wfn.org | Jim Brown Reflects on His First Term, the Future

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Date: 27-Jun-96 
 
96248    Jim Brown Reflects on His First Term, the Future 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--On June 18, with the 208th General Assembly -- and the 
vote on his confirmation to a second four-year term -- approaching, General 
Assembly Council executive director the Rev. James D. Brown discussed his 
first term and his vision and plans for the coming years in an interview 
with the Presbyterian News Service.  This transcript of that interview has 
been edited for length and clarity. 
 
PNS:  Why do you want another term as executive director? 
 
Brown:  A good number of my friends have asked me that same question, and 
it really goes back to the original call. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
was at a moment of history when the reconnection with congregations was 
really at the heart of their search and they were very intentional about 
seeking a pastor for this particular role. I've felt a strong call out of 
that experience and I continue to believe that that is in fact the 
challenge for the church to define, in concert with congregations and 
middle governing bodies, some hints and signs of what this denomination is 
going to become. Especially as we round the bend into the next millennium, 
and I'm excited about the prospect of moving into this next chapter.  
 
PNS:  How do you think your second term is going to be different? 
 
Brown:  The first chapter is the Shape and Form chapter (spring 1993) of 
trying to get realigned to deal with both the negatives and positives. The 
negatives were on the budget side, which when I came in were rather 
monumental. They continue to be so, but I think we're now organized in a 
way that we can get out into the proper kind of dialogue with the larger 
church and begin to make the shaping decisions.  The four years have really 
been a time of reorganization and trying to get resettled and we've ended 
up unsettled by both the world outside and the church within. As I look 
back over the four years, to have been the executive director of the 
Council during a period in our culture's life when bureaucrats in general 
have been much maligned, whether it be in Washington or in state capitol 
buildings or in the structure of the church, it's not an easy time to 
exercise leadership in this regard.  But I continue to believe very 
strongly in the calling -- not just in my own calling, but the callings of 
the leaders at 100 Witherspoon and in our middle governing bodies -- to be 
partners with congregations in ministry. I think our role is a vital one 
and feel good about it. I feel very good about the quality of the ministry 
I see being carried out on behalf of the whole church. I'm growing in my 
own appreciation and understanding of what we are about and I think I'm out 
of these four years equipped with far more insight than I had coming in 
about the prospects for the future. 
 
PNS:  What have been the problems or the key issues surrounding trying to 
establish stronger connections between the General Assembly and the other 
governing bodies? 
 
Brown:  I think in part the fact that we're all caught up in this radical 
flux. Back in the '70s I remember very vividly the Overture H and the idea 
of mission being carried out at the lowest level, where it could be 
effectively administered. So as I came into this position there was still a 
sense of movement toward the presbytery as the body closest to the local 
church for carrying out ministry beyond the local church.  Well, I look 
back over four years and those very same presbyteries in many cases are 
going through radical dislocation and  downsizing, so what appeared to be 
the piece in the puzzle that was going to become most stable with reduction 
of funds making their way through the pipeline   from presbyteries to the 
synods to the General Assembly -- is an inward turning: Try to get your 
house in order, to be fair and efficient as possible.  If you have to do 
several million dollars in cuts, you want to do that with integrity. I 
talked to a synod executive the other day, and he's now a part-time synod 
executive with an administrative assistant, and he functions also as the 
part-time stated clerk. That's the synod. Four or five years ago that 
particular synod had programmatic emphasis and program staff. In the 
duration of my tenure, those kinds of dislocations and transformations are 
taking place, and it makes it very hard for people to come to national 
tables because they're holding their cards pretty close to their vest and 
they're also holding their breath. 
 
PNS:  Tell us about "Covenant 2000." 
 
Brown:  I wrote a paper back in January helping trigger the whole Covenant 
2000 process out of the sense that the Council, which -- this is not a 
criticism of me or the Council, but there is a preoccupation with daily 
agenda, especially with the new Council coming into being. There's a lot of 
new players, almost what you would call an agenda gridlock. If you build in 
major significant issues like Re-imagining, it's been very hard to find the 
space to do what's in the design of both the executive committee and the 
Council to do the strategic thinking and planning and reflecting. So the 
Covenant 2000 model is one of creating environments for the Council, in 
relationship with governing bodies and congregations and the larger church, 
to try to stand far enough back to discern some of these things we all know 
are happening. This Covenant 2000 gathering was a broadly represented group 
and gathered for three days. The emphasis was on worship, on prayer, on 
song, on reflection, and on engaging ourselves in a discernment process. 
And we had a transforming kind of experience. I think everyone who was 
there felt that it was that kind of engagement of deep listening, deep 
longing, and not just managing, not just trying to shuffle pieces around. 
The fact that the year 2000 is coming is a gift. There's a sense of urgency 
that is being felt all around us and inside the church, and I think it's 
beginning to produce insight. How the insight can drive a good planning and 
budgeting process is the thing we've got to discover now. I think we're 
going through a period when our resistance is being broken down. When you 
are  in this kind of radical dislocation, you no longer play games beyond a 
certain point.  You just kind of put it out on the table. 
 
