One of the problems in the church and in our society is that we always think we need more thing to be happy or to thrive.  Reading tweets and blog posts related to General Conference I got the impression, at times, it seemed like some felt if we could find the one more thing, we could set things right.   Perhaps one more change to the Book of Discipline.  A dollar more for this program.  Some new power for bishops.  The fact that most of the one more things did not get passed put a damper on the whole affair.

Rich Mullins in his song “One More Thing” sings “everybody I know says they need just one thing and what they really mean is that they need just one thing more.”  It seems like as a church we are always searching for that one thing that will set us right.  One more program, one more administrative change, one more event, and so on.  Rich in the chorus seems to come to the conclusion “you’re my one thing” as he sings to God.

As a church, we have all that we need.  Jesus has promised to be with us to the end of the age.  Pentecost reminds us that we are not orphans, but we have the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Our hope should not be built on the polity of our church, but standing on Christ our solid rock.

Rich Mullins.  In the public domain.

Wesley’s Covenant Prayer – Several people in their tweets and blog posts referenced Wesley’s Covenant Prayer when discussing the end of Guaranteed Appointments.  The line that was continually used was “let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee.”  What I find weird is that people are using a prayer to God to talk about Guaranteed Appointments.  Most pastors I know would buy whole heartily into the Covenant Prayer.  We want to be employed by God or laid aside if that is God’s preferred will.

It seems painfully obvious, but it needs to be said: bishops and district superintendents are not God.  I have no doubt that in the appointment process the bishop and the cabinet are trying hard to discern God’s will.  Sometimes though, I imagine, they make mistakes.  As United Methodists, we are not Calvinists.  We believe we can make decisions against God’s preferred will.  It is the downside of free will.  It is possible that some appointments are not God’s will.  Some decisions by the bishop and the cabinet are possibly not God’s preferred will. Using the Covenant Prayer when talking about appointments blurs the two.

Itinerancy – One thing peculiar about the United Methodist system is itinerancy.  Pastors are appointed to a church on a yearly basis.  Each year, a pastor could be appointed to a new church.  The bishop and the cabinet can send the pastor, at least theoretically, to any place in the conference based on their discernment.  A pastor could be sent to a healthy congregation, a struggling congregation, a dead an decaying congregation, a “clergy killer” congregation, and the pastor often only has limited say in the situation.  Too often, the bishop and the district superintendent only have a vague understanding of what is really going on in the life of the church.  Pastors are often sent into contexts that are not going to produce immediate fruit.

When we had guaranteed appointments, this arrangement seemed fair.  We can send you anywhere, but we will have your back.  You might be sent into a difficult situation, but that will not hurt your future employability.  Now it seems less fair.  We can send you anywhere, even a context that does not match your gifts and graces.  After a period of time, we might decide that you are ineffective and not give you an appointment.  Or we see that you are not producing fruit.  We then realize we  have too many elders.  So for missional reasons we will not appoint you.  Yes, there are checks and balances.  Still, will someone stand up for you if you appeal?  Will people be afraid to stand up and risk that they might be the next person not to be appointed for missional reasons?  Who wants to appoint a gad fly?

Theology – I have been reading the book Bad Religion and was surprised to read that the Roman Catholic church came to a point in the 20th century when they would not release priests from their ordination vows.  It seemed interesting that once a person was ordained, they were expected to keep the gift of ordination their whole lives.  The gift could not be returned.  It raises the question what does it mean to be ordained?  Does ordination require mutual responsibility?

Now I realize that ordination is a sacrament in the Roman Catholic church, but is not one in the United Methodist Church.  I also realize that we are really bad at theology in the United Methodist Church.  I believe we do not articulate our theology a whole lot any more in the life of the church.  Too often we let competing theologies into our hymnal, our worship supplements (I am looking at you Worship and Song), our Sunday school lessons, and small groups.  I cannot tell you how many times I saw people get United Methodist theology wrong on Twitter (I realize Twitter might not be the church at its best).  One person said something like “I did not realize that prevenient grace has become preventing grace.”  It was in the context of a debate where the person thought grace was being lost.  I wanted to ask the person on Twitter, have you read Wesley?  He did not use the term prevenient grace, it was preventing grace.  I know what the person meant, but it was painful to read.  People talked about social holiness as if it was social justice.  For the record it is not.  Wesley’s understanding of social holiness is different than our modern understanding of social justice.

