Post by philiprosenthal on Apr 25, 2006 8:49:19 GMT
The following open letter to the EveryNation and His People leadership was first distributed on February 10th 2004.
Dear friends in His People and MorningStar/EveryNation
While I acknowledge with appreciation the many good aspects of our movement
build by our founder. A lot of people will ask how such bad things can
happen in such a well constructed movement? How could it fall so quickly?
I argue the leadership system is profoundly lacking in one area:
accountability and discipline in leadership. This meant that the movement
worked extremely well until our founder backslid. Then it became almost
impossible to check bad leadership behaviour by himself and others.
Thankfully, it was eventually it was possible to do so, but one should be
able to stop a problematic leader before things get as extreme as a
confession of adultery.
Many churches based on the His People/EveryNation model essentially lack any means to hold leadership accountable for their actions.
If anyone does know of a method - please email and tell me. I have tried a
few methods. In reality, they don't function. The organisation is
constructed to defend itself against rather than encourage leadership
accountability. I understand that the predecessor of MorningStar
Ministries, namely Maranatha Ministries at one time ran into the same
trouble and also crashed as a result. Rice Broocks in his book 'Recovering
the apostolic mandate', bemoans the tragedy of short-lived ministries
constructed without a good foundation. I am not convinced however that we
have learned from our history and are thus at risk of repeating it.
Essentially, a pyramid organisation is constructed in which everyone is
accountable to someone above them, but no-one below them. Problem is that
the person at the top has low or non-existent accountability. An elite
develops near the top with a vested interest in protecting eachothers power
base. Anyone who tries to hold them accountable simply gets marginalised
and/or counter-accused of some imagined offence. Church discipline and the
threat of it may be used to bolster such imaginary offences and thus
intimidate those who try to hold the leadership accountable. Click on the links below to read two documents which will help decrease the risk of church discipline being
abused in this way.
www.fbinstitute.com/hiscox/chapter7.html
www.fmc-canada.org/manual/chapternine.htm
Under the present ad-hoc system, an innocent person can
quite easily be found guilty in a church 'kangaroo court', wheras if proper
procedure were followed, it would be much more difficult. This creates and
environment in which bad leadership behaviour can thrive unchallenged and
unexposed to the light of day.
Now follower-accountability, leadership-accountability and personal
life-accountaiblity are three different things. We always had reasonable
follower-accountability. MorningStar Ministries has emphasised the need for
personal-life accountability in the form of discipleship. But leadership
accountability is something different. It is the ability of followers to
hold leaders accountable to behave according to their own teaching and
promises. The discipleship-shepherding movement (emphasising personal accou
ntability), which began in the United States in the 1970's became
discredited and collapsed because it emphasised follower and personal life
accountability without leadership accountability. It was also a pyramid
structure which gave leaders excessive power to control the personal lives
of their followers. This power was abused and one after another its leaders
resigned. Now, follower-accountability and personal life accountability are
good if they are balanced also with leadership accountablity. But without
leadership accountability, they can make the problem worse, because abusive
leaders get power to control peoples personal lives - thus discrediting the
system for those who use it properly.
Essentially, our whole system of church government was constructed in a
hurry in the rapid growth of a movement, without much concious thought about
accountability - and needs reform. Other older denominations have thought
more about these issues and can help us with the lessons they have learned
from similar historic problems. This is why I attach these documents, which
I would encourage leaders to use until such time as MorningStar produces
their own manual. (I have previously written to ask MorningStar to produce
a manual and am awaiting a response.)
While both His People and MorningStar look to the reformation for
inspiration, we forget that one of the main issues of the reformation was
reform of the system of church government - from the pyramid structure of
the Roman Catholic Church to accountable church government of the various
older protestant denominations. Now we abandon those gains to go back to
the pyramid system.
ANSWERING OBJECTIONS
Before anyone accuse me of disloyalty for criticising the movement, please
remember that I have been a member of His People Ministries almost since its
inception in 1989. I have had no conflict with the church except in
relation to confronting the scandals which have afflicted the church during
the last few years. Few had the courage to confront these. Having worked
extensively in Christian leadership in many organisations, I know also that
His People is not the only organisation
with these problems - in fact, they are quite common, but usually well
covered up. Nevertheless, this being my home church and organisation, I
feel more responsibilty to try to do something constructive to remedy them.
I also acknowledge that the current leadership of His People Cape Town and
the many others who have copied its model, have inherited a defective
system, which they did not necessarily design themselves - and may also have
the intent to change. I am thus not writing this as an attack on the
current leadership, but as a contribution towards reforming the system of
church government.
