Autonomy Matters

In this episode of the Lead On podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, discusses the importance and implications of church autonomy in his podcast. He explains that autonomy, meaning self-governing and self-determining, is a core Baptist principle allowing churches to independently manage their leaders, finances, doctrine, and practices. This extends to associations and conventions, which are also autonomous. While autonomy fosters church strength, innovation, and doctrinal consistency, it can also lead to challenges like lack of intervention in struggling churches and limited accountability. Despite these downsides, Iorg emphasizes the positives, advocating for the autonomy of churches to maintain their unique approaches and responsibilities in ministry.

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Host

Jeff Iorg

President, SBC Executive Committee

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Jeff Iorg: 00:02

Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. If you're new to the podcast, the focus of this particular podcast is, as I've already said, the practical issues related to ministry leadership. Today, I want to talk about an issue that is often discussed among Baptists and often misunderstood by many in Baptist life. I wanna talk about the autonomy of the local church.

Jeff Iorg: 00:36

And, as a corollary to that, I wanna talk about the autonomy of associations, state conventions, and even the National Southern Baptist Convention. Autonomy. What does it mean? Why is it a distinctive of what it is means to be a Baptist? And why does this make such a difference in how we function, week by week, day by day in our movement?

Jeff Iorg: 01:07

Autonomy, particularly autonomy of the local church. Now, autonomy means self determining or self governing. Autonomy means self determining or self governing. Now, in practical terms, that means there's no

Jeff Iorg: 01:27

pope or there's no council, there's no dues, there are no allotments. There's no one outside of a church that can tell the church what to do with its leaders, its money, its doctrine, its programs and practices. In all of those spheres, autonomy means a church is self determining and self governing. Now, it also applies to an association of churches, a

Jeff Iorg: 02:09

convention of churches, whether it's a state or a

Jeff Iorg: 02:11

national body. Each one of these is itself autonomous, meaning that each one of these is also self determining, are self governing, that

Jeff Iorg: 02:24

there is no pope or council or dues or attached to any of these expressions of Baptist

Jeff Iorg: 02:32

life. Now autonomy, while

Jeff Iorg: 02:37

it means self determining and self governing, does not necessarily mean independence. Autonomy and independence are not the same thing.

Jeff Iorg: 02:52

Any church can retain its autonomy while it joins a network or a denomination, any one of those that will receive the church. Autonomy can

Jeff Iorg: 03:08

be retained when you associate with other churches to try to accomplish a shared mission. Now independence means you don't join up with anybody. It means that you remain a standalone congregation without any alliances or connections or any kind of networks. You just go it alone. But autonomy means that while you retain being self governing and self determining, you have voluntarily

Jeff Iorg: 03:44

joined with other groups in order to accomplish a shared mission. And in the joining of those groups, there is usually the surrendering of some independence, but not autonomy, in the relationship.

Jeff Iorg: 04:03

It's an analogy that breaks down a bit, but similarly to marriage. When 2 people get married, they maintain their autonomy. They're still individual people who are responsible for themselves before god, but they surrender some of their independence. Now they have to think about, when they're going to go and when they're going to come and where they're going to live and where they're going to work and what they're going to do on vacation, and where they're going to spend their leisure time, and how they're going to manage their money, and what they're gonna do spend it on. And they have to negotiate all of that with another person.

Jeff Iorg: 04:45

So while they still maintain their autonomy, they've surrendered some of their independence. Churches can do this. They retain the fact that they're self governing and self

Jeff Iorg: 04:55

determining, but they perhaps give up some

Jeff Iorg: 04:58

of their independence when they join a group like an association or a convention to work together with those churches. They voluntarily say, we're going to limit some of our independence so that we can be dependent. Cooperative is the word we use in Southern Baptist life, and work with others who share the same mission. Now, when an autonomous church joins an autonomous association or convention, it does not mean that the church can then believe or do anything it wants because associations and conventions, also autonomous, can determine their membership. And so this gets sticky from time to time.

