The Pastor's Study: The Case for the Quarterly Conference

Recently there has been a great deal of rhetoric tossed around about the need for better systems to deal with the issue of clergy effectiveness. I saw it in the report of the Conference Lay Leader, who harped on the need for more effective clergy, somehow implying that the challenges facing the United Methodist Church could be fixed if only the clergy were more effective. In fact, it’s become a mantra among a certain segment of lay folk that the reason the United Methodist Church has lost its place of standing in the world is that we have too many clergy who are incompetent and that we need to simply run the bums off.

Certainly, the UMC has to deal with helping clergy to be more effective. The system of tenure we call “guaranteed appointment” (which was created for good and just purposes) has many problems, and once someone is ordained as an elder and gains full conference membership, it is difficult if not impossible to deal with persons who continue to have problems in their ministries. There are far too many persons on the two year service cycle, a sign that something isn’t fully kosher in Jerusalem, and we DO have to find ways of helping persons succeed or gently moving them into the career that God has gifted them for.

However, in all this conversation about accountability and clergy effectiveness, we overlook an even more important concern in our fold. That concern is congregational effectiveness.

You see, our current systems of accountability focus on the role of the pastor in the ministry of the church, but never ask congregational leaders what they are doing to further the work of God in their communities. The annual charge/church conference contains much good information about the church, but the primary business is to hear a report of the pastor, to nominate new leaders, and to set the pastor’s salary. At no time does the conference through the district superintendent ever question the leaders about their faith, their vision for the church, or their responsibility for evangelism.

Yes, the pastor is the appointed leader of the congregation, and as such represents the congregation to the general church. Yes, there is a sense in which the accountability of the pastor is a form of congregational accountability. However, as any pastor will tell you, there is a limit to what he or she can do in a congregation that is dysfunctional, hard headed, and simply isn’t particularly concerned with being anything beyond what they already are. Ministry for the transformation of the world requires a partnership between pastor and congregation, and there are situations all through our communion in which congregations aren’t willing to be active participants in that partnership. “What?” Us be in ministry,” they say. “Isn’t that what we pay the pastor for?”

One of the problems that we have is that there are no systems in place for the Bishop and/or the D.S. to meet with congregational leaders for conversation on accountability. Congregational leaders need to be quizzed on their visions for the future ministry of the church, and in a denomination struggling with resources, congregations that refuse to be held accountable or simply want to continue as they always have should be informed that they are a drain on the ministries of the church and cannot be fully supported. Why should a family chapel that has no intention of ever reaching out to the community or the world receive an elder as their leader simply because they can afford to pay for one? Why shouldn’t a congregation that has caught a vision for God’s kingdom and is making steps to move out into the world be subsidized in one way or the other by a conference whose very mission is making new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?

A few years ago I was talking with a D.S. who had been in the church for many years about my belief in need for accountability of congregations. He suggested that one of the great losses of the UMC was the move to the annual charge conference from the quarterly conference model that had been in place before.

“ What meeting quarterly offered was a chance for ongoing conversation about what the church was doing as well as the D.S. thinking with them about possibilities for the future,” he said. “What we have now tries to do too much, which means that there really isn’t any chance to converse in a meaningful way about the direction of the church.”

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think he’s right.

Accountability, be it pastoral or congregational, requires a sense of relationship that only comes through familiarity. Pastors gain that familiarity through their relationships with the congregations and their relationships with their D.S. through monthly pastor’s meetings and other conference activities. Congregations, however, never have an opportunity to enter into relationship in a meaningful way with persons in the denominational hierarchy and so “those people” have little authority to hold the congregation accountable for its actions (except in the most glaring of offenses). Moving to a quarterly conference would remove the pressure felt in the charge conference system that we have to do everything at once. It would also allow the D.S. to enter into an ongoing relationship with congregational leaders that would help facilitate conversation about the mission and ministry of the church.

I can hear D.S’s already rolling their eyes and groaning. “We have too much to do already!” they are saying. “How could we possibly meet with every congregation in our district four times a year?”

I confess that I don’t have the answer for that. Possibly we could empower elders from other congregations to serve as “class leaders” on an ongoing basis with another congregation to meet with church leaders and ask them how that congregation is moving on to perfection? Maybe we need to take away some of the annual conference responsibilities in order to allow D.S’s more time in local congregations. Maybe we could utilize effective retired clergy to become mentors to congregations, not to undermine the work of the existing pastor, but to hold the congregation accountable to their role of ministry?

The ultimate goal is the recognition that the United Methodist Church has an investment in the success or failure of all of our member congregations, and that those congregations must be moving forward if they want to receive the full support of the UMC.

That can never happen when the only intersection between the denomination and the local congregation happens for one hour once a year.

Isn’t the success of every congregation worth more than one hour a year?