Today is the Annual Congregational Meeting for Trenton United Church and it's likely to be straightforward, civil, and brief.
For decades those meetings for most congregations were held early in January with huge pressure to get all the financial ducks in a row. Many veiled threats were made for leaders to submit reports by certain deadlines. Those reports may or may not have been read and are now consigned to the archives, or possibly hell.
Some of these meetings involved heated discussions with blustery individuals holding forth, nearly all white males who were legends in their own minds. A few of these fine Christians were mean as mean could be and actually forewarned that they would be cantankerous. They resisted spending an unnecessary dime, even though it was God's money, not theirs.
Fortunately, most of the participants were people who cared about the mission and ministry of the congregation and wanted to thank God for what we had accomplished and what we were going to undertake.
The other day Ruth was purging what has become a full filing cabinet of documents reflecting the better part of half a century of famly life. A schedule for services from my first pastoral charge after ordination in outport Newfoundland floated to the surface. You may be able to make out that I conducted THIRTEEN services a month for the five congregations I served -- literally morning, afternoon, and night. When I arrived there were only twelve, but folk squabbled so much about the equity of who got a service and when that I added one to keep the peace. Crazily, three of these five congregations had weekly attendance exceeding the national average today.
This meant that I chaired five annual congregational meetings along with a pastoral charge board meeting, as well as attending five annual meetings for UCWs, the United Church Women.
I vowed that in retirement I would find ways to serve in a congregation but with a determination not to attend meetings or serve on committees. Can you understand why?
2 comments:
I am chuckling aloud here, David... bless you for all you have done in your years serving congregations... and bless Ruth, too, for all she has done behind the scenes.
You have certainly "been there, done that" Judy, so I'm glad you could laugh rather than the alternative.
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