Elim 2015: An opportunity for a reconsideration of the ethos of governance?

Dr Mathew Clark – Dean of PG Studies, Regents TC(In my personal capacity)

SYNOPSIS

To give you an idea of what the aim of the paper is, in a nutshell, here is the gist:

1. Author: Written by Dr Mathew Clark, EFGA credentialed minister, in response to oft-repeated announcements at Elim events (such as annual conference) that input, views and suggestions from all ministers are welcomed by the leadership of the movement

2. Occasion: Elim’s celebration of 100 years, a useful time to take stock and to look ahead, with regard to governance structures and models in the movement.

3. Proposal: That the time may be right to review the movement’s commitment to a centralised governance structure.

4. Social context: The next few generations of the church and the social context in which it operates in the UK will be significantly different from what has gone before and requires a significantly different response – the context is outlined in main point 2.1 (a) to (g) in the paper.

5. A considered response to that developing social context: what the movement may need to acknowledge and do to address the changing social context adequately – outlined in point 2.2 (a) to (f) in the paper

6. Existing Elim theological paradigms for “doing church”, what we all believe, based on the Elim Fundamentals – outlined in point 3 of the paper.

7. Some practical questions and assumptions when evaluating current paradigms within the movement – outlined in point 4 of the paper.

8. Advantages and disadvantages of a centralised governance system – point 5 of the paper.9. Conclusion: some proposals for change of governance in Elim for the next generation – point 6 of the

paper , which includes verbatim the following:

“As a Pentecostal minister who has personally lived with and performed a wide scope of Christian ministry and leadership, may I provoke further discussion by submitting the following points?

a) That Elim reconsider its centralised structure of church governance, and move consciously toward a model that migrates real influence closer to the coalface and to where “the rubber hits the road.”

b) This would imply the practical implementation of the implications of the theological ethos already expressed in the Fundamental Truths of the movement – an egalitarian, free church priesthood of all believers.

c) In practical terms this could find expression in granting full autonomous status to every local church as a registered charity in its own right. This could be accompanied by the devolution of property deeds and financial rights to each local church, and full autonomy in choosing its own local leadership. Obviously this need not happen overnight, and may not be implied to the full radical extent possible.

d) Centralised ministries and departments such as Missions, Youth, Evangelism, Ladies, and others might be decentralised at least to local regional level but preferably (and more consistently with Elim’s declared theology) to local churches. This would release the creativity of local churches and regions in these areas of endeavour, and locate incentive and reward closer to the coalface.

e) That the constitutional role of the NLT and GS be revisited to give consistent expression to the above changes. In terms of the current decision-makers in the church this would obviously be the most radical challenge in the process.”

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Elim 2015: An opportunity for a reconsideration of the ethos of governance?

Dr Mathew Clark – Dean of PG Studies, Regents TC(In my personal capacity)

TO: The General Superintendent, National Leadership Team, ministers and members of Elim Pentecostal Church.

1. Introduction:

Although I have been working at Elim’s Regents Theological College since August 2007, and transferred my credentials from the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa at that time, I have not really interacted with the leadership of Elim. This omission has been for various reasons - however I came to Elim with more than 30 years of ministry experience, as an experienced theologian with international credibility, and as a church leader who has operated at every level: from youth leader at age 17 to denominational leadership. (In appendix 1 I include some personal information relevant to the topic of this paper.)

I am compiling this paper for two reasons:

- At a number of recent Elim business sessions I have heard it publicly announced that the views and perspectives of any and all Elim ministers were welcome, with regard to any matters of Elim business to which they might feel they can offer informed or skilled contributions;

- The celebration of Elim’s centenary and the retirement of the current GS may afford a useful opportunity for the Elim community to pause and reflect on not only the way ahead but also the optimal denominational ethos and structures for facing the future. I am sure this is being done, and would like to contribute to this process.

(In compiling this paper I have consulted some good friends in the UK and some “old Elim hands” to ensure that my grasp and articulation of the current constitutional situation in Elim is accurate. Any lack of sensitivity and emotional intelligence evidenced in this paper is my own fault, not theirs!)

