The Epic, Pt. 61

The Group was represented at the May 19, 2009 meeting by Brother G, Elder C, and Sister L. Pastor DeSilva’s party was unchanged. The two representatives from the executive committee were Henry Wright and Kermit Netteburg, both of whom are pastors of neighboring congregations. Elder Miller began the meeting with a synopsis of the process to date. He then turned the floor over to Brother G, who read the hastily prepared five minute statement summarizing the Group’s position. I say “hastily prepared” because the Group had had only three days’ notice that a statement would be required, which was substantially less time than the Group usually took to create a document with which it was fully satisfied. The statement didn’t say anything the Group hadn’t said before, but for the sake of the completeness of this record it is included below.

“Our appeal is to reestablish in the Takoma Park Church a system of governance which is mandated by the Seventh-day Adventist World Church and stipulated in the Church Manual.

“Because a paragraph contained in the Paul Borden document voted, November 17, 2007 under very unusual and unethical circumstances during the Sabbath Worship Hour, required the implementation of a “staff-led church” structure, the present governance system of the Takoma Park SDA Church is not in harmony with the Church Manual. This is the major contention. It is notably reflected in the absence of a Church Board as mandated in the Church Manual.

“As a result of the adoption of the Borden Report, Pastor DeSilva instituted two boards, the Support and Accountability Board and the Church Ministries Board. Neither Board fulfills the requirements and responsibilities of a Church Board, nor does a combination of these Boards, as later proposed by Pastor DeSilva, reinstate the Church Board with the total authority and responsibility mandated in the Church Manual. Especially missing in these boards is that of church financial authority and responsibility. Also Pastor DeSilva, in placing his position between committees and the Church Business Meeting in the organizational-structural flow charts, is in contradiction with the Church Manual and Seventh-day Adventist governance principles. All committees, including the Finance Committee, except the Nominating Committee, are required to report directly to the Church Board, not to the Pastor, and then to the Church in Business Meeting. The former is not democratic or a representative form of governance.

“The issues before us are the result of the adoption of the Paul Borden Report which introduced a foreign concept of church governance. A Potomac Conference official was present at one of the town hall meetings to promote/explain the Borden Report. Thus it was assumed that the “staff-led church” issue was officially endorsed by the Potomac Conference Executive Committee, but this was and is not the case.

“It has been stated that the action taken by the Takoma Park Church in Business Meeting has its own authority to approve and utilize a different local governing structure than that mandated in the Church Manual, if it so wishes. Then, would not that same reasoning also sanction the Takoma Park Church to take an action to retain all tithes and offerings for local use? No higher Church entity would sanction this. The fallacy of that reasoning is very evident.

“Our proposal is to rescind the Paul Borden Report and to reinstate the Church Board mandated by the Church Manual in a properly called and conducted Church Business Meeting with representatives from higher organizations present.”

When Brother G concluded Sister L added the disclaimer that the statement was only a brief summary of the Group’s position, not a comprehensive description. She also reemphasized that Group representatives were not empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Group, only to present the Group’s position and report back to the Group on the results of the meeting.

The floor was then turned over to Pastor DeSilva for a five minute statement of his own. Pastor DeSilva didn’t have a written statement to present—he simply made an improvised response to the Group’s statement. In his statement he claimed that the finance committee, and therefore financial oversight for the church, was part of the church ministries board because the finance committee chair was on the church ministries board. (This is a faulty understanding of committee relationships—having the chair of one committee sit on another committee doesn’t make the two committees one body.) He further stated that any church member could obtain a report about the financial condition of the church from the church office at any time. (Such “openness” is nice, but not relevant here since the question is not about availability of data but rather who oversees the financial decisions that produce the data.) He also claimed that he had never made executive decisions for the church and that the church ministries board was in fact a church board, just with a different name and a focus on implementing the mission and vision. (As we have already chronicled numerous executive decisions from Pastor DeSilva in previous posts we won’t repeat ourselves. Suffice it to say that this was yet another lie. As for whether or not the church ministries board fits the criteria for a church board as stipulated in the Church Manual, we refer you to the previous post entitled “The Documentation.”)

Next, the two executive committee members asked "clarification" questions. Pastor Wright asked what the church ministries board was doing that the church board before it had not done. Elder D responded that it spent a greater portion of its time discussing ministry. Pastor Wright also asked for an explanation of what the Group meant by the “unusual and unethical circumstances” of the vote on the Borden Report. Sister L briefly described the concerns about doing business during Sabbath hours and the executive decision by Pastor DeSilva to include the structure change in the vote on the Borden Report despite the decision of the church to exclude that portion. Pastor DeSilva interjected that he had to do that because the Borden Report itself said that it must be voted up or down in its entirety. (See “The Epic, Pt. 5” for a dissection of that argument.)