As a church we need a better theology about ordination.  What does it mean to get ordained?  How does it relate to the larger church?  Why can a non-ordianed person preside over the sacraments?  If deacons are ordained, why are they excluded from presiding over the sacraments?  If the church affirms that a person is set apart for ordained ministry, what does it mean that we can exit them from the ministry for reasons beyond ineffectiveness (if we believe there is some mutual responsibility in ordination)?

Recruiting – Eliminating Guaranteed Appointments may have unintended consequences.  We say we want young clergy.  One way we get young clergy is for pastors to be prayerfully looking out for children and youth with the gifts and graces for ministry.  I have heard many call stories of pastors.  Most of them involve a pastor inviting a person to think about how God might be calling the person into ordained ministry.  As pastors lose job security by the loss of guaranteed appointments, I know I will have second thoughts about inviting children and youth to think about ministry in the United Methodist system.  A life of itinerancy seems fair when coupled with guaranteed appointments.  If you give the system your best, the system will not abandon you.  The BOD had a way to deal with ineffective pastors.  A system where people communicated well and resolved conflicts would not have ineffective pastors.  How can I ask in good conscious a person to devote their life to a system that might chew them up and then spit them out when that is what is expedient?  How we live into this new reality of life without guaranteed appointments might have unintended consequences in terms of pastors recruiting the next generation of pastors.

When do we hit rock bottom? – Every time we cut the pastors compensation, I wonder where is rock bottom?  Since I have started ministry (it has only been five years), we have increased the pastors contributions to our health insurance plan twice.  Our conference has downgraded the quality of our health insurance plan.  General Conference just decreased our future pension benefits (and to be fair they could have voted for more of a decrease).

Now I realize churches are struggling.  The charge I serve is severely struggling.  I realize that most employees are being asked to sacrifice more and more.  We all do what we have to do.  Yet, with the loss of job security, on top of the trend of ever declining overall compensation, at what point does it no longer make sense to be involved in ordained ministry in the UMC?  Each pastor will have a different answer.  Ordained ministry in the UMC is not the only way to live out one’s call to ministry in the world.

How disposable are pastors? – One trend in the business world that really bothers me is how disposable employees are.  If a business wants to sure up profits in the short-term, employees are often seen as disposable.  I remember reading in my senior year of high school Rethinking America.  Part of the author’s premise was that we should think about our employees differently in America.  We should invest in them in the long term and stand by them in difficult times.  The author lifted up Geremany and Japan as models.  Now no one is currently lifting up Japan as a model for anything, but I think he was right about employees.

Here in the United States we are ever increasingly externalizing the costs of everything by making employees pick up the extra burden so that consumers do not have to.  It seems like we are doing that in the church as we race to the bottom in terms of compensation.  Now with the loss of guaranteed appointments, we are externalizing the problems and responsibilities of ministry onto the pastors.  What I mean is that if there are too many elders and not enough appointments, we will now withhold appointment for missional reasons.  Does it matter what the pastor has done for us in the past?  Not inherently.  Does it matter that the person has sacrificed to serve the church?  Not really.  Does it matter that God has called them into ministry and the church has affirmed that call by ordaining them?  Apparently not.

There are always multiple ways to deal with problems.  By making pastors bear the full brunt of these problems, we are treating pastors like they are disposable.  We are adopting the worst practices of the business world.  Pastors are becoming just one more cog in a machine bent on the perpetuation of the status quo.  If the cog no longer is needed, we dispose of it.

Some are talking about all of this in terms of the church’s needs versus pastors needs.  As if pastors are just parasites and that the whole system is designed around the needs of the pastors.  Hence all this talk about missional appointments.  We are framing it so that if you argue for guaranteed appointments you are putting the needs of the pastor above the congregations.  It is all more complicated than that.  Arguing for a fair system that treats pastors like they have some value and are not disposable, is not saying that the needs of the pastor come above the church.  Our system of appointments is not perfect.  As a church we have not arrived at perfection.  There is a strong possibility that for a variety of reasons beyond ineffectiveness, pastors who could be effective in the right context, will be exited from ministry.  I just pray that we are not treated like we are disposable.  I hope we are treated as children of God who have felt God’s call on their lives and are trying, by the grace of God, to live out that call.

