question: Congregational reviews

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JayneWonders

JayneWonders

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Does the denomination still do periodic reviews of a congregation?

I know that there are the formal ones which can be triggered by a member of regional council identifying a concern, request by 10 congregation, or other source.

I thought there were periodic reviews though, where congregations have an inhouse review. Do they exist still? Did they cease with COVID?
 
Are you referring to the former practice of an Oversight visit once every 3 years? Regional Councils are still supposed to do some sort of regular oversight, possibly thorugh a congregational self-assessment. I am not sure how many RCs have worked out how that will actually happen.
 
Yes, that was it, thank-you!

When did Oversight visits cease? Was that part of the switch from Presbytery to RC?
 
Yes - oversight visits & processes changed with the switch to Regional Councils. If I remember correctly, I'm thinking the 'new' process is for congregations to do an annual revisit & revision of their Faith Story (not sure that's the right name, but you know - the thing that gets posted on Church Hub I think). Those - or at least a percentage of them - would be reviewed annually by RC with visits or further communication organized if thought necessary.

this 2019 doc is prob most current - https://united-church.ca/sites/default/files/handbook_community-of-faith-reviews.pdff
 
Was once in a congregation that had an oversight visit. Not sure if it was routine or if there had been concerns raised.

It was concluded by the presbytery team that everything was fine.

Everything was so NOT fine it wasn't even funny. I just shook my head.
 
Interesting. Quick review, and I am left wondering if the undercurrent of how a congregation is doing is received.
Consider like reporting blood pressure and other quantitative tests to a doctor, versus visiting a doctor for a conversation.

Although those qualitative tests are good, if done appropriately, a periodic visit is essential to ascertain how well the data represents the health
 
Having been in a few congregations where there have been challenges, I wonder how useful a self-reflection process would be. One most notable to me needed Presbytery so that several of us could emerge on one piece at the end. Is there a neutral third party observer/facilitator involved in any way?
 
Nope.
No requirement that I can see for multiple participants or council/congregational disclosure either
 
Carolla said:
This 'annual self-assessment' checklist seems useful. https://canadianshieldrc.ca/wp-cont...C-Self-Assessment-Checklist-form-fillable.pdf

It does note Manual reference re Annual Self Assessment requirement & reporting.
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It looks to be a comprehensive checklist of policies and procedures which certainly have their place.

Something else is needed though to get at some of the issues which can plague congregations and lead to those painful congregational splits.

I am thinking of a personal experience in a congregation as well as others I have heard about secondhand.
 
While the oversight visits officially ended in 2019, the reality is that many or most presbyteries could not find enough volunteers for oversigh visits and the last three presbyteries to which I belonged struggled to get the oversight visits done every 5 years, especially for congregations towards the edge of the presbytery. Since leaders of congregations dominated the visits, it was difficult to get at challenges unless the people concerned about them dared to be blunt during the visit.
 
Does anything ever happen with these self-assessments or do they just get filed to comply with policy? I know when we do self-assessments as part of various IT audits, the assessors usually come back with further questions for clarification or expansion, then make recommendations at the end. Some even follow up with a compliance audit if desired to give an objective look at progress on the recommendations. Some of those items are legal in nature, so those would be particularly important just to make sure the congregation doesn't end up triggering a tax audit or something, but things like the section on justice activities and indigenous relations strike me as areas where follow-up would be valuable as well.
 
It was a long time ago but I am familiar with health care accreditation visits in hospitals. All departments were required to do a self assessment which was more or less ticking off the policy and procedure boxes.

An accreditation team of three (IIRC) arrived on site and held meetings with department heads, medical chiefs and so on.

They also attempted to get the pulse of the place by talking to front line staff and patients. Not sure much ever came of this effort.

It was largely an administrative review. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when it was over and anxiously awaited the report from the accreditation team. Suggestions were often made but they didn't address things like morale or interpersonal relationships
 
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jimkenney12 said:
While the oversight visits officially ended in 2019, the reality is that many or most presbyteries could not find enough volunteers for oversigh visits and the last three presbyteries to which I belonged struggled to get the oversight visits done every 5 years, especially for congregations towards the edge of the presbytery. Since leaders of congregations dominated the visits, it was difficult to get at challenges unless the people concerned about them dared to be blunt during the visit.
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Thus thin or quantum opportunities by chance ... causes stretch and stain sometime referred to as stress needing relief ... often declared all in the head man! Opportunities blown ... sometimes at inopportune times ... life is like that ... and so it goes ... network failure ... the work of the antisocial type in dysfunctional civil functions plotted for private advantage ...

