POST DELETED
I wrote an intemperate post last night after district meeting. It was venting and not constructive, so I have taken it down. It was also unfair as my DS did give us an challenging sermon in the Wesleyan tradition.
I do believe we need to reform in significant ways our systems of meetings. But that post was little more than a screed.
Forgive me my trespasses.
When you say “ineffective bishop,” what are you basing that description on? I hadn’t wanted to comment about it until I learned the details and after reading everything that has been written, I still don’t feel like I know the details. Perhaps there’s a resource that I’ve missed. I agree with you about the pro forma meetings.
I’ll admit that I am basing this on the votes of the episcopacy committee in the SCJ and the report that none of the annual conferences there wanted him. Perhaps that is an unfair standard for ineffectiveness, but I’m not uncomfortable using that word. If I read the news story correctly, the determination was that procedure was not followed properly, not that the judgment was unfounded.
Long drives to pro-forma meetings seem a waste of time, but it is essential for church leaders to stay in contact with each other. Perhaps a member could propose an action for consideration that is not pro-forma. It would take some prior planning, not just showing up in time for the service as many members of our congregation do.
I observe the Judicial Council becoming an active legislative court. I do not think trying to change the structure of jurisprudence is possible now. Perhaps lobbying for appointment to the Judicial Council some people who are responsive to, rather than dismissive of, the discernment of the General Conference and the majority of Methodists.
Funny, my wife said essentially the same thing after I came home from our church conference. When people don’t get involved, things quickly become pro forma.
As much as I hate to say, maybe we need to go back to the idea that Wesley used – if you are not going to be involving in the process, then perhaps you shouldn’t be a member. My church has over 400 members but only some 20 or so showed up for the church conference. I realize that not everyone can attend but the majority could and it would make a great difference in the outcome of what happens in the local church.
I think of the number of youth who, through confirmation, are members but who never show up after they are confirmed. We make provisions for the youth of the church to be a part of the church process but never include them. What would happen if our church councils reflected the requirements of the Discipline?
What would happen if a suddenly rejuvenated local church began sending people to the formally pro-forma district conference?
I am not sure what this all means for a discussion of an ineffective bishop but I did find it interesting that much of what was done at General Conference has been reversed by the Judicial Council. Can it be that failures at the local level to have an interested and enlightened membership are now bearing “fruit” at the upper levels?
John, in my view, the UMC needs radical adaptive change, but the system of governance does not allow for radical adaptive change. Unfortunately the only other choice is slow death.
Or, can our leaders start paying attention to what we’ve all agreed is required and quit making mandatory things that need not be?
John, I know you deleted your original post, but I got it because I subscribe to your work and it came anyway–and I think you are right on with much of it. Massive amounts of clergy time are consumed by work that has no real purpose. I can’t count the number of hours my church administrative people and I put into our Charge Conference reports, and then 2 weeks before our CC, the DS told me he had a scheduling conflict (it had already been rescheduled once because of other conflicts on his calendar) and he ended up authorizing me to chair it. While it turned out to be a lot of fun with good attendance and discussion (I ordered pizza in for everyone and kept it quite lighthearted), I also know that no one will ever look at the giant pile of reports we generated.
As for meetings–I would guess that I average once a week a near total day away from my church for various meetings as I serve on a couple of district committees in addition to the usual stuff. My staff just sighs understandably when I say, “I’m out again tomorrow at another Conference meeting–you know how to reach me if you need me.”
As for the situation with Bishop Bledsoe: as a member of the North Texas Conference where he presided as Bishop for the last quadrennium, I believe that we would have completely imploded as a Conference if he came back here. I assume he will be sent now to the West Texas/New Mexico Conference (large geographically, small numerically). One man will keep his good paycheck, his benefits, his comforts, and his power and another Conference will pay the price.
What are we doing?
I saw the post before it was deleted and hope that my post reflected some what Christ was saying. That post reminded me of a meeting that I had with a dean a few years ago that required 15 hours of my time in preparation. I had a second meeting with the tenure and promotion committee a week or two later that required the same information; however, the committee required it in an entirely different format and would not accept the information that the dean received. At that point, I decided to resign my position and leave that school (there were other factors at play as well but having to deal with the bureaucracy was the final straw).
The university lawyer felt that my decision to resign was merely a ploy to circumvent the tenure committee and that after the committee had meet I would remove my resignation and be allowed to keep my position. So the administration, following the advice of the university attorney, required that the committee still meet with regards to my being a faculty member and make a decision on my status. Since I had not submitted anything, I received five “No” votes regarding retention.
A week later, I get a note from the Dean complementing me on the glowing recommendation given by the Tenure committee; attached to his letter was the summary page from the committee with the five no votes by the committee. Needless to say, this was quickly pointed out to him.
I also asked the union to step in as it was clear that I was getting the short end of the stick in all of this.
In the end, I was allowed to resign without the stigma of the negative votes, though 1) I was not a signer of the memorandum of agreement between the union and the administration on this point and 2) it was never clear if my parents would be allowed to take my body from the office in the event I were to die while still on campus.
I would hope that any administrator who creates work for the staff uses the results of those efforts. And I would hope that every now and then, when a piece of not to be read administrative report is requested, the majority of the reported work is the Manhattan telephone directory or “War and Peace”.
John: Screed or not, your original post had more than a little truth in it, and that can’t be a bad thing. Somebody has to say the hard things.