By Rebecca Bowman Woods, DisciplesWorld news and website editor

INDIANAPOLIS (3/26/09) — Disciples who expected quick organizational fixes to bring the structure of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) into better alignment with its mission priorities may be disappointed by the report the Mission Alignment Coordinating Council (MACC) is bringing to the denomination’s General Board next month.  

But the group wanted to heed the lessons it learned during the past nine months, and is asking for more time to complete its work, according to members.

The MACC made its report available online March 25. The report includes a brief summary of feedback received, along with nine proposals to be considered by the General Board. The Board will consider each proposal separately when it meets April 18-21.

“This is not a restructure commission,” said Newell Williams, Disciples’ moderator and MACC chairperson. “What you see are the report of initial efforts to coordinate mission alignment with proposals for continuing that process.”

The first proposal in the MACC report calls for restructuring the General Board and changing its standing rules to implement a “mission review and dialogue process” with general ministries of the church.  Each of the denomination’s 10 general ministries has its own board and functions separately, making periodic reports to the General Board and General Assembly about its work.

The proposal positions the mission review process as a way for the General Board to better coordinate the church’s mission and allocate funding across general ministries. The report steers clear of implying that the General Board would have additional oversight of general ministries.

A trained General Board team would pilot the new process in 2010, using the Office of General Minister and President as a test case. The following year, a team would do a mission review with the denomination’s financial ministries — the Pension Fund, the Christian Church Foundation, and Church Extension. Other general ministries would go through the process on a rotating basis.

Two proposals deal with the denomination’s racial/ethnic ministries — the Central Pastoral Office of Hispanic Ministries (CPOHM), North American Pacific/Asian Disciples (NAPAD), and the National Convocation. The MACC is proposing a General Minister and President’s Pastoral Table where the heads of these three ministries and the denomination’s general minister would discuss the pastoral matters of the larger church as equals.

Each racial/ethnic ministry is structurally related to the denomination in a different way, in part because of how those relationships evolved historically. One of the MACC’s proposals would move NAPAD out of Disciples Home Missions (DHM) and place it “in a more equitable position” with the other two racial/ethnic ministries, according to the report. NAPAD would report directly to the General Board, as Hispanic Ministries does now.

Early models for denominational change, circulated by the MACC last summer, did not go over well with some African-American Disciples, according to MACC member Sotello Long. Some National Convocation members thought the proposed models violated the historic agreements of the 1960s, when the Convocation’s predecessor — the predominantly-black National Christian Missionary Convention — merged with the mostly-white church. Three “merger positions” created in the merger agreements have been part of discussions between MACC and the Convocation, Long said.

Another proposal in the MACC’s report requests that the Council of General Ministries (CGM) —  which decides how to allocate the general ministries’ portion of Disciples Mission Fund among those ministries — consider distributing additional funds to the three racial/ethnic ministries. According to Williams, the MACC understood that CGM would already be considering additional allocations to HELM, the Council on Christian Unity, and the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. The MACC’s proposal “amounts to a request that racial ethnic ministries also be included in this allocation,” Williams said.

Other proposals call for dialogue with Disciples Women's Ministries; for coordination of various justice and advocacy ministries across the church; for exploring a closer relationship between the Council on Christian Unity and the Office of General Minister and President; and for greater collaboration on new church establishment.

The MACC’s last proposal is to extend its work by a year.  If the General Board approves, the MACC would convene a gathering in May to “name questions about the nature and need of Disciples congregations.” Representatives from general ministries and their boards, regions, racial/ethnic constituencies, and staff would be a part of this expanded gathering.

Other meetings would be held in the fall and in January 2010. The MACC would present a report and action plan to the General Board in April 2010.

The MACC was created by the General Board last April, and its members were chosen by General Minister and President Sharon E. Watkins, in consulation with the denomination's moderators. 
Its purpose “was to look at organizational issues hampering the forward movement in our ability to be and to share the Good News as a movement for wholeness,” its report notes.

Its work built on the priorities of the denomination’s 2020 Vision — leader development, congregational transformation, establishing new churches, and becoming a pro-reconciliation, anti-racist church. The MACC also continued the theological identity work begun by another group Watkins convened — the 21st Century Vision Team.

Last April, the General Board outlined three desired outcomes for the MACC — to clarify the General Board’s responsibilities, to help the church embrace diversity, and to resource congregations for ministry.

The group met in June, September, and November 2008 and in January 2009.  

The MACC didn’t want to take on more than it could accomplish, Watkins said, so they decided to focus on general ministries first. Later, they realized that conversations about equipping congregations needed to include Disciples regions. An expanded process will allow this, and other types of broader participation, to happen, Watkins said.

Former Disciples Moderator Bill Lee also served on the MACC. While he hoped the group’s efforts might go further, “it went about how I expected,” he said. He called the MACC’s work “a diligent, consistent effort…to really take a look at how we might restructure the church.”

The MACC’s report is “a launching pad for us,” Lee said.

The cost of the MACC’s meetings to date is $44,622, said Todd Adams, associate general minister and president.

Most of it has been funded with money the Council of General Ministries held in escrow from the National Benevolent Association’s (NBA) Disciples Mission Fund (DMF) allocation. In 2004, during the NBA bankruptcy, the church suspended DMF funding to the general ministry, which now operates as Disciples Benevolent Services. In 2005 the General Board restored a partial allocation, with the rest going into the escrow account.

Watkins has been in conversation with other groups and ministries in the church to explore sharing the funding of future MACC meetings, if the General Board agrees to continue the MACC’s work.

Related articles on disciplesworld.com: 

Denomination's realignment plan could combine DHM and HELM (7/11/08)

General Board approves principles for re-aligning church’s structure with mission (4/18/08)

Moderator calls new General Board to become "resurrection specialists" (4/30/07)

Church leadership wants 'less structure, more mission' (7/27/06)