The Question
A reader of my blog, who is a minister in the Methodist
Church, commented on one of my posts, (this is my paraphrase of the question)"How
do you measure the benefits of a religious organization, like a local
church?" Or, “How would I apply Enterprise Architecture to religious
organization”, since I posit that all organizations can benefit from Enterprise
Architecture, as I've discussed in several previous posts.
This post is written with a slant toward the Methodist
tradition, of which I am a part, but will apply equally well to all religious
organizations.
An Organization’s Enterprise Architecture
Within Organizational Economics, any organization’s
Enterprise Architecture has three sub-components, Mission, Governance, and
infrastructure.
·
Mission:
What the organization is supposed to do; it’s goal, target, or objective.
·
Governance:
Within what parameters or rules it can perform its mission.
·
Infrastructure:
What personnel, intellectual, physical, and financial support it has for
achieving its mission.
To support the Mission
of an organization, its leadership chooses Strategies
(approaches or plans) for going from where it is to where it wants to be. It implements these strategies using tactics, plans that account for the
organization’s Governance and Infrastructure (its rules and
talents/abilities/support). Management
then executes the tactics in operations
(the actions of the organization). The operations have two components, processes and tooling.
Additionally, the leadership and management of the
organization is responsible for legislating,
enforcing, and adjudicating some
or all of the laws, rules, and/or
regulations the make up the
organization’s Governance. [Sidebar: For an
individual Methodist churches this would be called Administration.]
Finally, the organization must provide for its Infrastructure, “the tools and talents”
it needs to perform the operations.
These tools include financial, physical, and intellectual. For a religious organization this would be
the money, time, talents of the adherents and the buildings, property and
assets of the organization.
Processes and the OODA Loop
All processes
supporting the mission or infrastructure of any organization fall into the OODA
model of Col. John Boyd. The OODA, as
discussed in several previous posts includes four step: Observe, Orient,
Decide, and Act.
Observe
Initially, data is gathered by observing some aspect of the
current state of the Universe. This
includes data about the results of their previous actions. In point of fact,
Datum—some
observation about the Universe at a particular point in four dimensions
Data—a set
consistent datum
Orient
The Orient step in the process is an individual’s model of
how the world (Universe) works (descriptive) or should work
(prescriptive). These models are
sometimes called paradigms.
Rules from Governance enable and support the Orient step, by
structuring the data within the individual’s or organization’s model.
Information—patterns
abstracted from the data. This is the
start of orienting the observations, the data and information. The pattern analysis to convert data into
information is derived from the organization’s model of its environment or
Universe. For religious organizations
this is found in its “bible” and its organizationally related texts like the
“Book of Discipline” of the Methodist Church.
Knowledge—identified
or abstracted patterns in the information.
Using the same paradigm, environmental model, or model Universe, people
analyze and abstract patterns within the information. This is their knowledge within the
paradigm. When they can’t fit
information into their model, they often discard as aberrant, an outlier, or as
an anomaly. When enough information
doesn’t conveniently fit into their model the adherents have a crisis. In science, at least, this is the point of a
paradigm shift. In religion this is a
reformation (the reforming of the “bible” and/or the “book of discipline”, that
is the rules of governance. While in
science some conservative adherents to the old model lose their reputations
after a time, in religion people on both sides of the model’s discontinuity lose
their lives.
Decide
Once the organization or individual has the knowledge, he or
she uses input their knowledge within their models of the Universe to make
decisions.
Wisdom—is the
understanding of the consequences of the application of knowledge.
This is the hard part of the OODA Loop because it’s difficult
to understand both the consequences and the unintended consequences of a decision.
If your paradigm, environment, or Universe
model is good, or relatively complete, then you’re more likely to make a good decision.
More frequently than not people, even religious
people, make decisions that are “Short term smart and long term dumb.” Part of the reason is that they are working with
a poor, incomplete or just plain wrong paradigm (view of the world or universe).
This is where the Risk/Reward balance comes
in. When choosing a path forward, what are
the risks and rewards with each path? [Sidebar: A risk is
an unknown and it is wise to understand that “you don’t know what you don’t know”.]
Act
Once the decision is made people act on those decisions by planning
a mission, strategies, and so on within their paradigm.
