4.4 Context Specific Governance
4.4.2 Open Consensus
Open consensus means that decisions are made by a consensus involving anyone who shows up at a given discussion. Not surprisingly, this way of making context specific decisions is most effective in smaller group settings. The vast majority of meetings and gatherings at the congregations I visited were open to the entire congregation. People were actively encouraged to attend through both public
announcements and individual, private conversations. The openness of these meetings was a frequent source of pride and strong point of identity with the people I interviewed and it was often described in opposition to the relatively closed process of church council meetings which dominate governance at so many mainline denominational churches they came from.
My experiences in the field confirmed the openness of these meetings, and it became clear that this open invitation was only able to be managed through a consensus process. Fellowship church has a closed decision-making process where the three pastors make all the major decisions for the group in part out of fear that if they were to have votes along with an open membership, then they could easily voted out office by anybody who just “shows up off the street.” However, a consensus decision-making process takes care of this concern while maintaining a commitment to representation and participation.
A consensus process allows for the voice of the expert to carry more weight than in a
simple, majority rules direct vote. Ianello (1992) argues that a true consensus process privileges voices with experience and expertise by creating a more diverse environment than traditional bureaucratic structures. Often these experts are designated as such
simply by their presence in the group or committee holding the meeting (Priem, Harrison, and Muir 1995).
One of the key components that allows an open consensus decision-making process to work is the absence of parliamentary procedure or some other formal set of rules (Rothschild-Whitt 1979). Instead, discussions are held until everyone is satisfied that their viewpoint has been heard and taken into account. It is important to note that a process focused on consensus does not necessarily mean that everyone agrees with the decision in the end (Thurston 1987). What utilization of this procedure does ensure, however, is that people’s voices are heard and everyone has the ability to influence the final decision. It allows for the specific decision and makeup of the room to influence the process, because particular decisions will attract different groups of people.
Chris, from Incarnate Word, indicated that this way of making decisions was not uncommon at his church.
Interviewer: So how do decisions get made?
Chris: Well we pray about it and we talk about it. Like some people are talking about having worship outside one week and just do an outdoor thing, or who are we going to tithe to? Just we get different ideas from different people. Because we all value each other because we’re all peers. We just discuss things in dialogue until we come to some conclusion.
I even had a chance to observe this process in action during one of the weekly gatherings as the group decided how to spend their outreach resources for the month. The process of consensus creation followed the same basic principles that Thurston (1987) identified in her study of Women’s Health Collectives. Namely, information was provided, opinions
were sought, and dissent was resolved. After the call for proposals by the person leading worship, Eric stood up from the congregation and said he hoped that the congregation could commit to supporting an overseas missionary from a nearby congregation who also attended their own services (Incarnate Word gatherings are held on Wednesday nights making dual attendance not only possible but also a reality for many of the people I talked with). Eric’s proposal launched a discussion of whether supporting an overseas missionary was the best thing for the low-income community where the church was located. After some conversation, a compromise was reached. The congregation agreed to support the missionary with funds and to devote time this month to a community organization which provided day care for children during the summer.
This process was subject to many of the traditional difficulties of a consensus decision-making process. It took a good amount of time, nearly twenty minutes of the hour long gathering, and the discussion privileged those which had more access to knowledge either in the form of advanced preparation or in the ability to formulate and mobilize arguments quickly. Eric appeared to have prepared arguments in advance to support his case, and a conversation with him afterward confirmed this. The group that was able to effectively argue for dividing time and monetary resources in order to devote time to the community were already volunteers at the community day care allowing them access to information others might not have had prior to the gathering. While this
differential influence is a problem for the feminist organizations which traditionally employ consensus decision-making as an alternative to democracy or authoritarian practices, these are not issues for resistant organizations. Allowing for the differential influence based on knowledge and experience that accompanies consensus decision-
making helps to mitigate against the establishment of a routine system of governance.