By Rev. Arlene Christopherson – Assistant to the Bishop/Director of Connectional Ministries
Government agencies and religious denominations love to shorten their language into acronyms and alphabets. In July, I became the A2B/DCM, Assistant to the Bishop/Director of Connectional Ministries. Beyond the alphabet soup, when I first heard those titles spoken as part of a Sunday morning introduction they still needed more explanation, even beyond the words. What is the job of an A2B or a DCM? Well that’s a story for another day, today I want to spell out OTF. So here is the story of the OFT – Organizational Task Force.
During the Northern Illinois Conferences Landscape work that began in the spring of 2015 and extended through the annual conference of 2016, we engaged in some self-assessment, visioning, listening and collating of our purpose, priorities, core values and mission. Out of that work, it became evident that our governance system which can be broken down into administrative, superintending and programmatic areas, isn’t always able to work as effectively as possible when one group has little opportunity to engage with another. Living out a common goal becomes more difficult when leadership does not meet at a common table beyond the June gathering of the annual conference.
As many as two-thirds of the conferences across the U.S. have addressed this gap in structure with opportunities for the various leadership groups to come together for common learning, sharing and strategizing around the conferences priorities. Enter the OTF. Our Landscape Taskforce brought a resolution to the 2016 annual conference inviting us to create the Organization Taskforce to:
- Plan strategically
- Align resources
- Create an intersection between administrative, program and superintending functions
- Streamline the work of the conference committees
- Respond with flexibility
- Be accountable to conference membership
- Act with coordinated efficiency
Members of the Taskforce were recruited in August and held their first formational meeting in September. Chaired by Liz Gracie, a lay member of Oak Park First UMC, this group of 28 is tasked with the work of bringing design recommendations back to the annual conference in June, 2017.
The Taskforce is meeting almost monthly in 4-6 hour-long sessions, with work teams gathering between full task force meetings. This group of dedicated laity and clergy began by learning about our current structure as an annual conference, then looking at models of governance in conferences of similar size or where creative work has been successful.
Over the next few months the group will work in teams to design a recommended model for the NIC. This might include a central coordinating body and some reorganization of our committees. This is adaptive work so none of us knows where it will lead. In the early spring the group will host listening sessions for feedback as a resolution is crafted for adoption at the 2017 annual conference.
The OTF has identified some of the key characteristics in the new structure as a working guide. They feel that the central coordinating body should:
- Equip churches for ministry in a new way/age
- Be flexible for adaptation – from permission giving – to mission
- Be accountable
- Encourage Diversity
- Be understandable at the local church level (for resourcing)
Please pray for this important work as we reshape the governance of our conference to address our changing needs. Thank the Taskforce members for their deep commitment and gracious gift of time and talents in the design of the proposal and join us in planning for adaptive change in our structure so we might be an effective organization in addressing our conference priorities to:
- Equip both Leaders and Churches:
✓With strategies to reach new members
✓To help members grow as disciples
✓To be more effective in community outreach
- Resource struggling churches
- Rethink how to be vital churches
- Cultivate trust within the conference