The Staff System & Polity

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

You may read and post, but some features are restricted to registered members. Please consider registering to gain full access! Registration is free and only takes a few moments to complete.

[bothered]

One of the bigger concerns I have for GCM is its polity. First - FYI: When I say GCM, I am referring specifically to the campus agency or what the wikipedia article states: "Great Commission Ministries (GCM) is the campus and international mission agency for Great Commission Association of Churches." I don't know enough about GCAC to talk about its polity as a whole. I am not going to address all the concerns regarding its polity here, but I will start with one: the staff system.

The wikipedia article about GCM states:

"the largest financial supporters of Great Commission Ministries are individual donors. In 2002, 92% of GCM's income came from contributions of this nature.[46] GCM missionaries are required to raise 100% of their support goal, which includes base salary, benefits, and ministry expenses. Twelve percent of all funds raised goes toward administrative overhead. GCM has been a member of the ECFA since 1992.[47]"

I have always been concerned with the fact that everyone on staff with GCM is supported from individual donors and not the local church they are serving. Now, in some cases, from what I understand, some of the pastors have their income supplemented partly by the local church, but they still have to raise support through individual donors to cover the rest of their salary. And, in some rare cases, the staffers are fully supported by the local church. Or is this not as rare as I think? Maybe my experience is too limited?

Is this the best way to structure churches? I don't think so. I think having pastors/staff being supported by individual donors is not an inherently bad thing and in some cases it is vital &  effective, but I am wondering if a church should strife to make that the exception and not the rule? GCM seems content with the individual-donor-approach and has functioned that way since its inception (from what I know). This, I think, relates to how the organization is structured (polity) and I would welcome a change in this kind of approach.

When I approached leaders about this (casually and in passing), one of the things they mentioned was that they had to do it this way because of the demographic they served, which were college students who were too poor to support a team of staff. Perhaps one way around this, I thought, was to not have a church focused on one very tight demographic of people. Make the church try and reflect the neighborhood you are in and have it minister to elderly, professionals, families, etc. and then have a college ministry as an outpouring of that.

Another thing I notice about how the GCM Staff Support System works is:

a.) most of a staff's supporters are not in the church they are serving and in many cases are not even in the same state and...
b.) most of a staff's supporters don't have the means or time to visit the staff they are supporting thus...
c.) most of a staff's supporters only know what is going on in their staffer's local church because of emails, letters, websites, etc. completely developed and written entirely by the staffer.

Also, from what i understand, staffers don't have to show their support letters to anyone, unless they choose to do so. Is this correct?

Now, if men & women were Angels, this wouldn't be a problem. But, in my church, it created serious issues of accountability. It was difficult to curb any unhealthy behaviors and/or approaches because ultimately the staffer didn't have to be accountable to the church.

I also welcome a discussion about how GCM is structured. Is the Board of GCM a truly independent group? If so, what do they do? Do they really have an influence over churches? If not, how is GCM guided or how are destructive patterns stopped?

[randomous]

I haven't written here in some time, but you seem to have real questions so I'll answer the ones I know how to.  I'll start from the bottom and work my way up. 
GCM's structure - yes, GCM's board is actually independent.  They don't oversee churches.  Now, an actual church is part of either Great Commission Churches or GCM-churches, and those two groups do exercise accountability over their respective churches.  If there is a problem, people can bring it to them.  GCM itself only oversees the staff program.  There is an extensive employee manual that includes things people could be fired for, but I think the local church would probably ask GCM to end that person's employment in one of those cases.  GCM isn't going to keep employing someone that the local church they are supposed to be working in doesn't believe is fit for duty.  So the idea that they aren't accountable to the church doesn't compute.  I've never heard of staffers not being accountable to the church.  Are you sure you understood the state of things in your church correctly?
Prayer letters - staff are required to send a copy of their prayer letters to GCM's headquarters.
Support - It seems like your experience is exclusively with campus churches.  I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know most GCC churches aren't that way.  The churches you're thinking of are referred to as missional churches.  Their mission is reaching students at a particular university.  Unfortunately, when churches (in general) start focuses on general demographics the needs of the elderly and families crowds out college ministry.  It's a nice ideal, but you can ask around and find that that's the practical nature of things.  So a lot of these churches remain missional churches.  Missional churches are usually supported by people outside of the target mission.  Honestly, I personally think we have quite enough community churches.  But still, a lot of the campus churches eventually do switch to being a community church.  The key to understanding why the support is the way it is is because of the missional aspect. 

[EverAStudent]

Honestly, I personally think we have quite enough community churches. 

My following opinion is entirely without reference to GCx but rather is in reference to the evangelical world at large in the US.

