Evergreen Caucus & Consensus YouTubes

[Haruo]

Two new YouTubes describe the Evergreen Region's ethnic-caucus structure and consensus-based decision-making process:

Caucuses: http://youtu.be/R1yeaZoRIqo

Consensus: http://youtu.be/WpxKspH_qX4

[Timothy Bonney]

Haruo, you mentioned lack of interest. Sorry, It just may be a case of you and Mrs. H. being the only folks from that region on the forum.

[Haruo]

Yeah, perhaps I should have posted them in the general forum. I'm interested in reactions, even indifference if openly stated. Even reflections on the Wesleyan experience in bringing diverse voices out of the woodwork to the table (since largely what Evergreen is about is overcoming the old-white-men legacy of Robert's Rules of Order, which most of our (Eurocaucus) churches have followed as if it were close to Canonical

[Ed Pettibone]

Yeah, perhaps I should have posted them in the general forum. I'm interested in reactions, even indifference if openly stated. Even reflections on the Wesleyan experience in bringing diverse voices out of the woodwork to the table (since largely what Evergreen is about is overcoming the old-white-men legacy of Robert's Rules of Order, which most of our (Eurocaucus) churches have followed as if it were close to Canonical

Ed: And Hauro I will confess to having a serious problem with the way I have observed so called consensus building practiced.

[Timothy Bonney]

Hauro, I will take a look at it some time today. I also have my doubts about Roberts Rules. It always creates winners and loser and sometimes the losers are just one or two votes shy of the majority so that nearly half of everyone is unhappy with the decision.

[Gene Scarborough]

Is there ever the possibility with a divisive issue----to make no formal decision and give it time to find its own place in society?

[Timothy Bonney]

Huaro, I watched both of the videos. It was nice to see a few familar faces. I served on a committee with Yosh when he was VP of the ABC.

I like the consesus model and, in principle, I like the caucus idea. But I wonder how it works if you get people in your association that don't fit one of the three caucuses? And does every decision have a Euro, Asian, and Black element? Maybe I'd know the answer to those questions if I understood the system better. I just know the overview of the video.

[Timothy Bonney]

Is there ever the possibility with a divisive issue----to make no formal decision and give it time to find its own place in society?

I guess it depends on the issue Gene and what the polity is of your church. In the ABC or CBF where local churches decide their own rules for issues of marriage, ordination, and church membership the denomination/fellowship can choose not to be involved.

Where those decisions are national in scope it is harder to not be involved in making decisions about issues that the denomination has rules which effect all the Church.

[Ed Pettibone]

Is there ever the possibility with a divisive issue----to make no formal decision and give it time to find its own place in society?

I guess it depends on the issue Gene and what the polity is of your church. In the ABC or CBF where local churches decide their own rules for issues of marriage, ordination, and church membership the denomination/fellowship can choose not to be involved.

Where those decisions are national in scope it is harder to not be involved in making decisions about issues that the denomination has rules which effect all the Church.

Ed: But Tim is that not true, only if and when the denomination, Fellowship or para-church group has power over the local church?

[Haruo]

Haruo, I watched both of the videos. It was nice to see a few familar faces. I served on a committee with Yosh when he was VP of the ABC.

I like the consensus model and, in principle, I like the caucus idea. But I wonder how it works if you get people in your association that don't fit one of the three caucuses? And does every decision have a Euro, Asian, and Black element? Maybe I'd know the answer to those questions if I understood the system better. I just know the overview of the video.

If you get a church that doesn't "fit", it tags along with whichever caucus it wants (usually the Asians) until it has a chance to find a second member and form its own caucus. This recently happened with the Hispanic caucus, which was under the wing of the Asians until last fall, when it became the fourth full participant in our caucus structure.

If you get people who don't "fit", again, they can decide which caucus to participate in. This is what enabled the Hispanic caucus to go active. We only have one Hispanic church per se (though they're working on church planting), but they were joined by Manny Santiago, the new pastor of University Baptist Church. UBC is a Euro church historically and in terms of the majority of the congregation's ethnicity, but Manny is Puerto Rican, and a native Hispanophone. So he decided to go Hispanic. Our Executive Minister, Marcia Patton, is pretty Euro-looking (not to mention coming from Temperance, Michigan), but she is a member of Mt. Zion Baptist, very much a Black Caucus congregation. Paul Aita, formerly pastor at Japanese Baptist, is ethnically Italian, and could have gone Euro if he wanted. There are no racial tests for membership. The goal is to encourage true, honest diversity, and to ensure everyone has a chance to be heard, not to make sure people are all pigeonholed into the "right" caucus. The combination of the caucuses and the consensus approach makes it much less likely that any "majority" can ram its opinion down the throats of the "minorities", as so often happens when Robert rules the order. It may mean that some things don't get done, but if a consensus can't be reached, perhaps they should remain undone. The caucuses are free to do things on their own (and in fact they do a lot of independent fundraising), and the churches are still free to act where they see a need that is not addresses at a higher level of the structure. Now, it's true that we might have a problem if a church decided to shoot all its two-year-olds, and then blocked its caucus from achieving consensus to support its ejection from the Region. But I think we'd find a way.