The Ministry Study And Guaranteed Appointments

Study committees! Study committees! Study committees! The United Methodist Church seems to have no end of study committees. The overall assessment of the study committees of the last 40 years is that they have contributed little to the renewal of the church, and, in some cases, have made things worse rather than better.

An example of this is the various study committees that have dealt, or sought to have dealt, with the ordering of ministry. Before the 1968 merger the Methodist Church had one entry in the index of the Discipline for “Ordained Ministry.” The 2008 Discipline

has 86 such entries! In the 40 years since 1968 the church has added layer upon layer of bureaucracy with more and more hoops to jump through. The whole idea of candidacy should never have seen the light of day. In true institutional style efforts to improve the ministry have only added more confusion and frustration. Add to that the fact that for all the effort the church is not seeing better or younger candidates for the ministry.

Consider: the church has deaconesses, who are related to the National Division; diaconal ministers, who are commissioned and considered lay; deacons, who were once diaconal ministers and lay but are now “clergy” ordained to Word (except “Word” means something different for them) and service; persons who were once ordained “deacons” in preparation for being elder but who now are “commissioned” while serving a probationary period.

Ordained deacons are not to administer sacraments except for the exceptions, but non-ordained local pastors can. Deacons may be ordained as pastors but that does not mean they are licensed for pastoral ministry. Local pastors (preachers) were once laity but now are clergy, except not elders, except for when they retire they are no longer clergy but revert back to being laity. Clergy are elders but not necessarily pastors. One needs a computer program to keep it all straight.

It is not certain at all that the present Commission to Study the Ministry, 2008-2012 (the various ministry study committees are now labeled like so many editions of a book) will improve on past study committees. However, the present committee is now on record with a “daring” proposal, namely, that the church shall no longer guarantee appointments for elders “in good standing.”

Behind this is the realization that for a number of reasons (bad theology and poor seminary training must be listed along with other things) the church is carrying an overabundance of ineffective pastors. The whole clergy system operates at times like a huge teachers’ labor union which promises job security to its members regardless of their effectiveness.

This has to change. It might be pointed out that in the past evangelicals have offered petitions to General Conference that addressed the problems of ineffective clergy, asking that the right of guaranteed appointments be revoked; but these petitions failed spectacularly.

So, at least in this one area the Commission to Study the Ministry is proposing one good thing. There are, of course, some major concerns that would accompany this legislation if it were to pass General Conference. The major concern has to do with the possibility of action against pastors for reasons other than effective ministry. Unfortunately, the church has a long history of incidents that speak of actual or perceived abuse of episcopal authority, from the O’Kelly schism to the Methodist Protestants to the Free Methodists to the Holiness persecution of the 1890s.

In more recent times Good News has chronicled dozens of cases where bishops, Boards of Ordained Ministry, or conferences have not followed due process in the removal of pastors. In many, many cases, these have involved evangelical pastors removed for reasons unrelated to effectiveness. Perhaps the most spectacular involved 16 evangelical pastors in Cal-Nevada who were forced out or voluntarily left the conference after vindictive actions were directed against those who supported General Conference action in 2000 that would have allowed evangelical episcopal supervision for evangelical churches. If such actions could take place even with the protection of guaranteed appointment what would happen if that protection were removed?

Nonetheless, the church must take the step of removing guaranteed appointments, despite the prospect that there will be some injustices that will accompany the new way of ordering ministry.

But with the removal of guaranteed appointments can the Study Commission on the Ministry find it within itself to take some next steps? Such as:

1) With the potential for episcopal abuse that would accompany the new legislation, can the church find a way to safeguard due process? At the very least there should be some review process for reasons why pastors are not being given appointments.

2) If pastors under appointment must be held accountable for ineffectiveness, what about bishops? The church has many fine bishops, but the church has also suffered under ineffective and incompetent bishops. At the moment the system of bishops holding other bishops accountable simply is not working. Perhaps it is time to consider limited terms for bishops. Evangelicals have opposed limited terms for bishops in the past because it was felt that only bishops could hold general agencies accountable. Unfortunately, under the present system bishops cannot or do not wish to hold agencies accountable. Indeed, bishops are sometimes the problem. If there are not guaranteed appointments for pastors, should the church also consider not guaranteeing appointments for bishops?

3) A major problem facing the church is a corporate culture that drives United Methodist ministry today. Unfortunately, in many conferences loyalty to the institution and “fitting in” has higher value than effectiveness. The landscape is strewn with excellent potential candidates for ministry who left the denomination simply because of oppressive process and ineffective Boards of Ordained Ministry. We lose too many “outside the box” leaders who don’t fit the United Methodist mold. Many of the pastors of mega-churches across the land could not make it through present Boards of Ordained Ministry.

One might simply hope that the present Commission to Study the Ministry will take a minimalist approach to the ordering of ministry, and instead place emphasis on effectiveness where it matters such as in preaching the Word of God, administering the Holy Sacraments, and equipping God’s people for ministry. One might also hope that the qualifications for continuance might be focused on the traditional formulation “so long as this person continues to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ and adheres to and teaches the Gospel of our Lord and the doctrine of the Church.”