Tough, but not impossible.

People in today’s world expect transparency. We are emerging from a world where business was conducted in back rooms, managed by a few bosses with self-interest as a core motivation.

That’s not working so well anymore. It’s truly a new business environment. Management must listen to employees and employees must listen to customers. Failure to operate openly and honestly in a considerate manner (transparency) can quickly spell disaster.

Recovery from a gaffe in this new business model is all the harder if  shortcomings are not readily admitted and corrected publicly and promptly.

The Church lives in the same world, but it has a tougher time adapting. Church leaders sense that things aren’t going well, but they are reluctant to make any changes that might right our course.

Churches teach trust. Sometimes the trust that we intend for God and His Son, is projected onto church leaders—who are often quite willing to accept the surrogacy.

Recent events in the Church have proven this trust to be ill-placed. There is little evidence that we are learning from the exposed mistakes.

The reason? The Church just doesn’t know how to change. The existing structure is perceived as right, proper and necessary. So what if it is no longer effective!

If the Church is to continue as a viable influence in society, it must provide transparency. People expect this—especially the young who are unfamiliar with old ways of operating. They are looking at their parents across a dinner table discussion about church and thinking, “And we are expected to tithe to support this?”

They are not going to trust that their offerings and other tangible sacrifices for their church are put to good use. They will want proof—real proof. They will no longer trust the Church — just because. There simply have been too many abuses of their trust.

We are referencing an article written by Brian Honigman and published at this link.

This article posts a short bulleted list of the qualities of transparency.

• Transparency means that you are not afraid of feedback.
• Transparency means that you have nothing to hide.
• Transparency means your employees’ personal and work persona blur.
• Transparency means you like to have conversations with your customers.

The Church fails at each of these.

• The Church discourages feedback.
• The Church operates in secrecy.
• Clergy and hierarchical leaders remain distant in maintaining relationships with congregations and with individual lay members.
• The Church likes to give orders. Dialog is controlled, when it exists at all.

Illustrations follow.

The Church is facing the same new demands for transparency. But the old ways of doing church are hard to break. Progress is slow.

• In our region, we have a synod council that constitutionally represents the congregations in leadership within the synod. The names of the representatives are listed on the regional body’s web site. There is NO contact information.
• The dates of synod council meetings are not publicized to the congregations that have the right to attend them.
• Synod council’s published minutes include fairly frequent “executive” sessions that are not reported.
• Synod deans, who lead regional clusters of congregations, were once volunteers, representing the group of congregations to the regional body. Today they are paid — an extension of the bishop’s office.
• It is almost impossible for a congregation to initiate conversation with the regional body.

The national church, too, has transparency problems.

• They respond to correspondence from congregations (who fund their budget) when they feel like it. One of our members, after months of attempting to contact the national church, received a letter from its legal department stating that they felt no obligation to respond. Ten monthly letters to our regional body and the national church went totally ignored. We gave up.
• The denominational magazine, The Lutheran, plays at social media. It allows comments on its website only if you pay. A lot of Lutherans read the denominational magazine via subscriptions paid for by their congregations. Others share a subscription within the family. The result: the forum in the Church is controlled.
• Most people in the congregation have no clue what might be discussed (in the limited time allowed for discussion) at the tightly controlled Synod Assemblies.

The article we are referencing goes on to list ten suggestions for achieving transparency. We’ll adapt them to church life.

1. Treat members right. Genuinely interact with them. One devoted Lutheran once shared that he was eager to attend an evening with the bishop. He expected to be part of a dialog. He sat through an hour-long monologue, got discouraged, and walked out.
2. Don’t come on too strong. Show respect. Bringing legal counsel and a locksmith with you to a meeting with a congregation might be seen as coming on too strong. Dismissing all the elected leaders of a congregation with no discussion is disrespectful.
3. Always listen to church members. Our synod failed to return phone calls or respond to correspondence for more than a year.
4. Continue to satisfy. Offer support. Our regional body failed to provide even minimal services for nearly a decade.
5. Treat congregations and lay leaders as valued partners—even when you disagree. You might be able to learn from one another, but only if communication is two-way.
6. Build trust. Trust is a process. Start by keeping little promises and staying in dialog. One-way email broadcasts are not dialog.
7. Admit mistakes. This is impossible if you never make mistakes. But that’s unlikely, isn’t it?
8. Follow through on your word. Keep promises.  We have a long list of promises broken by our regional body.
9. Recognize responsibility. The congregations may not always be right — but they probably are more often than not. Certainly regional bodies are not necessarily right just because they are regional bodies.
10. Always say Thank You. Our regional body seized our property and financial assets. No please. No thank you. Just five years of litigation.

The modern Church will find its strength not in bolstering the clergy and hierarchy but by enabling lay members (upon whom they rely for support).

Failing to answer the modern expectations from rank and file church members will result in the failure of the Church. Transparency must be addressed. The sooner the better. 

The good news. It’s not too late.