Here are the major factors I would like to lay before the movement in this paper:

2. The social context in the UK which confronts Elim from 2015 forward:

2.1 The indications are that Elim from 2015 will be operating in the following social context:

a) The professional and academic attainment of its average member will continue to improve, in line with the national social median;

b) Its membership will continue to experience upward social mobility, at least in terms of economic standing (disposable income and available leisure) if not always of inherited class and ethos;

c) People will aspire to ministry in the movement, who are academically and professionally qualified and who are used to operating in their daily secular contexts as professionals among professionals;

d) Late Gen-X’ers and Generation Y (currently 20-40 years old) will increasingly be absent from its congregations (as they are from all churches) if their preferences are not recognised and accommodated. These preferences, in terms of leadership and governance styles, differ quite radically from those of the Boomers and early Gen X’ers who are the current custodians of the leadership ethos in the movement;

e) The wider public is increasingly cynical about political and business leadership, and readily extends that mood toward church governance when they come into contact with it – their demand is for authentic relational role-models rather than persuasive powerhouses or “Great Man of God”

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celebrities. For unbelievers the common publicised images of religious leaders, from archbishops through TV evangelists/apostles to mega-church leaders, are greeted with maximum scepticism and are probably our worst advert. In excess of 90% of the population never enters a church for any specific personal religious reason;

f) The complexity of the ethical and cultural challenges facing churches in our secularist culture are of such a nature that plausible spiritual leadership now requires significant educational attainment, professional insight, local credibility, and experienced wisdom to be able to respond authentically, challenging Pentecostals to intensively involve a wide spectrum of skills and personality-types, including thinkers and intellectuals, in their local and national leadership structures;

g) The science-religion debate is proceeding in wider society on the unquestioned assumption that to be educated and rational requires one to be an atheist. Churches are reacting to this either by deliberately furthering the intellectual sophistication of their ministers, leaders and members, or by retreating into a dogmatic fundamentalism that considers even the discussion of the topic to be irrelevant or “un-spiritual” – or both. Pentecostals, as the only group demonstrating even minor Christian growth in the country, will need to undertake serious retooling to cope with this.

2.2 In the face of these social realities, a movement such as Elim will be required by its context to respond strategically to the challenges they imply. These are, in terms of the detail listed above:

a) To ensure its local, regional and national leadership (at least) keeps pace with the professional attainments of the wider membership, or at least the social median. Where local membership has fallen below the social median in this respect, the same requirement applies in order to both lift the local level of attainment and to attract converts from the higher social median;

b) The upward mobility of wider membership and its cultural implications needs at least to be reflected in the church’s leadership, and preferably actively promoted as well;

c) The aspiration of academically and professionally qualified individuals to minister within the movement needs to be encouraged and recognised, and the acquisition of such qualifications by all existing and potential applicants actively promoted;

d) The absence of late Gen-X’ers and Generation Y from our churches could lead to a situation where many congregations consist of a mix of only children and old people. Leadership and ministry models need to urgently modified from the Boomer and Gen-X ideal, to obviate this development;

e) The demand of the wider public for humble and authentic leadership in all corporate situations, including the church, urges us to reconfigure our leadership models accordingly – probably further from the “Great Man of God” and “entrepreneurial go-getter” models and more toward the humble, loving and relational pastor. “Real people” are currently preferred by the public to tailored images of persuasion and success – examples to demonstrate this are Nigel Farage in politics and Justin Welby and Pope Francis in religion;

f) The philosophical sophistication and communication skills of our ministers require urgent upgrading to enable them to participate meaningfully in the ethical, cultural and scientific debates of our age. Absence from these forums at either regional or local level is no longer an option for us. This process needs to be driven and role-modelled by all leaders at every level. The “check your brain at the church door” mentality is not an option for vibrant Pentecostalism.

The present inherited top-down centralised structure of Elim is the product of a very different age and cultural context. In a movement where the social and educational level of membership and of much of the ministry is or should be much more developed, it may even be considered somewhat patronising to imply that local churches or informal groups of churches need to be led, directed, guided, supervised and monitored “from above and afar”, and that they should not have almost complete autonomy over their own assets.

