Conference Annual Meeting
04/06/16 04:44
I’ve been attending Conference Annual Meetings since I was a teenager. As a high school and college student I went to the meetings because of the relationships I had with other people across the conference – relationships mostly forged at summer camp. There were people who I wanted to see. Some of those “must see” people were ministers who had made a difference in my life. I had been touched by genuine compassion and caring and people who somehow were able to see a glimmer of promise in me. I wanted to be next to them, to listen to what they had to say, and learn from them.
It was at one of those early meetings that I learned that there is another side to a Conference meeting. The meeting took place on the college campus that I would later attend. The plenary sessions were in a large auditorium in the then-brand-new athletic building. We sat in our seats as the search committee introduced us to their candidate to become our new Conference Minister. There were quite a few people who were surprised by their choice. Many had expected that the current associate conference minister would be the choice, but there was an entirely new person being introduced to us. I was aware that some people were disappointed with the choice. I was also aware that there were people on both sides of the issue whose opinions I valued and whose ideas were important to me.
There have been a whole lot of conference meetings since that time. I’ve participated in at least three other votes for new conference ministers, one where I made the presentation of the candidate as the secretary of the search committee. I have served as moderator of the Conference and chaired debate when critical issues faced the assembly. There have been revisions of conference constitutions and bylaws and resolutions on social justice issues. There have been contested elections and disagreements over a wide variety of different topics. I’ve made a few impassioned speeches over the years and believed that the decisions we were making were critical to the future of the church.
To be honest, there have also been more than a few boring sessions where people seemed to be grandstanding and saying nothing significant at all. I can say it now that I am not only a minister, but one of the senior ministers of the Conference, when you get a bunch of ministers together there will always be a few who just like to hear the sound of their own voices and who will step up to the microphone with nothing to offer to the gathering.
The spark of excitement over a Conference Annual Meeting has been dulled by the passage of time and there have even been a few years when I skipped the event entirely, always making sure that our congregation was represented, but knowing that the business of the conference was not dependent upon my participation.
And I’ve seen enough meetings come and go to know that sometimes the issue that seems so important at the time is of little or no importance a few years later – sometimes it isn’t even important a few weeks later.
Some of the changes over the years reflect the changes in the world where we live. When we lived in North Dakota, registration for the meeting was $15 and meals ranged from $2 to $10. Registration for this year’s South Dakota Conference Annual Meeting is $80 with meals ranging from $10 to $33. Complaining about the numbers would just illustrate how old I am and how far back I can remember, and contribute nothing to the planners of future meetings, who don’t have the power to control the cost of meals and travel and lodging for guest speakers.
There is, however, something more important going on that affects my attitude toward these meetings over the years.
There was a time when the Conference’s vitality and importance to local congregations was clear to me. The conference was a center of programming for local congregations. It provided resources for Christian Education, programs for lay leadership development, youth ministry programs and a great deal more. As a young pastor, I turned to the Conference Office for support and pastoral care for myself. I looked up to the Conference Minister as an example that I sought to emulate. Conference meetings were exciting because the worship services at those meetings had exciting music and dynamic speakers and fresh ideas.
As the years have passed, however, and resources at the conference level have decreased, the role of the conference has shifted. Conferences are no longer the source of resources or programs for local churches. The Conference annual meeting is no longer a large gathering. Conference worship also has music that is less innovative and less well presented than typical for our congregation’s every week worship and the congregation is usually smaller than our usual as well. Times have changed. The role of the conference in today’s church is largely bureaucratic - a mid-level bureaucracy that still fulfills some important functions such as assisting congregations with finding clergy when needed, being a conduit for financial support of national and international ministries, and providing a structure to oversee our camp property.
Today we will vote on a proposal to restructure the leadership of the Conference, forming a partnership with two other conferences to create a shared staff. While the proposal seems innovative on the surface, the results will be a bit of a throwback to the time when individual conferences could afford multiple staff. The new staff will be hierarchical with a senior minister and several associates, very similar to the model employed by conferences twenty or thirty years ago. The new structure, however, will cover the territory previously covered by three conferences. I can envision the process repeating with more and more combinations in future years until conferences are essentially regions and one level of church bureaucracy is eliminated. I have no doubt that the proposal will pass.
