The Epic, Pt. 11

The nominating committee chosen to select officers for the 2008-2009 officer cycle met for the first time on Jan. 13, 2008. The committee’s activity had been delayed first by the Borden Report, and later by the personal schedule of its chairman. (It is worth noting that rather than asking the previous officers to continue in their posts until replacements were elected, Pastor DeSilva instead declared that as of Dec. 31, 2007 we had no officers and no board until the nominating committee completed its work.) At this first meeting a new organizational chart was presented to the members, along with lists of the duties of the two new boards.

Pastor DeSilva explained the new chart, read through the duty lists, and explained the requirements for membership in the two boards. We were informed that the pastors’ immediate family members and the paid office staff were not eligible to be elected to any position. We were further informed that no one could be elected to both the Church Ministries Board and the Support and Accountability Board. Also, none of the immediate family of members of either board could be elected to the other board. The stated reason for this was so that the Accountability Board would be able to be impartial in its monitoring and evaluation.


The nominating committee then jumped right in to considering candidates for the various positions. For each position Pastor DeSilva had someone specific in mind. He would speak warmly of his candidate and disparagingly of the others. Everything from personal grooming to newness in the congregation (though that wasn’t a problem if it was his candidate) to having objected to the change in structure was brought up under the guise of candid evaluation in order to discourage votes for alternate candidates.


When the name of a particularly vocal opponent of the structural change was brought up as a potential department head Pastor DeSilva flat out said that in light of recent events he simply could not work with that person. At that point the secretary of the committee spoke up to caution against excluding people just because they happen to disagree with you and thereby losing valuable perspectives. Pastor DeSilva, not content to let the matter rest, jumped back in to the discussion. In his best alter-call oratory style he made an impassioned speech about how there was a difference between disagreeing and being disagreeable. He further declared that there were a number of people who had recently revealed themselves as disagreeable people with whom he simply was unable to work. (Never mind that he had been working with these people beautifully for the better part of eleven years and it wasn’t until they disagreed with him that they became disagreeable.) There was a palpable change in the atmosphere of the room. Moments before when the secretary had been speaking the committee had been relaxed and smiling, nodding their agreement with the secretary’s statement. After Pastor DeSilva’s interjection that good feeling was gone—replaced by an uncertainty and discomfort at his “my way or the highway” attitude.

Next: A Slip of the Lip

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