Well it has been almost two months since I posted anything on this blog.  Looking back, I realize that is when we began the appointive process.  Needless to say it has been all consuming in terms of time, attention, and prayer.  Now halfway or so through my first season of appointment making I've learned some lessons that I think might be helpful to pass along.
     The first is simply, this is not as easy as you think.  As a sports fan and political and economic observer, I've always found it easy to be an "armchair quarterback".  From the relaxed distance of my couch, the plays called or political decisions made seem simple, after all there are no consequences or accountability for me on the couch (remember Ross Perot!).  As in sports and politics, in the appointment process there is always a lot you don't know from the outside, and when you are responsible for it there is a weight you carry that can't be described unless you carry it.
     One of the big things most pastors and churches don't know right now is that over the last two years in the South Georgia Conference we have lost over $1,100,000 of salary in full time appointments alone.  When you add that to the $800,000 budget shortfall from our 80% payment of apportionments and the subsequent loss of money for equitable compensation, NRCD, and District Budgets, there is as much as $1.5 million dollars less available for the same number of pastors than there was two years ago. 
     Another thing a lot of people don't know is that there are a lot of pastors who value the spouse's career, children's school, and quality of life more than simply moving up the next step on the ladder.  That means there are pastors who turn down moves to value tenure and building trust enough to take long stagnant churches to a new level.  In the process, pastor further "down the line" have to brought up to fill those open positions. 
     Another thing more evident than ever is that our conference is shrinking and our church leadership changing.  We always knew South Georgia is small, but with all the instant information available, somebody knows something about us everywhere.  If we have baggage, people in other churches will know it, no amount of D.S. "spin" can make up for a pastor creating a poor reputation for him/herself.   New SPRC members are younger and operate out of a corporate model of promoting potential and effectiveness and not just incremental steps based on tenure.  Which means they not only have a profile, but often a list of names and refuse to accept certain pastors proposed to them that don't fit it.  Lest that sound critical of the churches, t is not that they are necessarily wrong in doing so.  The frightening decline in the effectiveness of our churches has many pieces, but one is obviously our system of moving pastors incrementally up the line based on tenure not talent or proven effectiveness.  We cannot keep doing what we're doing to protect ourselves while we watch our church die.  All of that creates real issue in morale for those of us who have grown comfortable with a system that has "kept" us well, but is now calling us to accountability.
     If I've learned anything, it is I am far better off settling in, working hard, and growing my own church (and with it salary) than I am depending on the "system" to grow it for my by moving.  I have to be particularly careful not to "burn bridges" or "saw the limb of behind me" so that I have to move instead of someone coming to get me.  What is available if I've put myself in position of having to move may not be as good as where I am.  Finally, I need to work hard to educate my church on the importance of being connectional and paying apportionments since an ever growing percentage of it goes into pastoral support and benefits.  There is no doubt the world has changed, the church is in trouble, and we will have to change or die.  Dorothy was right, "We're not in Kansas anymore."

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