Pastor Wright also inquired about the exact size of the Group. When asked why that mattered he responded that you can’t please everybody, so you have to please the majority. In responding to his original question Sister L stated that as the Group had never established a formal membership role an exact number couldn’t be provided. To give Pastor Wright a general idea of the scope of how much of the congregation was unhappy with the situation she asked Brother G, who is an associate head deacon, to provide estimates of weekly attendance before Paul Borden’s visit compared with current attendance estimates. Brother G stated that before Paul Borden attendance had been 300-400 per week, and that it was currently 250-300. (In other words, roughly 25% of the active congregation was not only dissatisfied with the situation, but so upset over it that they had completely ceased to attend.)

Pastor Netteburg asked Elder J (Takoma Park’s head elder) how the role had changed under the altered system of governance. Elder J admitted that this was his first term as head elder, and only his second term as an elder at all, and that he couldn’t make a comparison. Pastor Netteburg also asked how the composition of the church ministries board differed from a proper church board. Sister L responded by providing him with a copy of the chart the Group had prepared to compare the memberships. (See our post “The Documentation” for this chart.) Pastor DeSilva was not happy to see the chart presented again and tried to discredit it by claiming that it had been discarded in the previous meeting and that it was just opinion anyway. At that point Elder D stated that he had asked the meaning of the asterisks on the chart in the previous meeting but none of the Group’s representatives had remembered their purpose off the top of their heads. Brother G acknowledged that temporary memory failure from the previous meeting. Sister L pointed out that the meaning of the asterisks was printed at the bottom of the chart itself.

Pastor Netteburg moved on to his next question. “If the church board two years ago had wanted to deal with ministry more often than carpet color could it have done so? What kept it from disciplining itself to get carpet off the agenda and evangelism on the agenda?” When these questions produced only hemming and hawing from Pastor DeSilva’s party he pushed the point a little further, “If the board had been discussing the ministries of the church would it have had time to discuss the color of the carpet? It strikes me that what’s happened here is a mission change and a name change, but something that could have been accomplished in a church board. I’m just trying to understand if there’s a reason why that couldn’t have happened.” Sister L responded that there was no reason whatsoever why the renewed interest in ministry could not have happened without the change in governance. Elder J responded that the governance changes were “just an idea to refocus.”

Pastor Netteburg also asked what the church ministries board couldn’t do that the church board could. In response Sister L provided him with the Group’s other chart comparing the duties of a proper church board with those of the church ministries board and support and accountability board. She also pointed out that both charts were not opinion, but fact, as their data was drawn directly from material created by Pastor DeSilva.

When the executive committee members were satisfied Elder Miller then spelled out the way the executive committee meeting would work. He informed everyone that each side was to have seven minutes to make their case, that each was to have their position in written form, and that after the two presentations the committee would have 20-40 minutes for questions. He said that after that the committee would go into executive session to consider the matter. Elder Miller did not specify the number of people who could be present from each side. Sister L asked permission to prepare some advance materials for the committee members to compensate for the short presentation time. This request was granted.

When Elder Miller had finished laying out the presentation format for the executive committee meeting Pastor DeSilva asked whether the executive committee would be the end of the matter. The Brother G pointed out that, contrary to the minutes prepared by Elder Ramirez, he and the Group’s other representatives had not made any such commitment at the previous meeting and were not currently making any such commitment. This generated a brief discussion of appeal procedure and which entities had the right to get involved and in what capacity. Elder Miller asserted that the only point on which the union or any higher body could consider an appeal was the question of whether the conference had followed proper biblical protocol in dealing with the issue. When asked whether that satisfied his concern Pastor DeSilva responded that he understood all of that; he just wanted the Group to know it. He went on to say that he had heard people saying that if the conference didn’t provide justice that the union could correct them, and he wanted to be clear that that isn’t the way the church works. Pastor DeSilva then referenced the letters from Elders Howard, Parmenter, and Bediako, claiming that he had been “so appalled” by their involvement when he didn’t even know them. (We’ll address the subjects of appeal protocol and the involvement of experts later in a separate post.)

Pastor DeSilva also asked Elder Miller whether the "disruption in the church" if the Group continued to pursue an appeal beyond the executive committee could be grounds for discipline. Elder Miller replied that it might be.

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