In the public domain.

]]> http://mongorille.com/blog/175/guaranteed-appointments/feed/ 0 http://mongorille.com/blog/168/power/ http://mongorille.com/blog/168/power/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 10:00:35 +0000 Andrew Burd-Harris http://mongorille.com/blog/?p=168 Read more »]]> After reading Tom Berlin’s blog post about Guaranteed Appointments, I am glad he feels great about the loss of guaranteed appointments.  Undoubtedly he is feeling better that he now knows the conference wants him and is not merely putting up with him.  It was nice of him to acknowledge, a bit, that he was not in the most vulnerable of positions.  After all as a popular clergy person (he is a delegate to GC from his AC) serving a large membership church, he probably does not have much to fear from this sudden loss of job security.

An aside: I realize my snakiness is a little mean.  I really like The Rev. Dr. Berlin.  He came to speak at an ordination retreat I attended.  Out of all the pastors I have heard speak, who lead large membership churches, his words on change make the most sense.  Still, his post was rather blasé. He retweeted it at least four times as of last night.  In his blasé style, I think he ignores what makes the removal of guaranteed appointments potentially problematic.

What troubles me most about his post is that he does not talk about the uneven power dynamics or power at all.  The loss of guaranteed appointments changes the power dynamics between the bishop and clergy of an annual conference.  Maybe for the better.  Perhaps for the worst.  More likely somewhere in-between.

After the 2004 General Conference I talked to a delegate about the people who had openly suggested schism as a way to deal with our conflicts related to homosexuality.  As an outside observer it seemed to me the conflict was all about homosexuality.  The delegate suggested that it was really all about power.  Different sides using the issue of homosexuality as an issue to try and  shape the church to their liking.  Sure the surface issue of homosexuality was part of the conflict, but below the surface were power struggles.  Only talking about it in terms of homosexuality ignored the larger power struggle.

As I mentioned in my post on Accountability, there is more to the loss of guaranteed appointments than the issue of ineffective pastors.  While most would like to focus on the easier issue of ineffectiveness (who wants ineffective pastors?), the other issue is that there appears to be too many pastors wanting full time appointments at a time when full time appointments are disappearing.

This is obviously a problem.  It needs to be dealt with.  Hopefully, the safe guards in the General Conference’s legislation on the issue will help us move towards vitality in healthy ways.  I think though it has to be acknowledged that issues of power are at work here too.

I keep reading about the need for bold action.  The need for accountability and leadership.  Ultimately, some have a vision for the church where leaders with the right amount of power will steer us towards vitality.  People unhappy with the current structure are also unhappy with the current power arrangements.  Its not simply about leadership, it is also about power.

Any change to the structure is a change to the power.  Some will benefit from the changes in power, others will not.  Power is neither a good or bad thing, it all depends on how it is used.  When we don’t talk about issues of power as part of the discussion and we only discuss part of the problem, we are not being honest with ourselves or each other.

What troubles me the most is that the majority of the people at General Conference making these decisions (Young Clergy?) are the ones who have the least skin in the game.  On the elder end of things, most are popular, many are established in ministries that are fruitful, they are not in vulnerable positions.  For the laity and deacons, they have nothing to lose and it is easy to blame elders for the problems of the church than taking collective responsibility.

This change in power is one sided.  We weaken the position of the pastor, but we do not make congregations or the superintendency weaker or more accountable.  As we strengthen, at least in some ways, the congregations and the superintendency at the cost of pastors, we have to ask will stripping the pastors of more power lead to vitality?

I would contend that pastors have too little power as it is.  We have a lot of mandated responsibility in the BOD, but where do we have the power to live out those responsibilities?  Congregations do not inherently kowtow to the pastor.  In fact, in my experience, they do not.

I contend that if we want vitality, we must empower both pastors and congregations.  Congregations, pastors, and the superintendency must all be held accountable.  We must define what want, what we see as fruit, what we expect from pastors, what we expect from congregations, and what we expect from the superintendency.  Healthy power dynamics need definition.

As a church we need to talk about power and how we use it.  We must be aware of how our changes in power will empower and marginalize.  When we make changes that are necessary, but will lead to harm we need to acknowledge it.  One example is for pastors not being appointed for missional reasons, but who could be effective clergy in the right context.  In our new system it could happen.  In an annual conference with too few appointments and too many clergy, it maybe necessary.  Not every clergy person will be effective in every context.  This does not make the pastor inherently ineffective.  We should work to mitigate the harm and acknowledge the sadness of the situation.

