The Epic, Pt. 79

When the church board finally met on October 4, 2009, Sister L asked as a matter arising from the minutes when the church board would be following through on the conference’s recommendation to study the Church Manual. Pastor DeSilva responded that he didn’t recall that there was a recommendation to study the Church Manual. Sister L reminded him of the obligation by quoting the recommendation, “The newly renamed Church Board should study pp. 90-92 in the manual to make sure the Board functions as stated.”

Pastor DeSilva declared that he understood that recommendation to mean that individual members of the board should read the Manual, and if they saw any deficiencies they could bring up the matter. This was contrary to Sister L’s understanding of the recommendation, which was that the entire church board was supposed to review the stipulated pages in the Manual as a body during an official meeting in order to achieve a unified corporate understanding, and she said as much. Pastor DeSilva refused to listen. He insisted that there was “no consensus needed” because the church had already adopted “everything that’s written there.” Even further, he claimed that such a corporate study of the Manual would be a waste of time. After Pastor DeSilva made these statements he abruptly changed the subject by calling for other business.

This exchange was recorded in the meeting’s minutes as, “It was asked whether the Board was going to spend time studying the pages in the Church Manual recommended by the Potomac Conference. The Pastor suggested that each member should study the pages privately and bring up any items [that] were not being addressed.” Interestingly, when the subject came up again at the board meeting held on November 8, 2009, that meeting’s minutes spun it that, “Support and Accountability Council’s responsibility is to make sure the Church Board is following the Church Manual.” At no time since the approval of the conference’s recommendations has the Support and Accountability Council met to evaluate whether the board is following the Church Manual. (Pastor DeSilva’s interpretation of the conference’s recommendation will be analyzed in a separate post.)

The matter of membership transfer procedure came up somewhat later in the meeting. When it did Pastor DeSilva again attempted to explain the supposed new transfer approval system, but this explanation came out more convoluted than the one he had given to Elder E. He followed it with a declaration that since the church had decided to follow the Manual, and since the Manual speaks about transfers, they were going to start enforcing the Manual’s requirement that transfers be approved by the church board before being listed in the bulletin. (As worthy a step as this is, it ignores the fact that the Manual also requires all transfers to be voted on by the congregation, which had not been happening either.)

Other items of business discussed at this meeting included the finance committee’s creation of the budget for the next year (which was being done without consulting the department heads about their needs because the committee was confident that it already knew them), the estimated conclusion of the nominating committee’s work in mid-November, and Pastor DeSilva’s plans for the new year. The latter included a leadership retreat at the beginning of the year and a 10-day vegan fast for the entire church. Pastor DeSilva explained that he had chosen a period of 10 days for the fast because that was the amount of time which had elapsed between Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the baptism of the Holy Spirit which had been given to the disciples on Pentecost.

Two other items received somewhat more detailed attention. The first was the dwindling number of children showing up on time for Sabbath School. There was an extended discussion about the cause of this trend, which was generally concluded to be a lack of commitment. (Why members were no longer committed was not explored.)

The other discussion was about the preparations for the annual Thanksgiving baskets and holiday decorations for the sanctuary. For years these tasks (and others like them) had been attended to so quietly and faithfully that they hadn’t required any discussion in board meetings about how they should be accomplished. This work had been done by the same “old white people” who had recently been told that if they didn’t like the way things were in the church they should leave. They hadn’t left the church, but they had left the pastors and their supporters to their own devices, and the voids they left were now being felt.

Next: Purged

Religious