Reclaiming the Great Commission: A Practical Model for Transforming Denominations and Congregations

Reclaiming the Great Commission: A Practical Model for Transforming Denominations and Congregations. By Bishop Claude E. Payne and Hamilton Beazley. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. xx + 268 pp. $24.95 (cloth).

People who care about churches are drawn to ideas which promise profound community, spiritual growth, miraculous expectation, and personal transformation. This is the blurb printed on the jacket of Claude Payne's and Hamilton Beazley's Reclaiming the Great Commission. The question for those outside the Diocese of Texas, where Payne has been bishop since 1995, will be "Is this a model which can be used elsewhere, and if so, how?"

Readers looking for a how-to guide will not be disappointed. Beazley's expertise as a professor of administrative sciences at The George Washington University insures that the book is replete with diagnostic tools, careful definitions, figures, exhibits, and tables to help us focus on the differences between the old dispensation of the maintenance model in Church organization and the new dispensation of the missionary model. For those who want to go further with the study there are specific references to churches and institutions in the Diocese of Texas, a helpful list of references, and an excellent index.

The true review of this book has to be in the results experienced in the Diocese of Texas. Has the diocese been transformed? What has happened in the congregations? Perhaps a journalist would have served better as a reviewer than a parish priest. I sent a simple request for this kind of information to thirty-five randomly selected rectors in the Diocese of Texas. There were six responses, and while that is hardly a sufficient sample, they were very different responses. One had not read the book and did not know much about the bishop's vision or plan. Two were cautious to point out that modeling one's ministry on the apostles and guiding the Church's mission by the great commission were not new ideas. One parish priest noted that with Bishop Payne's vision "language (in the diocese and parish) changed immediately as we began to talk of `missionary outposts' instead of parishes." Another said "the Bishop's book has helped us shape the future of ministry....."

A long and thoughtful response from one rector brought the guarded criticism that the culture of the diocese under Bishop Payne's leadership might not be as inclusive as this rector had hoped from the missionary model. Can an intentionally progressive parish which is gay-friendly be a model of the apostolic community described in Reclaiming the Great Commission? From the comments sent to me, this correspondent thought it not likely. As the rector of such a parish myself, I find this an important issue. A search of all the indexed references to "inclusivity" revealed that the authors do a good job of describing the mission-oriented Church as inclusive in socioeconomic and cultural terms, but noticeably absent is a discussion of inclusivity in terms of theological diversity or sexual orientation. An extended discussion (pp. 57-59) under the heading "Comprehensive and Inclusive Membership" would have been a good place to be more inclusive.

Is this book self-congratulatory? Yes, but it should be. The Diocese of Texas is growing and anything which helps us move from a maintenance to a mission model is a good for all of us. Is the model new? No, Bishop Payne suggests it is based on the first century apostolic experience. Is it going to work for the rest of us? Here my guess is that success depends on the vision and leadership involved. We've all seen good models written up and resting on dusty shelves while imaginative and spirited leaders get the job done. My reading is that Claude Payne has the faith, formula, and leadership qualities to pull it off and he and Hamilton Beazley have done a service to the Church by sharing their insights.

TED COPLAND

Saint Boniface Church

Sarasota, Florida

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Winter 2002
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