We also have to ask, to what end are we using our power?  Are we at cross-purposes?  If we say we want young clergy in one breath, and than use our power to weaken the position of young clergy in the next, will our words or our actions speak louder?  How do we judge our use of power?  I think Dan Dick explores this better than me, so I refer you to his posts: “Safety in Numbness” and “Value-Addled.”

“Fist.” ©2006 Copyright Randen Pederson.  Licensed Under Creative Commons

In one of my introductory classes at Albright on American history, the professor (who I greatly respect) spent a fair amount of time defending the value of concentrating in history.  One of his arguments was Santayana’s aphorism.  At the time it sounded appealing.

On the surface it seems to make sense.  When you use the right hermeneutical lens, smooth out the rough places, and overlook the contradictions, you might be able to point to a situation that looks similar to a different situation and say that history repeated itself.

In a religious studies class (I did a full concentration in religious studies as well) I mentioned the aphorism.  The professor looked at me incredulously and challenged me on how that could possibly be true.  I thought about it for a good while and I was stumped.  When I was honest with myself I could not think of a good example.

History does not repeat itself.  There will never be another Waterloo.  Julius Caesar will not have to experiance another Ides of March. Joan of Arc will not be challenging the parochial powers anytime soon.  Even if you believe Gandhi will be reincarnated, India is already free.  Unfortunately there will never be another “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech/sermon.  As much as some people would want another Ronald Reagan, “the Gipper” will not be ascending/descending from Republican hell/heaven anytime soon.  Not knowing about people, places, or events does not inherently mean that the person or event will repeat itself.  It cannot inherently.

This is not to say that the study of the history of is a worthless pursuit.  Memory is important.  We can derive lessons from history.  Understanding the past helps shape our understanding of the present.  Knowing what has happened might help us make better decisions in the present.

The problem with the aphorism is that it is a power game.  We often use it as leverage.  It sounds true.  The person using it sounds like an authority.  People with some apparent knowledge wield it against people who are afraid they might not know enough.

We live in a world where we wish for the “Good Old Days.”  Many people believe the past was better than the present.  Our culture loves the notion of the original.  Somehow the first or the genesis was the peak and everything has been downhill from there.  Whether it is the Supreme Court’s strict constructionists or the Tea Party movement, we some how think there was this time in history that was the paragon of human thought (or at least their understanding of that time) and any deviation from that understanding is folly.

History then becomes a weapon.  Things were great back then.  If we could just go back to those basic principles then we could return to the “Good Old Days.”  We use our understanding of history as a weapon against our opponents.  Santayana’s aphorism or the flawed thinking behind it exacerbates this.

In the church we do this too.  If we could just go back to Wesley, the early church, or Jesus, all will be well.  When we do not like the church’s current direction, we use history as a weapon.  Our current problem is history repeating itself.  If we could just go back to the Garden of Eden.

In the debate about church vitality we talk about numbers and statistics.  We often use the past as a way of justifying our position.  People say things like “Wesley and the early Methodists kept statistics” and “they did not tolerate ineffectiveness.”  We cherry pick what we like about the past, use if to justify current actions, and smooth over the differences in time, culture, and systems.  History is not only a weapon we can use to defend our position, but a magic incantation.  If we just perform the right ritual from the past, we can recreate perceived successes from the past.

As a church we should look at history.  We have a rich and deep history.  There are times to remember when the church carried out the Great Commission in ways that were Good News for all nations.  Church history also has periods though when we need to confess that we were not what God has called us to be.  Lessons can be derived from the good and the bad.  History though will not repeat itself.

We should not put our trust and hope in history.  Our trust and hope is in God.  One of my favorite parts of the United Methodist Great Thanksgiving is when the celebrant prays, “when the Lord Jesus ascended, he promised to be with us always, in the power of your Word and Holy Spirit.  We do not need history to find Jesus.  Jesus is with us in the power of God’s Word and in the person of the Holy Spirit.  We have what all that we need.

