Thursday, October 13, 2011

Charge Conference

The Methodist Church has, every year, a time of reflection and nomination and acceptance of church officers. We begin this process in August and continue it through September, reviewing paperwork, nominating officers, making sure that insurance is paid, reflecting on the pastor's salary, doing all the administrative things that make a church run. The process culminates in a meeting where we all agree that our signatures in the paperwork and our agreements on duties will continue for another year.

In a small church, it is is paperwork burden, one to be born with stoic faith that this too will pass. Then we meet with the District Supervisor, who blesses our efforts and we're free to carry on for another year.

Last night, our little church had our Charge Conference. The DS blessed the assemblage and now we can check that off the list of administrative nonsense. She was particularly verbose, turning what should have been a 45-minute meeting into a 2-hour marathon. The woman could talk the horns off a billy-goat. It's been a busy year for our little church, between the burying and the marrying and the baptising. We've been busy. Culminating all that with a 2-hour marathon meeting didn't help, but I'm not enamored of our District Supervisor. Simply being in the room with the woman tests the limits of my Christian charity.

Now that the admin nonsense is complete, maybe we can get back to the business of opening hearts, opening minds, and opening doors.

3 comments:

Rivrdog said...

Not a lot of Methodists in your neck of the woods, are there, PawPaw?

Pawpaw said...

Matter of fact, old friend, there are quite a few. There's a big ole' Methodist church just down the road, and a couple of more within an easy driving distance. Our little church is hidden in the country and reminds me of the church I grew up in. On a good day, there will be 30 of us in the pews for services. Everybody knows everybody else and there's a lot of neck-hugging before services.

be603 said...

/heh/ Was at an Elder's meeting till about 1100. Just cause you're in an autonomous "non" denomination doesn't make the meetings any shorter.