Jeff Iorg: 05:44

As churches that are autonomous become part of associations that are autonomous, and then individually, churches become part of state conventions that are autonomous, and then churches that are autonomous become part of the Southern Baptist Convention that is autonomous. And autonomous meaning that self governing, self directing, not connected to any of these other bodies, it can be difficult to keep all this straight and to understand what the relationships are like.

Jeff Iorg: 06:14

But, my friends, considering

Jeff Iorg: 06:17

all the other options and models, I believe that autonomy has some strong upsides, some strong positives that we need to emphasize and understand in order to be healthy participants in our movement. The first upside or the first positive about autonomy is that it requires churches to survive by their own strength. Churches are self governing and self directing in who they ask to be their leaders. Churches are self governing and self determining in how they spend their money. Churches are self governing and self focused in their spiritual devotion, meaning that they are responsible themselves for their level

Jeff Iorg: 07:02

of spiritual energy and activity. So churches survive by

Jeff Iorg: 07:08

their own strength when they are autonomous, meaning they must train or attract their own leaders, they must raise and spend their own money, they must focus on and practice their own spiritual devotion, it really all rests on them. I see this as a huge positive because it requires a church to maintain its spiritual life without artificial support from outside. Now that does not mean that some additional support from outside for a church plant, for example, is wrong. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that one church can't help another church financially when they're going through a difficult time or maybe they're living through a crisis or some kind of natural disaster or something like that.

Jeff Iorg: 07:57

It means though that a church survives primarily by its own strength. And this puts a healthy amount of pressure on a church to find its own life, its own vitality, its own strength by its own trust in

Jeff Iorg: 08:19

God. That's a healthy thing. Another positive of autonomy is that churches are not limited by outside constraints

Jeff Iorg: 08:32

and can function with the innovative creativity that comes from following the lord, the spirit's promptings, the guidance of good leaders into doing things that are effective in their area. You know, churches are different in different parts of the country. Now you may say all people are the same everywhere. Well, they are in some sense, but they're also different in every context. And while communities have many similarities, there is no doubt that a church in Portland, Oregon is different than a church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Jeff Iorg: 09:11

A church in Albany, New York is going to be different than a church in Phoenix, Arizona. They're just different. They're different contexts, different cultures, different situations, and because of that, they need different approaches to ministry effectiveness. And autonomous churches have the freedom and the responsibility to find those approaches that work in their context and to implement them with vigor and spiritual, energy. When a church is controlled by a denomination or an outside agency, it has to do what it's ordered to do or what it's told to do.

Jeff Iorg: 09:50

And that may not always be the case of what's successful or what's appropriate or what's even productive in various ministry context or settings. That's why I like autonomy. I like for a church to not be limited by outside constraints, but to be instead forced to take responsibility for itself and to find those ministry approaches that will work in its context and to apply themselves to it vigorously. Now, again, that doesn't mean that autonomous churches can't learn from other churches. They can't, borrow from what they've learned by serving other churches.

Jeff Iorg: 10:27

They can't even it doesn't mean they can't use the curriculum even that comes out of these other churches, but it means we're not required to use any of those

Jeff Iorg: 10:35

things. This is another positive about autonomy. Here's another positive, a third one. Doctrinal standards are actually easier to maintain and, in autonomous churches. Now, you might think,

Jeff Iorg: 10:52

oh, I don't know about that. If if you're autonomous and you can just, believe what you want to believe, then aren't you open and susceptible to error coming into the church? Well, of course, you are. But think about it a different way. What if you surrendered your autonomy to a national denominational body and some people a long way from you took a vote and changed the doctrine of your body and then mandated that you implement that change.

Jeff Iorg: 11:25

We're seeing this happen all around the world right now. No better example than in recent months than the United Methodist Church. It's fracturing because the church, in in the sense of its denominational expression, has decided certain things about doctrine, particularly about sexuality and gender and marriage, and enforce those on every church. Well, this has not gone well. So 100 of churches have pulled away from the denomination because of this, rupturing relationships, creating legal challenges, all kinds of turmoil because the church, the local church, is not autonomous.