History does not repeat itself.  At its most innocent, the aporishm is silly.  The aphorism becomes devious though when history is used as a weapon.  Simplistic understandings of the past will not help us much in the present.  Better understanding our complex history might help us make better decisions in the present, but it will not save us from the past, present, or the future.

George Santayana. Image is in the public domain.

My struggle with accountability is: what do we hold people accountable for?  Should a teacher be held accountable for the students standardized test scores?  How much of the blame or praise should the teacher be assigned?  In most cases, the teacher did not share their genes with the student or nurture the student.  A student usually has several teachers.  The teacher is not responsible for the larger web of systems that the student lives in.  Does the teacher play a role in the education of the student?  Yes.  Should the teacher be accountable for the role the teacher plays in the life of the student?  Yes.  The hard part though is clearly delineating what the teacher should be held responsible for and what is beyond the teachers control.

It appears that General Conference has voted to remove ”Guaranteed Appointments” from the BOD.  The idea that if you were an elder in good standing, you were guaranteed an appointment.  This is being lifted up as a major step towards accountability and vitality.  Ineffective pastors could be held accountable.  (Let us ignore for the moment that the Book of Discipline already had a means and a method to remove ineffective pastors and some bishops have used that means quite effectively.)  We all  pray this will lead our churches to vitality.

I have no inherent problem with the removal of guaranteed appointments.  Accountability in the proper context is incredibly appropriate.  What I have a problem with is that it is not clear to me that pastors will be held accountable for things they can control.  Our ministry takes place in a complex web of systems.  Many of those systems are unhealthy.  There are things the pastor controls and there are many more things the pastor does not.  The unhealthiness of our church as a whole and in local congregations is not all the fault of pastors.

If the issue is really about ineffective pastors, why are the current safeguards in our Book of Discipline not enough?  Is it because we do not communicate well as a church, or have problems resolving conflicts?  If bishops and District Superintendents have ineffective clergy, why not have the conversations needed now?  If you read Bishop Willimon’s new book or read one of his print interviews, you get the impression he had little problem having conversations with ineffective pastors and exiting them from the conference.

My guess is that we struggle with honest communication and conflict resolution.  We also struggle with being honest when we frame issues.  All those who only want to talk about this in terms of ineffective clergy are playing a slight of hand trick.  Bishop Schnase in a question and answer article before General Conference suggested that the end of guarenteed is not really about ineffective pastors.  He seems to suggest the problem is that there are too many pastors for too few appointments.  If this is the real problem, we will have to do what we have to do as a church, but let us be honest about it.

It would be helpful to define the terms we are talking about.  What does a  ”missional appointment” mean?  What does it mean to be “effective?”  Are we talking about church growth or discipleship?  When we talk about fruits of ministry are we talking about numbers or spiritual maturity?  If it is a “both/and” which one takes priority?

Will only the pastors serving local churches be held accountable?  Will bishops and district superintendents be held accountable for the appointments they make?  What about local churches?   Will they be held accountable?  If the pastors are the only ones being held accountable in the system will we have the church vitality we pray for?

Accountability is great when people are held accountable for things they can control.  If a person is given a clearly defined job, with the appropriate power, resources, and responsibility to accomplish the job, accountability is powerful.  Most of time though, pastors are not given a clearly defined job, they are given a lot of responsibility, but little power.  Resources are often lacking.

I think we need a system where we define what we expect.  We need to define what we mean exactly when we say the mission statement of the UMC.  It would be helpful if we are going to hold pastors accountable, we hold congregations accountable as well.  If bishops and district superintends are the ones who are going to hold pastors and congregations accountable, then they should at least ensure that they define what they expect from the pastors and congregations. If we are going to make missional appointments, please define what all this entails.

“Sword” ©2006 Copyright Adam Rose.  Licensed Under Creative Commons.

Bishop Jones’ tweet that “My view – three most important factors in renewing the UMC: leadership, leadership, and leadership” sums up the problem with the whole tenor of General Conference and the work leading up to it from my perspective.  The controversial Call to Action is epitome of the cult of leadership.  Some seem to believe that if we just empower the leaders of our churches and lead in the right ways, “leadership, leadership, and leadership” will renew our church.