PNS:  What are the key elements of your vision for the church in the 21st 
century?  
 
Brown:  As I travel around the church -- in terms of our witness in this 
country, when it comes to the burning of black churches, the crisis in the 
cities, the ministry with Native Americans -- there are connected links, 
and then there are many connected links in terms of  overseas ministries. 
Folks want that sustained. Even some of our harshest critics assume that 
beyond all critique there still is the ability of Presbyterians to maintain 
a national, regional and global witness. And there are other marks of our 
tradition -- this new committee working on the catechism, the committee I 
served on that wrote the "Brief Statement of Faith" -- these are essential 
glue-type ingredients and we want those. On the other hand, we're in a 
period of history that's far more coalitional -- "birds of a feather 
flocking together." My vision for the church includes developing the 
listening posts where we can discover together what this quilt looks like 
rather than trying to develop an image that we try to manage into being. 
The church is unmanageable in that sense and I suspect the church has 
always been unmanageable. The Spirit blows where the Spirit blows. But we 
need to somehow not panic in this and keep talking, keep listening. It's a 
wilderness journey right now, more than a "Wow, we're in the promised 
land!" It's more of "How long, Lord?" do we continue to search for the 
insight?  My vision for the denomination is that if we could say to 
ourselves every morning, "Are we functioning as a channel for the grace of 
God? Are we making sure that we're not putting institutional blocks in the 
way, and hanging on to old varieties and old ways of doing things?" I truly 
believe that kind of discerning is going on  through Covenant 2000 and 
other places, in a language like the invitation to a deeper discernment of 
God's leading through the Holy Spirit, commitment to the unity of Christ's 
body, adventure of the faithfulness to the Gospel and obedience to Jesus 
Christ to share God's love and to make disciples in the world. You get into 
these conversations and you realize that that's where the power is. How do 
we support and encourage and participate in that? It's coming, something 
new is emerging.   
 
PNS:  Where does Covenant 2000 go from here? 
 
Brown:  We're making a report to the General Assembly Council, with the 
hope that this body will gather again in the fall to begin to lay out some 
of what I like to call the pieces of the curriculum for the church. There 
are building blocks emerging out there in the church now and this group is 
beginning to spy those out. What are Presbyterian Women going to do? The 
Youth Triennium -- what are the young people up to? What's happening 
through APCE (Association of Presbyterian Church Educators), through all of 
these various organizations? We're trying to help or hold together the 
pieces in that to talk about the movement toward the year 2000, so that all 
of these pieces can become part of a collective, so that Presbyterians will 
sense that we are part of a movement and not just a church struggling to do 
planning and budgeting. A goal for me for GAC is to discover where we 
really do have value for the whole and what are the key essential building 
blocks of that? Whether it be a role for the city or a role in new church 
development or a role in evangelism, what are the building blocks? 
 
PNS:  How do you balance the need to scale back with the danger that we 
become merely congregational? 
 
Brown:  Well, there is out there good solid congregational life, where the 
church knows it's connected to the larger whole, but also knows that in 
areas like evangelism General Assembly can do some things like helping with 
some of the promotional material that we develop and monies for new church 
developments. Where it becomes a problem is localism -- and for me that is 
a whole different thing, just localism -- where the world beyond us doesn't 
matter, that we really are going to build a bunker, and what happens 
overseas.  The world is so confusing, and so far shot, too many problems 
and issues that just flood in upon us from the larger world, we are going 
to barricade ourselves. You don't find many Presbyterians talking that way. 
It's interesting that all across the theological spectrum ours is a 
tradition that believes in Jesus as the transformer of culture and the hope 
of the world, that God did send a son into the world because of the love 
for the world, not just the building up of these enclaves away from the 
world. I'm not concerned that we're going to become totally narcissistic 
and inward-looking. I am concerned that in our moving and parallelism of 
directions, we will lose the sense of what it means to be a part of the 
Presbyterian family.  And that's at risk. Obviously Jesus did not come into 
the world to build denominations, but we do have  family connections, and 
through this family connectedness, the longing to be together and mutually 
supportive, not because we're better than Baptists, or better than 
Episcopalians, but  because we have a particular calling within the larger 
call for the whole body of Christ. 
 
PNS:  The much publicized and seemingly intractable conflict between the 
General Assembly Council and the Presbyterian Foundation was apparently 
resolved at a meeting a couple weeks ago.  What happened? 
 