3. Existing theological paradigms for “doing church” in Elim: the Elim Fundamental Truths

Developing a church governance strategy for facing the challenge of the future can readily be guided by our unchanging core principles – for a church these are its theological principles as derived from its charter, the

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text of Scripture. In the case of Elim, the following theology and ethos of church is outlined in its Fundamental Truths:

a) The spiritual unity of all believers, that is, the Church: Since such unity is “spiritual” it is essential but invisible, and therefore seeks to find visible expression in visible analogical structures that demonstrate it. The unity cannot be conferred (or ruled or monitored) by the structures, but is a presupposition underlying the structures. Members are added to this union by the Holy Spirit, and are assigned gifts and ministries “as He wills.”

b) The priesthood of all believers: this aligns the Elim movement with the richly-documented “free church” ethos which is ultimately intensively egalitarian – it implicitly rejects the dualism of clergy-laity or leader-follower divisions, or the designation of a “spiritual” class of “anointed” figures. Differences in the role of persons in the community are seen in this ethos as qualitative and not quantitative, fraternal and not hierarchical;

c) The body of Christ: this metaphor implies a single Head who rules over multiple equal and obedient members. The progressive theology of the Middle Ages implied that in the established churches somehow Christ delegated his headship to a human being (e g the Pope as Vicar of Christ.) However, the Body of Christ metaphor denies any headship other than that of Christ himself;

d) The recognition of the Fourfold Ministries (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor-teacher) and of the working of spiritual gifts: in the context of the other Fundamental truths (and of Scripture) it is clear that these are contextual ministries and gifts and are not intended to imply any ongoing hierarchy or ranking of importance of their demonstration or occurrence. All are charismata, gifts of grace and not of personal merit or standing.

The implicit theology of the Elim movement, as expressed in the Fundamental Truths to which all Elim ministers subscribe, is of an egalitarian non-hierarchical Spirit-empowered community of believers who all reach out to the world and all serve one another according to the gracious undeserved gifting of God.

4. Some practical assumptions to consider when applying a theological perception and community ethos to church structure and governance:

The ethos of a church or movement, although linked at least historically to its founding statements of faith, is probably more authentically located in its actual practice. What a church or movement does in practice might imply an ethos that does not always correspond to what it insists it believes.

Four practical assumptions govern the ethos of church governance in the extrovert evangelical environment of Pentecostalism. These can be identified and elucidated by answering the following questions with regard to the task of Christians corporate and individual:

- Where does “the rubber hit the road?” Where is the work of the ministry done? Is it in the administration of a Head Office? Is it in the meetings of an Executive Council? Is it at the level of regional meetings? Is it at local church level? Or is it where the individual Christian or Christian family lives and works “in the world?” Which of these would leave the most significant hole if it were to be removed?

- Where is the practical interface (the coalface) between light and darkness , between the good news and the need, between the living water and the thirst, between life and death, between deliverance and bondage, between sight and blindness? Does it run through Head office? Does it run through executive or regional gatherings? Is it the local church? Or is it the home, workspace, and secular community where the individual Christian lives and works?

- Does God intend that it is primarily the church corporate that is the agent/subject of his ministry, or does he intend the church corporate to be merely the collective gathering of those (every member) who are his intended agents of his ministry? In other words, does God intend the church corporate to be a cause or an effect? Has the Holy Spirit been given to the church corporate or to the individual people who comprise the church? Should we arguing that “The church should be doing … (x,y,z)… “ or should we be

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urging one another individually to do these things in living relationship with a community of people who are all doing similar things?

- Are wisdom, vision and insight in the church centrifugal or centripetal? Do they flow from the centre to the periphery or from the periphery to the centre? Or should we accept that they reside in all of us, the great and the small? Is the voice of wisdom monophonic (one speaks and all listen) or is it polyphonic (all speak and all listen?) As a corollary: are local ministers agents of the denomination, or is the denomination just the sum of the local ministries? Do the “heads” appointed at the centre (denominational leaders, department heads, etc.) disseminate wisdom, vision and insight to the local workers, or do they hear and learn and disseminate and co-ordinate in the light of the wisdom, vision and insight of the workers (members and ministers) themselves?

