For those of you unfamiliar with our lingo, guaranteed appointment is the United Methodist practice that for all practical purposes grants tenure to all those ordained as elders. The mantra is: there is a charge for every pastor and a pastor for every charge. Once you are “in” our itinerant system via your ordination, it is well nigh impossible to get you “out” for any reason other than moral failure.
And in recent months, we United Methodists have learned that what the General Conference taketh away, the Judicial Council giveth. You can read that story here. So after walking on the thinnest of ices for the better part of two years, guaranteed appointment is, apparently, once again the law of the Methodist land.
But out itinerant system “guarantees” something else other than pastoral appointments. Something much more pernicious.
It guarantees congregational instability.
See, every January in every United Methodist Church in the land, two letters are received from the Annual Conference. One letter goes to the Staff-Parish Relations Committee (Human Resources) of the church. It asks: Do you want him or her to continue as your pastor; do you want a change; or are you ambivalent?
At that same time, the pastor gets a letter. That letter is best summarized by the Clash: Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
But think about that process. Every single United Methodist pastor is on a series of one-year contracts (not signed legally, but agreed to verbally), debated and decided upon each January. If either party — church or pastor — decides that year is enough, well, the pastor gets sent to another church and the church receives another pastor.
It’s Methodist Musical Chairs.
And it is, by its very design, a sick system.
It’s hard to imagine another profession which has more built-in volatility and insecurity than the system we have in the UMC.
Teachers often sign contracts for multiple years, especially as they establish tenure in their school district.
NFL rookies sign for three to five years, and coaches work much the same.
The other employees at Good Shepherd don’t even sign contracts — their employment here is for the forseeable future and certainly not subject to a tension-inducing annual decision.
Marketplace executives sign employment agreements that involve annual reviews but not the threat of annual termination or relocation.
This system has been benign for me personally — each January I desire to stay (what a fool I’d be to desire otherwise) and our church has been content with its leadership.
But I began thinking about the instability our appointment system guarantees when a clergy friend of mine was in my office not too long ago, sharing that he had been blind-sided by the SPRC of the church he serves. They decided it was time for a change. He had very little indication such a decision was coming.
Well, it turns out that same congregation has made that same decision with every pastor they have had in recent memory. Why? Because they can. Because the system by design encourages it. Because whether it’s from the side of the clergy or the perspective of the church, that every year, each January mentality makes it very difficult for either church or pastor to settle in for ministry over the long haul.
Let me be clear: this is the proverbial two-way street. Many a UM pastor has given up on a particular appointment prematurely simply because he or she has that annual “out.” As Amy Ramsey said on the UM Reporter’s Facebook page regarding this post: “It seems to me that our itineracy system makes it very easy for both congregations and pastors to give up on each other. No relationship was ever built or thrived in a term of one year.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. In fact, I didn’t. She did.
Because ministry impact rarely happens over the span of a year. It instead occurs over the span of a decade.
I guess I have a dream for our appointment system: that next January mailboxes across our connection would have one fewer letter in them.
There are 14 comments
This was an interesting post.
This is a very interesting and bold subject for conversation. This concept of guaranteed appointment is one I’ve only learned of recently. From the first, I disliked it.
In my perspective, the pastor is like the father of the church. The whole of the congregation are his children, and we follow by example, that is, by instruction. We watch and learn from the pastor (and others in leadership positions), and like children, we develop ourselves by observing our “parent.” We are educated, and in the process, our Christian identity is shaped. The congregation hears, the material is absorbed, and we formulate our conclusions. (Obviously, the Spirit is at work in us as well, but this discussion is about the role of the church’s leader.)
It might be argued that by a church only having one pastor for a long period of time, the views of the attendees are flat and do not represent a broad range of perspectives on relevant topics. However, it is not the responsibility of the church to show the flock every side of an issue. At some point, when the child can feed himself and tie his own shoe, he has the ability to give himself momentum. A pastor can no more make his parishioners read the Bible daily than can a stone. It is the responsibility of the individual to provide for his education and to further flesh it out beyond a single, hour-and-half service on Sunday mornings.
By extension, the concept of pastors being rotated regularly is something I find unsettling. Does a father come up for annual review? Should the children need to live with a fear of their father’s displacement? Should the pastor himself wonder if he will, yearly, have access to his home and flock? How much these stressors would and must undermine a great work!