As the statistics observe, this country is now the least churched and most unfamiliar with Scripture on a per captia basis than it has ever been in history.  Anecdotally, this is most certainly true of those persons I have seen enter the church for training or I have talked with on the streets, even among those who claim to be some type of "Christian."

The largest demographic group in this country is the over fifty crowd.  A community or a country cannot be won for Christ without first winning that crowd.

In short, every day the need is growing for community churches to train those who will win the ever-larger numbers of lost in the community.  Now, more than we have ever needed them, we need more community churches who are interested in reaching the community and the over fifty crowd of which they are predominantly composed.

[theresearchpersona]

I have always been concerned with the fact that everyone on staff with GCM is supported from individual donors and not the local church they are serving. Now, in some cases, from what I understand, some of the pastors have their income supplemented partly by the local church, but they still have to raise support through individual donors to cover the rest of their salary. And, in some rare cases, the staffers are fully supported by the local church. Or is this not as rare as I think? Maybe my experience is too limited?

Is this the best way to structure churches? I don't think so. I think having pastors/staff being supported by individual donors is not an inherently bad thing and in some cases it is vital &  effective, but I am wondering if a church should strife to make that the exception and not the rule? GCM seems content with the individual-donor-approach and has functioned that way since its inception (from what I know). This, I think, relates to how the organization is structured (polity) and I would welcome a change in this kind of approach.

Just think a moment about this: it's running it like a business. They even bring-in consultants and such regularly, though nowadays they're getting good enough they're becoming business consultants themselves. This to me shows an utter (as you'll see stated over and over here if you read around) lack of understanding of the Spirit, of faith for provision--which isn't 'God will provide, so we're going to hold a X week/month series on money so subtly twist arms and make you feel it's faith to make [gospel-forbidden] vows to donate to use for X years', and etc.. It's the very thing Scripture warns us of, that men will 'exploit you'.

When I approached leaders about this (casually and in passing), one of the things they mentioned was that they had to do it this way because of the demographic they served, which were college students who were too poor to support a team of staff. Perhaps one way around this, I thought, was to not have a church focused on one very tight demographic of people. Make the church try and reflect the neighborhood you are in and have it minister to elderly, professionals, families, etc. and then have a college ministry as an outpouring of that.

It's just, they're not pastors: they're the ones throwning-around heart-touching 'smell of sheep' catch-phrases, but a pastor smelling like a sheep takes-on the condition of his sheep (if it's necessary); scripturally Churches support whom they send, pretty-much period, though not being able to is valid also; there's also no obligation for them to support whom they send; and it's also scriptural that whomever a pastor/preacher/evangelist (that last is Scripturally what we call a missionary, not a Billy Graham type) serves, they're supported by; if this latter is the case, and the students are poor...guess what the 'pastor' ought to be if he smells like sheep?

I don't want to be off-putting or too harsh, but I'll just be honest: these men are just stroking their egos: that is not descriptive of many of them, at least that I've been around. Your own comments (following in a quote) fit-well with what I've just said, no?

a.) most of a staff's supporters are not in the church they are serving and in many cases are not even in the same state and...
b.) most of a staff's supporters don't have the means or time to visit the staff they are supporting thus...
c.) most of a staff's supporters only know what is going on in their staffer's local church because of emails, letters, websites, etc. completely developed and written entirely by the staffer.

Now, if men & women were Angels, this wouldn't be a problem. But, in my church, it created serious issues of accountability. It was difficult to curb any unhealthy behaviors and/or approaches because ultimately the staffer didn't have to be accountable to the church.

Again, though, look around this site: there is no accountability except among themselves in the clique, and those initiated are fully indoctrinated to become of the same mind in this, and defend it as God's will. It's been like this from the beginning, and there are few solutions: repentant ones get trampled over and thrown-out as devils (note that if they're led of the Holy Spirit, those so accusing them just may be committing the very sin for which Jesus ultimately sentenced those Pharisees who called the Holy Spirit a devil: Puff here was actually told, after they admitted they couldn't find any problem of veracity with the statements on the website, that he was walking with the Devil).

I also welcome a discussion about how GCM is structured. Is the Board of GCM a truly independent group?

Which board? Could you link to it on the website?

If so, what do they do? Do they really have an influence over churches? If not, how is GCM guided or how are destructive patterns stopped?

The destructive patterns you're seeing are often the inevitable consequence (fruit) of official positions and teachings, and sometimes the very official practices themselves: they're not going away. Anyone here who tried telling anybody about it or to rectify things was told it won't stop: it's that way on purpose, period: scripture be damned. They love it so: the sheep grieve but inevitably flee.

