I feel a bit less secure today than I did yesterday. The General Conference has enabled the Bishop to not appoint a clergy person in full connection to a local church. This action comes as one part of the \u201cCall to Action\u201d report. This report changes many aspects of how we move the church forward. I might have voted for this proposal and yet, I still feel uncertain about that future.<\/p>\n
As one half of a clergy couple I feel even less secure. There is now no obligation for the Bishop to appoint both my wife and I. Perhaps a bishop would like to appoint my wife to a new ministry but in a location where there are no options for me, what is a Bishop to do? What would I do?<\/p>\n
I have said yes to a rural appointment in a conservative county. I have said yes to a reconciling congregation. I have said yes to a church in the suburbs. Each appointment has had unique challenges and opportunities. Some fit my skills better than others. In some settings I have thrived and the church grew. In some settings I and the church have failed to meet the metrics on the Bishop\u2019s dashboard.<\/p>\n
In each of my appointments I have said \u201cyes\u201d and then been confronted with the fear of change and the task that stood before me. In each of my appointments I have grown as a person, as a pastor and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. I grew because I accepted a challenging task, to be a pastor. Saying yes to challenging opportunities demands a level of trust and security. If the District Superintendent calls with the option to take a new appointment will I as easily say yes as I have before? I don\u2019t know. All I know is that right now I feel a bit less secure.<\/p>\n
Photo Credit: Flickr user ell brown, Creative Commons.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I feel a bit less secure today than I did yesterday. The General Conference has enabled the Bishop to not appoint a clergy person in full connection to a local church. This action comes as one part of the \u201cCall to Action\u201d report. This report changes many aspects of how we move the church forward. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/4175297058_f395a3aa3a_z.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2l75j-security","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}