Religious Organization’s Orienting Model
Joseph Campbell's four categories of functions of religions:
include: the metaphysical, the cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical. While there may be much quibbling with some
of what Mr. Campbell writes, the four functions of religion (and perhaps
culture) ring true.
The Metaphysical Function
Awakening a sense of awe before the mystery of being
“According to Campbell, the absolute mystery of life, what
he called transcendent reality, cannot be captured directly in words or images.
Symbols and mythic metaphors on the other hand point outside themselves and
into that reality. They are what Campbell called "being statements"
and their enactment through ritual can give to the participant a sense of that
ultimate mystery as an experience. ‘Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate
centers of life beyond the reach of reason and coercion.... The first function
of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et
fascinans of this universe as it is.’"
This is truly the “religious function of the four; the other
three tending to be more cultural than religious.
The Cosmological Function
Explaining the shape of the universe
“For pre-modern societies, myth also functioned as a
proto-science, offering explanations for the physical phenomena that surrounded
and affected their lives, such as the change of seasons and the life cycles of
animals and plants.”
While there still is much proto-science, science is serving
the cosmological function in today’s culture and has identified many patterns
in information and knowledge, and clarified many previously fuzzy concepts and
theories. Still, at this time, religion
plays a significant role in many “ultimate” questions. These include: What was there before the Big
Bang (if there was one), what architected “the laws” of the Universe (e.g., the
speed of light), why am I here, and what happens to me after I lose consciousness
in the process of dying?
The Sociological Function
Validate and support the existing social order
“Ancient societies had to conform to an existing social
order if they were to survive at all. This is because they evolved under
"pressure" from necessities much more intense than the ones
encountered in our modern world. Mythology confirmed that order, and enforced
it by reflecting it into the stories themselves, often describing how the order
arrived from divine intervention. Campbell often referred to these
"conformity" myths as the "Right Hand Path" to reflect the
brain's left hemisphere's abilities for logic, order and linearity. Together
with these myths however, he observed the existence of the "Left Hand
Path", mythic patterns like the "Hero's Journey" which are
revolutionary in character in that they demand from the individual a surpassing
of social norms and sometimes even of morality.”
More than any other the sociological function of religions
leads to culture, to cultural conflict, and religious wars. This is the key reason for the incessant wars
among the three great monotheistic religions—especially when “the authorities”
in each want to hold the political power that comes with the cosmological
function (the function of how the Universe and God work).
The Pedagogical Function
Guide the individual through the stages of life
“As a person goes through life, many psychological
challenges will be encountered. Myth may serve as a guide for successful
passage through the stages of one's life.”
Within the context of a given combined metaphysical,
cosmological, and sociological model or paradigm, teaching the paradigm becomes
important so that members of the organization can navigate in an orderly manner
through the model. Order reduces risk
and increases cost efficiency, while creativity increases risk but may increase
effectiveness. All religious/cultural
models work to decrease risk for its adherents and teaching the adherents the
cultural behaviors is seminally important for the religious organization to
last.
The Methodist Denomination; an Example
All religions create prescriptive paradigm or orienting
model that include all four functions (or dimensions) as discussed by Campbell.
All religious orienting models are based on religious
authority; either priests, shaman, etc., “Holy” texts, or both.
The Catholic Church before 1500
The Catholic Church before Luther and the Reformation and
before Guttenberg and printing used both written text and Clerical Authority,
with the latter being far more important.
Clerical Authority caused the burning and killing of the faculty or the
library and museum (university) at Alexandria, the extermination of the Templers,
the near extermination of the Huguenots, and Inquisitions killed hundreds of
people and attempted to rewrite science (see the biographies of Galileo,
Copernicus and others). A big part of
this was that the Catholic Church’s hierarchy believed their paradigm that they
were the final authority on knowledge and wisdom. They’re model included an Earth centered
Universe with the Pope or Jerusalem at the very center. This meant that they were always right and
competing models damned the heretics to Hell.
To this was added a major dose of politics; e.g., “The ends justifies
the means” inferred to the Jesuits.