[edit:]

By the way, the target-the-youth comes from the literature on targeting youth while young and impressionable: it's manipulative employment of psychology; we got an earful about the necessity, lots of statistical quotes, etc., which is also another thing showing a total absence of understanding--or faith in--the Holy Spirit: GC* doesn't understand regeneration: does not compute, which can be shown in a lot of their other teachings too.

That 'strategy' also comes out of Jim McCotters 'vision': before leaving they started heavily emphasizing/teaching the leadership to stress 'this vision', and they began praying to convert people 'to this vision'; the vision is not just an organizational principle, but a way to give empty people direction (good way to recruit). When I finally found a new Church after having left, one of guys at my new Church had actually talked to me about the danger of giving unregenerate men direction in this sense, of making them feel 'purposeful' (to jab the PDC/L). If you think about it there are two things immediately to be said, that doing so will overcommit someone to this thing that becomes dear: in GC*, bringing up disobedience to God and His word, (oh sorry, 'persecuting the leaders'), whether of elders or members or attenders or whatever, one quickly notices (feels, can't help but under the beating) that faithfulness to the word, by which I mean the word handled aright--not used like a sword to fend-off what one doesn't like, the truth of these matters, etc., isn't held important by most: those involved have usually somehow have gotten meaning, social groups, etc. out of it, so criticism is a threat to what's most dear: to some it's a life-saver (they think, and physically); a controversy is just 'strife', 'divisive', or 'wrangling over unimportant things': the kind of excuses that come out of mouths remind me of addicts parrying away examination with excuses, or the feel-good selfism and pragmatism one can find in psychology where results, not truth, are primary. One day, sitting in a group, the website (this one) came-up, and I was struck at the how easily all was dismissed, that those here were described as people who just didn't really try to talk with anyone, that there could have been hurt and problems in the past, but really it was already dealt with: it wasn't said defensively or whatever, it was just assumed--despite allegations of real harm and wickedness being continuing: it showed a total lack of care or, really, love in these people. Self-assuring defensive mechanisms.

The tactics GC* uses, that Church Growth literature employs, is fruit of a total ignorance (willful) of regeneration (as declared necessary by Jesus)--purposefully, you can pick-up Church Growth literature and its antecedents pre-awareness of this criticism, that is, before some authors began feeling the crush of Scripture to begin including allusions to it, or vaguely semblancing notions, but you're still hard-pressed to find any mention, yet when one does it's not Scriptural, and often the most scriptural-looking examples are using the terms like Pelagianism: which is effectively the undergirding theological system substantiating all this. That's not good: that's not Christianity. It's methodological naturalism that employs psychological tactics (prescientific and otherwise: Finny-ism methods and beyond) for successes, perpetuated by habituation such that those ensnared knows 'it works', and how to do and pass it on with time, but not really understanding what exactly they're doing or where it comes from.

Honestly it's really easy to start-up and grove giant corporate movements: even to perpetuate them; it's another thing altogether to evangelize people resulting primarily in those concerned and burdened for the truth, obedience to Christ (rather than libertarians), genuine love and concern rather than something that must be constantly prodded out of congregants artificially.

[trthskr]

Just a note on the fact that staffers are financially supported by "support raising"...I'm a student, and I'm in the coffee shops in our area all the time because I need a good place to study, get caffeine, etc.  As a result, I know most of the baristas in the area.  I don't know if it's like this at other GCM churches, but our local GCM staffers LOVE to meet at coffee shops, either for support raising, or, you know, "meeting" with people.  As a side note, this is annoying for me as it is hard to concentrate while watching people get sucked into this church, or be told that they are sinning by trying to get better than a "C" in their classes, etc., etc., etc.

Anyways,  my point is...the baristas that I know, who are christians, have told me that their non-christian coworkers are quite unimpressed by the behavior of the staffers.  Most of the time when they are asking for financial support, they are doing so whilst wearing $300 jeans.  Also...is it a wise use of your supporter's money to spend money at a coffee shop every day?  Yeah, I do it, but I work my butt off so I can afford to do so, and it's MY money.  Also...I wonder if the supporters would question the legitimacy of the need for financial support when a majority of the time spent on staff, is spent in coffee shops either asking people for money, or "meeting" with them.  Is the financial support really THAT necessary?  I know them, they have college educations, they could have full time jobs and then share the gospel with people at work.  For such a twisted evil-ish organization, they sure are lacking in efficiency, no?

I'm just sayin'....

[bothered]

thanks for your reply theresearchpersona. I appreciate your insight.

The board link is here, I am not sure about GCC, etc, etc. But this is the board for "GCM"
http://www.gcmweb.org/who/Board.aspx. Here, again, is a list to the current GCM board.

