I have seen the dream. Three times. And since it takes two or three witnesses to confirm, I now believe it to be true. The APCE folks are pointing the way to a vital, healthy future for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The energizing and edifying General Assemblies of the future may well resemble the APCE conferences of today.
This past month, I attended my third-in-a-row conference of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators, a gathering of 1,000+ leaders from around the PC(USA) — plus counterparts from the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Christian Reformed Church, and the Reformed Church in America. For the third time in a row the conference I attended overflowed with authentic worship, superior skills enrichment, warm fellowship, and thoughtful ideas engagement (see p. 9).
Power plays and political maneuvering were conspicuously absent.
How can this be? How do they avoid the political wrangling that overwhelms General Assemblies?
These folks certainly hold strong convictions on matters theological, ethical, and political. When this editor last year put on a magazine cover a picture of a father and son toting paintball guns and dubbed the edition, “Unconventional Christian Education,” the spate of unflattering letters might have set a world record were it not for the greater spate of unflattering letters received at the Chicago Daily Tribune after they published on Nov. 3, 1948, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
No, opinions abound in this group. Indeed, those opinions represent a wide range of convictions, evidence the fact that they serve in churches known for their progressive ideas and for their conservative commitments; some administrate on a large staff, others volunteer in a small church; some teach in a seminary, still others work for a denominational institution.
Yet when they come together, they enjoy a spirit of camaraderie and ministry partnership seldom seen in other ecclesiastical gatherings. Why? The one answer that makes sense to this observer is that these leaders understand that they are in the influencing business, not the controlling business.
As educators, they know that teachers cannot control students’ learning; all they can do is influence it by being the best facilitator of learning they can be.
As church educators, they know that they cannot control the teaching done in the church school classes; they can just influence it by being the best recruiter and trainer of classroom teachers they can be.
They certainly cannot control the policies and procedures of their own congregations; few of them have a voice, and even fewer have a vote among the teaching and ruling elders that govern in session and presbytery meetings.
And as a fellowship of colleagues they know that they cannot control which curriculum each of those colleagues will utilize, what classroom schedule each will follow, or whom each of them will recruit. Instead, they listen intently to each other’s reports of success and failure, in search of an idea to try or a pitfall to avoid.
They don’t possess tools of control. They accept that. But they do possess tools of influence. So they go about their business seeking to be an influencer for God in a spirit of humble service.
That’s not to say that some educators don’t have a control problem; hard working leaders often try to hard to make everything go “right.”
And, in the case of the gathered body of educators, the fact that they are not constituted as a governing body relieves them of the stress of making decisions for the whole body. Then again, the proposal of the Form of Government Task Force that we all dump the language of “governing bodies” in favor of traditional language of “church councils,” and the bold launch into such a model being implemented in the San Diego Presbytery (see p. 6) suggest that maybe our General Assemblies actually could head in the kind of direction being set by APCE.
The upcoming GA will receive suggestions from a task force that aim to empower educators with a level of authority comparable to the responsibility entrusted to them, an approach that could give both voice and vote in governing bodies, er uh, church councils. They deserve that. But, if moving in that direction should cause their conferences to deteriorate into the utilization of power plays and political maneuvering, if they backslide from being influencers into controllers, then their contribution to our shared future — the dream showcased by them — will be squandered. God forbid.
— JHH
