On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:52:25 -0500, dpb wrote:

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?

I don't remember what they're called, but the regional church hierarchy
(Bishop level).

Sounds like again, that the leadership
council made a decision and as so often is the case, a large portion
didn't participate.

My wife was on the search committee. Does that count for "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.

No, it was *not* at the congregation level. It was *forced* down on them.

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...

Probably. It was six or eight years ago and I tried to stay out of it. When
one has a seriously ****ed SWMBO, it's sometimes hard to pull off. ;-)

snip

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

Ditto.