A new way to elect generals...

[Kevin Peterson]

A New Way to Elect General Superintendents in the Church of the Nazarene
In this day in our church the number of Nazarenes living outside the United States and Canada fare exceeds those living in the United States and Canada. At the same time no other world region comes close by itself to the number of Nazarenes in the United States and Canada. Because of this we have many difficulties in electing General Superintendents that represent the every increasing international church we belong to. This is evidenced primarily by the fact that every General Superintendent that has ever been elected has been an American.
With the way we elect General Superintendents, by giving one vote to each delegate, we give the most power in electing General Superintendents to the United States and Canadian delegations by their large numbers. If they vote for the people that they know to fill the qualifications for the position they will tend to only vote for more Americans for the role. That does not mean they are by nature prejudice to people living outside of the United States and Canada, but that they really don’t know people who do not live here well enough to vote for them. The best case scenario right now is that we will elect one nonamerican to represent those not living here in the church, while still keeping a majority of General Superintendents American.
A solution that could help this problem would be to just give each world region one vote in the selection of General Superintendents. On the first day of General Assembly each world region would meet separately and elects one qualified person from their region that they would like to nominate for each open General Superintendent position that will be open. So, if there are two positions open then they would be required to present two names for consideration. (If people wanted more options then they could change this to having each region nominate two people per open position.)
Then once balloting begins with the whole General Assembly each delegate would get a ballot that has all the names of those nominated by their world region. Each delegate would get one vote at a time no matter how many open positions there would currently be. The votes would be counted by world region and the winner of each world region would get the one vote that world region has. When a candidate gets a majority of the world regions to vote for her/him they would be elected to the General Superintendent position. To make things move faster and force world regions to look outside themselves there could even be a rule that you can’t vote for the person from your region.
I realize there are some draw backs to this idea, but there are a few positives that out weigh them in my humble opinion. First, when a world region is nominating a person they would be forced to only nominate people that would appeal to the whole church and who would represent the whole church. If they wanted someone to be elected from their region they couldn’t nominate someone who would just have appeal in their region. Second, this guarantees that every region in the world would get equal representation regardless of size or ability to send a large delegation to General Assembly. While the United States and Canada have the largest region, the people from smaller region have equal need to have their voices heard and specific issues addressed.
To help with those who would be upset that roughly 700,000 Americans and Canadians only get one vote we could look to United States government for help. In the Senate each state gets equal representation while in the Congress they get representation by population. So we could give each delegate a vote when it comes to electing members to the General Board which could be like our congress, then the General Superintendents could be like our Senate because each world region only gets one vote in their election.
These are just some rough ideas and I’m such a novice to this that I don’t really know what would work and what wouldn’t. I hope that some of these ideas my spark some ideas in the minds of those who read this and that as a church we can see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Peace

[Ryan Scott]

A resolution similar to this was presented and not passed at the last GA. I'm not sure whether it was tabled or referred or what, but it was proposed.

Also, this thread might be better on the Renewal Board.

[Hans Deventer]

A New Way to Elect General Superintendents in the Church of the Nazarene

Kevin, are you a delegate? Will this be submitted to the GA?

[Roland Hearn]

As it stands the reasons that people get elected is generally name recognition and then voter fatigue, but for the most part good men have been elected. People start getting voted for because people recognize their name and eventually people start voting for the person most likely to get elected to get the process over with, however that process usually means an individual that has been noted for their impact upon the church is elected. While there is always merit in this discussion I think any time that we start forcing the vote in specific directions we could be opening a can of worms that we don't want to.
At the moment we have world regions that are broken up into geographic areas that combined together don't really reflect any cultural point of connection and so no one person from those regions is going to be truly representative of the region as a whole anyway. You suggested at the final hurdle have people vote for someone other than the person in their region. That then puts us back to the situation were it is name recognition that becomes the reason for voting. At the end of the day if we elect someone from India to be a General Superintendent because we need to have a system that elects non Americans is he/she going to be any more representative of someone from Argentina or Switzerland than an American. The thing I like about our current system is that as the world church grows there will come a day that under the present system someone who is not an American will get elected because of their impact on the church primarily and not because they are not American. The way we are going now will get us there eventually and organically. To change the system because we perceive a need to have a Non American may be well motivated at heart but do we really know how that is going to ultimately impact the church. I want leaders that are godly men with a grasp of the heart of God to be GS, I don't really care where that person comes from. I need to know the former if that is true the latter is less significant.

