Covenant Broken?

As Paul would have put it, "in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye" part of the framework of our system of clergy was abolished by the 2012 General Conference.  The conference ended the long tradition of guaranteed appointments for ordained Elders without even floor debate on the issue.  The proposal to end guaranteed appointments for Elders came as part of a larger body of legislation that comprised the United Methodist Call to Action.  The Call to Action initiative is a response to the precipitous forty-year long decline in membership. In addition to the ending the guaranteed appointments, the initiative also called for a significant restructuring of denomination's commissions and agencies, and the creation of a so-called "set-aside" bishop who would not have episcopal residency, but would effectively act as a CEO for the church.

Admittedly, I cannot approach this objectively because I have a stake in it.  With that disclaimer, yesterday's decision by General Conference gives me grave concerns about our orders of ministry and the ministerial covenant into which each of us entered upon ordination.  Each of us willingly covenanted to to go where the Bishop and cabinet in their prayerful discernment thought our gifts were most needed and best suited.  We surrendered the right to seek our own appointments, instead trusting the Lord and our conference leaders to send us where we were needed.  Our safeguard was the guarantee that there would always be an appointment for us.  Elders have years of seminary and considerable money invested in the ministerial calling and the annual conference has a considerable investment in forming and shaping its ministerial candidates.  Now there is the possibility that one who has ceded the right to seek one's own calling/appointment will not be provided one.  One of the legs of our itinerant clergy has been pulled.  

The concern raised by the Call to Action is the number of "ineffective" clergy.  This term "ineffective" is nowhere defined unfortunately.  Also striking to me is that this seems to be like amputating a leg in order to treat lung cancer.  Anyone familiar with our beloved United Methodist Church has heard the laundry list of reasons for our alarming decline in numbers in the years since the merger of 1968.  The list may vary according to who is speaking but the usual suspects include unwieldy bureaucracy, doctrinal apathy and amnesia, loss of focus on evangelism, loss of Wesleyan identity as we have ceased to be a movement that seeks changed hearts and lives, etc.  Curiously, I don't ever remember seeing ineffective clergy being blamed for this decline.  I dare say that the denomination's clergy with their parishes have been on the front line of this battle, and have struggled diligantly to stem the tide.

The same legislation that shows grave concerns over the efficacy of the denomination's pastors shows no such concerns over the objectivity of those who would be in the position of judging efficacy.  In years' past something like this could and would have been used to eliminate women and minorities from pulpits.  Are we naive enough to believe that an outspokenly progressive minister wouldn't be among the first on the chopping block for very conservative episcopal leadership?  Do we think that a particularly conservative minister would not be among the first on the chopping block for very liberal episcopal leadership?  I pray that I'm being overly pessimistic about this, time will tell.

As we enter into this brave new world for United Methodist clergy, we do so with shaken trust.  Gone is the assurance that someone isn't "looking over our shoulder."  What has replaced it is the implicit statement that our leadership isn't fully trusted.  Trust in the basic justice of our conference system is undermined by the fact that such a major change in our itinerant system took place without any floor debate at all.  I've heard some fellow United Methodists say that if we're doing our job, if we are effective we have nothing about which to worry.  Maybe so, but why do I still worry.  Perhaps I'm uneasy for the same reason that the innocent person who is about to be subjected to an unwarranted search is uneasy.

My first loyalty is always to my Lord Jesus Christ.  I remain fiercely loyal to the church that ordained me with the laying on of hands and the theological heritage from which it descends.  I will continue to preach the word as faithfully as I can, to administer the sacraments according to the church's historic standards, to order the life of the church so that it can always most effectively lead others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and see in some way the love of God.  At the same time, I will do this with some unease for my beloved church.  I pray my fears herein expressed be totally allayed, and that the Spirit of the living God will bring new disciples to our Lord through our church.