Woke up this morning with a few thoughts about the results of our annual conference and the challenges to be faced in the upcoming general conference of the United Methodist Church. More and more it is made evident to me that I fall into a class in the church that can only be called "Tweeners." As local pastors we find ourselves not laity and not clergy -- we're between the two. And that makes for quite a strange arrangement in our lives and in our ministries.
For instance, because we are not clergy in full connection to the conference, we are appointed by the Bishop to only serve in our local churches. In regards to the sacraments, we are limited to overseeing them within our appointed churches and charges. We can bury folks anywhere, but we can only marry them in our churches. Authorities granted that are a little more than the laity but a lot less than elders.
We see it in other ministries promoted by the Methodist Church. I am heavily involved in the Emmaus and Chrysalis movements, having served as an assistant spiritual director on many occasions. It is refreshing to see God move in these events, especially since spiritual growth in our Methodist churches is sometimes hard to gauge or even notice except through the lens of time.
In our local Emmaus and Chrysalis movements, the spiritual team is disproportionately made up of local pastors. Not sure why, but this is the case. Perhaps the elders are too busy to participate. However, the Upper Room, the United Methodist organization that manages Emmaus and Chrysalis and comes out with the official manual for the events, has mandated that local pastors cannot serve as lead spiritual directors, they can only serve as assistant spiritual directors. Now, even that is in jeopardy depending on how you read the new revisions to the manual. It seems to imply now that only elders can participate as part of a spiritual team. However, local pastors are not allowed to serve as laity in the conference room because we are not laity. We are "tweeners" -- between laity and clergy and possibly about to be discouraged from participating in these movements.
I didn't go to Annual Conference again this year, not because I didn't want to go but because my secular work schedule does not allow it. As a part-time local pastor with a full-time secular job, I have to use my vacation time to attend to pastoral responsibilities, such as visitations to the hospital, or funerals, or attending the required Course of Study. As such, my vacation time is valuable, and if I had attended conference, I would not have been able to attend Course of Study. Last year, I skipped Course of Study so I could actually go on a real vacation -- we took off one week in December to go on a cruise. Since I started attending Course of Study five years ago, this is the first vacation our family has had.
Anyway, sorry to head off on a rabbit trail. The point is, I didn't go to Annual Conference so I can't really criticize or applaud what was conducted there. My only knowledge of the events is based on second-hand information from other pastors, our charge delegate, and The Advocate, the official newspaper of the Methodist Church in Georgia.
The one thing that interested me, though, was the election of the delegates to General Conference. Of course, this is another area where local pastors are excluded from being considered since they are not clergy or laity. Only elders can be elected to General Conference, which is fine with me. But local pastors are not considered laity, so they can't be elected as part of the lay delegation. As I looked at the lay delegation, I noted that every representative comes from a church with an elder as pastor. And while I know that we are a connectional denomination, this does mean that churches with local pastors will not be adequately represented at General Conference, at least by our delegation. The situation with local pastors is unique, and unless delegates have been part of such a congregation in the past, they may not understand the value of these "tweeners" and their smaller congregations to Methodism as a whole.
I bring that up because I hear rumors that the authority of local pastors to administer the sacraments in their appointed churches will be debated at General Conference. In other words, the delegates to General Conference will decide if local pastors can serve communion and baptize within their own appointed churches and charges. This could have a profound impact on the spiritual well-being of thousands of United Methodists throughout this country.
My first year in the ministry I served as a "lay" pastor and not a "local pastor" because I had not attended the License to Preach School. As such, I was not authorized to administer the sacraments in this congregation. Communion could only be offered if I could find another elder who would agree to attend our service and oversee the sacrament. With two churches on my charge, it was extremely difficult to find an elder who could visit both churches on the same day. It was also extremely difficult to find an elder who could come on any Sunday to just one church because they either had their own church, or, if they were retired, were usually preaching at another church. As a result, we did communion twice at one church that year and did not do communion at all in the other, smaller church.
I am a firm believer in the fact that these sacraments are part of the means of grace. If General Conference votes to preclude local pastors from serving communion or baptizing in the church, I think that the spiritual health of many people in these smaller congregations will be negatively impacted. In fact, it may mean the final nail in the coffin for these congregations. How will our conference's delegates to General Conference vote on this issue? I don't know. But I suspect that the ones who are not familiar with the ministry of the local pastor will vote differently than those who are familiar with this particular ministry in the church.
Regardless of what happens, I have been called by God to this ministry and this place and this denomination. I will submit to the authority of those above me in the church and will faithfully fulfill the duties that they assign. I might wish things were different, and I pray that the church continues to recognize and lift up the ministries of us "tweeners." I will continue to advocate for more recognition and rights for the local pastor. But, come what may, I will continue to serve my God however and where-ever He places me.
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