Theological diversity has for 2000 years supplied various answers to these questions. From the side of the established churches of Europe, especially the Roman and Anglican communities, the answers have stressed and buttressed the notion of a centralised spiritual authority and efficacy , with each local priest empowered “from above” by ordination to represent “the church”, and each local church operating as a franchise faithfully representing a brand: the wisdom and power of central figures of authority.

The radically opposite wing of the church, notably the free churches, has in stark contrast stressed the autonomy of each person as an agent of God, with total lack of insistence on ranks or central powers. All community, whether local, regional, national or international is therefore considered voluntary and optional – except in the case of regular local church services which are NOT optional. The local community is in no way an expression of a wider ideological franchise other than “the body of Christ”, but it usually would exist and work in fellowship with others of like mind and purpose.

In the ancient British Isles the Roman Church demonstrated the application of the former model of community and governance, while the Celtic churches demonstrated the latter model, opting for a field-governed mission ethos rather than centralised governance.

If it is accepted that the “rubber hits the road” in the same location as the coalface exists (the interface between light and darkness), namely where the individual believer lives and works in the world, then really only one ideology of church structure consistent with that perception may legitimately exist. Such an ideology will ask this question “Does this gathering, structure, committee, leadership claim or strategy, contribute in any meaningful manner to the empowerment of the worker at the coalface? Would the worker at the coalface ever even notice if it were dismantled?”

5. Advantages and disadvantages of centralised structures:

Since Elim currently operates unashamedly as a centralised top-down structure (with some modifiers and ambivalences), it is reasonable to consider some of the more obvious strengths and weaknesses of such a system. The advantages of centralised structures are generic and fairly straightforward, representative of most such structures, but not necessarily requiring top-down leadership and management. The advantages of decentralisation, on the other hand, are well-attested in both national politics and church governance.

Advantages:

- Mission and evangelisation at local level may be co-ordinated through the centre, to avoid “re-inventing the wheel” or ploughing the same field;

- Workers and standards can be mutually agreed, as happens elsewhere in e g the Medical Council, Law Association, etc.;

- Common beliefs can be readily expressed and re-visited;- The centre offers an arena for the ebb and flow of contributions from visible and gifted leaders, and from

the wise and mature, as the tide of the times requires;5

- Facilitates aspects of the “glue” that holds groups together in coherent and common purpose;- Provides a forum for expressions of unity and diversity, perhaps not so much “setting the rules” as

affirming mutual standards.

None of these advantages demands an authoritarian or centre-governed structure; all can be experienced in open, voluntary and field-governed settings which nevertheless assent to some organisation at the centre.

Disadvantages:

(Many of these disadvantages are related particularly to authoritatively-centralised or top-down centralised structures, and can be avoided in more open or “releasing” forms of community where anything centralised is an expression of mutual assent and not of a command structure.)

- Wisdom is inevitably considered, implicitly or explicitly, to be located in just a few - usually identified as “anointed visionaries” or as appointed heads and officials;

- Local churches and workers may be expected to operate as a franchise of the brand and vision of the denominational centre and leadership, thereby stifling local and individual creativity;

- The ethos of the centre may lag behind social reality at local level , e g the education, social class and style of central leadership may not be equivalent to the median educational level, social class and style implicit in the demography of the local churches. This “social lag” can cause a major disconnect, where visitors find no resonance with their daily tasks and values, and church members may “dumb down” in corporate church settings to fit into the denominational norm as expressed by the centre. Church history is replete with examples of this e g the Roman Church’s objection to the scientific assumptions of Columbus and Galileo;

- The preferences and prejudices of a few can become determinative for the whole – this may be one of the primary reasons for the absence of 20-40 year-olds in our churches: as Generation Y they are not confrontational, but they are dismissive of the claims of both Boomer and early Gen X leaders to represent their tastes and views – therefore they express their dissent passively by simply withdrawing from church;

