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.
Continue reading ‘Context Specific Governance-pt. 1′

I have received several emails asking questions about my research process and how I got interested in pursuing research with the Emerging Church in general.  My friend, Daniel Ehniss, a member of an Emerging community in Germany did an email interview with me the other day that is posted over at his English website.  Here’s the link if you’re interested.

The Unplanned Event

Additionally, the unplanned event is a structural way that these congregations were able to compel widespread participation in congregational activities. It is important that we not confuse “unplanned” with another term such as unscheduled or unprogrammed. An unplanned event is a regularly scheduled activity where people arrive knowing basically what to expect. However, these events are not planned out regarding exactly who is to do or say what. A good example of a deliberately unplanned event in many Emerging Churches is the weekly worship. In these services it is not uncommon for tasks, both repetitive and creative, to be carried out by a person who was unaware of the role he/she would be playing when he/she walked through the door. A good example of this is from Incarnate Word which has what they call “creative worship” where supplies are provided for drawing or painting and people are encouraged to journal or be creative in some way during the service. For some people that means actually sharing something with the rest of the congregation.

Of course, this corporate participation is made possible by the relatively small number of people in the congregation (25 on a given week). However, this same strategy of the unplanned event can be utilized in larger congregations as well. At Living Word they have a tremendous percentage of the congregation who participates in any given service. In each of the six services I attended, there were between 15 and 20 people participating in the worship and 100-120 people in the “audience.” My observations about the large participation were confirmed in the interviews with congregants. Megan pointed out that the lack of planning and indeed the lack of even the potential for planning due to a very small and underpaid staff, meant that most people come knowing that they need to participate in order for the service to happen.

“We need everybody to participate in order for this church to run and given that our paid staff is not paid to an extent to where they can be making everything happen and there’s not this huge support system there so if the community doesn’t do it then this church would not happen. Because it is such a small church and it’s such a grassroots thing you do feel very compelled to participate and help actually make the service happen I think because it is like If I don’t do it nobody is going to do it because it is such a small group. I mean I’ve met so many people who were like I went to Living Word three times and the fourth time I was serving communion. It’s a lot different playing in the band. It’s just a whole different level of engagement seeing what’s going on behind the scenes not that there’s a whole lot hidden, I mean it’s kind of like Do it Yourself church but it definitely makes me feel much more connected and much more engaged in the whole process and connected to the people there.”

The interesting thing to note about Megan’s comments are how she connects the way work is done to the kind of relationships that are formed. In her opinion, taking advantage of the unplanned event to compel the utilization of willing labor is a good thing because it promotes people feeling “engaged” and “connected.” It is the reliance on personal relationships which underlies nearly every effort to resist institutionalization. The only thing my respondents seemed to know for sure when they arrived was that they better be prepared to contribute in some way. The unplanned event compels people who might otherwise not have the time or inclination to be involved in the planning of an event to be a participant and offer his/her talents to the proceedings. The unpredictability created by this strategy makes it very difficult to institutionalize any official position (e.g., Greeter, Communion Server, etc.), and thus, the routines and procedures that develop along with these official positions in mainstream organizations are avoided while relationships are strengthened.

In the rational-bureaucracies which dominate the field of religion, labor is organized according to a complex scheme with specific tasks and duties assigned to a position in a hierarchy (known as a job description) regardless of individual desire at a particular moment. In the congregations I visited, however, labor tended to be organized according to personal inclination.

Activities and events were not organized or put on by the church staff for the congregants, but rather the congregants organized events and gatherings for themselves. A labor force of the willing consists of three distinct components. First, activities are initiated by the congregants. Second, the activity is maintained without interference from the official church staff. Finally, in order to avoid institutionalization, the activity is allowed to end or dissolve when there is no longer sufficient interest from the organizer. In other words, relying on a labor force of the willing means that programs are not continued because “that’s the way things have always been done.” Continue reading ‘The Labor of the Willing-pt. 1′

You can find a summary of what I learned about the Emerging Church in a PDF, here. Additionally, I will use this space to periodically release more updates, discussions and key points from my research. I hope that this information can be as useful for others as it has been for me. I have enabled comments on this blog, so please feel free to contribute to the conversation. [NOTE: Due to some initial technical difficulties, many of you may be linked to the archive page. Please click to Research Blog link to the right or click here in order to access the blog.]