Sometimes hard to correct in conflict resolution when up against hard heads! Mysteriously hides soft matter ... interpret as you will and take the onus ... however it is understood as dysfunctional ...
 
Mendalla said:
Does anything ever happen with these self-assessments or do they just get filed to comply with policy? I know when we do self-assessments as part of various IT audits, the assessors usually come back with further questions for clarification or expansion, then make recommendations at the end. Some even follow up with a compliance audit if desired to give an objective look at progress on the recommendations. Some of those items are legal in nature, so those would be particularly important just to make sure the congregation doesn't end up triggering a tax audit or something, but things like the section on justice activities and indigenous relations strike me as areas where follow-up would be valuable as well.
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Yet still ... many would prefer not to know if only for private advantage and manipulation of the unknown ... said to be a myth by those believing only of hard physical images ... albeit they may be incarnate hallucinations, due to endogenous deviations! The split developed for the sake of endogeneity for a test to see what's dysfunctional when observed from out there. Thus some of us back off and become relief ... groves? That's di ethchi NG ... when in the whole (thinking great) what do we know ... wholly? Tis fuzzy ...
 
paradox3 said:
It was a long time ago but I am familiar with health care accreditation visits in hospitals. All departments were required to do a self assessment which was more or less ticking off the policy and procedure boxes.

An accreditation team of three (IIRC) arrived on site and held meetings with department heads, medical chiefs and so on.

They also attempted to get the pulse of the place by talking to front line staff and patients. Not sure much ever came of this effort.

It was largely an administrative review. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when it was over and anxiously awaited the report from the accreditation team. Suggestions were often made but they didn't address things like morale or interpersonal relationships
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've been in on a few of those, too. We used to be accredited by one of the health accreditation organizations but then switched to ISO9001 so I am most familiar with that now in terms of quality audits.
 
Imagine; like being monitored from an exotic source of observation ... a shadow concept for those fear the darkness as a hated conscience ... being that all science is piously exiled from what is accepted as virtue! Is such a thing a rather innate-extant conflict? May happen in the wastelands of the medium ... where all is a mush or well ground matters! That'd be hated neurology with all the associated unclear data ! Creates a synaptic state ... for the jumped-up ... f(rogue)? There may be a leg up ...

Complex chaos goes on for reason unknown ... thus enigma and other abstract!
 
I've done risk assessments and also received them. Also been formally audited numerous times

So much depends on the person giving information, the knowledge of the reviewer and the cultures willingness to hear the results
 
JayneWonders said:
I've done risk assessments and also received them. Also been formally audited numerous times

So much depends on the person giving information, the knowledge of the reviewer and the cultures willingness to hear the results
Click to expand...

Getting information, data and intelligence is difficult when dealing with populations that have been conditioned that such things as knowledge and intelligence is toxic to an emotional sapient being! It can tear things apart as in rending the veil ... one can take it as positive or negative icon. everything has its ups and downs ... humans are not much assistance in calming when they rather cause high storms ... thus we try undercurrents ... is that subtle? It may be seen as departing shot at the blowhards ... something verboten as germane (necessary or not)? Depends on the set, condition or state of the collective fracture ... one part goes ... the other well that is the despised remnant ... sometimes cussed as left! The reception is queer ... regarding who is in and HU is out in a paradoxical organ as the mine/mined complex ...

In domains where literature is despised I attempt to be hard to read ... so that no one has to know unless they desire greatly ... often the desire is poorly distributed for unconscious rationale! Thus so much is in a dark place ... for reason much greater that the individual dispersion! Even some neuroscientists are firmly in disbelief regarding the unconscious mind sometimes testing the Gestalt! More departure from the physical absolute as fear of the abstract ... in a nebulous psyche created to pair the Duala! Said to be a deuce of a departure ... vast confusion as a great life that's beyond us in the looking back at the crap that floated us ... fecundity personified (by female sociologists)! Enough to stir the ire of the alternate sex ... Notre Dame? Maybe an udder one ... two cooks are trouble ... from the great beyond a great story when off the presses ... literature drives many politicians insane ... a complex path indeed!
 
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