Religion · Tri-Cities, WA Metro · August 25, 2026
NPUC Delegates Approve Motion Opening Path to Women's Ordination
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The contested question was theological — whether women may be ordained — but the thing actually put to the 310 delegates was a polity sentence: that the union "recognizes the right and responsibility of each local conference to prepare and recommend names for ordination." The word "women" appears nowhere in the motion, so a delegate who came prepared to discuss 1 Timothy 2 or Titus 1 found himself instead on procedural ground — jurisdiction, committee authority, who submits names to whom — after 55 minutes of floor debate and a motion to close the question. Reporting notes the motion reached the floor by way of a request from the Oregon Conference, i.e., through the agenda machinery rather than through a doctrinal study process.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Before your own conference or church business meeting, get the exact wording of every motion in writing and read it as a lawyer would: ask what it authorizes, not what it says about the topic. Learn your body's rules of order and constitution — who may amend, how the previous question is called, what vote share carries — because a delegate who can move to refer or to divide the question is worth ten who can only speak. If asked something procedural you do not know, say "I don't know, I'll find out," and come back with the citation.
Rule 10
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
This is a fifty-year attrition campaign, not an event. World sessions declined the same request in 1990 (Indianapolis) and 1995 (Utrecht, 1,481–673) and again on July 8, 2015 in San Antonio (1,381–977); the pressure simply moved down a level, to unions and conferences. In this cycle alone there was an Oregon Conference request, a May 12–13, 2026 executive committee letter asking the General Conference to reconsider the matter for its 2030 session, a Change.org petition, an information sheet circulated to delegates, and finally the floor motion. Each defeat is treated as a delay, and the next venue is already booked for 2030.
Counter-Rule 10 · The Long Game
Plan in decades against a campaign built on attrition. Succession and endurance beat any single victory.
Answer in decades, not in news cycles. Read the actual record of the 1990, 1995 and 2015 session votes so you can state what was decided and by what margin rather than relying on what you were told this week, and keep a one-page file of dates, tallies and motion texts that outlives any single delegate. Then work on succession: make sure at least one younger member of your congregation understands your body's constitution and is willing to serve as a delegate in 2030.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The advocates' strongest public argument is not a new doctrine but a gap in the church's own practice: Adventist Today reports the denomination employs over 4,000 women ministers while none is recognized as ordained by the world body, and that several other union conferences already do what NPUC had declined to do. That is the church's own book of rules being held up against its own payroll — and it works precisely because the inconsistency is real, not invented.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Do not answer the inconsistency with indignation; resolve it in your own house first. Ask your conference, in writing, exactly what credentials it issues to women in pastoral roles and what each credential permits, and read the Church Manual chapter on church officers yourself so you know what the book actually says rather than what you assume. If your congregation's practice and its stated convictions differ, say so out loud in board meeting and fix the smaller thing before arguing the larger one.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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