University of Virginia Library

The Imperative of Planning

The first lesson of this study is the necessity of learning how to plan. The motives, as we understand them, of those responsible for creating the Congregation for Reconciliation were impeccable. Racism, poverty, and injustice are woven tightly into the fabric of our society. It is not enough to utter pious platitudes which acknowledge responsibility while doing nothing. Reconciliation

will come only when the price is paid. As individuals whose relationship to institutional faith is precarious, one foot in and one foot out, we echo the editorial writer of the Dayton Daily News, "Where, in God's name, are the churches?"

The churches of America are deeply implicated in the tragedies of our society, past and present. The time has passed, if ever there were an appropriate time, for self-flagellation. The hour is late to be seeking comfort in intentional morality. Where is the evidence that our good intentions are manifest in concrete programs which, by objective criteria, make a difference?

The Miami Presbytery moved, in a moment of great crisis, in a manner they believed responsible and responsive to the racial turmoil straining the seams of our nation. Possibly some on the planning committee now feel the Congregation met their intentions. But, unquestionably, none really foresaw what was to emerge from the experiment. If the product had indeed been anticipated, it is not likely that the necessary votes for authorization of the project would have been tallied. Once the creation began to take shape, however, it was too late to abort. So the National Missions Committee, the Presbytery, and local congregations learned to adjust. Indeed, most people even believed the experiment was creative and useful, if occasionally painful and embarrassing. That we share this conclusion does not alter the fact of unanticipated consequences, and hence the need for more careful planning.

Several conclusions seem inescapable. The opportunity to minister and educate creatively in member churches of the Miami Presbytery was missed. This is partially explained by a lack of consensus that this was the primary goal. But more importantly, the leaders failed to think through the hard questions of how to bring their creation to fruition in the desired manner. They ignored structural prerequisites. They probably hired the wrong man as pastor, if they desired to produce leadership for educating and interpreting racism to other churches. They designed a structure with almost no opportunity for recruiting active Presbyterian lay persons. They planned no channels for the constructive utilization of the potential resources of the experimental group by local pastors and congregations. And finally, they failed to foresee the inevitability of conflict, basically negative in consequence,

between the action-oriented experimental congregation and the local congregations footing the bill.

If we assume the formal list of goals drawn up by the National Missions Committee of the Miami Presbytery (see chapter 4) did not reflect the majority sentiment of its membership-that is, that these were consciously concocted to make the experiment palatable to Presbytery-then we must ask the question, Why were the leaders oblivious to the need for precisely the type of experiment they proposed? Why did they not see that the large majority of white Americans, including those in the pews of Presbyterian churches in Dayton, categorically repudiated the indictment of racism and their complicity in the perpetuation of the suffering of Blacks? Why did they not hear the voices of angry black leaders telling us to go home to our lily-white suburbs and churches?

These questions echo far beyond the membership of the Miami Presbytery's National Missions Committee; they haunt all of us who profess to care and yet do so little. These people, after all, did something. Indeed, they had quite an impact on the city of Dayton. But the mission committee deserves no laurels for serendipitous behavior. We must insist that doing something is not enough. This results in far more wasted time, energy, and resources, and even in occasional disasters, than we as a society can long afford. Leaders must understand what they are doing. They must come to appreciate the necessity of planning for desired results.

The lesson here reaches beyond church leaders engaged in programming to promote social justice. A much more fundamental issue is at stake. Churches, universities, governments, and even businesses too often assume an unobstructed path between the creation of a structure and the solution of a problem. Departments, committees, bureaus and the like, do not inherently produce desired goals. Structures demand structuring to achieve the results for which they are intended. Their goals must be clear. Their resources must be adequate. And there must be an infusion of the will and purpose of those responsible for their creation. With less than these preconditions, the results or consequences of new structures are likely to differ from their creators' intentions. In short, leadership needs always to ask, What are we trying to do? Are our resources adequate? Is the leadership right for the

task? What else is occurring in relevant cultural systems which might impede the accomplishment of our goals? How can we plan to meet the contingencies of unanticipated consequences to our programming?

Few new programs and organizations in our society take root in such careful planning. Thus, we are deluged with ineffective and encumbering government bureaucracies, irrelevant educational systems, alienating labor conditions, intransigent church groups, and so on. Charles Silberman, in his best-selling critique of American education, speaks powerfully to our problems:

Certainly, religious leaders could fit as neatly as educators in Silberman's statement. He then goes on to place these reflections in a broader cultural context:

It seems to us Silberman is saying we don't plan for the achievement of our objectives. Indeed, we don't even pause to recall our objectives. Peter Berger et al. would see this as a consequence of modernization and an increasingly complex technological social order. [3]

As a society we have failed to recognize and adjust to the reality of our complexity. We decry and fear our bigness. We perpetuate myths about the inevitable dehumanizing consequences of bureaucracy, technology, and planning. And in so doing, we become captives of our myths. But this is not inevitable human destiny.

We fashioned the myths. We can undo them and fashion new ones to serve rather than enslave us. And the churches can play an important role in planning this reconstruction of reality.