You can get The Church At Work through the CCCC store (as an e-book and in hard copy with shipping included in the price).  Login as a member to get the member discount.  The newest CCCC publication is designed to help Christian ministries work better together and present a better witness to the relational life of the kingdom of God.  It examines the most strained relationship, that between churches and independent Christian agencies, and provides both a theology for how they are related to each other and a practical set of principles for how to ensure they have good relations.

The research was based on:

• a theological forum I hosted on church structure,
• a large attitude survey of pastors and agency leaders and what they think of each other,
• a study of specific church-agency relationships in which both parties thought the relationship was great, and
• a demographic survey of 100 agency leaders to find out who they are and how they got to their positions.

The research and illustrations are 100% Canadian, although we know the research is equally applicable in the United States.  My new baby has practical ‘workbooks’ for churches and agencies to work through to examine themselves and help them be more responsible for their part of the relationship.  It also includes a helpful paper that John Stackhouse wrote for the theological forum and sample covenant agreements that some ministries use.

You’ll enjoy reading the stories of people just like you.  Some of the people you may know and others may be new to you, but their stories of successful ministry relationships will inspire you to think again about the possibilities that open up when you collaborate with other ministries.

Jerry White, International President Emeritus of The Navigators, wrote the foreword of this book and says in it:

“This is the most complete discussion on the topic that exists. It is an invaluable resource for pastors and Christian workers across the range of ministries in the broader Body of Christ. Dr. Pellowe not only delves into the scriptures and into history, but also gives practical guidelines for relating among the structures. Anyone who is concerned about advancing the Kingdom of God and who wants to see unity in the Body of Christ needs this study and its practical applications.”

I have no financial interest in the success of this book, so I will shamelessly plug it and say, if you are in ministry, “You need to read it!”

I wanted to blog about this, so I called Ben Hoogendoorn, president of FH, to find out what was going on.   We had a very productive conversation, but I don’t want to speak for Ben and FH.  That’s not my place.  What I can say for me is that I was impressed that Ben was in the midst of talking to the leaders of all the charities that were named.  When a real or potential conflict arises, a Christian should confront the issue and deal with it humbly, in love and with grace, in order to bring about reconciliation and peace.  This is what he and the other leaders are doing.  I think this is a marvelous demonstration of selflessness: giving relationships priority over any possible personal advantage.  

And I think it speaks volumes that FH quickly changed its website so that it now shows the percentage for just FH alone.  Also, FH realizes that the real issue is trustworthiness and integrity, so it mentions that FH is a Certified member of CCCC (it is a member in good standing that has earned our Seal of Accountability).  FH also lists four commitments the ministry has made to its donors.  Bravo!  Integrity is not about just a single number, but about a way of being, and these four commitments are worthy of support.

But this whole episode has a redeeming aspect to it.  Getting away from FH in particular, I want to move to the general topic and build on comments Mark wrote in his post:

“I’m sure it will create some good conversations and competition (which I think is a good thing) around how much of a charity’s funds should be directed towards programming…If FH Canada really want to get us talking, why don’t they take the lead with the other charities they mention and create a dashboard for international development charities so that each can evaluate themselves on the same basis, and communicate to the public in a transparent way? ”

The underlying issues are: 1) competition between Christian ministries; and 2) performance measurement.  I’ve thought about both of these issues quite a lot, so I’ll jump in with a contribution to keep the discussion started by Mark going.  In this post I’ll deal with competition.  In the next post, I’ll cover performance measurement and what I think CCCC can do to help ministries benchmark their performance.

Competition between Christian ministries

Back about 2005, I recognized that although CCCC has no single competitor doing everything that we do, everything we do has someone else doing it to some degree.  Even though CCCC makes an important contribution to the church due to its uniquely comprehensive and affordable package of services, competition is just as much a threat for us as it is for any of the inner city missions, relief agencies, seminaries, evangelism ministries and, dare I say it, churches that exist in proximity to each other.  My natural response to competition is to do a competitive analysis and then strategize how to ensure a triumph over the competition, but in 2005 I gave the issue sober second thought from a biblical-theological perspective and came up with a position paper on competition that still guides me today. 

I suspect that a strong factor contributing to a competitive stance is a belief that God’s provision is limited.  It is a theology of scarcity in which God has provided a set amount of resources (one pie to share) so that if another agency gets a donation, it makes one less donation for you.  

The alternate stance, which I believe is the biblically-correct stance, is that God will provide as much as is needed and will expand his provision (he’ll bake another pie) to support the full range of activity undertaken by his people in response to his call.   This is what it means when the Bible says that we were created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God has already prepared for us to do (Eph 2:10), and that God will provide us with an abundance, beyond what we can ask or think, for every good deed (2 Cor 9:8 and Eph 3:20).  When God calls, God provides.

We also need to recognize that our ministries are part of Christ’s one church, all serving the same God to accomplish the same mission in a myriad of ways.  To compete against another Christian ministry is to harm the unity of the one body of Christ. 

So my suggestion/challenge for ministry leaders is to come up with your own position paper on competition.  You probably think you already know what you will write, so why bother?  Well, unintended things happen when we assume we know what we think and don’t crystallize it.  Vague or fuzzy intentions leave lots of room for unwittingly wandering into territory you otherwise would avoid.  Writing out your position on competition makes it explicit, ensuring you will more likely abide by it.

Where I end up on competition is that I will focus on my ministry’s mission and pursue it as best I can.  To the extent that I feel competition at all, I choose to use it to stimulate ever more excellence and creativity at CCCC to better accomplish our mission.  I figure God has called my fellow believers to their ministries just as he has called me and my teammates to ours.  Christ will look after his own ministries, so what have I to worry about?  As long as I’m preoccupied with our mission, and not our so-called competition, God will continue to support CCCC.  I consider competition to be a means that we use to spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Heb 10:24).  That sort of competition is good and healthy.  Competition to win at the expense of another ministry is not.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17

Jerry White proposed the more precise term para-local church back in 1983.   John Stackhouse used paracongregational when he spoke at a theological forum I arranged a few years ago to discuss church-parachurch relations.  Orlando Costas likewise used the term para-ecclesiastical in his book.  I understand their logic, but I do not think it is healthy to define something in terms of what it is not.  It is much healthier to define it in terms of what it is.  And the problem remains that a parachurch’s staff members are part of the congregations that the parachurch is supposedly standing beside.  Furthermore, “beside” does not make sense at all if church refers to the universal church (that is, all Christians), since parachurch workers cannot stand beside themselves.  I think we can do better than these terms.

After several years of thought on church-parachurch relations (writing my dissertation) agency appears to be the best one-word term to describe parachurch organizations.  Agency conveys the idea of doing a task on behalf of someone else, and this is what parachurches do.  On one level, they work on behalf of churches, denominations and/or the universal church to help get the church’s mission done.  On another level, since each parachurch worker is an agent of God’s, they are working on behalf of God too.  If the workers are agents, then the organizational structure they work within can be called an agency.

Using this terminology, we would refer to Christian churches and agencies.  We could also call them unaffiliated agencies, self-governing agencies or non-denominational agencies if we wanted to emphasize a particular aspect of their governance structure.  Agency avoids the baggage that parachurch has accumulated over the years and is a neutral term that makes no judgment about relative priority or value between these organizations and local churches.  Agency is simply a descriptor. 

I’ve thought about other terms, but to keep the term short, sweet and simple, I haven’t thought of anything better than agency.  So, what do you think?  Write a comment!