Strategies (Based on the Christian Protestant Paradigm)
Enter, initially, Luther and Guttenberg. In 1455 Guttenberg has perfected the printing
press and began to print the Bible so that by 1500 there were a comparatively
large number floating around, as well as many other books with both ancient and
“modern” ideas. In 1507, Professor Dr.
Luther challenged the authority of the Catholic Church hierarchy, saying that
the scriptures, not the Pope and his minions held the core to the Christian
paradigm or prescriptive model of how the Universe should work and that all
people should be allowed to read these and interpret them for themselves. This change or shift in strategy was greatly
facilitated by the increasing number of printed scriptures.
This meant that people had to learn to read, which meant
they learned to write. The ability to
write meant that many more people had the ability to express concepts, ideas,
and theories across space and time.
Learning was not just for the clerics and clergy.
One consequence for the Catholic Church was that science
took on the cosmological functions, reducing the church hierarchy’s political
authority. Another was the increased
risk of “Christians” against “Christians”.
And finally there was the blossoming of intellectual and economic
wealth; since knowledge is the root of all wealth.
John Wesley, Adam Smith, and the United States
In 1783, John Wesley had his epiphany; he called it his
“heart-warming” experience. He continued
his work among the poor and ostracized, attempting to bring them into the
church. These people had been tenet
farmers and owners and workers in “cottage industry” manufacturing that
supported the farmers and the estates on which they worked. These people were being displaced by the new
and very controversial mass production using powered tools; that is, the
nascent industrial revolution of the early and middle 1700s.
These people migrated to towns and cities in search of
work. Many that migrated had no skills
that were needed in the new industrial economy.
With the debtor laws then in place, they ended up in prison or
worse. By 1811, the displaced workers
formed radical groups, called Luddites, who
destroyed machinery, especially in cotton and woolen mills, that they believed
was threatening their jobs; which the machines were. These were the people that Wesley sought out
and these were the people he reached.
As his “cult”, the Methodists, continued to grow, he a) had
to have help; additional “clergy” to preach, teach, and comfort the cultists,
b) these people needed to read but many couldn’t, and c) most of the rest of
the very early Methodists couldn’t either. Wesley set about educating his clergy and many
of the cult members by teaching them to read.
In turn, reading and other skills taught in Sunday school were used by
these “Methodists” to compete for jobs and to become entrepreneurs in their own
right; that is, the Church of disciplined learning, demonstrated that there was
a “Method” to John Wesley’s heretical madness. The Methodist Sunday School (A
real school teaching reading, riting, and rithmtic) enabled Methodists to
compete for better paying jobs and join the “Middle Class”. This follows Wesley’s admonition, “Earn all
you can, save all you can, give all you can”.
This is really the credo for the knowledge-based Enlightened Capitalism as espoused by Adam Smith.
As espoused by Smith, Enlightened Capitalism is really about
ensuring that there is an even economic and regulatory platform for all
individuals to start from; no one individual being favored in an economic or
political sense or even perceived as such.
This means that all individuals feel they have a chance to succeed to
the full measure of their God (or nature) given talents.
In 1789, the framers of the United States Constitution used
many of the concepts from the An Inquiry
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. These include:
·
Defense of the country
·
Support of the country’s infrastructure through
creation and maintenance of standards that cross state boundaries and support
of intra-country communications.
Everything else was left to the states and the people. The Methodist church and other religious
organizations noticed there was a need for, what is now called, “a social
safety net”. This was initially for its
members. So they constructed and
supported hospitals, orphanages, old folks’ homes, and so on. Many of the most prestigious hospitals still
include the name of a domination or religious organization. Many modest sized towns ended up with a
Catholic and a Protestant hospital, while cities might have two or three of
each plus a Jewish hospital.
In the 1880s and 90s, most Christian churches recognized the
need for kids to have physical activity, since fewer of them were “working the
farm”. So, along with Sunday School to
teach them to read, the churches built gyms for them to play in.
The Changed Mission
Politically correct, social liberal cultists in the
Methodist denomination have turned the strategies of this denomination from a
focus on religious activities to forcing societal change through political
action (tactics). They no longer give
any weight to the other religious functions discussed by Campbell.
