The Epic, Pt. 21

The business meeting on April 27, 2008 was better-attended than any other business meeting in years (as in 2-3 times normal attendance). It was evident that the letter to the congregation had done its work and the bump in attendance was from people who wanted to discuss the matter. Pastor DeSilva had other ideas. His first action once the meeting had begun was to appoint the head deacon as parliamentarian. There was no specification of which rules of order he was enforcing, nor any indication that he had any knowledge of any particular set of rules of order. His parliamentary activity consisted of calling, “Out of order!” any time someone the pastor didn’t want to hear from tried to speak up. (Clearly, he had never heard of the parliamentary principle of “business from the floor.”) It should be noted that this was an executive appointment, not a task to which the head deacon was elected.

The next item of business on the agenda was the treasurer’s report, which was followed by the finance committee report. Both were given by the same man, the chair of the finance committee. The controversy began in earnest over the final item he presented. He wanted to change the churches’ financial policy to require two signatures on all checks greater than $500. In order to make this feasible he also proposed bringing the number of signatories to four, including the senior pastor. (We should mention here that Pastor DeSilva had made no secret of the fact that he thought that he ought to have signatory power. In his words, Takoma Park is the only church he has pastored where he didn’t have signatory power.) The finance committee chair made a substantial pitch for the senior pastor being a signatory. As he put it, the senior pastor is the “CEO” of the church and ought to have control.

This effort was squashed when one of the Group members was recognized to speak and took the opportunity to read an open memo sent out by the conference treasurer in 2004. The memo stated unequivocally that pastors were absolutely not to be granted signatory power. It was obvious to anyone looking at him that Pastor DeSilva was fuming at this setback. What he said, however, was that he had never wanted or asked for signatory power (another lie) and that “we” would “look into” the matter of whether or not pastors were permitted to be signatories. That particular matter was left that the fourth signatory would be unspecified for the time being.

The meeting moved on to other matters (including the resignation of an elder who had decided that he could not in good conscience continue to serve under the current governance structure), closely guarded against unscheduled topics by the head deacon. There was an attempt to bring up the change in governance, but it was shouted down by the pastor and head deacon. Contrary to his promise the previous day of “complete open disclosure,” Pastor DeSilva closed the meeting without permitting any consideration of the matter.

Next: An Explanation

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