Saturday, March 10, 2012

Drama, drama, drama

There is DRAMA going on at my church.  We have an interim minister right now and a budget that's totally in the red so we have to make some drastic cuts.  Some of those cuts include staff cuts, which were presented to the session last week.  They were supposed to be kept confidential, but it seems like almost everybody in the congregation knows about them.  I have  decided that I don't want to know about them before we're "officially" supposed to because there's nothing I can do about them anyway so all it would do is stress me out.  That's the major drama.

Source
Add to that what happened last week in two of the three church services (of course the ones I wasn't attending). The interim minister made some fairly harsh comments to the congregation about clapping after music during the church service.  He said that they weren't performances; they were worship.  So you shouldn't clap after them.  Too bad that these comments followed the congregation's clapping after a piece the handbell choir played so it came across as a reprimand.  It's also important to know that we Presbyterians are known for our lack of clapping, so when we do clap it's a big deal.  That's even more drama.

Add to that the fact that I'm serving on the nominating committee that is in charge of finding elders, deacons, and trustees, which we've already managed to do, and this year we're in charge of finding the pastor nominating committee, who will be in charge of finding our next pastor.  We're in the process of finding the pastor nominating committee and I'm not looking forward to our next committee meeting because the interim pastor, who seems to insert himself in all of the committees in the church, will be there.  I don't really feel like he should be there since we're basically discussing the committee that will be in charge of finding his replacement.  But then my opinion is only my opinion, which isn't broadcast from the pulpit during worship services...

3 comments:

  1. this is one of the reasons i find church hard... all of the details, the rules, the drama... but i guess it's hard to avoid too. love your honesty here, friend.

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  2. just wanting to thank you for being you, friend. xo

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  3. I found your comments because I googled "Devotions for a Pastor Nominating Committee" Our interim has from the pulpit told us that we are a dying congregation, which is NOT inspiring. He has instructed us to look for a pastor who will basically help us close up shop because we only have 5-7 years left. Talk about drama! We are a Presbyterian congregation of 110 members (median age 62 - which is the median age for Presbyterian churches nationwide). We had a pastor of 18 yrs retire 5 years ago, had in interim, called a 30-something divorced mother of 3 (our 1st woman pastor) who got engaged and left the congregation to marry after only a year and a half. Now a good portion does not want a woman pastor. MORE DRAMA. So, thank you for sharing your frustrations and thank you for letting me vent mine. Good luck to you - you and your committee are in my prayers.

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