The problem is that leadership is not the answer.  People will not come to United Methodist churches because of leaders.  When someone is “church shopping” the person is not going to go online and look at the official statistics to see who is leading best.  A first time visitor to a church is not going to grill the pastor to see if they have read a book by Borden, Heifetz, Stanely, or whatever business or church leader is the newest savior.  Visitors are not concerned with leadership.  Unchurched people are not hoping that the churches suddenly have an influx of leaders.

Our purpose as United Methodists is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  Leaders do not make disciples.  God makes disciples.  A disciple is one who follows.  The initial invitation to follow comes from Jesus, not a leader.  The grace to understand and accept the invitation to follow comes from the Triune God, not a leader.  Churches can and should be part of God’s work, but churches need to remember it is God’s work.  We follow Jesus, we invite others to follow Jesus, and we support each other by the grace of God on the journey.

Leonard Sweet best captures this in his book I Am a Follower.  As followers of Jesus, we might be a first follower, one who accepts Jesus call to follow and then invites others to follow as well.  Leadership might play a role in following and inviting others to follow, but the heart of the matter is following, not leadership.  We do not lead, we follow and invite others to do the same.

I often hear people use Biblical leaders as justification for the importance of leadership.  At a retreat I attended earlier in the year, a pastor who I greatly admire, used Jeremiah as an example of a leader.  My question though is “who exactly did Jeremiah lead?”  When I look at the Bible, I do not see leaders.  I see followers who invited others to follow along.  When Moses followed God and invited others to follow, great things happened.  The reason Moses did not enter the Promised Land was not because he followed, its was because he tried to lead apart from following God.  Joshua is often lifted up as a great leader, but the reality is that he followed God.  Look at what happened at Ai when he tried to lead and not follow.  David might have been a king after God’s own heart, but how well did David do when he tried to lead in terms of a census?

Time and time again, the best examples of faith in the Bible are seen in followers, not leaders.  Ruth was a follower.  The prophets followed where God’s call on their lives led them.   How often though did the people follow their leadership?  Why we remember them today, why their words are God-breathed as the author of 2 Timothy might say, is that they faithfully followed God.  Often the people of faith we admire the most, are the people least respected by the leaders of their day.  No one would have accused most of the prophets of being a leader of the people.  Too often they were trying to invite the people to turn away from their leaders and turn back to God.

One reason we keep holding up leaders as the solution is that we fall into the fallacy that correlation equals causation.  People look at “successful churches” and they often identify a leader.  The success of that church, after the nominal nod to God, is then attributed to the leadership of the individual identified.  The thinking goes something like this: we have a leader, we have a successful church, one must have caused the other.  This is not inherently true.

When I look at pastors who have helped churches thrive, I would not attribute it to leadership.  Most of those pastors are passionate followers of Jesus who have invited others to follow.  The congregations are full of passionate followers of Jesus who are inviting others to follow.  What appears to be leadership is a successful partnership between the the followers and God.  Jesus invites, the Triune God empowers and equips, the people accept the invitation to follow, and then go out and invite others to follow.

Is leadership inherently bad?  No.  Can leadership be part of followership?  Yes.  My primary concern is how we are framing our conversation in the church today.  We keep using words like accountability.  Accountability is an important part of following Jesus, but in the wrong context it becomes deeply problematic.  Holding people accountable for what they cannot control is flawed, but at the heart of how our society practices leadership.  Accountability in the context of following Jesus is the genius of monasticism and the early Methodist movement.  How we frame our conversation matters.  The language of leadership should not be our default.

If our focus is on leadership, we are going to fail.  If our focus is on how Jesus is calling us to follow, by the grace of God we might thrive once more.  General conference cannot mandate health.  We cannot make people, congregations, or pastors follow Jesus.  At the heart of following Jesus is prayer, repentance, and discernment.  As a church and as followers, this has to be our starting place.

General Conference could help shape our life together as a church in ways that encourage us to pray, repent, and discern.  We might envision ways of being the church that help us better follow Jesus and invite others to follow as well.  As a church we do not have to reinvent the wheel.  The Bible is full of models of how to follow Jesus and invite others to follow.  Our history as United Methodists and as Christians, is full examples of how the church could be shaped to better follow Jesus and invite others to follow.  The focus though must be on followship, not leadership.

Palm Sunday 2007 in Somerville MA.

