The Epic, Pt. 77

The Takoma Park Church held a special business meeting on September 13, 2009. The primary purpose of this meeting was to approve the selection of a new youth pastor. (The previous youth pastor had left for another position at the beginning of July.) Elder Ramirez was present as the conference representative who had been working with the accountability council in making the selection. Pastor DeSilva made sure to play to this audience in managing the meeting.

The discussion of matters arising from the minutes gave Pastor DeSilva an opportunity to impress Elder Ramirez. He began by describing how wonderful the reconciliation meeting had been. He referred to it as having been “successful,” “very well conducted,” and “profitable for our church.” He then took a question about the matter of the school merger, confirming that the initiative had been defeated and was therefore dead. The next question asked was whether the church board had yet met to fulfill the executive committee recommendation of examining the Manual to see whether the board was functioning properly. Pastor DeSilva responded that it hadn’t happened yet, but that it would be looked at the next time the church board met.

After these questions on matters arising from the minutes the meeting moved on to its primary agenda item, approval of the new youth pastor. After a brief introduction and a few questions from the floor (which were made even fewer by Elder Ramirez’s recommendation that a limit of one question per member be enacted) the candidate was approved. After this vote Elder Ramirez left.

The next item considered was an adjustment of the church’s annual budget to compensate for an offering shortage. Oddly, this voted belt-tightening was entered into the minutes of the meeting as, “Finance Committee Report: [The finance committee chairman] presented the finance report.” The best guess we can offer about the reasoning behind the decision to be vague about this item is that on at least one occasion during the course of this conflict Elder Miller had insisted on seeing minutes from various church meetings to see for himself what was going on, and should this happen again Pastor DeSilva didn’t want it coming to his attention that the church was unable to meet its initial budget.

The final subject of this meeting was a change to the order of service for the divine worship hour. This wasn’t suggested as a matter for discussion and vote; Pastor DeSilva simply announced that the change was going to occur and allowed questions for clarification. The most significant change was that the offering collection was being moved to immediately after the sermon. The reason given for this was that many members habitually came in late, in time to hear the sermon but after the offering had already been taken. This shift would allow these latecomers to participate in the offering and presumably increase intake. The announcement of the change in order of service didn’t make it into the minutes of this meeting at all.

Next: Hit or Miss

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