Guarantees...

So my denomination's once-every-four-year world wide gathering called General Conference.  At this gathering some of the ways in which United Methodist's do, well, church (the running and hierarchy, mostly - though some theology, too) is decided upon by majority vote*.  The other day, if I read things correctly, the Conference voted to end the longstanding tradition of "guaranteed appointment" for many** clergy.  That is to say, some of us (full elders, I believe associate members) were guaranteed a church as long as we were not retired.  Now, that's not the case.

Some people are upset.

I'm not one of them.

Okay, I get why some people are upset - and many have made their arguments - just Google guaranteed appointment and the word blog and you'll get a bunch.  Some legitimate arguments, many not so much.  Some have complained that the denomination made covenant with them when they entered the ministry: I give up my right to say where I live (well, within certain boundaries, I won't get sent to Alabama, for example) and you promise to always provide me with a church.  Things change in systems.  When I entered the process, there was a two year probationary period.  Then General Conference voted to have a three year probationary period.  Was I upset?  Did I picket the denomination?  Yeah, of course I did...  I had the opportunity to be "grandfathered" in and serve the two year probationary period, but things change and that's okay.

Here's my take on guaranteed appointment.

When you can demonstrate that I'm ineffective, then you have a responsibility to remove me as a pastor.  If I'm not busting my hump trying to bring in the kingdom of God, I should do something else.  I WANT to be held accountable.  I WANT to have metrics.  I WANT to know that there's a system in place looking at what I'm doing and evaluating it.  Does that make me nervous?

No.

Because I do what I do before the Sovereign God of the Universe every minute of every day.  THAT is the metric I'm trying to live and work up to.  If I fail to maintain the standards of the United Methodist church as a pastor, I have failed God a long time before that.

And that is NOT okay.











*Which, yeah, is not really found in the Bible, is it?  But, it's a big denomination and it actually  kind of works.


**But not all - we have a complicated system.  Local pastors, which is an official status and not just the fact that you are a pastor who happens to live, um, locally, is a status of pastor without guaranteed appointment under the now defunct system.  We also have probationary members (though we might call them something else now) and student pastors and a relatively new category called CLM (Certified Lay Minister) as well as Pulpit Supply...sigh, a little complicated, anyway...


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