A Response to the
Form of Government (FOG)
Proposal
Robert Austell, Pastor,
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC
I've been studying and praying, leading my session and congregation toward becoming thoroughly missional in our mindset and response to our calling. Several months ago, when the Form of Government Task Force alerted pastors and sessions that they were seeking input on the final draft of their document, I described their endeavor to my Session. And I sold it.

The result? You could hear the birds chirping. One elder spoke up, "You're saying that they are re-writing the first part of the Book of Order?" That got the reaction I am more used to with teenagers.... "Whatever." There was a sense of complete irrelevance and disconnect from the values, priorities, and realities of our local congregation-and we are majoring on missional thinking! These are plugged-in, interested elders, and this left them cold. How will this ever go over nationally? The idea behind the work of the F.O.G Task Force is probably good, but there are several substantial hurdles that must be overcome before we can move forward with missional restructuring through polity.

Hurdle 1: Confusion
Book of Order amendments leave many people blank-faced. I have been the lead interpreter/explainer in my presbytery for the last three rounds of constitutional amendments sent to the presbyteries following General Assemblies. It takes significant preparation, communication, and presentation to invite meaningful interaction on even the smallest changes to the Book of Order.
This is a complete revision of the "G" section of the Book of Order. What is being changed and why? What has been left out? What has been added? Why this word or phrase? What was the intent? What will be the unintended consequences?
For the average reader (and even for the advanced one!) it is hard to follow what is happening beyond the overall assertion that these changes are more missional. For that matter, what does "missional" mean? How can significant polity restructuring create a framework for missional redirection?

Hurdle 2: Trust
When subject matter is confusing, communities with relationships of mutual trust can agree to take a step of faith. But the PC(USA) is not rich in mutual trust right now. Trust may be one of our scarcest commodities. I wish it were not so. I am a bridge-builder and look for opportunities to develop trust, but (re)building trust is a long-term project.

There is much water under the bridge, and much of the bridge's support structure has been weakened by the fights and debates and realities in our part of the Church. In many ways, this feels like a proposal to start demolishing the weakening bridge and building something stronger in its place-a potentially exciting prospect! But, such construction is a team effort.

Hurdle 3: Timing
The 2006 General Assembly approved the report of the Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force. With a mere six recommendations and some explanation, my presbytery took 15 months and committed one hour for four meetings and then six hours at a final meeting to study, discuss, listen, and try to understand the implications of that report for our life together. The first invitation to comment on the F.O.G. came two weeks after that 15-month study period ended. Our presbytery simply doesn't have the endurance to enter another extended study of something that is longer, more complicated, and more confusing.

Hurdle 4: Buy-In
Interest in missional thinking is a biblically faithful breath of fresh air. But inviting the PC(USA) into a new missional "way of being" through polity restructuring seems less than helpful. All the words in the world won't make people be missional. People must embrace a new way of thinking and a new way of being. Pushing the Form of Government proposal through this General Assembly will not only present a series of hurdles, but will create a series of obstacles, and keep us from focusing outward toward the world that God loves.

Being (becoming) God's missional people isn't a word-thing, it's an action-thing. Let's work on being missional at the congregational, presbytery, and national levels until congregations and presbyteries are crying out for missional polity. Working side by side in the mission of God may address that hardest hurdle--trust, so that at whatever point we come back to the matter of foundational polity, we are ready to forge God's future together.