Reflections on Appointed Ministry

The appointed ministry in The United Methodist Church doesn’t look like it did when I was first appointed to the Danville Circuit (Danville, West Danville, Walden & South Walden) in Northeastern Vermont in 1971. The secular world has changed greatly as has the church world in the intervening 37 years. (I use the term “appointed ministry” rather than “ordained ministry” to be inclusive of our licensed local pastors. My roots are in an annual conference where there were a lot more licensed local pastors than there are in Minnesota. Several of my formative years, including when I felt my call to ordained ministry were under the guidance of a licensed local pastor.)

There is the distinct possibility that “guaranteed” appointment for elders will be significantly altered if not eliminated at General Conference. Interestingly, this term does not appear anywhere in The Book of Discipline. What is guaranteed, unless an elder is on leave of absence, is equitable compensation at the level authorized by the annual conference, but I don’t know any annual conference that feels it can easily compensate a pastor and not appoint them to some valid ministry.

I am ambivalent about ending guaranteed appointments. There is nothing wrong with a system that expects appointed clergy to move to any appointment within the annual conference and thus at the same time being guaranteed a place in the system. It only becomes problematic if someone is no longer effective in ministry, regardless of the reason, and the system is unable to put in place corrective or supportive actions that will address the issues of ineffectiveness. Perhaps it means we have not been clear about the expectations when someone came for credentialing or that we have not helped pastors in that continual process of re-tooling that is required and even more evident in times of rapid change. That doesn’t mean as clergy we don’t bear the primary responsibility to remain current and competent in the skills required for pastoral ministry.

There is no question for me that some of us have gotten caught up in the success trap. There is a big difference between being successful and being effective. Eugene Peterson in Under the Unpredictable Plant writes

A successful pastor will discover a workable program and repeat it in congregation after congregation to the immense satisfaction of her parishoners. The church members can be religious without prayer or dealing with God. Prostitute Pastor.

(p. 60) Successful pastors will eventually crash and burn or they will become cynical and either live an unhappy and unfulfilled life or they will leave ordained ministry feeling like a loser. As Peterson indicates, it is easier to be successful than to be effective. Effective pastors are able to enable many of the lay persons in the congregation to grow deeper in their faith and make progress on the path to discipleship.

Even if we have not bought into the success trap, it may well be that we have not equipped laity for their rightful place in ministry and thus have attempted to do more and more in our need to be needed and thus fed the dis-ease and ill health within congregations. Many of us have become more involved in institutional maintenance or simply being chaplains and neglected the call to equip the church to fulfill the Great Commission. I am convinced we are in a time when there are more than a few clergy who feel caught. They have been in the system too long to feel able to leave and go into other forms of ministry or employment. This tragedy is further complicated by the fact that the church, unlike corporate America is unable to provide good transition packages to assist these persons in moving out to other forms of endeavor. I know from talking to a number of clergy who have left appointed ministry that they are much happier.

Not many years ago we were talking about the “rabbit in the snake” in that many clergy were within ten years of retirement and there were few younger clergy coming into the system. We have more young clergy than we did for awhile, but we still need more. At the same time we have fewer fulltime appointments so the crisis has been much slower to develop. Kentucky Annual Conference just announced that they were short of clergy. When the call went out to see who had a surplus, only two conferences responded quickly that they had more than they could appoint: New England and North Georgia. When someone asked me recently if we needed clergy, I responded that we always need good clergy. We have to focus on quality, not quantity. The mission of the church is too important to do otherwise.

I don’t know the answers to it all. I do know that regardless of what General Conference does, the problem will not be solved.