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Adventism’s Latest Offshoot Part 7: Excess Overhead?
By Larry Kirkpatrick, published on September 28, 2004 by GreatControversy.org.
Breaking News
It is our understanding that at least four former Seventh-day Adventist Church pastors are now working with Mission Catalyst Network to plant churches of this new offshoot. Time will tell how many actually become involved and what occurs where the MCN churches are planted.
Information came to us recently that former Seventh-day Adventist pastor Alex Bryan’s Church, which had apparently disappeared, still exists. Its internet home is here: http://www.thenewcommunitychurch.com/. What does this church stand for today? “We are an independent, interdenominational, evangelical church. ‘Independent’ means we are our own organization, not legally connected to any other church. ‘Interdenominational’ means we welcome people of all faith traditions. ‘Evangelical’ means we emphasize the gospel of forgiveness and life transformation through personal faith in Jesus Christ, and we affirm orthodox Bible doctrines. See our ‘Statement of Faith’ for further details” (http://www.thenewcommunitychurch.com/phpBB2/faq.php#23 accessed September 24, 2004. 3:42 PDT). Meetings at this church occur, according to its website, on both Saturdays and Sundays. Will the path of The New Community be repeated in the current or future offshoot movements? Only time will tell.
Excessive Overhead
Adventism’s latest Offshoot, the Mission Catalyst Network, stakes its claim to legitimacy on its assertion that the current denominational structure of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is top heavy, that it contains excessive overhead that can be trimmed so that a “leaner, more efficient” structure can operate (Unless otherwise noted, the material below comments on http://missioncatalyst.org/why_this_plan.html). Reasons cited by MCN for this belief include changes in transportation and communication.
However, Seventh-day Adventist Church workers and administrators have been taking advantage of these societal changes for years. In fact, in a personal conversation with Elder Don Schneider, president of the North American Division a few weeks ago, he indicated to me that while he was president of Lake Union Conference, he conducted so much of his major church administrative duties via his own email that the secretary assigned to him only had one fourth of her duties allocated to functioning as his personal secretary, while three quarters of the salary paid her was encompassed in her accomplishing other tasks. Did you, or the people at MCN ever imagine that budgets were watched this closely?
MCN cites demographic changes and the growth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church overseas. Then, inexplicably they indicate that “it is imperative that a significantly higher percentage of church funds be available to reach those who need Christ in First-world countries.” There is a pie, and from that pie, resources go out around the world. We were unable to determine from MCN’s website why more funds should go to “First-world” countries. Is more money the answer to our problems? Will more money solve problems here of mission drift away from living and giving the Third Angel’s Message, of pluralism, of the general disfavor some have for what is derogatorily called institutionalized religion? Indeed, we are told that at least in part, it is for the very reason that the new church plants had not been returning sufficient tithes and offerings to pay for themselves that certain employees were laid off this past spring. In other words, the changes were made because of the very question of efficiency!
MCN cites substantial shifts in allocation of resources as a reason why the Seventh-day Adventist Church plan is inefficient and why theirs will, presumably, be more efficient. They cite a figure of 26 cents per dollar going to pay minister’s salaries today as compared with a much higher figure a century ago. We are not persuaded that the 26 cent figure is accurate. Does this number accurately reflect the comprehensive nature of the Adventist program? So far as we know, the MCN vision includes only a fraction of what it envisions. Does MCN envision operating a system of colleges and universities? Theological seminaries on multiple continents? An entity like the Biblical Research Institute or the Geoscience Research Institute? Medical training facilities or hospitals like Loma Linda Medical Center? Or perhaps an elementary school system? ADRA? Or a publishing program or literature evangelism program? Or a Religious Liberty department? Or work for the blind and the deaf? As far as we know, No. But such enterprises do take money and resources.
It is true that there are considerable inefficiencies in the operation of such entities as when, for example, teachers are employed at higher education institutions within the denomination who do not believe in a six-day literal creation. But this is a problem involving a lack of will to remove such persons from employment rather than a defect in the system itself. The same increased health care costs and economic issues that affect the average church-going Seventh-day Adventist family affect also the average Seventh-day Adventist pastoral family.
