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dpb

On 6/1/2011 6:41 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Tue, 31 May 2011 23:36:42 -0500, wrote:

....

They gave them *no* choice. Something like half the congregation left and
they were having problems paying their bills afterward. Tough.

Who was "they" and "them" here? Sounds like again, that the leadership
council made a decision and as so often is the case, a large portion
didn't participate.

If it was a bloc schism, that's unfortunate but things like that do,
unfortunately, happen. It isn't however, a fault of the UM Church as an
organization but of an individual congregation is the point.

Now, often only a very small minority of the congregation members will
bother to show up and make their opinions known and cast their vote, but
that's no the same thing as having no choice.

Vote? There was no vote.

Where was the Church Council and the congregation annual Charge
Conference during all this? Again, methinks "there's more to the
story" here...

¶ 252. 1. Purpose—The church council shall provide for planning and
implementing a program of nurture, outreach, witness, and resources in
the local church. It shall also provide for the administration of its
organization and temporal life. It shall envision, plan, implement, and
annually evaluate the mission and ministry of the church. The church
council shall be amenable to and function as the administrative agency
of the charge conference (¶ 244).
....

I would certainly have expected any major shift in programs or missions
of the congregation to have been brought to the annual charge conference
for authorization.

As I feared, this has gotten too far afield and too involved into the
particulars of one particular congregation to be possible to sort out
anything at all.

I will contend, however, that it isn't an indictment of the UM
organization as a whole but within a single congregation.

If there, I'm sure I'd been on the phone w/ the District Superintendent
and the Bishop on more than one occasion...

They had to pick from three or four pastors. One they interviewed one (and
had them as a guest pastor) they had to decide up or down on that pastor. They
could not come back to him/her later. The third was automatic. They didn't
choose which ones to interviews, either. *Very* poorly done.

That also doesn't really sound right...part of the UM way is that
Conference (the Bishop, primarily altho w/ advice) assigns pastors for
everybody w/ a modicum of acceptance/rejection by the congregation. I
would not expect for the senior pastor to be more than a single or
perhaps a choice of a couple under a suggestion from the bishop.

Unlike some others who hire independently. That's just part of "the
Methodist way"--has been; will always be. If it's not a fit; rarely
will such an appointment last more than a couple of years, however in my
observation of some 60 years or so. Sometimes there's lessons to be
learned from some of these that aren't "comfortable" initially, too,
though...

Anyway, sounds like it's all water under the bridge at this point so
I'll really sign off now...

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