Now some of you will say. My church has had no scandals and no such
problems - why should we change our system of church government? Because
the current pyramid system works fine so long as all the people perform
brilliantly - but when there are problems in leadership, then you can't deal
with them. His People Cape Town has been constructed like a Ferrari with no
brakes. That is why it crashed. Nevertheless, brakes have not yet been
installed. It could crash again. And so could a lot of other churches
constructed without functional accountability systems.
Someone else will say. Are you promoting democracy in church? No. The
democratic church government system works better than our system in terms of
reducing abuses, but its weakness is that the sheep can too easily out-vote
the shepherds. Our reformed system must take into account spiritual
maturity and not leave everyone equal. I am calling for accountability
systems for example in terms of agreed fair procedures and forums to discuss
and resolve problems - not democracy.
Someone else will say. Don't you trust me/my pastor? This question ignores
the Christian doctrine of the fallenness of human nature - both in character
and ability. To assume that any leader is infallible and does not need
accountability is a form of idolatory. The history of human government both
secular and church demonstrates that those systems of government which have
performed best are based on the Christian assumption of the fallenness of
human nature and those which have failed are based on idolatory of an
unaccountable hero-leader. Even in the unlikely scenario that a leader
never made any serious mistakes, a system cannot be constructed around that
individual, because he could leave his position any day and be replaced by
someone else who does make mistakes.
Someone else will say. We leaders are busy. We don't have time for
worrying about forms of church government and discipline. Okay, but what if
all your work one day hits tragedy? Don't you want a safety net to protect
it?
Someone else will say. I only have a small church. Is this really that
important for us? Accountability systems are expensive and time consuming.
As an organisation grows bigger, the potential for abuse of power and
elitism of leaders grows greater. Thus more and more accountability systems
are needed. In a small church (below 150 people), much accountability is
enforced by personal relationships. As it gets bigger, leaders get more and
more separated from followers and the risk of problems increases. Grow your
accountability systems as your organisation grows.
Someone else will say. You are being arrogant. What do you know about
church government and discipline? I would not pretend to be an expert at
this, but I would argue that there are clearly problems with the way we
currently operate - and that we need to study the more successful and
durable models of other older movements. I will research what I can to
contribute to the debate.
What of the systems already in place - don't they work? Appeal to
MorningStar? MorningStar apostles are busy and very selective about the
problems they intervene to address. Most members of the congregation don't
know how to contact them and are probably afraid to anyway. They only
occasionally visit and when they do only talk to senior people. From what I
can see, they only respond to issues where the local church pastors ask them
to intervene. We must appreciate the work MorningStar International does,
but also recognise their limitations. What of the option of appealing to
salaried staff of the church to raise a controversial issue? Okay. Are
they going to risk their jobs, promotion prospects and popularity in the
organisation to challenge their superior on an issue raised by a church
member - when they in any case have little chance of overcoming the systems
defences? If you know anyone like this, I would love to meet them. Please
email me and tell me their name.
Someone else will say: We have been dealing with crises and haven't had
time for this. Okay. Pastor Paul's adultery was exposed in May 2003. Well
done to those who have kept the ship steady since then. But we have had
almost a year now. How about we aim to put a better system of church
government in place by May 2004?
Now, to prevent more scandals, we need to strengthen the accountability
systems in our churches, which includes reforming both church government and
church discipline. The current system is wide open to abuse and likely to
be abused further.
A first step would be the adoption of orderly church discipline procedure to
prevent its abuse.
For those who don't have time to read the attached documents, here is a
summary of a few important points:
· disputes chaired and judged by persons not party to the dispute;
· fair hearing of both sides including freedom of speech during hearings and
reasonable opportunity reply to accusations;
· timeous hearing of disputes;
· clear and consistent procedures as to how they will be handled;
· clear ruling with reasons given;
· investigations stick to the issue in question, rather than bringing up
other issues;
· procedures and structures once initiated remain to the conclusion of the
dispute;
· appeals heard by someone other than that who made the original decision;
· if appeals are not heard, reasons should be given for not hearing them;
· acknowledgement of correspondence;
· records kept of disciplinary meetings, to which parties involved should
have access;
right to bring witnesses to disciplinary hearings.
Someone may criticise me for raising these issues via the internet. Essentially,
the movement has no other forum to do so. And this is one of the problems I
am raising, which needs to be remedied. So I call for a reform of our
systems of church government and discipline.
It is painful to discuss these things, both because power is involved and
because it is not pleasant to confront problems - but the alternative of
denial and defensiveness will lead to bigger problems. So we must confront
and deal with these painful issues.
