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Institutional Change and Reconciliation Mission

By W. Chris Hobgood - March, 2006

Institutions change. Is that news? If it is, then welcome to the 21st century. Institutions do change. Membership, leadership, normative rules, the needs that the institution meets, the world in which the institution serves - all of these change, and sometimes even the mission changes. On top of all of this, the institution grows older with each passing instant.  Institutions change. We may think they are fossilized but they are changing all the time.
                        
Will there be any effort to focus these changes? Will the changes be simply what happens with time, or will they be intended changes, changes forged out of grappling with mission, then planning and acting?

If we stand back and only allow changes in nature (like some in the first listing above) to take place, then we are really voting for status quo. In other words, to the extent that we can, let’s just keep things pretty much as they are. Sometimes this feels safer. To all outward appearances, this looks like the institution is staying the same (or standing still). A lot of congregations are caught in this trap after they pass their most productive time. Change is resisted because they want to hold to what they have that is good and valued. Nostalgia becomes a powerful force here. Putting their main energy here can be fatal.

Like individuals, organizations like things to stay put. After all, life works best when boats aren’t rocked. But when boats aren’t rocked we either float downstream, or get stuck in still winds, ice or even mud.

When many would like to believe that we HAVE made progress and we ARE doing better, we must insist that “better” is not good enough. It is, for example, not good enough to only put our reconciliation energy into helping activities like feeding, clothing and housing neglected people. As essential as they are, they do not change the conditions that caused the hunger, poverty and homelessness. These plagues will always come back if all we do is try to fix the needs they create.

When many people believe that they can do better and do what’s most important by helping those who are suffering, we must say that as vital as that is, what’s most important is to change the changeable realities that made them suffer in the first place.

As with physical bodies, when institutions/social organisms are alive and alert, then there is a “range of change” that is allowed. As long as that range stays within the balancing limits of the organism, then whatever change is asked for will be done with little resistance. A two-month old baby doesn't have sufficiently developed bones to put his or her full weight on their little legs. Yet they need exercise. Parents and other caregivers must help that exercise happen but do it stay within that permissible range or they'll end up with a lot of bow-legged babies. When that same baby becomes a young adult and is trying to run faster or stretch further in dance, then reaching beyond what had seemed the limit is essential. Sometimes it is necessary to stay within that range. But sometimes it is vital to reach beyond it.

Leaders, says Ronald Heifitz (Leadership on the Line, Harvard University Press) are called to go beyond where they have permission to go. In the church leaders often decide to lead no more, just to manage. When we stay within that permissible territory, we are managing.

Reconciliation Mission has a particular leadership responsibility to step out ahead of the comfort zones of the institutions of the church and press the church to move at least a step beyond what it is comfortable, safe and at ease doing. To preserve the status quo is a sure way for a congregation to die. Never change insofar as inclusiveness goes is a non-starter in the 21st century.  Reconciliation Mission cannot bless the status quo. In a society where systems continue to keep people “in their place” because they are poor or “…of color”, or just “different,” we cannot stand back and just let it be.

What then is Reconciliation Mission called to do and be in its reconciling ministries?

Reconciliation Mission is called to lead the church in bridging the massive gap between affluence and poverty, between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” to the point where each hears the other. They may not understand in full, but they must hear each other.

Reconciliation Mission is called to develop and facilitate processes that will lead people to understand racism as it has infected the history of the North American world. The infection has not been eliminated. It is not enough that we all just get along. The rules and values that keep some down must be eliminated.

Reconciliation Mission is a vital part of institutional change in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Reconciliation Mission represents the change that we must all make to become more anti-racist, pro-reconciling and anti-oppressive. In all of these ways Reconciliation Mission is a change agent. This means that we are not only committed to “equal opportunity for all,” but to a radical focus on the neglected, abandoned, victimized, marginalized. . . the people of color, the poor, those whose social location our culture makes it so easy to ignore.

Reconciliation Mission is a necessary, if sometimes irritating, part of our Gospel Life. We would be utterly diminished without it. We need to listen to its urgent word.  At this time more than ever Reconciliation Mission needs the support of individuals like you if it is to carry out its ministry.  Visit www.reconciliationmission.org/supportrm/ to learn how you can support this vital ministry.