Jeff Iorg: 12:12

They can't believe what they believe and believe what they know is right. They have to assume, the doctrinal standards that have been decided by a denominational body, and this creates real conflict. Now, of course, autonomous churches can drift away from biblical truth as well. But in my experience, autonomous churches tend to be very vigorous about maintaining their doctrinal standards and are less likely to drift than 100, if not thousands, of churches that are ordered to go a certain way because a few people far away in a meeting room made a decision about a doctrinal standard. And then another upside of autonomy is that churches are required to to to, create

Jeff Iorg: 13:00

or to call their own leaders. Now,

Jeff Iorg: 13:05

this is another positive because it forces churches to do leadership development. If you are responsible for developing your own leaders, then you are going to go to work to make that happen, And autonomous churches have the responsibility of creating their own leaders, or if not creating them, then of calling them, meaning that they have to seek out someone to become their leader. Now just the process of doing that can be spiritually invigorating for a church and highly motivating to its leaders to engage themselves in the life of the ministry of the church, to discover the kind of leader that's needed, and to apply themselves strenuously to fulfilling that responsibility. These are positives of what autonomy can produce in a church. Churches must survive by their own strength, are not limited by outside constraints, it's easier to maintain doctrinal standards, and it forces churches to develop or select their own leaders.

Jeff Iorg: 14:10

Some positives about autonomy. But there is also a downside of autonomy and I wanna talk about that for a few minutes. First of all, churches can decline when no one can intervene

Jeff Iorg: 14:26

in their struggles. This

Jeff Iorg: 14:29

is one of the saddest aspects of autonomy for me as a denominational leader for many years now. I sometimes look in from the outside and I see a church struggling. And I see why they're struggling and there's nothing I can really do about it. Oh, I can make a phone call to the leaders and even offer to meet with them if they're open or in some way try to interject some counsel into their system. But in practical terms, no one has the authority to intervene in an autonomous congregation except the members and the internal leaders of that congregation.

Jeff Iorg: 15:10

This is one of the weaknesses of autonomy. No one can intervene. When leaders are being abused or when leaders are leading in an abusive fashion, when money is being misspent or money being handled in an inappropriate way, r, when spiritual devotion is waning or doctrinal error is creeping, there's no one to stand up and say, stop this, And no one who has the authority to control what's happening in those contexts. So one of the downsides of sides of autonomy is that churches decline when no one can intervene.

Jeff Iorg: 15:51

Now, the antidote to this is having churches that understand that while

Jeff Iorg: 15:59

they are autonomous, they can still seek help from outsiders. And if they do that willingly and voluntarily, they can receive that very well. So on a number of occasions, I've been associated with churches that were struggling in one of these areas I've just described. They reach out to me and ask me if I will be a consultant for them or if I will be an interim leader for them or if I will come in and meet with their leaders about certain specific issues. And in doing so, they've preserved their autonomy, but they've also drawn upon outside Christian leaders like me who may have a perspective that could be helpful in a situation.

Jeff Iorg: 16:38

And while their autonomy has been preserved, they've also gotten the outside help they need. And so while it can be negative when there's decline taking place and no one can intervene, that doesn't mean that no one can be asked into the situation and autonomous churches need to be aware of how and when they need to do this. Another downside of autonomy is the lack of denominational accountability. When you are an autonomous church, even though you join an association or a convention, that doesn't mean that you have to do everything that association or convention says nor does it mean the association or convention can intervene in the life of the church on every one of its decisions. This is particularly difficult for me as I lead now at

Jeff Iorg: 17:24

the executive committee. I've only been here a

Jeff Iorg: 17:27

few weeks, but every week that I've been here, I've received an email or a voicemail from someone demanding that I take action to fix something in their church. And sometimes, the problems they bring to me are serious problems that deserve, some significant intervention. The only problem is I don't have a platform to do that. I am the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, but that does not give me the authority to control what is preached in a Baptist church's pulpit, to decide who will be the pastor of 1 of our Baptist churches or even to dictate the standards by which they will select elders and deacons or other church leaders. While I might have a suggestion that I could make or might have a recommendation I hope they would hear, there is no authority to make any kind of intervention in an autonomous congregation or association or even state convention.

