordination standards as outlined in Section G-0106(b) [sic] to his own life.

This interpretation of the Knox Al, as it applies to Section G-0106(b), [sic] cannot be sustained under our polity. In this case, such an application has effectively allowed a Presbytery to invalidate or amend Section G-0106(b). [sic] We do not believe that any governing body, including the General Assembly, through the authoritative interpretation process as provided under G-13.0103(r) can, directly or indirectly, amend an express provision of the Book or Order.

The ordination standards as provided in Section G-0106(b) [sic] have engendered continuing conflict in our denomination and we acknowledge that Presbyterians in good faith have deep disagreement as to the wisdom if these standards. However, the only forum for a change to this Section is by and through our presbyteries, not through the use of authoritative interpretations.

(And in case you did not figure it out, for that persistent typographical error in the dissent the reference should be G-6.0106(b))

Not much more to say in this case.  The decision and dissent are both direct and concise and the reasoning is very similar to the Parnell decision.   Considering the timing, similarities, and parallel natures of these cases it is reasonable to expect that if they are both appealed, and the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission accepts them, that they would be heard and decided in the same session, probably next Spring.  Stay tuned…