In my opinion, in doing so, they have lost focus. The consequence is that young adults (gen X
and Y) see no difference between the Methodist Church and the Democratic or
socialist parties, other than possibly this is the organization to belong to,
if you want to earn your way into heaven, (but more about Heaven and Hell in my
other blog). So they see no reason to
join the Methodist Church. Those that
are looking for a religious organization head to fundamentalist churches, even
religious cults, like James Jones’ Jonestown.
But defining social injustice is even harder and religious organizations
have three other functions. “Wicked
Clowns lives matter” is an organization for “social justice”, but does that
serve all four functions of a religion?
Remember while “Social Justice” is easy to proclaim, it’s
hard to remember the individual as embodied in the song "Easy To Be Hard"
Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needy friend
I need a friend
Choosing a Mission, the Governance, and Infrastructure to Support a Religious Institution
The Three Great Principles
For a Christian church community any mission should be
founded on the three great principles of Christianity.
·
Love and respect God no matter what
·
Treat all others as you would want to be treated
·
Try to be your ownself at your very best all the
time.
The first, in the Christian Bible is that, “Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.” If a religious institution forgets this
principle, it is no longer a religious organization, but possibly a civic or
political one. Additionally, from any
serious reading of history, it is the principle all people find most difficult
to inculcate into their being and also the one that has caused more wars and
more massacres than any other. The
reason is that many religions believe they have a lock on God will and how to
please him/her/it. Their mighty God has
given them the right to enslave or kill anyone that espouses any variation from
their orthodoxy. This is true of all
closed religions.
However, any Christian denomination must have this as their
chief goal and guiding principle.
“The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” This is the chief principle of all civic and
political organizations, as well as a secondary principle of religious
organizations (at least this is what most religious organizations espouse). This principle is the basis for all laws
internal to a culture. Most people, even
those espousing religion, follow the law rather than inculcating the principle
into their lives. My mother said most
followers of a particular Christian domination followed the principle of
“sowing their wild oats six days a week and praying for a drought on
Sunday.” Hundreds of laws are needed to
ensure that not too many “wild oats” are sown.
There is a significant problem with “loving your neighbor as
yourself” and that is, many (most) people hate themselves in one way or
another. This may be caused by poor
brain wiring, by bad experiences, or both.
This is the reason that I include the third principle. People, especially young people, try to
distance themselves by drink and drugs, and destruction of anything that might
be beautiful. Why; because they can’t stand or understand themselves and act
out on those feelings. That is, “I’m
entitled and if I can’t…then I’m being disrespected.”
So any local church mission statement must include teaching
“my own self at my very best all the time.” (Which is impossible for any human
but should be the goal of all humans).
Organizational Architecture and the Protestant Church
A Mission Statement and the Strategies
There are four dimensions of “my own self”: mental,
physical, social, and religious (notice these fit well with Campbell’s
functions). As discussed earlier, John
Wesley intuitively understood that the Methodists had to address all of these
within the organization that he created.
First and foremost, it addresses the religious needs of its
adherents. Second, from the history of
Methodism, it is plain his “methods” and governance created a secure internal
environment for his adherents and that their openness combined with discipline
continued to attract more. Third, his
Sunday school addressed their mental dimension, while including gyms, etc.,
addressed the physical. And like his
mentor, Jesus of Nazareth, the people of early Methodism “…grew stature (the
physical), wisdom (the mental), and in favor with God (the religious), and man
(the social).”
Any mission statement
or goal and the strategies for
achieving the goal should include a balance of all four religious functions,
rather than a great emphasis on just one. Having said, there need to be a set of
strategies for meeting the goal. These
should encompass all four dimensions.
Once these are decided on, the church organization must decide on
processes (ordered sets of activities or “methods”) that move the organization
toward the goal.
Processes and Governance
However, the strategies and processes must be limited to
those that can function within governance of the organization. If the mission simply cannot be met within
the rules and regulations of organization then either: 1) the governance should
change, 2) the strategies should change, or 3) the processes. The simplest to change are the processes; the
most difficult is the governance. One
other thing, the mission or goal should not be changed.
Infrastructure
These follow the practices of organizational
architecture. Finally, the religious
organization has to work within the limits of its infrastructure and support
systems (even though with the right blessing these may greatly multiple to feed
the “my own self” of all members).
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