- In cases where central leadership exerts real power over local workers, and especially where they have the power to select their own leadership coterie around them, the development of a please-the-leader syndrome is inevitable – as is the temptation to catch the eye of the leader;

- This raises the spectre of unconscious or deliberate spiritual abuse by leaders with real power, that can affect the vocational development (and associated valid income aspirations) of local workers who may not fit the mould of expectation of just a few powerful people;

- Centralised forms of governance may be tempted to locate issues of dispute, confrontation and discipline in the political realm (the judicial power wielded by those with real power in the organisation) rather than in an independent entity. The history of nation-states demonstrates adequately how unfair and abusive such a control of “justice” by the executive can become – in church history, Martin Luther is a typical example of the manner in which powerful church leadership sat in unfair judgement over a faithful minister who dissented from both their values and their rule;

- The needs of the worker at the coalface may be subordinated to the needs of organisation and leadership, who have a need to establish their own significance while inevitably performing their own task at a distance from the coalface itself;

- A natural and demonstrated tendency tends toward a controlling rather than a releasing paradigm of leadership, so that eventually it might be no longer Christ alone who is the final filter and arbiter of local and personal ministry style and allocation but the wider denominational leader (-ship.) If in addition they claim to do this as “anointed” representatives of Christ, their paradigm moves even further from the more relational free church ethos;

- The significant voice of the people of God, in every context, migrates from the polyphonic to the monophonic – inevitably the voice of the many ceases in the face of the inevitability of the One or the Few alone being heard;

- Unity may eventually be compelled rather than mutually affirmed. This could eventuate in a system of coercion “from above” that might deal with the visible symptom rather than the malady;

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- Strongly centralised and controlled structures usually attract two types of local workers: (a) those that are largely nondescript conformists, and (b) those that are willing to compete quite ruthlessly to reach and maintain the higher ranks of real power over others – the non-aspirational and the selfishly aspirational. Neither is particularly the stuff that enlightened communities would want working at local church level.

I am in no way implying that the above is what Elim is at present – but that 2015 is a good time to re-tailor and re-tool the movement at even this basic level of governance in order to face the challenges of a changing social context in the UK. Any developments in the direction of the above disadvantages will severely restrict the movement in attempting to reach a new generation of unbelief and churchlessness.

6. Conclusion: some suggestions for Elim 2015:

As a Pentecostal minister who has personally lived with and performed a wide scope of Christian ministry and leadership, may I provoke further discussion by submitting the following points?

f) That Elim reconsider its centralised structure of church governance, and move consciously toward a model that migrates real influence closer to the coalface and to where “the rubber hits the road.”

g) This would imply the practical implementation of the implications of the theological ethos already expressed in the Fundamental Truths of the movement – an egalitarian, free church priesthood of all believers.

h) In practical terms this could find expression in granting full autonomous status to every local church as a registered charity in its own right. This could be accompanied by the devolution of property deeds and financial rights to each local church, and full autonomy in choosing its own local leadership. Obviously this need not happen overnight, and may not be implied to the full radical extent possible.

i) Centralised ministries and departments such as Missions, Youth, Evangelism, Ladies, and others might be decentralised at least to local regional level but preferably (and more consistently with Elim’s declared theology) to local churches. This would release the creativity of local churches and regions in these areas of endeavour, and locate incentive and reward closer to the coalface.

j) That the constitutional role of the NLT and GS be revisited to give consistent expression to the above changes. In terms of the current decision-makers in the church this would obviously be the most radical challenge in the process.

Such changes might sound radical if the status quo is canonised, but in the light of the developing societal and religious context of the next 50-100 years, they might equally feature as a valid proactive response – maintaining the core beliefs and dynamics of the movement while changing what might be changed without real loss and potentially with great gain. It would also recognise that the process of “building bigger people” has reached the place where it can now reward its own success by releasing its progeny from most aspects of central oversight.