Jeff Iorg: 18:37

This is very frustrating for people who feel like that there's a serious problem and that no one's addressing it. My heart goes out to people who raise these kind of issues because I know the pain they're feeling and how desperate they are for someone to step in and do something about it. But in our convention of churches and in our Baptist tradition, autonomy is at the core of how we our ecclesiology, which is the way we think about church and the theology of church, but it's also at the core of our practice and how we work together as Baptist. And so, this is a downside. A lack of clear accountability to anyone outside of a local congregation.

Jeff Iorg: 19:22

And as I've said, this is one of the most, troubling and difficult parts of my current job is that people contact me, demand I take action to stop some egregious behavior, and are greatly frustrated when I tell them that I really simply do not have the authority to do what they're asking me to do. I have observed over 30 years of being a Baptist denominational executive that people really like autonomy until something goes wrong, and then they want someone to take control from the outside. But it doesn't work that way. It simply doesn't work that way. If we're going to preserve autonomy as a core, theological commitment that's at the center of our ecclesiology or how we understand church and why it functions the way it does.

Jeff Iorg: 20:11

If we're going to embrace autonomy, we have to embrace all of it, not just the positive aspects, but sometimes some of the negative that goes with it. An another downside is that doctrinal, peculiarities, I'll call them, are harder to prevent. Now, I'm not talking here about doctrinal heresy because I've already said that one of the upsides or positives of autonomy is that doctrinal standards are generally easier to maintain, especially the big doctrinal important issues that establish our orthodoxy as Christians.

Jeff Iorg: 20:50

But the peculiarities are a little more difficult to manage. What do I mean by that?

Jeff Iorg: 20:56

Well, a lot of autonomous churches develop very, specific understandings of the lord's return and of millennial positions and of all things related to the second coming of Jesus. Autonomous churches also develop sometimes, unique understandings of church governance and how that's going to play out in their congregation. They also can develop, unique, perspectives on things like patriotism or nationalism or relationships to politics or political movements. These things that I've just mentioned certainly are not at the core of the orthodoxy of the Christian faith, but they are these doctrinal can we call them peculiarities or these doctrinal things that are just unique that people seize upon and and build some system around that really identifies who they are and what they believe, and they come to value that very highly. And it becomes a distinctive of a church to hold on to one of these particular doctrinal perspectives.

Jeff Iorg: 21:59

And in autonomous churches, these are very difficult to prevent because, typically, denominational groups, do not have in their doctrinal statements or in their confessional statements even these issues addressed in the way that a local church has chosen to. So it's very difficult to prevent this kind of unusual or this kind of slotted or specific doctrinal peculiarity to be adopted. And then another downside of autonomy is that churches are sometimes not very skilled in personnel matters, and they think of, their relationship to their employees in a different way that companies often do. Now there's a lot of good in that, but sometimes it's, not good either. And that is where people that are employed in these contexts, are not treated in every good way that they should be, and there's no one to enforce that or make it happen.

Jeff Iorg: 22:58

And so they just while away wondering what could be done when really nothing is being done from the outside and the inside lacks the skill or the insight or even the professional capacity to know what to do and how to do it better. And I'll just give you one example. It's very common, especially in smaller churches, for churches to pay their pastor by saying, we're gonna give you a lump sum of money and you just divide it up however you want. Well, that sounds so generous on the surface, but

Jeff Iorg: 23:26

it's really not. Because once

Jeff Iorg: 23:28

a pastor divides it up and pays out his medical insurance and his retirement, if he's able to put anything aside for that and his ministry expense, his salary can get pretty small pretty quick. There's not anyone in the church that's employed that's getting that same kind of treatment where they work. No. They're having a professional person lay out their HR practices and policies and compensation, and it all fits together. And employees take great care in making sure their company treats them fairly and rightly.

