I have been in Methodist-preacher-gatherings in which the subject of our denomination’s stand on homosexuality was the elephant in the room — a topic which, for the sake of holding on to the congenial vibe in the meeting, no one wanted to address.
Yet this week, I recognize that we Methodists have another issue that’s not an elephant in the room but a dinosaur. You see, elephants are at least still alive and viable and active. Dinosaurs, of course, are extinct — species that could only survive in another era.
We have just such a species in the Methodist system — something that was designed for and could only survive in another era.
Our dinosaur? The itineracy.
It’s on my mind because last Sunday all the new appointments in the Western North Carolina Conference went “public.” Throughout our Conference, 15-20% of churches will be receiving new pastors and, obviously, pastors will be sent to new churches. The new assignments will begin on July 1.
Why is our system such a dinosaur?
- It was designed for a world that no longer exists. The process of moving pastors frequently from church to church to church worked when people traveled by horse and buggy and when individual Methodist churches were pretty much indistinguishable from one another. It does not work when people travel by car and when individual congregations within the same denomination are vastly different.
- In earlier generations there was not such a direct link between pastoral longevity and congregational health. Today there is — with relatively few exceptions, the largest and strongest churches inside Methodism and outside of it have senior pastors with long tenures.
- In the 21st Century, local pastors are not interchangeable parts, easily moved from one church to another. For example, there are many churches in our Conference for whom I would be a terrible match; by the same token, there are some UM pastors who would not fit at a church like Good Shepherd.
- The best advice I ever received in seminary was this: “Don’t always try to get a promotion by going to your next appointment. Instead, grow the church you serve into your next appointment.” I have tried to live by that. So Good Shepherd is not the same church it was in 1999. And I am definitely not the same pastor I was then. So I have changed appointments by not changing appointments. It hasn’t been easy or perfect or smooth, but I believe it has been in the long-term interests of the church.
Grow the church you serve into your “next appointment.” Maybe that’s one way for dinosaurs to live after all.
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I served in the Irish Methodist Church, which has limited term appointments and something of a sense of all congregations being mostly the same. They also had a feature that I’ve seen in the Virginia conference from years gone by–furnished parsonages. very easy to move every three years when all you have to pack is books and pictures… my parsonage in Donegal even had dishes and silverware… truly a different age…
I agree with all of the bullet points you make but I think you have somewhat of a false premise. The itineracy as it is currently practiced is a dinosaur, but it could be otherwise. As I hear it the main issue you have, which I share, is that pastorates need to be longer. I see that more as a detail of the system that needs to be changed than an indictment of the system as a whole. There still needs to be some method of placing a new pastor in a church, whether it’s a call system, itineracy, or whatever. I think an interant system that puts greater emphasis than in the past on length of service and consultation with the local church would still be superior to a call system.
Good post. Why can’t folks recognize your point? This system is going to destroy the UMC.
Had a furnished parsonage in my only other appointment. Well intentioned people furnished it, but it is an inherently uncomfortable situation.
Thanks, David Livingston.
My counter argument is that the system as it is configured now has built into the minds of churches and pastors alike that frequent moves are good things. I’m not sure that anything short of blowing that system up altogether can ever change that mindset — a mindset much better suited for 1909 than 2009.
Are you wanting to do away with itineracy or episcopacy? One of the primary tasks and modes of superintendency by the bishop is the sending of pastors. If we become a call system, why have bishops at all?
I concur with your observations, but am not sure that stationed pastors is the answer everywhere in the US. I would expect that appointments to a socio-economic area where the “circuit” clergy work together to bring Christ to the area might be a different form of itinerancy. Nevertheless, removing effective clergy from such a circuit would typically be detrimental. In short, I would encourage folks to look at out of the box ways of ministry together rather than just tweaking the system.
I would definitely keep the episcopacy. I have no love of psuedo democracy in church polity. The point is that the bishop would appoint to an area a group or team to serve Christ there, rather than a lone ranger to every dot on the map. Perhaps then we might have some real connectionalism.