Greg Guevara, lawyer - www.boselaw.com/people.cfm/staff/218

Dan Benson, American Senior Communities -

Joe Dunn, pastor: http://www.gceweb.org/joe.htm

Noel Heikkinen, pastor: http://www.noelheikkinen.com

James Kaufman, CPA

Greg Van Nada, pastor

James Winslow, CFP

JR Woodward, pastor: www.jrwoodward.net


Also, I found this interesting as well, and it might be worth another whole thread, but i will post it just here for now

It is a policy document posted through GCM's pastor net or something like that. I just found it through googling some kind of combination of GCM and accountability. So, I am not sure how recent it is. But, interestingly enough it does mention that if you are having difficult with a church - first go to the board of the church (the gcm church I attended didn't have its own board) and if that doesn't work got to the national leadership in GCM.

What do you think about this?
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:302EUKafptgJ:gccweb.org/assets/gccweb/pastornet/accountibility_process.pdf+Great+Commission+Churches+Association+Accountability&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbQZYAdwXThFPllvIvxHtIK2eo0VvQ

[askingquestionsaboutGCI]

Bottom of the article says "Copyright 2007", so it's not terribly old.

[Linda]

"final authority rests in the local church" and  "If still not satisfied, that individual has the option to contact a
regional or national office of Great Commission Churches" are mutually exclusive statements.

If the local church has the final authority, what would be the point of contacting the national office? Moreover, I had no idea who the national leaders were.

We were told our church was part of two associations. Willow Creek and Great Commission. It never would have occurred to me to contact Bill Hybels about any issues I might have with the teaching of my church. Although, at least I knew the name of the big guy at Willow Creek. I had no idea who anyone was at Great Commission. I didn't even know what Great Commission was. I do now.

As far as Matthew 18 goes, I believe we followed that--assuming that false teaching is "sin". We repeatedly went to the pastors (many pastors over many months). They had ample opportunity to correct their false teaching in the areas of obedience to men and commitment to the group. They didn't, so we told the "whole church" (in the form of a blog post). And that certainly worked out well!

[AgathaL'Orange]

I guess our church wasn't a GCM church.  I don't know where you were supposed to go for a GCC church.  I am pretty sure we went to the head people we were supposed to, but honestly we didn't SEE the problems until we had left for another reason.  We left over doctrinal differences and a fishy feeling that something wasn't quite right.  But we addressed the fishy feeling and thought it was over.  But after we left and entered "normal" society, that's when the strangeness came to light.  We realized how controlled we had been, how much GC asked, how poor the structure of the church and organization were run, and how dishonest some of the practices were.  

After we saw all that, I'll admit we never went back to say that we saw those things.  We didn't really know how to as it had been over a year.  So did we handle it scripturally?  I don't really know.  

******This is what we DID speak to the leadership about:  We addressed the issues of "every man an elder" teaching, the public discussion of GC being a cult, MCCotter, and that's all we can remember.  We had about 10 questions and spoke to the leaders about that.  So we DID do that up front and in the open.  During our exit interview, we were told that it was obvious that we had been pulled away.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even without the GCM missionary component, the leadership of GCC also seemed a ambiguous to us.  I think we went to the top-top of the organization, but I honestly, HONESTLY don't know that we did.  How would a person do that?  Who is leading?  I think the ONLY option really is, if you agree---- stay.  If you disagree-----  no one is changing, so GO!  So we went!

Linda, I'm sorry that the blog post hurt you.  I feel a little guilty that I encouraged you to keep it up even though I know you all made your own decisions and probably weren't listening to me!  But still I hope I didn't contribute in even a small way to your pain!

[Linda]

Agatha, you had an "exit interview"? What did that involve?

The only regret that I have about the blog post is that Terry took it down for a few months. Writing it was the right thing to do. Encouraging us to keep it up was the right thing to do. At the time, we honestly were trying to "keep peace" as far as it depended on us, but we realized that they wanted more. They didn't just want us to take it down, they wanted us to recant. The original threat was that if we didn't take it down, they would pull out of the homeschool co-op I direct. We took it down, they pulled out anyway.

It was after this blog post was down that we received a letter (over 9 months after we left) telling us we should have given John Hopler a call. Crazy, we had never heard of John Hopler (except as a random name in the Marching to Zion book), how could we possibly have been expected to give him a buzz?

The main emotion I have when I look back at my ECC days is not anger, but deep, lingering sorrow. I realize now, looking back, that most of my ECC friendships were highly conditional. I was loved, only as long as I was part of their group which, of course, is not love at all. When we left, no one seemed to care, and no one asked us why.

Addition: I was just re-reading this and remembered that one person asked us why we left a few months after we left. But, when we tried to explain, it was apparent that they didn't so much want to know why we left, but tell us that we were wrong to leave. Also, about two months ago, someone I ran into at the grocery store asked me why we left. She told me people were told not to ask us.