Accountability or Effectiveness
Had an orientation session at the new job this morning. The department head does this monthly with all new hires. I was the only one this morning so we managed to have some discussion. He talked about why, from his perspective, government is run differently from the buisness world and why it can never be run like a business. It is the issue of accountability vs efficiency. Having worked in the religious (non-profit) world for 30 years, a world more similar to local government than we realize, I know he is right.

It has to do with money, probably, more than anything else. Taxes, to be exact. That and the ease, on a local government level, of being in contact with the locally elected officials. It is more important to be accountable than to be effective (in a business sense). What the public- the electorate- thinks is of top importance if you are going to keep your job. It becomes opinion-driven governance. It is why elected boards/councils/etc. in government tend to get into micro-management instead of letting the management team do what they are hired to do.

Any pastor or local church board member knows the problem can be the same in the church. Everyone is in charge. Everyone has an opinion and lets someone know. Everyone knows as much as those in charge. (Kind of like that Monday-morning quarterback Visa ad with Brett Favre.) Where this bogs things down is in the need to bring everyone on-board or to sell the idea to the whole group or make sure that people's opinions are heard.

Now there's nothing wrong with that. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government. It just happens to be better than anything else. In reality it should be in that give and take of ideas and thoughts and opinions that the consensus of the people is built. Government at its best is just that. Church at its best can be just that as well. But too often in both- kind of like in life in general- the reality doesn't meet the ideal. We get stuck in our own opinions and become closed to the possibility that another interpretation may be truer. We become afraid to listen and may even start to attack or call people names. That is when democracy is in danger.

Sadly, more and more of that is happening in politics as well as the church- and perhaps in society as a whole. We are losing the ability to disagree politely and work together for a common good. More than we care to admit we live in a world of so many choices that when we don't like it- it's my way or the highway.

And if you don't like it, so be it.