I just finished posting the 2005-2007 United Brethren Discipline on our denominational website. The US National Conference always makes numerous-to-extensive changes, and the 2005 edition was on the “extensive” side of things. But I got things updated, redesigned the document in an 8.5-by-11 inch format, and posted it online in PDF format. We’re not doing a commercially-printed version this time.
The Discipline is pretty much our denomination’s “manual of operations.” It contains info on membership standards, organizational structure, and much more. Over the past 15 years, we have removed a ton of restrictions from the Discipline, particularly regarding organizational issues. Now, conferences and local churches are free to adopt pretty much whatever structure they want to get the job done, with only a few requirements to help us work together without being totally independent.
Yet, we still get calls from people wanting to know what the Discipline requires in various situations. People seem to have some magnetic attraction to rules. They don’t handle freedom naturally. “Can our church form a youth commission that reports to the administrative board?” “Yes, you can.” “But the Discipline doesn’t say anything about it, so we were wondering if it was allowed.”
That kind of nonsense.
We also get people who call the bishop’s office for guidance on silly little things. “How do we handle this situation in our church?” They have the freedom to handle it any way they want. Yet they’re afraid to seize the day. They want to see something in writing, and if not in writing, they want to get direction from On High. I just don’t relate to that mentality very well, because I’m the type who acts and then gets permission, if there is fallout. There are lots of us out there, and we can create a different breed of problem for an organization, since we can constitute a battery of loose cannons. But I think an organization is better off with loose cannons than ammunition-less cannons.
Sometimes, you just have to force people to take their destiny into their own hands. You have to say, “You figure it out. You have the ability.”
Right now, I’m finishing up installing all new Macs for everyone in the building. That has also meant migrating people to a bunch of new programs and ways of doing things on the computer. I’ve given my coworkers resources, books, and other ways to learn on their own. Yet more often than not, they’ll bring questions to my door, rather than try to figure things out on their own. And more often than not, I’ll give them the answer they need. It’s actually efficient that way–come to me, rather than spend an hour searching for the answer on their own.
But the result is that people don’t learn to fend for themselves, don’t learn to find their own answers. They become dependent. And that’s not good. Plus, from my vantage point, it can be doggone annoying.
