Reforming Presbytery
I've been put on a committee at Presbytery level to look at how our Presbytery can work in a better way to promote and facilitate our congregations .Here's an extract from the paper I'm writing. Any comments will be gratefully received. The above picture gives another meaning to cathedral.
Making Presbytery a place of inspiration…
This paper is not meant to be aimed at any one person in leadership within Falkirk Presbytery. It is my general thoughts about how any presbytery could become a place of inspiration. By nature presbyteries have become modelled on a law court. This means that it has functioned as a court dealing with legislation and business.
Inspiration means a change of mindset...
To make any presbytery a place of inspiration will require a complete change of mindset, indeed it may be that we cease from understanding presbytery as a monthly business meeting and embrace it as a dynamic exchange centre open and available on a daily basis as a networking hub placed in a building but also with a relevant interactive web presence and qualified personel.
Means a pro-active presbytery...
Its purpose to support and inspire the best practice with in congregations in order that each congregation becomes a centre of excellence in worship and mission. Every congregation must feel part of the same team. Presbytery has to encourage ways through which we can share and benefit from each others gifting and talents. Presbytery has a highly educated and skilled work force at its disposal. Are we using everyone's skill to the maximum especially the paid staff that work out of our 40 odd congregations?
Action - Presbytery should become the facilitator that allows congregations to be collaborative.
Means making congregations feel interdependent on each other...
The ongoing mission and vision of a congregation should not be reduced to a report once every five years with a shortened five minute version read out at Presbytery to save time. This system has a built in feeling of being "dammed by faint praise" inevitably there is a silence, no questions are asked, and five years of service is consigned to the minute book. Many ministers and congregations feel under valued and have lost their focus.
Action Put in place a proper appraisal system to support and encourage congregations to develop and articulate their five year strategy plan. Such a plan should be done in collaboration with others to encourage and enhance opportunities of mission. This is in addition to the current Presbytery Plan
At the present presbyteries often act in a passive and reactive manner, because they are made up of congregational representatives who know very little about each others congregations yet have to make decisions that can affect the spiritual welfare of many people. Some Kirk Session send their representative elder to Presbytery as a reward for work done in the past. It is seen by some as a kind of House of Lords promotion. It is a function where not a lot is expected from those who attend. Presbytery has become the passive receptors of General Assembly remits rather than the initiators of reforming petitions. This means that all too often this group of strangers settle for the safe option unable to have the confidence to embrace change because they do not wish to be the implementers of change.
Action - We require the very best and talented of elders to become part of the presbytery team. In doing so they in turn will drive the strategy and vision of the church in their Presbyterial area.
Means inspirational structures and resources
We who are members of presbytery have much more power than we imagine and if we work creatively together we could harness ourselves into a successful coach for our congregations. Presbyteries have great potential and if used wisely, we could use the potential of 40 or 50 congregations working together to create an amazing central resource to support and encourage our work.
There are opportunities at a national level and a regional level to become important players in the area of mission and social care. Co-coordinating funding on the basis of a presbytery wide care programme in all sorts of areas could be a challenging and rewarding experience.
It might be a wonderfully affirming thing to set aside a different congregation each year to act as the Cathedral for Presbytery. This would mean the building would be used daily to grow and develop a series of workshops and seminars on various aspects of church life from finances to worship from mission to property to community outreach projects.
Means inspirational leadership
Modelling ministry is an important aspect of inspiration. Seeing how things work at first hand and sharing in each others ministries is how inspiration takes root.
Action - Presbytery should create pods or groupings of congregations and insist that the ministers and leaders meet regularly, say weekly to share and inspire each other in their ministries, These groups may not be geographical they could be centred around interests and passions. This should not be seen as an option but part of the expected workload of the minister. A team leader for each grouping should be appointed and be rotated every two years.
To inspire the leadership of congregations Presbytery will have to engage methods that make individual leaders and communities feel supported and that they are contributing to an over all missionary plan for the wider area as well as their local community. This will require ministers and congregations to be open to new ways of sharing and collaborating with each other. We need to stop thinking in soley congregational terms. Its time to become a Church and a Presbytery Without Walls.
