Josh Packard

During my time in the field I witnessed numerous decisions being made, from the relatively small (e.g., what should worship look like this week) to the obviously large (e.g., how to allocate and spend money). My observations started me thinking that these congregations really avoid using a single, set procedure for making decisions, and this did not seem to be an accident. I found that the heavily institutionalized decision-making process exemplified by Robert’s Rules of Order that most churches utilize is anathema to a group of people who are trying to avoid institutionalization. Instead, my respondents typically embraced the unpredictability inherent in a process driven by dialogue and widespread, rather than representative, participation.

Rather than relying on a set list of procedures, the congregations in this study employed a more context specific decision-making process. A context specific process is one which takes into account not only what is being decided, but also who is making the decision. Thus, the way a decision is made is not determined a priori but rather on the spot, according to makeup of the participants and the specifics of the decision being made. That having been said, there are two modes of decision making that were common to every congregation I visited, open-consensus, and direct democracy.

Open Consensus

Open consensus means that decisions are made by a consensus involving anyone who shows up at a given discussion. Not surprisingly, this way of making context specific decisions is most effective in smaller group settings. The vast majority of meetings and gatherings at the congregations I visited were open to the entire congregation. People were actively encouraged to attend through both public announcements and individual, private conversations. The openness of these meetings was a frequent source of pride and strong point of identity with the people I interviewed and it was often described in opposition to the relatively closed process of church council meetings which dominate governance at so many mainline denominational churches they came from.

My experiences in the field confirmed the openness of these meetings, and it became clear that this open invitation was only able to be managed through a consensus process. A consensus process allows for the voice of the expert to carry more weight than in a simple, majority rules direct vote. This process privileges voices with experience and expertise by creating a more diverse environment than traditional bureaucratic structures. Often these experts are designated as such simply by their presence in the group or committee holding the meeting.

One of the key components that allows an open consensus decision-making process to work is the absence of parliamentary procedure or some other formal set of rules. Instead, discussions are held until everyone is satisfied that their viewpoint has been heard and taken into account. It is important to note that a process focused on consensus does not necessarily mean that everyone agrees with the decision in the end. What utilization of this procedure does ensure, however, is that people’s voices are heard and everyone has the ability to influence the final decision. It allows for the specific decision and makeup of the room to influence the process, because particular decisions will attract different groups of people.

Chris, from Incarnate Word, indicated that this way of making decisions was not uncommon at his church.

Interviewer: So how do decisions get made?
Chris: Well we pray about it and we talk about it. Like some people are talking about having worship outside one week and just do an outdoor thing, or who are we going to tithe to? Just we get different ideas from different people. Because we all value each other because we’re all peers. We just discuss things in dialogue until we come to some conclusion.

I had a chance to observe this process in action during one of the weekly gatherings as the group decided how to spend their outreach resources for the month. After the call for proposals by the person leading worship, Eric stood up from the congregation and said he hoped that the congregation could commit to supporting an overseas missionary from a nearby congregation who also attended their own services (Incarnate Word gatherings are held on Wednesday nights making dual attendance not only possible but also a reality for many of the people I talked with). Eric’s proposal launched a discussion of whether supporting an overseas missionary was the best thing for the low-income community where the church was located. After some conversation, a compromise was reached. The congregation agreed to support the missionary with funds and to devote time this month to a community organization which provided day care for children during the summer.

This process was subject to many of the traditional difficulties of a consensus decision-making process. It took a good amount of time, nearly twenty minutes of the hour long gathering, and the discussion privileged those which had more access to knowledge either in the form of advanced preparation or in the ability to formulate and mobilize arguments quickly. Eric appeared to have prepared arguments in advance to support his case, and a conversation with him afterward confirmed this. The group that was able to effectively argue for dividing time and monetary resources in order to devote time to the community were already volunteers at the community day care allowing them access to information others might not have had prior to the gathering.

While this differential influence is a problem for organizations which employ consensus decision-making as an alternative to democracy or authoritarian practices, these are not issues for groups which rely on a continually shifting structure. Allowing for the differential influence based on knowledge and experience that accompanies consensus decision-making helps to mitigate against the establishment of a routine system of governance.