At my age and place in life I have no personal stake or advantage in these changes, I submit my insights and arguments because God has led me down a long pathway where these matters have been the stuff of my own ministry – and because I have lived through a number of examples of decentralisation of church governance that have galvanised the role-players and stimulated huge and effective Christian ministry. I am obviously very willing to produce and explain my arguments at any forum that leadership might choose, individually, corporately or publicly.

January, 2015.

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I was born and bred in Durban, South Africa. After High School I did my national service in the South African Commandoes, and then became a computer analyst-programmer. After completing a 3-year theology diploma in 1972, I have been in Pentecostal ministry with the AFM of SA since January 1973. I ministered for 8 years in rural Rhodesia during the Bush War, in fact I lived just 55 miles from where the massacre of Elim missionaries took place. I returned to RSA in late 1980 to complete a postgraduate BD degree, and from 1984 lectured at a Pentecostal seminary and contemporaneously at the University of Johannesburg. In 2007 I moved to the UK and Regents. In RSA I served for extended periods in leadership at local, regional, seminary, university and denominational levels. I hold a BA in Bible Languages, a postgraduate BD, and 2 PhD’s in theology. I have been married to Valerie since 1975, and have a son and a daughter in RSA, one a botanist and the other a biokineticist.

As a College student and young pastor I lived through a number of changes in ethos in my own denomination, most significant being the eventual rejection in the early 1970’s of a long-proposed rapprochement with Afrikaner nationalism and the Reformed churches. This led to the affirmation of a distinctively Pentecostal ethos in leadership, theology and liturgy.

However, as a scholar and leader I later became involved in at least 3 major radical changes in the structure of the Apostolic Faith Mission of S Africa:

a) In the 1980’s the Executive Council imperilled the financial viability of the church by speculative dealings in foreign currency. Every local church was compelled to take a portion of the debt they had incurred, pro-rata to their membership, to pay it off. Conference then effectively applied a radical decentralisation of power, from the centre to the local regions and churches . This included transfer of property deeds to the now-autonomous local churches (in UK terms, each local church became a charity), the sale of all centrally-held property with Head Office and the Executive Council required to run at a Conference-controlled budget in rented premises, and the disbanding of all permanent departments such as Youth, Children, Women, Missions and Evangelisation. I was involved in this as a recognised theological voice and as one who – through international contacts - had practical knowledge of other models of doing church than the AFM was implementing;

b) The AFM of SA entered the 1990’s as a segregated church but by 1996 was a racially united denomination. I was part of the theological and constitutional discussions leading to this: as an elected denominational leader; by virtue of my theological expertise (a PhD on political theologies); and as an “honest broker” since I was part of a tiny ethnic minority in the church (White and English) which had no particular ethnic axe to grind. I was also intensively involved in the negotiations to unite theological training in the denomination, a crucial concern as the church demanded formal degree-level theological studies from all applicants to ministry;

c) As the denomination approached the year 2000 a growing agitation among larger-church leaders and some denominational figures developed, arguing for adoption by the AFM of a form of the New Apostolic paradigm of leadership. The modified form was implemented in 2000. It centralised “vision and power” in the office-bearers of the church, thus undoing many aspects of the decentralisation achieved over the preceding 2 decades and leading to a more paternalistic model of governance. I figured in this process mainly as a dissenting denominational leader and a theological critic.1

(Just for context: The Apostolic Faith Mission of SA has about 2000 full-time workers and 1.5 million members, and their seminary when I left in July 2007 had about 500 students, ranging from 1st Year BA to PhD.)

1 Documented proactively as http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyberj16/clark.html and in retrospect at http:// clark msdr.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ apostles-or-bishops .doc

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Appendix 1

Below: The eight leaders of the denomination that were elected at the Easter 1991 conference. (Pinksterboodskapper was the Direction magazine of the AFM of SA.)

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Appendix 2: Apropos of nothing and just for Elim Interest – a testimony given in 1991 in the AFM of SA: note the mention of Stephen Jeffries – the Indian work now numbers some tens of thousands of AFM Pentecostal converts

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