If we are still serious about the mission, lets abolish almost all decision making committees except say one governing body (eg standing committee or whatever), and replace them with individuals. Anglicans love committees, and personally, I hate them. Everyone knows ‘design by committee’ is a bad thing, but why not decision making?

Committees are inherently geared towards mediocrity, and should be abolished for several reasons:
[list][*]No leadership - committees often set the agenda, however they are terrible at providing meaningful leadership, as they lack a single voice, vision, and purpose.
[*]No direction - committees that aren’t meeting very regularly aren’t able to maintain a running direction or vision, but instead chop and change according to the flavour of the month.
[*]No responsibility - who takes the blame for the dumb decision of a committee? No one, there’s always someone else to blame.
[*]Poor decision making - committees are overly prone to ‘groupthink’ , decision by who yells loudest, decisions without appropriate data, decisions on the whim of whoever happens to be there and decisions based on whatever “sounds best” at the time, not data & results.
[*]No expertise - committees are generally expertise-hostile because “everyone gets a say” and strongest personalities win, even when they have little to no expertise in a given area.[/list:u]
So yeah, lets abolish all but the governing committee, replace them with passionate individuals, and stop being bogged down in mediocrity :)

I vote that we form a committee to be headed by Luke Stevens (who obviously has no expertise in this matter) to discuss the unlikely possibility that we - the Royal we, perhaps? - remove the possibility of ever forming a committee.

We don’t want a leader, otherwise we would choose somone other than Luke.

Neither do we want direction, or we would choose someone who knows how to read a map and Luke doesn’t seem to be able to do that, or he would have given us some direction.

Responibility? You mean that I, or anyone else must take responsibility for what we might say? A most irresponsible thought!

Decision making? Well, it seems to me that Luke wants to make decisions, so let’s not give him too much power. Just enough to satisfy his inner cravings.

This discussion threatens my comfortable state of lethargy and apathy… I’m only involved so that I don’t have to be involved in any further involvement.

Watch this space for a well thought through biblical response to why we should have committees all for the purposes of making me stay comfortable and not move from where I am.

---

On another note - we had a discussion last night at Bible Study on the matter of persecution and the growth of the church (not the band). Why can’t we just HIRE someone to persecute the church here in Sydney, the more we get persecuted the more we grow… it’s flawless.

As Tertullian said: ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’.

Trouble is, committees certainly ain’t the manure…

Maybe they are manure…

I don’t actually understand a lot of the whole hoo har about committees, from my experience at Church there have been many that have served a great purpose in doing hard work, while there has been a culture of “if you want something done - ask, and then go and lead it to be done” So there are many opportunities to do things if you just come up with the idea and it seems a fair thing to do. I’m not sure if that’s a particularly different thing to a lot of churches.

If you go to our ministers and say, “I think this is a good idea” generally for me at least, the response has been, “great - good idea, we’ll back you up but we’re too busy - do it yourself.” Which I find works for me.

Andrew,
So where can we at the Fairfax conspiracy send our bill?

Re: Lets abolish committees

[quote author="Luke Stevens"]
So yeah, lets abolish all but the governing committee

One committee to rule them all, one committee to find them;
one committee to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

Hmm, that’s quite an idea, Luke.

I know, imagine if we had just one leader. Oh wait..

Sauron? Phillip Jensen? C’mon, help me out here.

John I didn’t want to name names too early but if the Fairfax conspiracy picked up their game and actually gave a proper serve of persecution then they’d be well rewarded ;)

Do not hurt me, I bring only love
Oh...he brings love, let’s get him!

The ‘one leader’ thing has been tried.

It was called the papacy.

We Protestants didn’t like it, and so we abolished it. In fact, the Presbyterians revolted in favour of committees quite specifically.

Committees are necessary because of sin. And probably a symptom of it, too.

[quote author="michael jensen"]The ‘one leader’ thing has been tried.

It was called the papacy.

We Protestants didn’t like it, and so we abolished it. In fact, the Presbyterians revolted in favour of committees quite specifically.

Did someone mention Thomas Cartwright? (ace Elizabethan Presbyterian)

“And, if any man will reply and say that it is not said that our Saviour Christ is only archbishop, I answer that he is not only said the head, and yet notwithstanding there is no more heads of the church but he. And if it be further said that these archbishops are but under and as it were subordinate archbishops, I say that a man may as well say that men may be also under-heads of the church; which is the same which is alleged for the pope”

(Thomas Cartwright, Whitgift’s Works 2:84)

Obscure I know, but it’s what Michael was saying, and it just happened to be the book open on my lap. Presbyterians love committees, because they decentralize power. In fact, people who believe in sin tend to like the idea of decentralized power, and committees are one way of achieving this. Popes want to get rid of committees, because it means they can tell their people what to do, more effectively.

The great danger of Anglicanism is that it cedes power to the centre, and I’m not talking about the Lord Jesus. We need our committees to make sure this doesn’t happen!

Well, I am in broad agreement, Gordon. Is there, however, a tendency amongst the clergy in our diocese has been to abolish committee processes within parishes and certainly not to establish new ones? To minimise the intereference of parish councils by making sure they meet infrequently? To become popes in their own parishes? To make sure that there is as little accountability as possible?

Some shaky arguments there boys - we have one archbishop, not a committee of them. Each region has one bishop, not a committee of them, etc. They don’t often go bezerk and power mad when they get into office, as far as I know!

Anyway, I’m talking more about how we ‘do business’ (a cringe worthy term, I know) as far as the mission is concerned (and by extension the diocese). Appointing a committee of people who are semi-interested in a given subject doesn’t add to one person with a passion for it, but its usually always the default response when something needs to be done.

And it doesn’t diffuse power. The power is still there, its often not used very efficiently, but it could (and should) be. It diffuses the likelihood of it being used for nefarious purposes by a single individual, and with it the likelihood of it being used for something inspired. Like I said, inherent mediocrity.

In some cases where the stakes are extremely high I can understand it, but 95% of the time I can’t.

The Mission calls for some pretty drastic action - inspired leadership & vision across a number of areas. Committees are almost by definition the last place you would find such things.

I think the problem is people are so risk-averse that mediocrity is comfortable, easy and preferable.

Andrew,
Pay up. The nice gentle coverage of synod will only the start of the wimpish cover you can expect otherwise. Some interstate dioceses have been far more lucrative lately!

Also, as far as accountability goes, who keeps the committees accountable? Who keeps them accountable for all the things I listed in my first post?

Like I said, they’re almost immune because a bunch of people are generally going to agree & back each other up that they’re doing a pretty good job, regardless of their performance, and if there is a problem, its someone else’s fault.

As for whoever they are suppose to be keeping accountable - how is a committee any less easily deceived than a individual they are responsible to?

It would be fascinating to compare the performance of individuals vs committees in real life situations. I wonder if there is any research out there…