If you agree with and support these ideas or if you disagree with me, please
email me and say so.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Rosenthal
Dear friends in His People and MorningStar/EveryNation
While I acknowledge with appreciation the many good aspects of our movement
build by our founder. A lot of people will ask how such bad things can
happen in such a well constructed movement? How could it fall so quickly?
I argue the leadership system is profoundly lacking in one area:
accountability and discipline in leadership. This meant that the movement
worked extremely well until our founder backslid. Then it became almost
impossible to check bad leadership behaviour by himself and others.
Thankfully, it was eventually it was possible to do so, but one should be
able to stop a problematic leader before things get as extreme as a
confession of adultery.
Many churches based on the His People/EveryNation model essentially lack any means to hold leadership accountable for their actions.
If anyone does know of a method - please email and tell me. I have tried a
few methods. In reality, they don't function. The organisation is
constructed to defend itself against rather than encourage leadership
accountability. I understand that the predecessor of MorningStar
Ministries, namely Maranatha Ministries at one time ran into the same
trouble and also crashed as a result. Rice Broocks in his book 'Recovering
the apostolic mandate', bemoans the tragedy of short-lived ministries
constructed without a good foundation. I am not convinced however that we
have learned from our history and are thus at risk of repeating it.
Essentially, a pyramid organisation is constructed in which everyone is
accountable to someone above them, but no-one below them. Problem is that
the person at the top has low or non-existent accountability. An elite
develops near the top with a vested interest in protecting eachothers power
base. Anyone who tries to hold them accountable simply gets marginalised
and/or counter-accused of some imagined offence. Church discipline and the
threat of it may be used to bolster such imaginary offences and thus
intimidate those who try to hold the leadership accountable. Click on the links below to read two documents which will help decrease the risk of church discipline being
abused in this way.
www.fbinstitute.com/hiscox/chapter7.html
www.fmc-canada.org/manual/chapternine.htm
Under the present ad-hoc system, an innocent person can
quite easily be found guilty in a church 'kangaroo court', wheras if proper
procedure were followed, it would be much more difficult. This creates and
environment in which bad leadership behaviour can thrive unchallenged and
unexposed to the light of day.
Now follower-accountability, leadership-accountability and personal
life-accountaiblity are three different things. We always had reasonable
follower-accountability. MorningStar Ministries has emphasised the need for
personal-life accountability in the form of discipleship. But leadership
accountability is something different. It is the ability of followers to
hold leaders accountable to behave according to their own teaching and
promises. The discipleship-shepherding movement (emphasising personal accou
ntability), which began in the United States in the 1970's became
discredited and collapsed because it emphasised follower and personal life
accountability without leadership accountability. It was also a pyramid
structure which gave leaders excessive power to control the personal lives
of their followers. This power was abused and one after another its leaders
resigned. Now, follower-accountability and personal life accountability are
good if they are balanced also with leadership accountablity. But without
leadership accountability, they can make the problem worse, because abusive
leaders get power to control peoples personal lives - thus discrediting the
system for those who use it properly.
Essentially, our whole system of church government was constructed in a
hurry in the rapid growth of a movement, without much concious thought about
accountability - and needs reform. Other older denominations have thought
more about these issues and can help us with the lessons they have learned
from similar historic problems. This is why I attach these documents, which
I would encourage leaders to use until such time as MorningStar produces
their own manual. (I have previously written to ask MorningStar to produce
a manual and am awaiting a response.)
While both His People and MorningStar look to the reformation for
inspiration, we forget that one of the main issues of the reformation was
reform of the system of church government - from the pyramid structure of
the Roman Catholic Church to accountable church government of the various
older protestant denominations. Now we abandon those gains to go back to
the pyramid system.
ANSWERING OBJECTIONS
Before anyone accuse me of disloyalty for criticising the movement, please
remember that I have been a member of His People Ministries almost since its
inception in 1989. I have had no conflict with the church except in
relation to confronting the scandals which have afflicted the church during
the last few years. Few had the courage to confront these. Having worked
extensively in Christian leadership in many organisations, I know also that
His People is not the only organisation
with these problems - in fact, they are quite common, but usually well
covered up. Nevertheless, this being my home church and organisation, I
feel more responsibilty to try to do something constructive to remedy them.
I also acknowledge that the current leadership of His People Cape Town and
the many others who have copied its model, have inherited a defective
system, which they did not necessarily design themselves - and may also have
the intent to change. I am thus not writing this as an attack on the
current leadership, but as a contribution towards reforming the system of
church government.