]]> http://mongorille.com/blog/130/leadership/feed/ 0 http://mongorille.com/blog/121/young-clergy/ http://mongorille.com/blog/121/young-clergy/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:14:15 +0000 Andrew Burd-Harris http://mongorille.com/blog/?p=121 Read more »]]> As the 2012 United Methodist General Conference approaches, I have been trying to bite my tongue and not get too worked up about things that have not yet come to pass.  With the possibility of radical changes to the church structure and the end of guaranteed appointments there have been many things that have gotten my dander up.

For as long as I have been in full time ministry, I have heard the leaders in my conference talk about the need for young clergy.  To their credit, they have actively worked to recruit and support young clergy.  At the same time though, I have noticed that with declining attendance and giving, we have also actively been making the compensation end of pastoral ministry less appealing to people pursuing ministry.

Teachers with only bachelors degrees often have better benefits and compensation starting out than a pastor starting in ministry.  One works nine months a year with a set schedule, the other has a graduate degree, is on call 24 hours a day, works 6 days a week for 11 months of the year.  As an aside, this is not to say that teachers do not deserve their compensation.  I get upset when we as a society argue for the lowest common denominator.  I think we should compensate our teachers well. As young people are trying to discern how God is calling them to be in ministry in the world (as United Methodists we believe we are all called to ministry) compensation will be part of that discernment process.

Pastors feel a call to ministry and we are willing to sacrifice for the mission of the church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  I struggle though when our compensation is changing for the worse, whether we are being called to sacrifice to make disciples of Jesus Christ, or for the perseverance of the current system which is failing and cannot continue.

Yesterday I read this article about how some would like to change our current pension system.  I was upset.  Then I read this commentary and thought about how in the name of saving churches and making disciples, we will probably make changes to the pension system that will make ministry less appealing.  I started to wonder how this will impact the decision of young people about whether they want to pursue ordained ministry or stay in ordained ministry.  Could these decisions have an impact on the life of the church for generations in ways we are not counting upon in terms of young clergy?

What really gets me going is the power dynamic at play.  The people making the decisions are, on a whole, the ones who have the least skin in the game.  They are in positions of power and have the most protection from these decisions.  Young clergy (for the most part) are not at the table and will feel the sting the most.

I think the Reverend Becca Clark summed it up best in her twitter post:

I am thankful she has a voice at the table.

Ultimately though, we do not make disciples.  God makes disciples.  At best, we create environments where God can work through us.  God does not need the United Methodist Church to make disciples.  Young adults do not need the United Methodist church to be part of God’s disciple making process.

If the church decides to end guaranteed appointments and keep the itinerancy system, if the church asks young clergy to sacrifice future security in relation to pensions, while asking the clergy who perpetuated our current troubles to not sacrifice, why should young people feeling called to ordained ministry want to be United Methodist clergy? Do we as a church want young clergy?

“Money” ©2007 Copyright Thomas Hawk.  Licensed Under Creative Commons.

Using formulas to visually represent the information might be helpful.  Undoubtedly someone seeped in math or science would find this deeply problematic, but I think it might be helpful in conveying information and creating a common language.  Two formulas I have been playing with are:

• Rootedness + Mission + Vision + Accountability + Passion = Thriving Church
• Happenstance + Reputation + Opportunities + Invitation = Visitors

I worry formulas might seem inaccurate, crass, or too simplistic, and yet, the churches I serve need a common language and a way to think about our ministry.

“Einstein’s Lecture notes.” ©2012 Copyright Martin Lopatka.  Licensed Under Creative Commons.

I was surprised, I had no idea the church had a grocery store card program.  So I made a comment noting my surprise.  One of my parishioners said something jokingly like “shame on you!”  I asked how was I to know about it when this was the first I heard of it?

I learned in divinity school “you don’t know what you don’t know” after scheduling classes for the first semester and then learning the United Methodist church and my conference had required courses.  It caused logistical problems for my remaining semesters.  In hindsight it seems obvious, but I had no idea.

One problem in churches is that we assume people know.  We take for grated that people know where something is, where to sign-up for something, or that a program even exists.  Yet, too often, we fail to communicate what seems obvious and in doing so we lose out.  If I had known the church had a grocery store card program, I might have shopped at the grocery store and used the card.  What I find really amusing is that even after I said I didn’t know about it, did anyone show me how to enroll?  No.

“Socrates.” ©2003 Copyright Sebastià Giralt.  Licensed Under Creative Commons.