Presby's Makin it Work

Up front: What I'm about to say is not founded in thorough research and not meant to inflame the usual heated debates around religions and streams within same religions..

But a conversation triggered me to ask more questions to myself, read up a little more on something I knew nothing about, and kept me intrigued since.

So I will share my intrigue publicly, or well, with my captive audience, since this isnt quite the CNN or Al-Jazeera website..

I was having lunch with staff from a Ghanaian organisation that we work with, which is an association of church-based development projects. They asssist church stations, often located far from district towns or urban centres, who in trun work with rural communities to improve agricutural practices, health services, social services and the like. The association is open to all church-based development projects, and thus has a variety of members - some catholic, others evangelical, other methodist, others presbyterian and so on. Not being familiar with the many differences between the various streams - some significant, others less so - I wondered whether this hub could see whether any of the streams or denominations were more successful at their development programmes than others.

Suspecting that this was a tricky question to ask, i nevertheless wanted to know. So asked it. (I'm an Aries, don't blame me..)

I could tell by my partner's hesitation that there was something to tell, but he was reluctant, understandably so. My one lunch partner subscribes to the catholic church, the other methodist.

The catholic admitted that he could see a clear difference, at least when it comes to the agriculture/livelihoods programmes.

The Presby's take the cake.

The level of professionalism and success of their programmes stands high above similar programmes set up and managed by other churches.

Hmmmm. Now. Why may that be so? What is it about the Presbyterian church?

I don't know the first thing about it, so your thoughts are very welcome!

Some excerpts from the great wikipedia might point to some root causes, although I'd have to investigate all the other streams and compare them in these stances.. (triggers those Phd juices in comparative belief systems again..)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian

Local congregations are governed by Presbyteries made up of representatives of the local congregations, a conciliar approach which is found at other levels of decision-making. There are therefore no bishops in Presbyterianism. The office of elder is another distinctive mark of Presbyterianism: these are specially commissioned non-clergy who take part in local pastoral care and decision-making at all levels.

Presbyterians place great importance upon education and continuous study of the scriptures, theological writings, and understanding and interpretation of church doctrine embodied in several statements of faith and catechisms formally adopted by various branches of the church. It is generally considered that the point of such learning is to enable one to put one's faith into practice; most Presbyterians generally exhibit their faith in action as well as words, by generosity, hospitality, and the constant pursuit of social justice and reform, as well as proclaiming the gospel of Christ.

Could the inclusion of non-clergy from the community in the council of elders, and the focus on community well-being aspects that are not necessarily a product of faith in the Christian church (generosity, hospitality..) have anything to do with it? How is this then different from traditional forms of governance, where such council of elders do include persons to represent different aspects of community life and their general common objective is the socio-sentient well-being of the community?
If these are conducive elements in the Presby structure and objective of the church, and they are not or less present in the Catholic, or Methodist, or what-have-you churches, and if these elements are comparable to traditional governance structures.. then can't we assume that working in a similar fashion with traditional societies could have produced similar results? I'm cutting many corners I know, but I am always wondering to what extent the imposition of Western religious (or now non-religious) structures on traditional ones is necessary to achieve what we aim to achieve.
And so i keep going round in circles.

An interesting small book to read about relationships in traditional communities in West African (Dagara) society is this, reminding us that relationships are often not chosen by ourselves, but rather brought about by spirit because the combination of two people have something to offer - not just for ourselves, but for the community, for the world. this relates not only to partners we chose, but to our friends, our family, our working relationships etc. Next time you wonder why on earth this person came into your life and stayed, think back to spirit. I'm not sure what the Presby's woudl think of that though. Unless spirit is god and god is spirit.
I'll stop here.