Lauren Porter asks whether local congregations should have the right to refuse elders appointed by the bishop.
As I continue to ponder that question, I can’t help but wonder: Why don’t UM churches have a right of refusal? In fact, why aren’t local churches far more heavily involved in the appointment process?
We talk a lot these days about wanting strong, involved laity in our churches. How invested can laity really be if they have no say over who their leader is?
These are common questions heard around the UMC during this time of year. My answer – for what it’s worth – comes in several parts.
First, local churches are consulted about their needs and mission. If a person is not on the pastor-parish committee, it may not be obvious that this has happened, but it does. Of course, consultation does not mean a right to reject a new appointment.
And this is because the bishop and the cabinet are responsible for an entire annual conference, not just one or another church. In striving to meet the missional needs of an annual conference, a bishop may not always makes decisions that bring joy to the hearts of each individual charge. Let’s face it, no organization is composed of 100 percent rock stars. The average pastors end up somewhere, too.
Which is why the task of the elders needs to be strengthening the laity. The body of Christ cannot depend on having a superstar in the pulpit. A local church needs to be able to thrive and survive even when it has a weak to average pastor. Indeed, a good church should be one that helps make the pastor better rather than sitting around waiting for the pastor to make them better.
As a practical matter, the bishop is obligated to find pastoral leadership for every charge. If charges can veto appointments it may become necessary to let bishops decline to provide a pastor just to keep the process from melting down.
In the end, the answer to Lauren’s question is pretty simple. There is no divine reason why we have a sent ministry rather than a called ministry. Those are the two models. For reasons of history and tradition, we United Methodists have opted for a sent ministry. Can you argue that it has flaws? Sure. But its what we are.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
This love we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God; and at the same time a peace that passeth all understanding, and joy unspeakable and full of glory.
That’s interesting. Except in the case of Probationer ministers, circuits in Britain do have the right of refusal as do the ministers during the selection process.
However, we don’t have “the career concept” of moving from smaller to bigger churches for increased pay and responsibility as circuit ministers all get the same stipend with really very small extra increments for Circuit Superintendents. I’m sure it probably happens (because it always does somewhere) that some minister tells someone that a certain appointment is beneath his or her station but I don’t think that’s really regarded as “the done thing”.
We could never make this change now, but I have often wondered what would happen if we put all clergy compensation in the hands of the annual conference rather than the local church.
If your salary did not depend on the size of your church, how would that change our deployment of clergy.
I would get rid of what I consider to be a scandal for a Methodist pastor – clergy with six figure salaries.
John, thanks for your take on the question.
I agree with you to a large extent, of course. The bishop and cabinet are concerned with the entire conference and all its churches, and so it does seem impractical to give each church the opportunity to say yea or nay to each appointment.
Still, the question stands: How strong and thriving can a church be when we don’t always take their individual concerns seriously? The laity I talk to are not peripheral church-shoppers nor petty troublemakers. They are highly-invested people who love their church and want what’s best for it.
It’s less about superstar / rock star pastors than it is about the “bottom third” of pastors. How many ineffective pastors in a row can the average church survive?
A local church needs to be able to thrive and survive even when it has a weak to average pastor.
What you say is a wonderful ideal with which I would wholeheartedly agree. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. Weak pastors seem to make for weak churches. It seems unrealistic to say to a church: ‘We’re going to give you a fairly inept pastor, but we want you to succeed anyway.’
Lauren,
I quite agree. That is a failure on the part of the annual conference, in my opinion. If a church is sent weak pastor after weak pastor – and the cabinet is surely aware of whether it is doing this based on its own ratings – then I would understand why the church feels badly treated.
I wonder what the bishop/cabinet’s reply would be? It would be interesting to hear their take.
I’m still not a proponent of the “right of refusal” because I do not see how you do that without it collapsing into a call system. (Jay’s point below is a good one in contrast to mine.)
Of course, part of the issue you point to is the guaranteed appointment problem. You have pastors who are not up to the job but need to be stuck somewhere. This is another good argument for ending that practice.
Thanks for the comments. I did not mean demean your laity friends. I am sorry for that.
No offense was taken. I was just trying to clarify the type of laity to which I was referring.
You’re right, it would be interesting to hear the take of the bishop and cabinet for each conference. My interaction with my conference’s bishop and superintendents gives me the impression that they are working very hard and trying to do their best, but when you’re dealing with 1100 churches and 900 pastors, it’s hard to get every match right. Most mismatches are sincere, honest mistakes.
