Social Media and the Methodist Church

Pete got in first with postmodernbible: Social Media and the Methodist Council: the result. Here is my take:

The resolutions as officially released by the Methodist Council are:

1. Changes made to the text of the report

Main paper Agenda Page 29 paragraph 7.2.ii delete “after the end of
the meeting”.

Background paper Agenda Page 38 paragraph 9.3 delete “after the end of
the meeting”.

The point of the deletions was so as not to inadvertently prevent
Council members consulting others about Council papers (others than
those designated as confidential) before the meeting. 7.2. iii of the
main paper precludes discussion of the debate or its outcome during
the meeting or until after the official communications are issued.

2. The following resolution was passed:

The Council adopts the guidelines (sc. sections 5 to 10 of the main
paper) for use in the bodies and situations over which it has
jurisdiction, and recommends them to the Conference for adoption in
other parts of the Methodist Church. The Council further invites the
Team to keep these guidelines under open review. The Council also
directs the Team to produce a summary version of them similar to the
Civil Service guidelines.

Note that these relate to the original paper [PDF]MC/10/02 Social Media

Note also that as the information has been officially released members of the Council are permitted to engage with the topic even though Council is not over.

I realise that I have been mocked elsewhere for my understanding of and belief in the process of Methodist Conferring as it happens at the Methodist Council. Despite that I still believe it has significant value and should not be bypassed. However, I also believe in openness and transparency. Let me explain how I reconcile the two and why I believe the resolutions of this Methodist Council take us forward in a positive way.

1. Before a Methodist Council Meeting all the papers are published on the Methodist Church website for all to read (excluding for obvious reasons those marked Confidential - there are not many of these). Despite rumours to the contrary nobody has mentioned changing this policy.
2. The first resolution has removed an accidental restriction that stopped Methodist Council Members engaging with these papers on Social Media before the meeting. This was clearly a mistake as Council Members are encouraged to engage with those they represent on the issues that Council deals with. Before this meeting I was struggling with this issue and felt constrained in what I could write about this paper. So I feel this is a significant  improvement.
3. Council heard about the concerns about the paper that have been raised on various blogs and also the way that the process had been perceived by some. There was discussion about various potential responses including sending the paper back for revision. However, Council also heard about some urgent pastoral situations (although confidentiality was properly respected so no details were shared) where it was felt that something was needed from this Council, even if only a starting point.
   
4. Council looked at guidelines that other organisations have adopted - specifically the BBC and the Civil Service. The Civil Service guidelines particularly appealed due to their simplicity, clarity and values base. We considered whether to simply adopt the Civil Service guidelines but concluded that a) we did not have time to make the changes needed to adapt them for the Methodist Church (given that it was about 9:30pm when we finished today I accept that) and b) the Civil Service guidelines are supported by longer documents such as the Civil Service Code for when more detail is needed and we would need to put this in place as well to avoid to much variation in interpretation.
5. So Council came up with the second resolution which contains two changes that I feel are good news

• The Connexional Team is tasked with producing a summary version of the guidelines similar to the
  Civil Service guidelines. I understand that to mean a simple summary that becomes the main public presentation of the guidelines. As they will be similar to the Civil Service guidelines they should be values based.
• "Council further invites the Team to keep these guidelines under open review." I see this as good news in two ways. Firstly, the door is open to present revised Guidelines to the April Council Meeting and therefore there is hope that the Guidelines that actually go to conference will be a revision of what we have now. Secondly, the review is to be open. It is not clear exactly how this will be worked out but I hope that a way will be found to allow all those who wish to take part to do so (although we cannot ignore that time is limited if this is to get to the April Council meeting and thus to Conference this year). Obviously this "open review" is for the whole guidelines including the new summary.

There are still challenges ahead and there are cultural differences between those comfortable living in the world of Social Media and those who are not. However, my hope is that we now have something that is a reasonable compromise.

• It gives some guidelines to those who needed something immediately for urgent pastoral issues
• It recognises that this is a start and sets a direction for something better
• It looks to encourage participation from those who have felt excluded

As for how this all fits into my understanding of conferring which has been (I believe unfairly) characterised as authoritarian and closed to Social Media.

First, I am delighted that the official policy now supports the wide discussion of papers coming to conference and allows all (including Council Members) to express their views (of course views need to be expressed in a way that is compatible with our Christian faith - but why would we accept anything else?)

Second, having explored with others far more experienced that I the concept of conferring as we understand it in the Methodist tradition and particularly as it happens within the Methodist Council I am far more comfortable with some of the restrictions placed upon Council members during meetings. For me that means

• we do our best to come properly prepared  through reading and consultation
• when we are in the meeting we give our full attention
• everything stays within the meeting during the meeting. The time for external input and sharing is over
• once the decisions are official (currently determined by releases by the Methodist Church Media team) sharing and discussion are permitted with some limits. First, we do not share who said what in the discussion (so that people can feel free to express themselves without fear). Second, we take collective responsibility for the decisions Council makes (I think that means for example that we do not dismiss them or ignore them).

Now I feel I can live with these for the moment (so no tweets or blog posts from me during a council meeting - this being written in the middle of the night after being released by the media team and posted in a coffee break). They do provide a balance between being open and properly performing the governance tasks we were elected to do (which includes a lot related to being the legal trustees of various things, plus being the legal employer for Connexional Team staff).

However, I hope that as we work through the review process we will also be able consider how we can engage with social media during meetings in ways that are healthy from a governance perspective while improving our openness, transparency and immediacy. For example my experiences of blogging and tweeting in meetings is that they greatly increase the care with which I listen, something that is surely to be welcomed.

My prayer is that Council have done enough to respond to peoples fears and that we can move ahead in ways that support the Misio Dei (Mission of God).

Comments

[Pete]

Thanks for the summary David. For me the culture gap issue stands out a little more starkly - but that's probably more my issue than the church's.

[Davefaulkner]

Thanks for such a helpful post, Dave. I wanted to say a lot in reponse to you, Pete, Richard and David H, so I've written a long post http://bigcircumstance.com/2010/02/02/methodists-and-social-media-the-methodist-council-decision/>here. But at this point, thanks for such sterling work. For your sake on the Council, I'm glad you won't have to feel worried about open discussion before Council meetings again.

[Richard Hall]

A very useful post, dave. Thanks.

[Dave]

Pete,

Thanks. I agree that with your job you are in a very different cultural context to me. I agree that for your context the challenges of the cultural gap are more significant.

Dave, thanks for your post.