rev. Girien r. Salazar
Editor's Note: This article is part of a series featuring the 2020 Sacred Sector Fellows. Each Fellow received a host site placement, where they are conducting an organizational assessment and implementation plan, and then will apply the “Three P’s” -- organizational best practices, public policy, and positive engagement -- at their host site.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a Christian ecumenical organization comprised of 40 major denominations that represent 45,000 local congregations, “connects and represents evangelical Christians in the United States.” Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NAE uses its collective evangelical voice to effectively influence society for justice and righteousness and the cause of Jesus Christ.[i] In 1942, 147 individuals led by J. Elwin Wright of the New England Fellowship, distraught with World War II and the diminishment of evangelical influence in mainline denominations, gathered in St. Louis seeking to harness creative, individualistic, and, at times, competing evangelical energies and reform the direction of evangelical Christianity in America. Their efforts and dialogue led to the formation of NAE and by the 1943 constitutional convention their attendance reached more than one thousand participants who represented nearly 50 denominations and a potential constituency of 15 million Christians.[ii]
The NAE’s stated mission is “to honor God by connecting and representing evangelical Christians.” The organization accomplishes its mission along four major pathways: (a) Church and Faith, which works to make evangelical ministries strong and effective by encouraging, resourcing and convening denominational, nonprofit, school and church evangelical leaders; (b) Public Policy, which represents evangelical interests to the government and mobilizes evangelicals to engage in the public sphere; (c) The Evangelical Chaplains Commission, which provides support and endorsement for evangelicals to minister as chaplains in places such as the military, Department of Veterans Affairs, hospitals, prisons, and businesses; and (d) World Relief, which provides churches with a platform to bring humanitarian assistance to suffering people in the name of Christ in the United States and throughout the world.[iii]
All Christian leaders should learn to assess faith-based nonprofits for strengths and areas of growth with the goal to create a road map for planning and engaging in organizational change so as to help the organization fully live out its sacred mission. Leaders can begin that process with the NAE through the Sacred Sector’s Three P’s Framework of organizational assessment: Public Policy, Organizational Practices, and Public Engagement.[iv]
Public Policy
As part of its sacred mission, the NAE intentionally navigates public policy by providing a forum where evangelicals work together to formulate and advance policies that protect religious liberty; safeguard the sanctity of human life; strengthen marriages, families and children; seek justice and compassion for the poor; preserve human rights; pursue racial justice and reconciliation; promote just peace; and care for God’s creation.[v] NAE resources includes its guide for public policy, “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” which provides a biblical basis for their policy positions on the aforementioned issues.[vi] Additionally, NAE has 53 active resolutions ranging between the year 1956, in which it urged evangelicals “to use every legitimate means to eliminate unfair discriminatory practices,” and 2019 in which it called on evangelical ministers to “create clear policies that are consistently implemented to prevent abuses and to deal decisively with any violations of trust in full cooperation with the legal authorities.”[vii] The NAE affirms that “government is a gift from God for the common good” and believes good governance protects life, preserves freedom, and creates an environment in which individuals, families, churches, businesses and other human institutions can thrive and “fulfill their responsibilities as God’s image bearers and as stewards of God’s creation.”[viii]
Organizational Practices
NAE organizational practices reflect a high degree of intentionality, professionalism, self-reflection, and Christian character. It operates within its four directives, Church and Faith, Public Policy, The Evangelical Chaplains Commission, and World Relief, with a staff of fourteen individuals who each have clearly defined roles as outlined by their job descriptions and organizational chart. NAE takes time within its staff meetings to discuss staff and organizational developments while also displaying a posture of spiritual, emotional, and cultural sensitivity that reflects what might be described as a culture of servant-spiritual leadership or Christian leadership. Its organizational practices and culture reflect and agree with the evangelical interests, issues, and concerns for which it advocates publicly. NAE staff exemplified this when they recently spent significant time in an internal staff meeting to reflect and discuss emotions, trauma, and experiences regarding the current racial unrest within the U.S.
Public Positioning
A large part of NAE’s sacred work, particularly in Public Policy, includes formulating and advancing public policies that protect and promote evangelical concern for the common good. As a result, NAE leaders strategically and intentionally grapple with how to best communicate their positions to the evangelical community and broader public. NAE is unambiguous in its Christian evangelical and biblical lens that characterize its publications, resolutions, resources, and statements publicly displayed through its website, podcasts, Twitter account, seasonal magazine, current articles, and other various resources. Certainly, one receives the strong impression that everything the NAE does is an expression of its faith-based mission to honor God by connecting and representing evangelical Christians.
My main summer learning goal revolves around the intersection of Sacred Sector’s organizational assessment factors of Public Policy and Public Positioning. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the NAE’s process of examining and positioning a public policy or moral issue (i.e. racial justice) through an evangelical lens and within the current American political and cultural landscape.
[i] About NAE,” National Association of Evangelicals, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.nae.net/about-nae/.
[ii] “History,” National Association of Evangelicals, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.nae.net/about-nae/history/.
[iii] “Mission and Work,” National Association of Evangelicals, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.nae.net/about-nae/mission-and-work/.
[iv] Chelsea Bombino, “Session 20: Three P’s and Organizational Assessment” (Zoom Meeting presented at the Sacred Sector Fellowship Intensive Training, Hosted on Zoom, June 12, 2020).
[v] “Mission and Work.”
[vi] “For the Health of the Nation,” National Association of Evangelicals, last modified September 23, 2018, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.nae.net/for-the-health-of-the-nation/.
[vii] “Resolution Archives,” National Association of Evangelicals, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.nae.net/category/resolution/.
Rev. Girien R. Salazar is a minister with the Assemblies of God, Texas Louisiana Hispanic District and a Fellow of the Sacred Sector Program, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice.
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