Tomorrow we have our annual budget meeting at church. It’s really one of the few things left at Central that I dread going to – it amazes me how many people will shrug off opportunities for discipleship, worship, and service but will show up with guns blazing to talk about money. It really reveals where our hearts are.
Now, I say I dread it – but that’s not really fair. Compared to the church I used to pastor in MA Central is a love-fest. I just get tired of getting up in arms about the budget when the majority of folks aren’t really demonstrating a desire to be in an active and growing community of disciples. It just seems like church is serves a nice semi-religious civic organization that needs to stay open so we have a place to which we say we belong. It does get old.
That’s not to say that I don’t want people discussing the budget – it obviously needs to be discussed and even debated vigorously. I just wish that the discussion about the budget could be done along a common set of beliefs about the purpose of the Church. I might actually weep if someone pointed to a line in the budget and asked, “OK, why are we saying that this budgeted money is essential to our call to make disciples?” That would be a discussion I’d love to moderate. It would certainly be a lot more fun then moderating discussions that start with, “How are we going to afford this?” or “I don’t like that why are we bothering with it?”
Again, let me say the Central really isn’t all that bad with budget meetings, but I still don’t find them all that uplifting. Perhaps I’ve just been scarred by my MA experiences – those folks were nuts when it came to devouring one another over a few bucks. Also, even five years into my tenure here as pastor, I’m still kinda working out what my role should be during a meeting like this. I don’t want to over-step what I’m called to do, nor do I want to skate under the radar just to stay out of trouble. That probably conributes to my stress about these things.
At least the pot-luck theme is Thanksgiving – I could go for some Turkey.
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Well, the meeting went fine. No one commented on the budget much, and the comments that were made were productive.
We had some good feedback during some some time set aside for open discussion – which will hopefully bring a much-needed shift in the way we schedule folks for ministry tasks on Sundays.
Afterward someone expressed a concern that we really need to be concentrating on the work of the Holy Spirit. We had some good discussion about the baggage (particularly at Central) at lot of people have with talk about concentrating on the Holy Spirit. We also discussed how people talk about the work of the Holy Spirit with different types of language – and that I, personally, have to put a lot of charismatic-style language into a mental translator to actually make sense of it. We left the meeting with a commitment to put together a study that will not only let people spend time in exploring the work of the Spirit, but also WHY the fullness of the Spirit is important for the Church. We’ll see where this goes.
On the whole I think it went ok. No crazy fighting (like years passed) and we didn’t have any filibuster type occurances. Not that I’m against discussion or people being against something. I was nice for once to not have the “against all change” types trying to start war.
On the down side, we didn’t have a whole lot of people stay. I know part of it must have been bad timing but it also seemed to me that people specifically were avoiding it. This saddens me. I know it’s not fun but if you are going to be involved, then be involved.