Change is essential in any organization and inevitable. I have no reason to oppose the change. I can, however, grieve the loss of support and program from the Conference.
On the other hand, perhaps it will result in fewer meetings freeing up more time for ministry. That wouldn’t be a bad result.
It was at one of those early meetings that I learned that there is another side to a Conference meeting. The meeting took place on the college campus that I would later attend. The plenary sessions were in a large auditorium in the then-brand-new athletic building. We sat in our seats as the search committee introduced us to their candidate to become our new Conference Minister. There were quite a few people who were surprised by their choice. Many had expected that the current associate conference minister would be the choice, but there was an entirely new person being introduced to us. I was aware that some people were disappointed with the choice. I was also aware that there were people on both sides of the issue whose opinions I valued and whose ideas were important to me.
There have been a whole lot of conference meetings since that time. I’ve participated in at least three other votes for new conference ministers, one where I made the presentation of the candidate as the secretary of the search committee. I have served as moderator of the Conference and chaired debate when critical issues faced the assembly. There have been revisions of conference constitutions and bylaws and resolutions on social justice issues. There have been contested elections and disagreements over a wide variety of different topics. I’ve made a few impassioned speeches over the years and believed that the decisions we were making were critical to the future of the church.
To be honest, there have also been more than a few boring sessions where people seemed to be grandstanding and saying nothing significant at all. I can say it now that I am not only a minister, but one of the senior ministers of the Conference, when you get a bunch of ministers together there will always be a few who just like to hear the sound of their own voices and who will step up to the microphone with nothing to offer to the gathering.
The spark of excitement over a Conference Annual Meeting has been dulled by the passage of time and there have even been a few years when I skipped the event entirely, always making sure that our congregation was represented, but knowing that the business of the conference was not dependent upon my participation.
And I’ve seen enough meetings come and go to know that sometimes the issue that seems so important at the time is of little or no importance a few years later – sometimes it isn’t even important a few weeks later.
Some of the changes over the years reflect the changes in the world where we live. When we lived in North Dakota, registration for the meeting was $15 and meals ranged from $2 to $10. Registration for this year’s South Dakota Conference Annual Meeting is $80 with meals ranging from $10 to $33. Complaining about the numbers would just illustrate how old I am and how far back I can remember, and contribute nothing to the planners of future meetings, who don’t have the power to control the cost of meals and travel and lodging for guest speakers.
There is, however, something more important going on that affects my attitude toward these meetings over the years.
There was a time when the Conference’s vitality and importance to local congregations was clear to me. The conference was a center of programming for local congregations. It provided resources for Christian Education, programs for lay leadership development, youth ministry programs and a great deal more. As a young pastor, I turned to the Conference Office for support and pastoral care for myself. I looked up to the Conference Minister as an example that I sought to emulate. Conference meetings were exciting because the worship services at those meetings had exciting music and dynamic speakers and fresh ideas.
As the years have passed, however, and resources at the conference level have decreased, the role of the conference has shifted. Conferences are no longer the source of resources or programs for local churches. The Conference annual meeting is no longer a large gathering. Conference worship also has music that is less innovative and less well presented than typical for our congregation’s every week worship and the congregation is usually smaller than our usual as well. Times have changed. The role of the conference in today’s church is largely bureaucratic - a mid-level bureaucracy that still fulfills some important functions such as assisting congregations with finding clergy when needed, being a conduit for financial support of national and international ministries, and providing a structure to oversee our camp property.
Today we will vote on a proposal to restructure the leadership of the Conference, forming a partnership with two other conferences to create a shared staff. While the proposal seems innovative on the surface, the results will be a bit of a throwback to the time when individual conferences could afford multiple staff. The new staff will be hierarchical with a senior minister and several associates, very similar to the model employed by conferences twenty or thirty years ago. The new structure, however, will cover the territory previously covered by three conferences. I can envision the process repeating with more and more combinations in future years until conferences are essentially regions and one level of church bureaucracy is eliminated. I have no doubt that the proposal will pass.
Change is essential in any organization and inevitable. I have no reason to oppose the change. I can, however, grieve the loss of support and program from the Conference.
On the other hand, perhaps it will result in fewer meetings freeing up more time for ministry. That wouldn’t be a bad result.