Our Roots, Pt.48

There have not been any dramatic changes in Adventist church structure since the early part of the twentieth century. There have been changes of growth—more congregations, conferences, union conferences, and divisions have been added—but the way these bodies relate to each other has remained relatively constant. There has been some tendency for the divisions to function with greater independence from the General Conference, but the nature of the essential ties that define their relationships is unchanged.

Only one new type of administrative entity has been added since the divisions were revised in 1918; that entity is the Union of Churches. A union of churches is like a conference in that it is composed of congregations, and like a union conference in that it reports directly to a division. It is used only in special circumstances where impediments exist to the traditional conference and union conference model, rather than throughout the system of governance, and its functions and personnel are essentially the same as a conference. Therefore, it doesn’t represent any significant alteration of the governance model.

One other minor change that has occurred in the last few decades is that the interval between General Conference Sessions has again been lengthened, so that they now meet once every five years.

There are some who argue that the present system of governance has more layers than are needed in the present age of rapid communication. The suggestion has been made that the union conference level be eliminated and that in its place there should simply be a larger number of divisions with somewhat smaller territories than they presently possess, but still larger than the territory of a union conference. It is an interesting idea, particularly in light of the historical fact that one of the major justifications for the creation of both union conferences and divisions was the need for faster communication with those empowered to make decisions, which in those days meant having empowered decision makers physically closer to the location of the issue. On the other hand, another major justification for these levels of governance was the need to delegate as much decision making as possible, because it was simply too much for the General Conference to handle alone. So while the communication issues have been mitigated, or even eliminated, by the advance of technology, the need to delegate because of the enormity of the task has only been made more acute by the growth of the church.

We don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other about the proposal to eliminate union conferences. But whether it is adopted or not we do think there is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed in order for either strategy (eliminating union conferences or leaving them as is) to succeed in improving the effectiveness of church governance. There must be a clarification of the purpose of each level of the governance structure.

During the course of our appeal to the Potomac Conference it was asserted (in the context of whether or not we could appeal a decision of the Potomac Conference to the Columbia Union) that conferences manage churches, unions manage conferences, divisions manage unions, and the General Conference manages divisions. This is a perfect example of how not to define the purpose of each entity. If all each level does is look over the shoulder of the level below it, there is no reason why we shouldn’t start eliminating levels. Then there is the incredible ambiguity of what is entailed in “manage.” There simply is no purpose in this statement.

Here is how we would define the purpose of the various levels of the Adventist governance system. The purpose of the General Conference should be to define global identity. This would include being the final word on doctrine and policy, seeing that all areas of the world have the appropriate human and financial resources to carry on evangelism effectively, and making general plans for evangelism and discipleship activities. The purpose of the divisions should be to take the global identity defined by the General Conference and make it applicable to the cultural context of their territory. The purpose of the union conferences should be to bring unity among the diverse populations in their territory and mobilize them for united efforts in evangelism that the smaller units would not be able to muster alone. The purpose of the conferences should be to train local members for service and facilitate those service activities as needed. The local congregation should be the “boots on the ground,” the people who go out and do what the rest of the organization has been planning and preparing the way for.

End of Our Roots.