The Epic, Pt. 2

As mentioned in an earlier post, our senior pastor, Alan DeSilva, came back to the Takoma Park Church Board, and told them that a consultant had been found and that he would cost $6000. Further, he said that this consultant had a long standing relationship with our new Conference President, Elder Bill Miller, and that he came with good references from him.

We asked what exactly the consultant would do. Pastor DeSilva told us in no uncertain terms that this consultant, should we elect to invite him to come, would study the church for a year. The Pastor said that during that year, Dr. Paul Borden would talk to every member of the church, come to our meetings, attend our worship services, and look at every part of our church operations from top to bottom. And at the end of that year, Dr. Borden would meet with the church and report on his findings.

Not bad for $6000, or so we thought. Our Pastor, we learned, had already spoken to some of the elders, as well as the Church Treasurer. Given the deal Takoma Park Church thought it was going to get, the Board voted in favor of bringing in the consultant.

At the June 2007 Church Board meeting we were told that there was a survey that we needed to complete, and that our Senior Pastor, aided by Associate Pastors Richard James and Gerry Fuentes, would conduct a "Focus Group," made up of church officers. This amazed some of us. We weren't completely sure what specific training, or experience, our Pastor had in population sampling techniques, but hey, let's give it chance.

The survey the church officers where asked to discuss and complete was "canned" at best. The questions were specifically designed to pull out "desired responses." This "Focus Group" meeting was conducted at an officers' potluck.

Liberty is looking for a copy of the survey. If it can be found, we will post that as well.

There was no July Board meeting. The August Board meeting had a sparse attendance -- not even enough people to constitute a quorum. We welcomed the new "Minster of Music," a former pastor at the Takoma Park Church, and received an update regarding our consultant. Our Senior Pastor announced, in a very reassuring tone, "The consultant, Dr. Borden, will be here for an initial meeting with our church leaders in September [2007], and he asked to speak before the church on the first Sabbath of September. He is also busy doing everything he can to study about the Seventh-day Adventist Church so he can be of help to us."

You could have heard a pin drop.

One of the church leaders asked, "Excuse me, but are we to understand that this consultant is not Adventist?"

Pastor DeSilva replied, "I'm not exactly sure what religion he is, to tell you the truth." We later discovered this answer was much less than truthful.

A local elder, still confounded asked, "He's not Adventist? And he'll be preaching in church on Sabbath?" Pastor DeSilva answered "Yes," but assured the woman that there would be no problem. He cited that there was a non-Adventist consultant who spoke before the General Conference. We never bothered to check into whether that statement was true or not. We didn't care.

None of us have anything against non-Adventists. Our issue was that we had been led to believe that the consultant was Adventist. This was not the time to tell us that he was not. Further, we began to worry, if this piece of information had been withheld, what else were we not being told?

Next: The Evaluation.