Brown:  Well, at one level you just have to stand back and say that was a 
gift, but then you can also analyze and try to sort out what were the 
presenting issues, and the issues go all the way back to reunion.  There is 
always the potential for a struggle between the foundation-type 
institutions and the mission-type institutions of a church. The fact of the 
matter is it's been very intense. I was vice chair of the Foundation board 
prior to coming into this job and knew of the tensions. I remember in 
seminary a professor talking about the whole subject of insight -- you have 
a problem, and then there's this gestation period where the problem just 
stews and brews, and at some point in time insight comes. We talk about it 
in the church as the work of the Holy Spirit, but you have to live the 
problem long enough, I think, to be almost open to insight. And I think we 
came to a point where there was a collective acknowledgment that without 
ever intending to do so, all of us were moving beyond being channels for 
the work of  the Spirit to being a block for the work of the Spirit. For 
the Foundation side and the GAC side. Where you simply say we can't go on 
like this. So we [Brown and Foundation president Larry Carr] began to draft 
a document together that really led us in two directions: one, what is the 
value that is of preeminent importance to the Foundation,  and two, what is 
the value that's important to the GAC? The value for the Foundation has to 
do with its deeply held conviction about fiduciary responsibility. And the 
value for the GAC is this deeply held conviction that we bear 
responsibility on behalf of the whole church to be the body and soul about 
the mission of the whole church. The lines have gotten blurred all over the 
place, so Larry and I put together a document and tried to say as simply 
and clearly as we knew how, "Here's the fiduciary issue, here's the mission 
issue." And I have to say for me [the meeting] was a kind of coming of age. 
Now, we still have issues. But it's far different. For example, we put into 
the agreement a step-by-step conflict-resolution process. When a letter 
comes, Larry and I sit down -- we don't huddle GAC over here and the 
Foundation over there -- and start strategizing. The two of us take the 
letter, sit down and say, "What do we do about this?" 
 
PNS:  How are you feeling about this General Assembly? 
 
Brown:  There's a difference between optimism and hope. But I see signs all 
over the place that folks, just as we experienced in Wichita, are seeking 
ways to remain in community. A very positive experience for me recently was 
just the meeting of preparation for the the Assembly in Albuquerque. The 
committee chairs and vice chairs are  a very diverse group, but I 
experienced a room full of people who are sensing the enormous 
responsibility to act for the good of the whole. I was with a college 
student who was part of the Covenant 2000 gathering and the question for us 
was, "What does it mean to say,  Come, Lord Jesus'"? And this college 
student says, "It's a tremendous responsibility if you say that because it 
might happen." She was about 20 years old and she says,  If I say that, 
then I expect maybe my life will be transformed. And I may not go in the 
directions I'm planning and may end up somewhere else.' And that sense of 
responsibility is one that I am discovering out there. I think folks are 
exaggerating the numbers and the thousands that are going to do this and do 
that. I don't find folks really talking about leaving the denomination or 
churches bolting. I think folks really assume that God will bless us. There 
is this tension that's existing, but as I visit presbyteries, talking with 
people and listening, it's almost as if everyone is yearning for a way that 
we stay together. 
 
PNS:  Do you have a personal opinion about what you think the Assembly 
should do with the ordination issue? 
 
Brown:  At this particular juncture, I think that as one of the leaders of 
the church it is very important for me to honor the three years of study. 
One of the roles I think the Council plays in all of this is to be in the 
mix. We've had our own study as a council. We've listened to biblical 
scholars, we've had discussion/debate, but the Council itself has not been 
asked to formulate an opinion, and I think that has very much colored my 
own sense of what my role is as the executive director of the Council: to 
facilitate the flow of information, but then honor the church's decision as 
to how it's going to go about this. We adopted our own personnel policies 
to say that we were going to exercise real care in separating personal 
opinion on some of these issues from our roles that we fill. And that's 
been difficult. One person said to me not so long ago that this person 
could no longer work comfortably at the General Assembly level because of 
not being able to say what they thought. And they have gone on to do 
something else. I think that I've tried to help set an example of restraint 
and care. We are living through a period of time where we have to be 
judicious. That's been one of the challenges and responsibilities of this 
office, and it has not been easy. 
 
PNS:  What do you enjoy most about this job? 
 
Brown: This has been four years of absolute blessings for me. I sometimes 
almost have to pinch myself to think of the privilege and opportunities 
that come with this position: standing in a pulpit and preaching in 
Budapest, preaching in Havana. Sitting in the living room of Desmund Tutu 
and hearing him recount his journey as a Christian human being. Being 
invited to preach in congregations, to take part in presbytery discussions, 
to engage in family night dinners, in a church that's longing its way 
toward its future. One old gentleman got out his wallet and got out his 
prayer list and he said, "I pray for people for something like a month, 
then I cross them off and add people." He got out this tattered card and 
had me at the top of the list and he had crossed out everybody else and he 
had the new list on the back side, but he said, "You know, given what's 
going on in the church, I've decided not to take you off." This is bigger 
than life. And I feel privileged to be a part of that -- I feel good about 
the four years.  

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