While, of course, the pastor is not the literal father of his laypeople, I don’t believe it is difficult for us to understand the inherent stress and tension of this system of guaranteed appointment. It detracts from the ministry to which these men and women are called, and it adds an uneccessary worldliness to an already very human system. Stability is greatly desired in life. In a world where so much shifts constantly, it is a blessing to return to church every Sunday and see the same man – a constant in a sea of flux – facing us and ready to guide us onwards.
I think Rev. Davis is greatly overstating the issue of SPRC induced instability in the UMC. If my District is any example, pastors – whether Elders or Local Pastors – tend to stay in place for long periods. The real threat to pastoral longevity is the Bishop and Cabinet’s need to fill available pulpits due to retirements. I’ve served my church for 14 years (I’m an LP) and almost everyone nearby here has been in the same place for nearly as long, except those that retired. And, by the way, I’ve never received such a letter nor has my SPRC chair. That’s an issue discussed at the Charge Conference.
George —
I could have been clearer. The “every year” decision system plays into instability by both pastor and SPRC. Pastors know they have an “out” and SPRCs know they can force an “out.” So it’s a jointly induced instability.
In our conference, the Bishop & Cabinet are loathe to initiate moves that aren’t first initiated by church or pastor. That’s very rare here and like your District we have a number of long tenured pastorates.
The Judicial Council has declared guaranteed appointment inviolable. However, one thing that could be done is to move to four year appointments. The DS reviews your ministry and church every four years with the goal and norm being 8 to 12. I’d love if we could make this change. Church members start looking sideways at you after three years!
As I thought about your post from the perspective of the congregation’s mission within its mission field, I found myself taking exception to your comments.
In my experience, the ways God calls and gifts each congregation to make disciples for the transformation of the world changes over time. I have noticed that at times that change is so profound, that some folks don’t recognize the vital congregation they have come home to visit. In small, or not so subtle ways, churches die many times on their way to a living vital life.
I have also noticed, that changes in a church’s mission and mission field requires changes in the gifts, graces, and skills of the pastors who lead those churches. Skills can taught and learned. Gifts and graces cannot.
One gift itinerancy gives to the church is an assembled body of ordained ministers with a variety of gifts and graces to serve the variety of missions within the variety of mission fields within the annual conference. Another great gift itinerancy gives to the church is its ability to see the whole a mission field, and match gifts and graces of pastors to the unique mission of its various congregations serving that field.
In my mind, itinerancy works best when pastors are not tempted to bend the mission to suit their own gifts and graces, and the episcopacy deploys the gifts and graces of pastors to each congregation’s mission. Security of appointments doesn’t inhibit this balance, it helps us all maintain it by providing for the kind of conversations that provide for appointments that are missional and carefully intentional.
Over the years, I’ve come to learn that pastoring is more than a skill learned out of a box, and measured on dashboards. Pastoring is a life whose effectiveness grows within the spiritual disciplines and a days of joining Jesus already at work in the world. Security of appointments provides the church with the grace to provide pastors a “Barnabas,” an encourager, gifted to help keep us striving on the way to perfection, and calling us to a mission suited to our gifts and graces.
Every now and then, I think of John Mark. He was refused an appointment by Paul, but given one by Barnabas. I’d like to think he is the same Mark, Paul writes so fondly of later. I’d also like to think of him as the same Mark who ends writing a gospel. If Mark’s own “security of appointment” enriched the church, then I, I think, so can ours.
The itinerant, GA system can also be useful especially when it comes to situations like your friend who was blind-sided by his SPRC. If it is a recurring problem the conference could either leave him there and then find a spot for him if he ends up being wounded to badly, or they bring in someone who can address the issues. He ight end up being the “beloved pastor”.
The military is another career that is highly itinerant.
My spouse has been told before that there was only one appointment available that she would be a fit at. She is theologically orthodox. The GA has helped her be able to continue to minister in the UMC.
I would say the employees at your church may not have the same trepidation as pastors do in the spring, but my experience is that employees are one of the first expenses to be cut when finances begin to get cut. It would be interesting to see what they would say when talk about finances begins to be bandied about.
Lewis Archer — that’s the kind of practice I believe would be helpful.
