The Epic, Pt. 38

The “process” meeting between Elder Ramirez and Brother G took place on the afternoon of October 9, 2008. The meeting was two hours long, and consisted mostly of Elder Ramirez asking questions about the situation. These included, "Have you looked at Matthew 18?" That one absolutely flabbergasted us after the lengths to which we had already gone not only to follow Matthew 18 but to explain to the conference that we had followed it.

Elder Ramirez also asked whether the Group would be willing to sit down one-on-one with Pastor DeSilva to try to work things out. Brother G declined to speak for the Group, but observed that he didn't think it would do any good. Elder Ramirez also inquired whether things would be better at Takoma Park under new leadership. (The response given to that one was that although a change in leadership might be helpful, it would not completely resolve the problem, which was one of governance structure.)

Elder Ramirez acknowledged that we had the right to ask to appear before the executive committee, but didn't seem to understand why we would feel a need to. Brother G did not come away from the meeting with a firm commitment that we would be allowed to do so as yet. Elder Ramirez stated that his next step would be to meet with Pastor DeSilva and get his side of the story, after which he would contact us. The outside time limit he put on this was two weeks.

The appalling aspect of the meeting was that its content was exactly what Elder Ramirez had promised it would not be: issues. His explanation to Brother G was that before anyone could appear at the executive committee, the conference must go through the "process" of collecting information about why. To our way of thinking, however, Elder Ramirez lied to us, because the process of such data collection necessitated a discussion of what the issues were, which he swore would not be any part of this meeting.

Next: A Matter of Perspective

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