Often the Seventh-day Adventist denominational entities, because of the significant size of the church are able to negotiate contracts offering considerable savings to us. Every year, as a matter of course, the Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes information on its spending and use of resources. We wonder how credible in fact MCN’s charges of denominational inefficiency will appear when examined more closely. There is always room for reevaluation of resource use. But the black-hole theory, that in some mysterious indefinable way, moneys that go to the church are vaporized and wasted at the higher levels, is a bit too convenient. Let’s see specific cases of waste, and ascertain also whether these were systematic or aberrational, and whether steps are in process to correct them.
MCN claims “nearly every growing church in North America involuntarily subsidizes plateaued and dying churches with little or no evangelistic success or potential while their own ability to continue the blessings God has granted are stifled.” But we are a world church. Shall MCN’s definition of which churches are growing or declining or meaningful evangelistically be our measure? Shall each local church keep all the moneys that come through it to itself while sister churches also have needs?
The church where I serve moves more than a quarter million dollars a year in tithes and offerings from its members’ giving to the ministry of our local church, our little church school, and to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We know that a considerable portion of the moneys going through our church are subsidizing the work of God in other places and at other levels of the denomination. Our people are comfortable with this and sacrifice in order to accomplish it. They view their local church as part of something larger than themselves. If some of our money helps pay the salary of a pastor for a struggling church in the Dakotas somewhere, or in Chile, we are pleased. We are a world church, and we believe that we need workers in the Dakotas and in Chile and wherever else we can manage to do a work. We believe that the resources should be allocated to many needs in many places, not just to growing metropolitan regions or churches tailored to a narrow range of people fitting some generational niche.
MCN says, “We believe that we could be and should be reaching thousands more for Christ with this message but that the present structure of the church actually impedes local church growth in the world divisions that need it the most. Discussions with church leaders have not been productive in seeking an effective redistribution strategy for funds in this division.” We have not found it so. We do not believe that the denomination can justify a move by First-world regions to retain to themselves more of the moneys God has provided. It is true that as time and situations shift, there will be some reallocation of resources. This is normal.
Would it be wise to permit the work of living and giving the Third Angel’s Message to be constrained by the allocation of more resources to more of the experimental types of churches that have demonstrated over the past few decades that their approach, rather than producing serious churches that uphold fully the message committed to Seventh-day Adventists, has in many cases produced churches with blurry vision who seem to have little commitment to Seventh-day Adventism and even less to working side-by-side with the world church to fulfill its commission? We are wary of congregationalist churches that with myopic vision prefer mostly to feed themselves and are continually crying out and looking to keep more money.
We are all for efficiency. We believe that more efficiency is possible. We do not believe that if the Lutheran Church suddenly became more efficient, or the Baptist Church suddenly became more efficient, that it would be sufficient for us to go back to those churches and give their messages. Furthermore, we do not believe that any kind of rump-Adventism, Adventist-Lite, or any form of just-barely or low-calorie Adventism, done “more efficiently” is sufficient for the hour in which we live.
In fact, isn’t it true that the most efficient thing to do is to stop making the kind of churches that break-off into congregationalism? Why have more Grace Places, Damascus Roads, The New Communities, and Adventist Sunday Churches, when they have shown where the philosophies embraced lead to? Our business is to be used of heaven to prepare people for the close of probation. It is not to see how large a church we can form, or how many baptisms we can chalk up, or how many of the unreached we can reach. Our purpose is to live and give the Third Angel’s Message aggressively so that every nation and kindred and tongue and people have opportunity to embrace it in undiluted form.
The institutions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, rightly operated, contribute very greatly to the realization of this mission. They are not excess overhead; they are vital. Anti-institutionalism is one of the diseases of the age. Seventh-day Adventists should beware too-quickly concluding that our institutions are the problem. It seems to us, based on conversations we have had over the years with some who have been involved in the contemporary church planting movement, that while they feel hindered by the institutions, often they are positively mortified by the potency of the undiluted Adventist message. For some, at least, there is an issue beyond supposed inefficiencies; it is a conflict that some have with the message itself. Not words but deeds will show, in the end, if efficiency is even the issue, or if there is not a discomfort with the message God has called this people to uphold. One thing we are sure of: The Third Angel’s Message is not excess overhead.
Coming next: Adventism’s Latest Offshoot Part 8…