Skip Spanger — great, Gospel-centered sentiments. I haven’t seen it work that way very much in practice, but given the way you write, I suspect you make it work well.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Longer appointments are becoming the norm across most of the denomination. Most of the moves in my AC are Clergy initiated or SPPR initiated or both. In most of these cases the DS will visit with both the pastor and the church to talk through things and clarify things. The Cabinet itself rarely moves clergy just to move clergy. Our forms are far different than they use to be. They bear marks of grow, metrics, gifts, and needs. They are to be filled out with the Pastor and the SPPR together in the same room, so everyone is on the same page.
2. I don’t think itinerancy is all bad. Some of my Presbyterian and Baptist friends have it way worse. I know a Baptist minister that was basically fired even though the church was growing, and another who “felt a call” to a church with a salary twice what he was making at his old church. Being under authority is sometimes a good thing to help us remember that we are sent.
My Story – This past year I requested a move. I went from an associate at a large church to being a solo pastor at a parish seat church.
I had been an associate for 6 years and I believe it was time for me to grow as a pastor and a person. So I sat down the SPPR before the end of the year and we prayed about it together. Everyone was on the same page and agreed even though they did not want me to leave. I felt called to a new ministry role and they sensed it too. It was a very encouraging meeting.
It’s strange that someone can write this post within the Methodist framework without feeling the burden to answer how it is that at one time itinerancy was what made our movement stronger than any other. I think you’re right to say that guaranteed appointments and itinerancy don’t work. I think you’re also right to note that consultation seems to work against vitality. But I disagree with the notion that Methodism would be better if it adopted a congregational ecclesiology. I think this article would be much stronger if you could actually answer the real world scenarios we have seen rather than making up new rules.
Great Post but see the Other side of the argument.
From a SPPRC point of view, we have had some issues with the Pastors we have received as appointments. One who was great on Sunday Morning but was not to be found between Monday & Saturday – the 2nd, whose more liberal views didn’t resonate with our more Conservative congregation.
As Lay Leader, I see & hear the scattering of the flock because of the instability of the Leadership. We have very little (if any) input into any appointment we request. So From a lay person’s point of view, guaranteed appointment means not that we as SPPRC can make the change because we can but the appointments we receive are possibly potluck – since the appointments are guaranteed. This also creates congregational instability – as I have seen from my experience.
I’m glad Talbot Davis is my pastor. After reading some of these responses from Methodist leadership on baptism and changing pastors, I would be bored to death listening to them on Sundays.
I grew up in the UMC (Virginia Conference) as a child during the 1960’s and 70’s. There was an unwritten rule that a pastor served a four year term — three if the church didn’t like him (almost all pastors were men) or five, maybe, if he was really well liked. That all started to change as two income families became the norm and then the conference started encouraging longer appointments as a way to increase stability in the ministry of the local church.
I have been a pastor for 14 years and am serving the first year in my fourth appointment. Many of our church members are products of the “four year term” legacy and they still enjoy the power of pushing a minister out but become angry when a well-liked minister is moved.
More and more, DS’s are leaving pastors in appointments when the SPRC asks for a move and both pastor and the SPRC are told that the January pastoral leadership preference form is “advisory” and the cabinet will take the information under consideration.
The system also encourages pastors to move every four years or so because that is how pastors move up the ladder in terms of salary and prestige. At least, that is the way it used to be. Recently the Virginia Conference capped salary increases to a maximum of $5k when a pastor moves. This allows churches to trim salary when necessary and discourages pastors from moving simply for a hoped for increase in salary.
Of course, the appointment process and guaranteed appointment also makes it difficult to deal with ineffective elders who move every two or three years and bounce around from one minimum salary appointment to another. The irony is that struggling churches needing strong pastoral leadership often end up with pastors that have nowhere else to go.
Anyway, I know this is a rambling post. Just wanted to share a few thoughts and observations/
How’s this strike you? My spouse currently serves as a 1/4 time pastor, & because of an oddity in our Conference MAY have the opportunity to take a full time position that could significantly affect my ability to work. Currently, we have our own home, 2 kids in college, and my spouse in Seminary. If I give up my job that pays for all of that, then my spouse is booted from the full time position because of GA, then how do we pay the bills? Just let our kids fend for themselves? Drop out of Seminary? Should we refuse a full time appointment?