[Dave McClung]

A New Way to Elect General Superintendents in the Church of the Nazarene
In this day in our church the number of Nazarenes living outside the United States and Canada fare exceeds those living in the United States and Canada. At the same time no other world region comes close by itself to the number of Nazarenes in the United States and Canada. Because of this we have many difficulties in electing General Superintendents that represent the every increasing international church we belong to. This is evidenced primarily by the fact that every General Superintendent that has ever been elected has been an American.
With the way we elect General Superintendents, by giving one vote to each delegate, we give the most power in electing General Superintendents to the United States and Canadian delegations by their large numbers. If they vote for the people that they know to fill the qualifications for the position they will tend to only vote for more Americans for the role. That does not mean they are by nature prejudice to people living outside of the United States and Canada, but that they really don’t know people who do not live here well enough to vote for them. The best case scenario right now is that we will elect one nonamerican to represent those not living here in the church, while still keeping a majority of General Superintendents American.
A solution that could help this problem would be to just give each world region one vote in the selection of General Superintendents. On the first day of General Assembly each world region would meet separately and elects one qualified person from their region that they would like to nominate for each open General Superintendent position that will be open. So, if there are two positions open then they would be required to present two names for consideration. (If people wanted more options then they could change this to having each region nominate two people per open position.)
Then once balloting begins with the whole General Assembly each delegate would get a ballot that has all the names of those nominated by their world region. Each delegate would get one vote at a time no matter how many open positions there would currently be. The votes would be counted by world region and the winner of each world region would get the one vote that world region has. When a candidate gets a majority of the world regions to vote for her/him they would be elected to the General Superintendent position. To make things move faster and force world regions to look outside themselves there could even be a rule that you can’t vote for the person from your region.
I realize there are some draw backs to this idea, but there are a few positives that out weigh them in my humble opinion. First, when a world region is nominating a person they would be forced to only nominate people that would appeal to the whole church and who would represent the whole church. If they wanted someone to be elected from their region they couldn’t nominate someone who would just have appeal in their region. Second, this guarantees that every region in the world would get equal representation regardless of size or ability to send a large delegation to General Assembly. While the United States and Canada have the largest region, the people from smaller region have equal need to have their voices heard and specific issues addressed.
To help with those who would be upset that roughly 700,000 Americans and Canadians only get one vote we could look to United States government for help. In the Senate each state gets equal representation while in the Congress they get representation by population. So we could give each delegate a vote when it comes to electing members to the General Board which could be like our congress, then the General Superintendents could be like our Senate because each world region only gets one vote in their election.
These are just some rough ideas and I’m such a novice to this that I don’t really know what would work and what wouldn’t. I hope that some of these ideas my spark some ideas in the minds of those who read this and that as a church we can see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Peace


Why not just have each district nominate one person, put all of the names in a hat and draw the required number of names out of the hat? Would it really make a difference?

[Roy Richardson]

Or let everyone vote and have superdelegates for DS's and headquarters staff so they can overturn the will of the voters if it is close? That idea seems popular right now.

[Hans Deventer]

To change the system because we perceive a need to have a Non American may be well motivated at heart but do we really know how that is going to ultimately impact the church. I want leaders that are godly men with a grasp of the heart of God to be GS, I don't really care where that person comes from. I need to know the former if that is true the latter is less significant.

Roland, I'm fine with that but let's start with having a GA that reflects the Nazarenes. We might want to give the more than 100 Phase 1 District a vote, for instance.

[Hans Deventer]

Or let everyone vote and have superdelegates for DS's and headquarters staff so they can overturn the will of the voters if it is close? That idea seems popular right now.

Or use an electoral college to avoid that the voter's decision is effectuated as in 2000. That idea is pretty old, though.

[Roland Hearn]

Roland, I'm fine with that but let's start with having a GA that reflects the Nazarenes. We might want to give the more than 100 Phase 1 District a vote, for instance.

I agree with that. I think that we should probably reduce HQ representation and increase world region representation and actually make certain that for every elder that has a vote a lay person has a vote which was always the intention. Those are the parts that I think need fixing. I don't care if it takes a week to elect someone either I just want to know that we have created a system that reflects the capacity for God to move and not our perceptions of what should be fair.

But having said all that, and then this discussion should probably be moved to the renewal forum, I do believe we should have one GS and a council of elders and that council might be twenty strong each region electing one or two to serve on the council. I say that to say that I agree with Dave's desire to move to one single leader but I also believe there is value the multiple heads giving wisdom that is reflected in our current GS structure. I think we have always been limited in our ability to go forward because we insist on a multiple GS board. However, I don't think that is the only or greatest limitation we have. The original decision to have a multiple board was made so that each different church body coming in felt like they still had their leadership. That need disappeared at least 80 years ago.

[Paul Tarrant]

If tthe Urim and Thummin worked well enough for the ancient Hebrew people, maybe Dave's suggestion of names out of a hat would work for Nazarenes - although I think the day of Regional Assemblies and Regional Superintendents is not so far away - Then we could elect 1 GS on each international Region to represent their Region, and maybe 3or 4 from USA/Canada to make up the BGS - then the BGS themselves can elect from this "college of Cardinals/GSs" one to serve as mouthpiece for the denomination - like the Archbishop of Canterbury does for the Anglical Communion, and the Pope does for the Church of Rome ... we may however want to protect ourselves from these fine people bearing office till death or senility strikes. Whatever happens we will still need to elect three progressive individuals in 2009 who will guide the new "Structure Commission" through the needed stages of reform. Any volunteers...?