The Report on Arise: 92 Theses for the Church of Aotearoa
It has been hard not to wait for the publishing of the Pathfinding independent review on Arise with the nervous excitement of watching a planned demolition occur. You know it will be big and destructive, but there’s a slightly sadistic glee in the knowledge that it won’t harm you. The moment I opened the report last night was the moment my attitude dramatically changed.
A little background first. Following whistleblowing by David Farrier at the beginning of this year, Arise church agreed to an independent review process that would be managed by Pathfinding. This review commenced in mid-April and ultimately received 545 complete submissions detailing experiences at Arise campuses around Aotearoa, from both current and former members and staff. Pathfinding takes seriously the gravity of the task that they have been given, and treats these stories with respect and sensitivity. It is refreshing to see their approach, especially when compared to that of Arise.
The first thing that struck me when I read the report was the scale of the submissions and the extent of the recommendations. The Pathfinding report is 34 to 50 pages depending on which version you read–David Farrier has a longer, more recent version which includes experiences as compared to the one on other news outlets like RNZ (I have used the version on Farrier’s site as it is more recent). The report is broken down into 17 categories that cover everything from culture, racism, sexual and physical assault, finance, governance, health and safety, and restoration. In total, there are 92 recommendations under these 17 headings. This is a profound picture of a church that should be in crisis over the hurt that it has caused its community. On each page, new voices cry out against mismanagement, a culture of toxic positivity, and shallow theology.
But the more I read the report the less it started to feel like watching an event that was external to my own life and experiences. As I read the recommendations I was more and more aware of how relevant these suggestions are for so many churches in Aotearoa. Arise is not a rogue church that is operating completely apart from church culture in this country; yes there are parts that do not translate to every context due to differences in size and governance, but, on the whole, these 92 recommendations are an opportunity for all those in church leadership to perform a stocktake.
A large portion of the recommendations in the report are around governance changes that will ensure safe management and appropriate structures within churches. Some of these are about legal compliance, such as abiding by health and safety regulations. Others include policy making and reviewing around issues like incidents of a sexual nature, bullying and physical assault, as well as safe complaints procedures and codes of conduct. Policies such as these are essential for all churches, regardless of size, and church leaders must take seriously the need to review and reinstate (or instate in the first place) the necessary procedures that these policies require.
The governance recommendations also concern leadership training and diversity. These cannot be applied in a blanket way for all churches, but it is worth considering what steps might be taken in your context to achieve the outcomes that these recommendations are hoping for. Within these types of recommendations are considerations of how tangata whenua are given space to lead and guide worshipping communities, whether there is space for cultural expressions other than only Pākehā ways of worshipping, the place of women and their ability to lead, as well as the need for appropriate training of leaders (both at a pastoral level and at a governance level). These recommendations give us good questions to ask, and as we tailor them to our own contexts they will help to highlight that which we have chosen not to see.
This first set of recommendations that I have outlined are fundamental for all our churches to ensure we have good answers to. There are also other recommendations that may, to some, seem trivial on the first read, but it is for this reason that I think they are all the more serious. I won’t outline these here as I think the examples will be different for each reader. Instead I offer you this challenge: if a recommendation seems silly or irrelevant to your context, consider the type of culture that it is exemplary of. Is this recommendation a symptom of an unhealthy employment culture? A hostile environment for volunteers? An overly controlling leadership? A need for church members to conform? Ask members of your community what they think about it, too. It may be that when you ask these questions you still find the recommendation to be irrelevant in your context, but it is worth taking these questions seriously.
I wholeheartedly believe that this report is a gift for the church in Aotearoa. Take it and read it. Use it as an opportunity to take stock of your own worshipping community. Discuss it with your leadership and the wider church. And, most importantly, don’t be afraid to implement wider changes. To acknowledge where change is needed is a far greater show of strength than to demand broken things remain the same.
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Jaimee van Gemerden is editor at Metanoia.