I guess I am less pushing for a ‘right of refusal’ than I am asking how we could improve our current appointment system through better laity feedback within the local church. The best District Superintendents I’ve known work very hard to do that. Others, it seems, don’t. How could we improve that?
Often, pastors will be offered choices or options to consider. I know very few churches that have ever been offered a choice of two or three potential pastors to select from (Jay’s comments below notwithstanding). Why is that? Could we do that?
I also agree with your comments about the guaranteed appointment system. I am not sure the answer is to do away with guaranteed appointments altogether, but we do need to do a better job of removing ineffective clergy from the appointment system. The mechanism is in place to do that, we just need to use it.
Thanks again for your observations. They are always valued.
Let’s be honest — some churches DO have the right of refusal. In our conference the right of refusal is reserved for those churches at the top of the food chain, those churches with the largest membership and the largest apportionments. I can think of one church in particular which has had the reputation of never accepting a pastor from within the annual conference, but requiring the Bishop to seek for leadership across conference boundaries (to the credit of our current Bishop, that practice was left behind this year). The ability of churches to push back on projected appointments (in Tennessee anyway) is related to the current success or failure of that congregation, although growing and thriving congregations generally get pastors who are more functional than not.
The other piece in all this relates to the issue of congregational effectiveness, and the inability of the denomination to hold congregations accountable, not simply pastors. It is a fact that we have congregations that will never grow, have no desire to grow, and who basically exist to meet the needs of the small group that attends them. Many of these are what we lovingly know as “family chapels,” tiny churches (often with “memorial” in the name) where everyone is related to one another, and who aren’t really looking for a pastoral leader, but rather a chaplain to preach on Sundays, visit the sick, and marry and bury. Rarely do these congregations ever state overtly the reality of their ministry (they all will say that they want to grow) but their fruits or lack of such betrays their unwillingness to embrace change and to take seriously the call to spread the gospel. Very often, at least down here, these are also the congregations that are most negative about the general church, and most reluctant to pay apportionments.
The question for me is should these congregations have the right of refusal, and what do we do with a system where some have the right and others seem to not. Should we uphold an ideal of basic fairness where all are treated the same, or is there validity to the argument that inept churches who have little desire to change may have to settle for inept pastors who are placeholders rather than disciplemakers?
Of course, the fact that we continue to try to place inept clergy is another issue all on it’s own, but I’ve already taken up enough space today.
Great points, Jay.
I almost did a little riff about some churches having a de facto right of refusal – just as some pastors have ceased to become itinerant because the bishop could not dare move them. That truth does gum up the pretty little picture I tried to paint.
What to do with “family chapels” is an interesting question. Effectiveness gurus might suggest you right them off and just send them warm bodies. People who believe in resurrection might argue that we should not take that approach with people or congregations.
Where I am, such churches are either gathered together in multi-point charges so they can support a single elder or they are assigned part-time local pastors who are either retired or bi-vocational. As a matter of course, such small churches do not get the full energy and attention of a pastor. A three-year or two-year provisional elder appointment is likely not enough time for significant change to happen.
Jay, I think you have raised two very good points. You are right, some churches do have a de facto right of refusal already. And in most conferences it does seem linked to size, growth, and apportionment giving (which is usually a sizeable chunk of the conference budget). I’m not always sure how I feel about that, but it is there.
I also agree with your take on ineffective congregations. They are just as much a part of the problem as ineffective clergy. And we do seem to be very reticent to do anything to hold them accountable.
Some churches clearly need an intervention. Some just need to have a mirror held up to their faces. Others still just need to be denied a clergy appointment.
If we’re going to do away with guaranteed appointments, in my opinion, it should cut both ways. What have you done as a church to deserve an appointed pastor? I know that sounds terrible, but it might well motivate some laity in ineffective churches to get up and do something. The last thing we need to do is send yet another fresh-out-of-seminary probationer there to get the life sucked out of them.
Of course, at this point I always wonder: How many of these ineffective churches are the product of a series of ineffective pastors? And did all their active laity go join the Baptist church across the street out of frustration with our appointment process which kept sending them more ineffective pastors?
I could name names here if I had to. It happens every day. Good Methodists gone Baptist because of clergy frustration. How do we prevent that? How do we redeem that?