Now some of you will say. My church has had no scandals and no such
problems - why should we change our system of church government? Because
the current pyramid system works fine so long as all the people perform
brilliantly - but when there are problems in leadership, then you can't deal
with them. His People Cape Town has been constructed like a Ferrari with no
brakes. That is why it crashed. Nevertheless, brakes have not yet been
installed. It could crash again. And so could a lot of other churches
constructed without functional accountability systems.
Someone else will say. Are you promoting democracy in church? No. The
democratic church government system works better than our system in terms of
reducing abuses, but its weakness is that the sheep can too easily out-vote
the shepherds. Our reformed system must take into account spiritual
maturity and not leave everyone equal. I am calling for accountability
systems for example in terms of agreed fair procedures and forums to discuss
and resolve problems - not democracy.
Someone else will say. Don't you trust me/my pastor? This question ignores
the Christian doctrine of the fallenness of human nature - both in character
and ability. To assume that any leader is infallible and does not need
accountability is a form of idolatory. The history of human government both
secular and church demonstrates that those systems of government which have
performed best are based on the Christian assumption of the fallenness of
human nature and those which have failed are based on idolatory of an
unaccountable hero-leader. Even in the unlikely scenario that a leader
never made any serious mistakes, a system cannot be constructed around that
individual, because he could leave his position any day and be replaced by
someone else who does make mistakes.
Someone else will say. We leaders are busy. We don't have time for
worrying about forms of church government and discipline. Okay, but what if
all your work one day hits tragedy? Don't you want a safety net to protect
it?
Someone else will say. I only have a small church. Is this really that
important for us? Accountability systems are expensive and time consuming.
As an organisation grows bigger, the potential for abuse of power and
elitism of leaders grows greater. Thus more and more accountability systems
are needed. In a small church (below 150 people), much accountability is
enforced by personal relationships. As it gets bigger, leaders get more and
more separated from followers and the risk of problems increases. Grow your
accountability systems as your organisation grows.
Someone else will say. You are being arrogant. What do you know about
church government and discipline? I would not pretend to be an expert at
this, but I would argue that there are clearly problems with the way we
currently operate - and that we need to study the more successful and
durable models of other older movements. I will research what I can to
contribute to the debate.
What of the systems already in place - don't they work? Appeal to
MorningStar? MorningStar apostles are busy and very selective about the
problems they intervene to address. Most members of the congregation don't
know how to contact them and are probably afraid to anyway. They only
occasionally visit and when they do only talk to senior people. From what I
can see, they only respond to issues where the local church pastors ask them
to intervene. We must appreciate the work MorningStar International does,
but also recognise their limitations. What of the option of appealing to
salaried staff of the church to raise a controversial issue? Okay. Are
they going to risk their jobs, promotion prospects and popularity in the
organisation to challenge their superior on an issue raised by a church
member - when they in any case have little chance of overcoming the systems
defences? If you know anyone like this, I would love to meet them. Please
email me and tell me their name.
Someone else will say: We have been dealing with crises and haven't had
time for this. Okay. Pastor Paul's adultery was exposed in May 2003. Well
done to those who have kept the ship steady since then. But we have had
almost a year now. How about we aim to put a better system of church
government in place by May 2004?
Now, to prevent more scandals, we need to strengthen the accountability
systems in our churches, which includes reforming both church government and
church discipline. The current system is wide open to abuse and likely to
be abused further.
A first step would be the adoption of orderly church discipline procedure to
prevent its abuse.
For those who don't have time to read the attached documents, here is a
summary of a few important points:
· disputes chaired and judged by persons not party to the dispute;
· fair hearing of both sides including freedom of speech during hearings and
reasonable opportunity reply to accusations;
· timeous hearing of disputes;
· clear and consistent procedures as to how they will be handled;
· clear ruling with reasons given;
· investigations stick to the issue in question, rather than bringing up
other issues;
· procedures and structures once initiated remain to the conclusion of the
dispute;
· appeals heard by someone other than that who made the original decision;
· if appeals are not heard, reasons should be given for not hearing them;
· acknowledgement of correspondence;
· records kept of disciplinary meetings, to which parties involved should
have access;
right to bring witnesses to disciplinary hearings.
Someone may criticise me for raising these issues via the internet. Essentially,
the movement has no other forum to do so. And this is one of the problems I
am raising, which needs to be remedied. So I call for a reform of our
systems of church government and discipline.
It is painful to discuss these things, both because power is involved and
because it is not pleasant to confront problems - but the alternative of
denial and defensiveness will lead to bigger problems. So we must confront
and deal with these painful issues.
If you agree with and support these ideas or if you disagree with me, please
email me and say so.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Rosenthal