Correcting models for parish development

There are many useful theories and models of parish development, pastoral theology, and ascetical practice out there. Also some that are not so useful. It's easy to confuse the source of theories and models and to drift away from some of the essential understandings in models. 

Over the past year I've come across uses of my work that are being incorrectly presented or attributed to other writers or redone without acknowledgment. After so many years in the field I recognize this just happens. People lose track of where a model comes from, they make changes that they think an improvement without any discussion with the originator (so there's no opportunity to correct what may be a misread on their part), and on occasion it's simply sloppy work. I'm sure I've done all that myself.

Here are the models that have come to my attention in the past year or so.

Christian Life Model 

Here's an image of the model

This is something of a repeat of an earlier posting. I've heard from a several people that some of the Diocesan Church Development Institutes are continuing to make the same mistake. Too often the model is offered in a way that has the model used in flat, static manner. The elements get used as though they are headings for the task of developing a list of activities under each or possibly an assessment of that category. Of course you can do that and you may learn something in that process. 

The essential point of the model is that these elements are in a dynamic relationship with one another. They are a system. One element bounces off another, and in that action, both are changed.

The model is primarily an attempt to note certain dynamics that exist in the common life of a parish church and in the life of the individual Christian. In some ways I’ve contributed to the difficulty by providing assessing instruments in the books and in a variety of training programs.

Here are two examples of the interplay of elements. 

“Martin Thornton points to it in The Rock and the River and in his description offers a process and systems perspective: 'Moral action only flows from doctrinal truth by grace and faith, that is through prayer.'”

“The active relationship among Eucharist/Daily Office/Personal Devotions can be seen in how the Office is deepened and enriched by a person’s personal devotions, how all three influence one another, and how the Office and personal devotions are focused and completed in the Eucharist.”

For more on the model see Fill All Things: The Dynamics of Spirituality in the Parish Church 

Here's a one page PDF of the model.

Parish Life Cycle

The issue here is in part about crediting the actual developer - me; though the confusion goes further. Alice Mann's use of my diagram in her book is a very early version I was developing in the late 80s - early 90s. She offers appropriate credit. The College for Congregational Development (CCD) program then "adapts" the diagram using mostly material I developed after 1995.

Let's take a look at the confusion.

Here is Alice Mann's image of the life cycle in "Can Our Church Live?" In the "Notes" of her book she writes:

Chapter 1 1. Various writers have described the life cycle, including sociologists Martin Saarinen and Arlin Rothauge, and consultant Robert Gallagher. While the discussion in this section draws to some extent on each of these, the diagram comes from Gallagher.

I have handwritten notes from 1991 when I was still developing the model. At that point I was focusing on its use with non-profit organizations and their boards as well as work with parishes.

Below is the image used in my current version. And here's a PDF of my version of the Parish Life Cycle.  Please feel free to make copies and use it in your work. Added September 28, 2020 - an updated version of the Parish Life Cycle based on presentation notes over the years.

And here's the image of the model used by CCD. The PDF of the model on-line includes a note:"Adapted from Alice Mann's "Can Our Church Live: Redeveloping Congregations in Decline"  The mistaken credit and adaptation is obvious. I'd be glad for CCD to simply make use of my version using the PDF provided (no charge!)  

I think I understand what happened there. Someone missed Alice Mann's note on the source of the image. Then someone who was familiar with my version but maybe had lost track of the source made an adaptation. It happens. The point here is not to embarrass the CCD leaders but to communicate the story so all those who have been in CCD training over the years can correct their understanding. Hopefully CCD will correct the version used in its manual and on line.

Finally, Alice Mann's book "Can Our Church Live?" is worth reading for it's deeper explanation of life cycle issues. It's an excellent piece of work.

Organizational Diagnosis: Six Primary Elements of the System

This is another one from the College for Congregational Development (CCD). It appears that a model I developed in 1973 and revised in 1996 and 2006, was used as the template for a model. The CCD model noted elements as: strategy, structures, process, leadership, people and dynamics; with "culture and climate within and the environment outside. The image looks like this:

My earlier version looked like this:

Here's a PDF of the model. 

My hope is that CCD will add a note acknowledging the original source. The adaptations may, of course, have been made to highlight certain aspects that the program wanted to emphasize.  I see that as a reasonable adaptation.

Shape of the Parish

I came across it being used in one parish with no acknowledgement of the source and in a manner that suggested a poor grasp of the theory.  I'm not sure where the person picked this up.

It looked like this:

 

My primary categories had been maintained with the exception of the center ring --- they substituted "Mature Practitioner" for "Apostolic." It pretty much gets at the same thing with something of a slight tilt toward Martin Thornton's emphasis on proficiency of practice. 

You can compare it with the original Shape of the Parish Model (PDF).

I only got to see the diagram that had been presented. So, the presenter may have offered more of the complexity as well as given appropriate credit during the session. 

There was little wrong in the diagram itself. However, it does seem to suggest secondary points and not primary points. For example, it's true that people may move both ways -- you may grow in Christian proficiency and you may fall back in your practice. It happens. But it's not all that common. Generally people move forward. And even if they lapse in their practice they will not have entirely lost the competency they had gained. If you learned to say the Daily Office and did it for two years, you may stop the practice, but you still have the competency and can more easily return to it.

There's also a possible problem with the note, " 'Mature' doesn't equal "more developed Christians.' " Actually it does. However, it helps if you understand the whole model and the ascetical theology underlying it. In Thornton's Remnant Theory the center is "the remnant" -- those who are proficient in the practices of Christian faith. It's those who know how to run the race with some competence. In Shape of the Parish the center is the "Apostolic" -- those who are proficient in the same sense as Thornton's approach and also those who are at home in the pathways of grace. In just those ways those at the center are "more developed Christians." And if the reference behind using the word "mature" is Saint Paul -- that would suggest an even higher norm. A few examples -

 Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults.1 Corinthians 14:20  

 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, Ephesians 4:14-15

until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. Ephesians 4:13 

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:12-14

A collegue saw this, "I am concerned that the note on the model may create a serious misunderstanding and misapplication of the model.  The Shape of the Parish Model makes clear that those at the center are more proficient Christians. I'm not sure what "developed" means in the note, but the Apostolic are more committed and adept practitioners of the faith because they live by the Church's Rule. If they aren't more developed Christians, what does it mean that they are "mature"?  Emotionally mature? Intellectually mature?  Mature in an idiosyncratic way the rector finds pleasing?  Not maintaining the distinction between proficiency borne of practice and Rule and being, for example, likable or pleasant falsely implies that where you are in the rings makes no difference to your spiritual life, and tends to create an artificial impression of flatness in the parish's shape."  My colleague's comment gets at a very important issue -- there is in the  church a tendency to confuse our oneness in Christ, our all being members of the Body of Christ, with the implication that there is no importance to the difference among us in regard to the stages of faith. That would simply be a lie. It would undercut all our work in spiritual guidance.

My preference would be that even when offering a diagram like this the presenter would include a notation on the sheet about the developer of the model. Without that someone in the room picks it up and uses it in another setting. Both the complexity of the model and the name of the developer are likely to disappear. 

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I'm offering this posting because it appears that the questionable use of some of these models has been going on for a number of years. Therefore there could be hundreds even thousands of people who have a false understanding of the source of the models and the complexity that the models are attempting to highlight.

My primary concern has to do with helping parishioners have a variety of models and theories they can use to better understand the parish church and shape their parish for a healthier more faithful life. My secondary issue is that I believe that it's important to respect the hard work that goes into developing theory and models. Including my work. Many of us doing that work earn part of our living from it. 

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