Central Strategy, Local Autonomy, and the Need for Accountability (quick read)

As normal, this is my opinion, and does not constitute official Salvation Army teaching or positions.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Central Strategy or Local Autonomy?

The Salvation Army loves a strategy document. Two recent ones, the UKI territory Blueprint for better decisions, and the International Compass strategy, are good examples of how strategy documents can work.

The Compass strategic framework seeks to forge and develop Salvationist culture, particularly around questions of accountability, and to encourage Salvationists in every context to take responsibility for mission. It is based on three areas of focus (people, mission, legacy) and it is “based on questions…rather than set answers.”

The Blueprint provides five key missions priorities which it calls the Army in the UK and Ireland to focus on, whether a corps or a THQ department.

Both these documents do what a central strategy should do: they don’t seek to tell what the local church should do. Instead, they set and encourage the kind of culture, values, and priorities, within which the local can work and make decisions.

The centre needs to hold and promote a values and identity map. Not a plan for everyone to follow. Equally, the local needs to sit within the broader culture and identity even while operating out of its autonomy.

The Tension Between Central and Local Expressions of Church

The centre cannot just tell the local what to do, and the local cannot just do what it wants. There needs to be a reciprocal relationship between centrally held identity and locally expressed mission.

This is the difference between strategy and tactics. And that difference needs to be held really clearly.

The centre has the big picture view, and exists to supply the best resources in the best place at the best time. This is a question of vision, values, and identity. But, and this is key, the strategy created by the centre cannot, or at least should not, tell the local how to actually practically enact those values and identity.

The local then works out what it looks like for those values and that identity to expressed locally. Because only the local can determine what it means to focus on developing young leaders where they are. What it looks like in a different place will look different.

The tension between centre and local comes when the centre thinks it can determine what the local expression should do, and when the local expression wants to determine what organisational identity should be.

Where is Christ Today?

Why does the local expression of church matter so much? Especially in a large, hierarchical, centrally run organisation like the Army, it might seem strange to emphasise the local church. Even though the central authorities in the Army have repeatedly expressed their commitment to supporting the front line of ministry and mission, there remains the lingering sense that the front line is there to serve the centre.

There have been times when speaking to colleagues from specialist departments, or from business support teams, that sometimes it has felt like my role as a corps officer was to support their administrative tasks. Sometimes, that’s because I wasn’t always on top of what needed doing. Sometimes, it was because the person talking to me had never been in a corps and didn’t understand what the priorities are.

Which is the whole point. The Army is not simply a charitable organisation. It is first and foremost a church. And the local expression of the church; the local corps, the Lifehouse, the refuge, the charity shop, are places where Christ is found. The emphasis is on the local community because “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20).

The local congregation is the principle place where Christ is found. The whole church is Christ’s body, and a person doing a finance task in headquarters is doing ministry as much as a street evangelist or Lifehouse support worker is. But it is in the local congregation, whatever form that takes, where the living presence of Christ is expressed in the world.

Everything else the Army does exists for the purpose of those elements which directly serve the world, show Christ’s love, and form holy communities.

Central Strategy Enables Local Autonomy

The capacity of a local congregation to have autonomy in the way they implement central strategy depends on the way that strategy is set, on the willingness of central authority to give real choice to the local, and on the implementation of truly mutual accountability.

There is a difference between a strategy and a plan. Whether at the central, regional, or local level, the distinction needs to be held.

At my corps, we do not have a mission development plan, a three year strategy, or a growth plan. We use the five focus areas of the Blueprint, and we have our local corps values, written by our congregation (healing, hope, hospitality).

Everything we do, all the decisions we make, are based on those principles. Whether than is the leadership team making decisions about the corps budget, or members making decisions about where to put their own time and attention. The same can be true at the broader level.

The centre owns the why, but the local owns the how. The biggest thing the centre can do to destabilise and disempower the local is to hold too tightly into their ideas, plans, and projects. They have to be released for the local to enact, even if that is done in a way which the centre didn’t anticipate or didn’t like.

But this depends on true mutual accountability.

Autonomy Needs Accountability and Safeguarding

Two dangers face the church with the question of autonomy: when the centre has too much direct oversight and control, and when the local has too little external accountability and safeguarding.

Proper safeguarding and true mutual accountability make local autonomy possible, and thus are necessary for the church to thrive as the body of Christ.

An example of not enough external accountability and safeguarding can be seen in the story of the fall of Mars Hill and the scandals around Mark Driscoll. He was able to act in the way he did by removing people who disagreed with him, disestablishing systems of accountability, and because there was no external safeguarding systems in place.

The opposite is where a local project is halted because it does not fit with the direction the centre wants to go in. When there is a clash between the local and the central over a direction to take, and the central is able to exert pressure to ensure the local does what it desires.

The Bible and Accountability

We have already looked at Matthew 18:20, but a few verses earlier there is an example of Biblical accountability. It says:

15 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.[f] 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

There are a couple of things to notice.

First, the word church isn’t in the original text. The original Greek is the word for brother. Normally rendered in the NRSV as brothers and sisters. Here, as church. Because it is indicating someone inside the community.

Second, the command is to take two or three people when having the difficult conversation. This is important to have witnesses for accountability for everyone involved. But a few verses later it says where two or three are gathered, Christ is there with them. This is a reminder that accountability is an act of holiness, it is a means of grace where Christ is revealed in our loving-justice for each other.

Mutual accountability, truly mutual accountability, requires people to be radically honest. Calling out abuse and coersion, refusing to allow it to take root in the Army. True mutual accountability requires courage to be honest about what works and what doesn’t, to name problems, to accept critical feedback, and to come together for the benefit of the Kingdom of God. Mutual accountability only works when we can set aside concerns over status, position, and power, and work together for God.

Which is why safeguarding shouldn’t be handled by church leaders being given an additional responsibility. Nor should the safeguarding department be in the normal line of command and control. A safeguarding lead shouldn’t be a peer, or someone who might one day be your line manager. Or your pastor. Such relationships can introduce barriers to disclosure.

Trusting local churches to make decisions needs careful relationship building between the local and the central, with mutual accountability at the centre, and a robust safeguarding process and structure in place.

Reflection Space

Bible reading:

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” — Matthew 18:20 (NRSV)

Reflection:

Bring to mind your own congregation or group. Where have you seen Christ present in the people themselves — not in any plan made for them, but in the relationships actually formed? And who, from outside that community, helps keep it safe enough to be free?

Prayer:

Gather us, Lord, where two or three meet in your name. Free us to serve the people in front of us, hold us honest when we would rather not be seen, and keep us safe in one another’s care. Amen.

Setting Free the Local Church

When the centre holds the map of identity and values, and when there is mutual accountability and robust safeguarding in place, the local church can be set free for autonomous mission and contextual decision making.

The local is able to freely interpret and and enact the centrally held values and identity of the Army. Then, what the local discovers to be true, is reflected back to the centre. This is where the work happens.

The movement between the theory and practice in careful and honest communication, rooted in mutual accountability, creates something new. The fresh opportunity to discover where and how Christ is at work in the world.

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