Why Can’t We Decide (Part 3)
In this series of blogs, I’ve been reflecting on assembly-based decision making. In order for assemblies to work, they presume that time and space are the biggest obstacles that divide people. Second, a broader assembly presumes that the lower/narrower assemblies who sent delegates to the broader assembly will honor the decisions in which their delegates participated. I’ve already written blogs on why I think those presumptions are wrong.
Today, I’m going to provide my final reflection on why assembly-based decision making is a failed decision making process. Assembly-based decision presumes that delegates enter a sacred space apart from, and lacking interaction with, their home world. Before 24-hour news cycles, direct streaming and unlimited texting, delegates met with each other in a space away from, and without much, if any, outside communication.
In a world of instantaneous communication and streaming, that has all changed. Now, when an assembly meets, everything is filled with the noise of outside contributions. Instant news headlines. Immediate recording on phones. Real time streaming of discussions. Instant texts inserting the thoughts of people outside the assembly into the assembly as if those folks are actually present. These types of interruptions and immediate external communication have become so disruptive that some assemblies have delayed their streaming to counteract those who won’t or can’t trust the assembly to work on its own in the intended quiet apart from their home world.
The result: Assembly delegates no longer arrive together, spend time together, close themselves off from the world in an attempt to seek and discern the voice of God as a decisional community. Instead, too often, delegates arrive ahead of the actual meeting to engage political alliances. Motions are tested and re-written during the assembly with external polity and rules experts. Delegates aren’t afraid to check with the “folks back home” about what to do or how to vote. Is it any wonder that an assembly trying to make a good decision as a group of delegates listening and hearing one another and God is defeated by all the external noise/pressure that is created today’s immediate communication world? Not really. Not because of the people, but because of the process.
In these three blogs, I’ve made my case that assembly-based decision making – at least at a national or international level – is broken. It’s a decision making process arising from past realities that is failing the church in the face of present realities. If that’s true, then we can’t just try to “reconfigure” assembly-based decision making, we have to choose different governance that can be agile and flexible in a time of immediate and instant communication.