Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Saved by structures Decisions about structures, not sex, are likely to be the Eighth Assembly's lasting legacy to the Uniting Church. Yesterday, Assembly '97 began dealing with a series of radical proposals that will reform the church at grass roots level. In presenting the report of the Task Group on Church structures, the Rev. Alan Thompson said it, "was the first major review of (church) structures in twenty years together". The Task Group proposes that the Assembly dump the concept of the parish, disband parish councils, and create a new system of call for all ministers and ministry workers. If the Task Group's work is accepted, ministers, deacons and lay workers will no longer be in a "settlement", but in a "placement". It's all aimed at making the Uniting Church more flexible and responsive to changing patterns in society. "Structure follows strategy" says the report, and its time to put into place a system where the church seeks, "more grace and less law in the way structures operate and regulations are interpreted". In response to the individualism of our time the Task Group believes there is an obvious "pull" towards congregationalism. That means, "we affirm the priority of the congregation over the parish as the primary unit of the church". Although the possibility for local congregations to remain in current parish arrangements exists, it will be just one option in a range of new structures open to the church of the future. With the congregation as the basic unit of the church, the Task Group suggests congregations could be 'linked', 'clustered' or become 'multi-community' or 'ecumenical' churches. Collections of congregations could be drawn together, for example, around a particular shared mission, or a number of congregations could share special mission responsibilities in a designated area. They would be freed from the traditional limitations of geography or local boundaries. An equal part of the Task Groups structural changes is the reformation of the local government of the church. The Parish Council is abolished, and its members merged with the Elders to form a local Church Council. The view of the task group is that administrative and spiritual responsibilities should no longer be separated. One council for the congregation is the path of the future, the report said. The Task Group stressed that the local Church Council should structure its agenda to give priority to, "building up the congregation in faith and love, sustaining members in hope and steps leading the congregation to a fuller participation in Christ's mission in the world." Giving focus to these changes, parishes and ministry workers will no longer be able to simply negotiate their own ministerial staffing: "the placement of ministers should not purely be a domestic arrangement between that person and a congregation." Instead the Task Group proposes an extensive new arrangement where every placement is made by "call". Presbyteries will appoint a Joint Nominating Committee (JNC) to oversee all ministerial changes and all conversations will be sifted via a Synod based Advisory Committee on Ministerial Placements (ACOMP). Before any approaches can be made in any placement presbytery must convene a "special consultation or mission study" to establish the best possible option for ministry in that place. So extensive are the changes that Task Group leader Rev Alan Thompson says, "a whole new language is need to explain that we are not just doing a patch-up job". Rev Robert McUtchen (Vic) expressed concern that the new arrangements will impede the work of the Holy Spirit and the congregation will lose its right and special privilege to initiate conversations in ministerial selection. Alan Thompson conceded that the system didn't allow the same freedoms but it would still enable congregations to approach a minister through ACOMP. The task group quotes the one person most associated with radical change in the Uniting Church: "The word "Uniting" is…in the continuous tense. Our orientation is in the present and looking into the future". Change comes in many guises … even at parish level.

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992