In response to my recent blog
post on the way forward for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a friend suggested
that I was dealing with reorganization of the national entity. Actually, I am suggesting not reorganization
but reconceptualization. Whenever a new
leader comes on board, the first step usually taken is to reorganize. Reorganization gives the impression that things
are being changed and thus improved. Wrong!
Too often this is just rearranging the various parts without addressing
basic values, strategies and systems.
The same thinking provides the same kind of results. New thinking presents new results.
If the Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship is not only to survive but prosper, it is time to go back to the
drawing board and identify the values, strategies and systems that define a
missional judicatory. For the last two
decades, CBF has attempted to gain credibility with churches and other
denominations by doing the things that a denomination is “supposed to do”—send
missionaries, endorse chaplains, support theological education, develop a
retirement program, and provide Christian education resources to churches. I applaud the efforts that CBF has taken in
recent years to work with churches so that they might become missional and to
identify new strategies to further that goal, but it is not enough.
Let me suggest five things that a
21st judicatory needs to do to be truly missional.
First, it will perform a
pathfinding function. Someone needs to
be out there on the cutting edge finding new ways forward, cutting new trails,
and discovering what has been hidden. This
is the research and development function that should be part of every church
and judicatory that hopes to be around in a decade.
Second, a 21st century
judicatory will do the hard work of aligning entities—churches, individuals, NGOs—in
order to accomplish a common goal. I
believe that this is what Rob Nash presented in his address to the 2011 General
Assembly in Tampa: “These field personnel tonight are being called out of
networks focused on particular ministry in particular parts of the world as
much as they are being called by CBF ‒ or they are creating those networks in order to do this
thing to which God has called them.”
Alignment is tough, dirty, grassroots work but it pays off.
Third, 21st century judicatories will be
empowering entities. They will be “open
source” organizations, encouraging all parts of the entity to create vital and
innovative ways to solve problems. They
will identify the lowest common denominators necessary for cooperation and then
get out of the way. This is the approach
that Dee Hock fostered in creating the VISA organization and that he explains
in Birth of the Chaordic Age and One from Many: VISA and the Rise of the Chaordic Organization. A few common principles and processes unite
a diverse, worldwide financial service.
Fourth, 21st
century judicatories will expect its leaders to be coaches. They will not have the answers, but they will
help others to find the answers they need.
There are tremendous resources in every congregation that can be
nurtured to full bloom with the right kind of encouragement, but it takes
patience and humility.
Fifth, although
the term has become a cliché, networking will be an essential part of the 21st
century judicatory. Whether these are
oriented toward missionary-sending, resource development, theological education
or a multitude of other activities, networks will be the engines of goal
achievement in the future. This is an
area where the current CBF organization has shown great success.
These comments
are not meant so much as a critique of the current situation as they are an encouragement
to seize the opportunities that lay before us.
These words from Jeremiah seem appropriate to our situation: “’For I know the plans I have
for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans
to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)
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