Denomination's realignment plan could combine DHM and HELM

From DisciplesWorld:


By Rebecca Bowman Woods, DisciplesWorld news editor

INDIANAPOLIS (7/11/08) — Denominational leaders are heeding the wider church’s call for "less structure, more mission," and are floating a draft of a realignment plan that would combine the programs of at least two of the church’s general ministries — Disciples Home Missions (DHM) and Higher Education and Leadership Ministries (HELM).

General Minister and President Sharon E. Watkins and a group called the Mission Alignment Coordination Council (MACC) have been working on a proposal to realign the church’s structures with its mission. They will finalize a proposal this year and present it to the 2009 General Assembly for approval.

After weeks of discussion and a three-day meeting last month in Indianapolis, the council is making its ideas public and asking for input from the rest of the church.

Among the changes put forth in the draft document is the creation of a new general ministry, to be called either Congregational and Leadership Ministries or the Center for Congregational Leadership. It would bring together many of the responsibilities, programs, and ministries of DHM and HELM.

The draft documents outline three options for how the general church might organize its work. One option places both New Church Ministries and Transformation Ministries as part of the new general ministry. Another moves the transformation initiative to Church Extension, which already oversees new church establishment.

Racial-ethnic ministries — the National Convocation, the Central Pastoral Office of Hispanic Ministries, and the National Association of Pacific/Asian Disciples would have a more prominent place at the table and would receive a larger share of denominational funding.

The MACC’s draft includes an “accreditation system” that would certify official ministries of the church, a move aimed at improving accountability and transparency within the church.

The future role of Disciples Benevolent Services (DBS), formerly the National Benevolent Association (NBA), has also been part of the council’s discussion. The once-formidable non-profit owned or operated more than 100 facilities for seniors, children, and developmentally disabled adults. It was greatly diminished by a bankruptcy filing in 2004. DBS is still a general ministry of the church but since 2007 it has focused on helping congregations start their own housing and care ministries. DBS would become self-supporting instead of receiving denominational funding, according to the council’s draft.

The MACC’s ideas are based on the principles for mission alignment set forth by the General Board in April. The General Board also identified three desired outcomes: getting clarity about its own responsibilities regarding the church’s mission, embracing the denomination’s growing diversity, and resourcing congregations for mission.

The council’s work is part of the larger process of guiding the church toward four priorities set forth in the 2020 Vision: leader development, establishing 1,000 new congregations and transforming 1,000 existing ones by the year 2020, and becoming a pro-reconciling, anti-racist denomination.

A letter from Watkins posted along with the MACC documents lays out how and when the council will finalize its proposal.

The conversation about how to make the general church more effective “is one the Church has been asking for,” Watkins writes. “The expected result is a general church organization that is more transparent to congregations in how mission is delivered. It anticipates better stewardship of mission funds as less is spent on organizational infrastructure and more on actual ministry. It imagines a church focused on mission.”

In addition to Watkins and Disciples Moderator Newell Williams, the council’s members are Bill Lee, Virginia pastor and former Disciples’ moderator; Carolyn Ho, former first vice-moderator; Mary Jacobs, former first vice-moderator; David Vargas, Global Ministries’ co-executive; Sotello Long, South Carolina’s regional minister; Cherilyn Williams, moderator for the Northwest region; Darryl Trimiew, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion of Medgar Evers College at the City University of New York; Xose Escamilla, pastor of Casa de Oracion in San Diego; Kari Kempf, church administrator at the Church of the Foothills in Santa Ana, Calif., and Tim Lee, assistant professor of Church History at Brite Divinity School.

The MACC meets in September and again in November. The group will compile the comments and ideas received from the wider church and will refine its work before presenting a proposal to the General Board in 2009. The General Board will review the proposal and make recommendations before sending it on to the General Assembly.