Why Can’t We decide (Part 1)
When a decision turns out to be a poor decision, I usually find myself asking how that decision went wrong. That reflection usually boils down to a couple of options. I made a bad decision out of my own weakness/selfishness. Or, I made a bad decision because I followed a bad decision-making process.
Sometimes, even though I have the correct information and/or the right advice/perspective, I make a poor decision. When that happens, I usually have to look at myself. The bad decision often arises from my stubbornness to be right. Occasionally, I make a bad decision because I wasn’t paying attention or I’m impatient. In each of these cases, the poor decision isn’t the result of a poor process, but of my own poor motivation and personal failings.
Other times, I want to make the right decision and my motivations are pretty positive. In the end, however, I still make a poor decision. In those moments, I often realize that my decision-making process was weak/poor, not my motivation or character. In fact, a decision-making process can be so flawed that even though my intentions were excellent, the decision-making process wouldn’t allow me to make a good decision.
I’ve been considering these options in regards to the assembly-based decision-making that is used by many denominations (particularly at their broadest assemblies). Assembly-based decision-making usually begins with congregational leadership assemblies; then often move to a local group of congregations; then to a regional group; and, finally to a national level. When we believe a poor decision, or a series of poor decisions, are made at any assembly, the question arises: Was the poor decision a sign of individual selfish motivation or, was the poor decision a sign of a flawed decision-making process?
Over the next few weeks in this blog, I want to consider whether assembly based decision-making is flawed. Not that it was always flawed, but that we’ve reached a point in history where gathering as an assembly simply isn’t the way to make wise or healthy decisions. So, here we go.
Broad assemblies were designed primarily to overcome time and distance since those were the two largest barriers that needed to be overcome when making decisions in the middle centuries (1500 AD -1700 AD). It took several days (or more) to travel anywhere outside one’s home area. In order to consider broader ideas, assemblies were used to overcome the distance that divided people. Assemblies also overcame time. It took time for messages to arrive (some never did) in an era where couriers carried messages back and forth. In a sense, an assembly stopped or overcame time by creating a space in which people stepped away from their life and from other people.
As the assembly came together, distance faded away and a community was born. Time stopped as conversations happened. This contained communal place allowed space for delegates to mature and build relationships. As a result, their decisional discussions could breathe and live as the discussions matured and found Biblical wisdom.
Here’s the first problem with assembly-based decision making today. We don’t live that way anymore. Communication today is instantaneous and continuous. If we’ve learned anything from Covid-19, it’s that distance and time are no longer the largest barriers that divide us. Instead, we’ve discovered that we are more divided by skin color and its relationship to history; gender identity and differences; and, whether we are all creatures of a living God under the curse of sin or a civilization of oppressors and oppressed than people confined to time and space.
Here’s the reality we face. When assemblies bring together 100 or 300 or a 1000 people to make a decision, we’re using a decision making process that focuses on overcoming time and space when that isn’t even in the top 10 obstacles that divide us. Is it any wonder that poor decisions or (no decisions) arise from a decision making process (an assembly) designed to overcome the wrong reality? Of course it isn’t.