Diary of a Young Pastor

I saw this video this morning, and it just about had me in tears (see: lady with MS).  This is a great idea for sharing testimonies in the church.  Thanks to twitter friend @jasoncurlee for making me aware of it.

One Memorial that had me concerned was number 325 - Executive Session for Local, District and General Boards and Committees.  It can be summarized by this direct quote from the memorial:

All meetings and sessions of boards and committees elected or appointed by the local church conference or by the local board of administration are executive session, except for non-members or guests who are specifically invited by the chair to attend as observers or as resource persons to provide information or expert advice helpful to the consideration or conduct of church business.

I wasn’t quite sure why this Memorial was even discussed, let alone recommended…we are already allowed to call an “Executive Session” under the current ruling of the Discipline.  Why promote more secrecy, and take away the ability for the people to be informed about the decisions and rulings of the church?  And should our church’s “celebration committee” (a committee established by the Local Church Conference) be sworn to total secrecy (I can see it now…”If I told you what activities we were having at our harvest festival…I’d have to kill you…”)?

~pastor matt

What an interesting week this has been - it is the first time in my life I haven’t been at the Wesleyan General Conference.  It is also the first time that General conference has been held while I am an acting pastor in the Wesleyan Church.  This week, some interesting things happened:

• Joanne Lyon elected GS - I am so excited about this!  With as much emphasis as our district puts on women in ministry, I can only see this as a good thing.  I’m thankful for her work for the church in the past, and am excited to see how her work as GS goes.  I have no doubt that she will do a great job and raise the bar for our other GS’s.

• Memorial 567 passed giving the Wesleyan Church a historic stand on an extremely important social issue: immigration.  I believe I called this during my sermon at the Mountain Area Camp Meeting.  Sadly, I don’t have an official copy of what the memorial says, but I believe the gist of it is that we now take a stand in defense of an illegal immigrant seeking to become legalized, and that the process for legalization, with its waiting periods and huge financial setbacks, are immoral.  I call this “historic” because we haven’t taken a stand on a social issue of this magnitude since our stance as abolitionists during the civil war.

UPDATE: Thanks to Darrin (see: comments), I’m pleased to give you the actual immigration statement:

• Memorial 103 passed which will “demote” a church from “established” to “developing” if the church has no evangelistic program and/or has failed to report a convert in the past 2 years.  I have mixed feelings about this one.  I like it because it pushes me as a pastor to seek evangelism, and encourages the people to be involved…but I’m worried about the “measuring rod” of salvation.  What is considered a convert?  A new convert?  A restored convert?  I’ll probably write an entire post addressing my feelings on this later — to much to say right now.

• Memorial 102, which changes the amount of covenant members needed to be considered an “established” church from 12 to 25, passed. And, in doing so, my church at its current state with 17 covenant members will drop from “established” to “developing”.  I see this as a mostly good thing.  In my eyes, this is the Wesleyan Church moving away from a “small-church” model to a “big-church” model, which - in this pastor’s humble opinion - is a good thing.  However, I’m not sure about how my people will feel on this one.

When it is all said and done, I believe that biblical based decisions were made at General Conference ‘08.  And, as a pastor, how can I argue with that?

More later.

~pastor matt

p.s. - here’s to hoping that I will be a delegate in 4 years….:)

Every year, pastors in the Wesleyan church are asked to fill out a minister’s report.  One question that always gets me is, “How do you rate your loyalty to your district?”  Many of you already know, I’m a pastor in the NC West District, and for the past 3-6 years, I have not felt very loyal to my district.  I addressed this with the following remarks.  For some of you, this may not be very interesting, but I want to post it anyways.

Last year (2006-07 district year) I stated in my Minister’s Report that it was frightening to be a pastor in this district because this district is quite unsupportive to its pastors.  I was somewhat encouraged last year when I received a call from the District Superintendent who, during the phone conversation, addressed this remark.  He reassured me that, indeed, the district was supportive of its pastors, but as the 2007-2008 church year has come and gone, I have continued to see my fellow pastors treated wrongly by this district and its leadership.

I’ve seen the people of some congregations become hostile towards their pastor and force him out the doors with many months of the church year left.  In doing so, this church (and it isn’t limited to one) has left not just the pastor, but the pastor’s spouse and even his children without a place to go, a place to live, or any means of support.  And meanwhile, our leadership seems to throw up their clean hands - much like Pontius Pilate - unwilling to step in and defend their pastors because of the risk of becoming unpopular among the people.

This criticism may sound harsh - and, I do realize that I don’t know every intricate detail of every situation in the district - but when my criticisms are confirmed year after year, I feel I have the responsibility to answer the question of district loyalty as honestly as possible.  And, honestly, I am not comfortable being a married pastor in a district were I risk my (and my family’s) safety and livelihood at the drop of my congregation’s proverbial “hat”.

I think that this could, one day, be a great district in which to be a pastor, but until there is leadership that refuses to sit at the sidelines while its pastors are fighting a battle - it is a frightening place for me to be.

I spent some time the past couple weeks throwing this video together for our district kids camp.  Thankfully, this was not an extremely difficult process.  However, my next project - working for South Mountain Retreat and Conference Center - will be a lot tougher.  This is the first time I’ve added any kind of film effects to a video beyond simple cropping/pan&zooming, and I thought it turned out ok.

Enjoy!

Kids Camp Promo (Final) from Matthew Tietje on Vimeo.