Long... Slow... Pain. Part II

So Sunday morning rolled around, and it was time to decide whether or not I was going to the annual meeting at church.

The night before, LullaBelle had been out partying at a church friend's house, celebrating Chinese New Year. She'd had fun (their parties are always fun!), and so was feeling more tied to the church community than ever.

I, as mentioned in Part I, was out with the hockey crew. It was, for me, a pretty meaningful contrast. No one asked what I wanted to volunteer for, and certainly no one asked what sort of donnation I wanted to make. No one said, "I'd feel more comfortable skating with you if you would sign a pledge card." (Although, I did have to sign one of those "If I get my fool self killed, it ain't your fault" forms.)

If it were not for LullaBelle's feelings, I would abandon the church like the sinking ship it is. I feel further from God than at any point when I was not attending church, and that is due, in large part, to the ministers and some of the lay leaders we have.

The Sunday sermon fell flat with me. You can talk all you want about "mutuality," but when your idea of "mutuality" is trying to work me into a position where I have to agree with you and support you, I'm pretty sure you're not interested in "mutual ministry." In fact, I'm pretty sure you're not interested in ministry at all.

The annual meeting was fun, in that way that watching the hideous wreck of a train full of puppies and kittens is fun. First, we argued over the bylaws. As proposed, they would allow a small number of people, mostly under the influence of the minister, to select the candidates for the governing body, and to select a number equal to the number of empty slots on the governing body. Basically, it would be a way of making appointments. Unfortunately, when no one steps forward to run, it's really damn hard to get enough candidates, let alone extras to provide choice. There's no easy solution to that one, and I felt bad for the people that had to field questions on it. The real answer is, "If you get off your lazy asses, this won't be an issue."

The next big thing was the budget. It's in the hole $19K, but that's not really the best of it; we're cutting staffing hours on at least two of our best employees just to get to a $19K deficit. Meanwhile, we've added a youth minister and 3% raises all around. I have a few thoughts on that:

• We shouldn't have hired a youth minister if we didn't have funding locked up. Now that we have him, he's another member of the family to care for, and we shouldn't have taken that obligation on without getting our numbers in line. It's a lot like my complaint over the Catholic Church opposing birth control: you can't responsibly grow the family if you keep adding people and no resources.
  
• I think that when an organization is failing, the leader(s) should be the first one to step up and take a hit. If you are the CEO of a business, whether it's a church or a car company, you should never make your people suffer a hit from your failed leadership. It's embarassing that our minister is calmly collecting a salary that is more than LullaBelle's and mine combined, and that the secretary and kids education leader are taking the big hits.
  
• We're hurting our staff, but we're paying our whole apportionment to the diocese. Guess we know where the minister's priorities lie. He's dedicating large amounts of time to working on diocesan activities that interest him, while his parish is struggling. Anybody else resent being a career stepping stone?
  

There was also some hedging and accusing and unpleasantness over the "why" in "Why don't we have enough money." My good friend the Eye Doc had to field some questions on that, and I felt bad for him. He took some beating that wasn't deserved, in a situation where any answer he gave was going to draw more criticism from someone. You want to know why we have less money?

Here's a clue: People are insulted by the message they hear from the clergy. Too many Sunday sermons that were off the mark, and sometimes off base, have led to some of us concluding that this church doesn't share our values. It's also hard to pay bills with good feelings from sacrificial giving. Some just can't give more. Paying for a new youth minister isn't "doing the Lord's work" in the same way that giving to a local soup kitchen, Habitat or Heffer Project is. Stretching my personal budget to help provide priveledged people with more priveledge isn't some great and holy act, it's the same thing every rich person in WonderBreadVille does: invest in themselves first.

One sermon theme that particularly burned me this year was how we hoard for our future with our retirement accounts and savings, when we should be just giving it all and trusting in God. Funny thing, I don't see more than a fine line between "hoarding" for our future, and making ever increasing expenditures on programs for ourselves.

In hockey, if your team captain isn't the first guy to step up his game when things get tough, you're done. This particular leader is just repeating himself, and so are all his "assistant captains." Instead of trying to find a way to change the game plan, they just keep saying "tithe" or maybe "proportional giving" (another way of sticking a number on things). If trying to define a level of giving turned people off so far, what's going to happen when you start calling folks and repeating it in and even more "in your face" way?

Life would be better if it were all hockey. When our captains don't step up, we rip the C off their chest and give it to someone that is at least trying. That way, everyone knows, all are accountable to the team, and no one person's vision is more important than the team goals.