Jeff Iorg: 23:57

And the companies take great care in making sure they do things the best way possible for both their benefit and the benefit of employees. And yet, autonomous churches often lack the sophistication to know even how to do all of that, especially if they're smaller and have just the one pastor or

Jeff Iorg: 24:13

the one paid employee. This is the kind

Jeff Iorg: 24:17

of thing what I mean. They're not always skilled in personnel matters or financial matters or things like this, and that can be

Jeff Iorg: 24:23

a real negative for the people who are impacted by that. And

Jeff Iorg: 24:29

then, there's one more negative of autonomy and that is when it is used to justify harmful behavior. When an autonomous church, uses their autonomy to defend something like, an abusive person or a person who's broken the law or a person who is not being held accountable in the right kind of way for their behavior and relationship to ministry or ministry leadership. When an autonomous church says, we're going to protect this harmful behavior because we wanna protect ourselves and our reputation or our way of doing things or even we wanna protect our autonomy, meaning that we don't want anybody else telling us what to do, this becomes harmful. Because now, autonomy is being used as a shield for what maybe is sinful behavior, but what is certainly harmful or destructive behavior in the

Jeff Iorg: 25:19

least. So autonomy can have its downside.

Jeff Iorg: 25:25

So why then, if it has these downsides, do I still value it as an important part of who we are as Baptists? Well, because autonomy of congregations or of associations or of conventions grows out of something deeper and that is something called soul competency. Meaning that every person is competent to relate directly to God and to have a personal relationship with him through Jesus Christ. That no individual has to go through a priest or go through a process in order to have a relationship with God. No.

Jeff Iorg: 26:00

A relationship with God is immediate, firsthand, and available to every single person because they have soul competency. They are competent to stand before God and relate to him directly. Because of that doctrine expressed then corporately, I value autonomy. And while there are some negatives associated with it,

Jeff Iorg: 26:24

and I'm the first to admit that, I've even enumerated 3 or 4 of

Jeff Iorg: 26:29

them here on the podcast. The positives still far outweigh the negatives. Being self determining and self governing, being able to stand on your own strength with your leaders and money and spiritual devotion determined by you as a congregation, Not being limited by outside constraints, but being free to innovate, to dream, and to apply what will work in your context to advance God's mission regardless of what anyone else is doing anywhere else in the country or what your denomination may try to prescribe for you in some kind of national way. Another positive, maintaining doctrinal standards because there's no one from outside your church that can force upon you beliefs that aren't really at the heart of what you believe as a church. There's no outside group that can make a decision far away from you that controls your doctrine.

Jeff Iorg: 27:25

I love that about Baptist, that we are autonomous in choosing what we believe and standing up for it. And then, this issue of leadership development, where autonomous churches are responsible to develop or find their own leaders, I find that to be another healthy, remarkable strength of what it means to maintain autonomy. So autonomy is a good thing. It has a lot of positives. It has some negatives, and those have to be addressed.

Jeff Iorg: 27:52

But the negatives are far surpassed by the positives. And so, I hope you'll join me in affirming, not only the autonomy of a local church, but then the autonomy of associations, state conventions, or national convention, that each one of these stands alone as an autonomous body, self governing, self determining, in friendly cooperation with each other, but not bound by, responsive to, or controlled by anyone outside ourselves in our own relationship with God. Autonomy matters. It's a good thing. And while being autonomous does not mean that you're independent, in fact, it means that you've agreed to surrender some of your independence, to maintain your autonomy while working with others who share your convictions.

Jeff Iorg: 28:43

It does mean that you're able to stand alone before God and say, we are self determining and self governing, and we are going to make a difference in the world, and take our own responsibility for doing that very seriously. Practice autonomy. Embrace it as you lead on.