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Struggling to decide about church
My church is in trouble.
There has been some problems there for a long time that I have not completely understood. A woman that the girls were very close to, whom they had adopted as sort of a honorary grandma, the parish nurse, got into some sort of power struggle with the pastor and quit the church. We have had a turnover of the entire church staff in the past year: youth director, worship director, education director, church secretary. Membership has been dropping and so the budget was cut, including the pastor's salary by 40%, and the pastor announced his resignation two weeks later. I talked with him and with some other people, and learned that there had been (among other things) a power struggle between our long term worship director (who had been at the church for 37 years) and the pastor, because the worship director didn't want change. After he retired, he still kept interfering with what was going on, through people who were still loyal to him. The girls don't like the education/youth director. She's a kindergarten teacher with an extremely syrupy personality--think of Dolores Umbridge, without the malevolence--and she treats children as if they are much younger than they are ("I don't need to be gluing cotton balls on lambs" as Delia puts it). The position of council president, vice president and secretary are vacant.
Now, in another blow, I have just learned that the man who ran the Forum, which is the adult education I really liked, is leaving the church.
So what do I do? We have a new interim pastor starting soon, and we'll be searching for a new one. The new choir director is good, and the new organist is absolutely terrific. I've heard speculations that the education/youth director may not stay, because her internship was somehow tied to the identity of the pastor, the one who has left.
I want the girls to be in a strong church by the time they are ready for confirmation. This one is more conservative than I like, and I'm not sure it is going to survive. But it is our church. The girls were baptized here, and there are people here I still love to see. Isn't it part of our responsibility as members to help turn things around? Shouldn't we be acting as members of the body of Christ, trying to heal the body, rather than consumer/shoppers who reason, "This isn't meeting my needs, so I'm outta here"? What is my responsibility? What should I do?
There has been some problems there for a long time that I have not completely understood. A woman that the girls were very close to, whom they had adopted as sort of a honorary grandma, the parish nurse, got into some sort of power struggle with the pastor and quit the church. We have had a turnover of the entire church staff in the past year: youth director, worship director, education director, church secretary. Membership has been dropping and so the budget was cut, including the pastor's salary by 40%, and the pastor announced his resignation two weeks later. I talked with him and with some other people, and learned that there had been (among other things) a power struggle between our long term worship director (who had been at the church for 37 years) and the pastor, because the worship director didn't want change. After he retired, he still kept interfering with what was going on, through people who were still loyal to him. The girls don't like the education/youth director. She's a kindergarten teacher with an extremely syrupy personality--think of Dolores Umbridge, without the malevolence--and she treats children as if they are much younger than they are ("I don't need to be gluing cotton balls on lambs" as Delia puts it). The position of council president, vice president and secretary are vacant.
Now, in another blow, I have just learned that the man who ran the Forum, which is the adult education I really liked, is leaving the church.
So what do I do? We have a new interim pastor starting soon, and we'll be searching for a new one. The new choir director is good, and the new organist is absolutely terrific. I've heard speculations that the education/youth director may not stay, because her internship was somehow tied to the identity of the pastor, the one who has left.
I want the girls to be in a strong church by the time they are ready for confirmation. This one is more conservative than I like, and I'm not sure it is going to survive. But it is our church. The girls were baptized here, and there are people here I still love to see. Isn't it part of our responsibility as members to help turn things around? Shouldn't we be acting as members of the body of Christ, trying to heal the body, rather than consumer/shoppers who reason, "This isn't meeting my needs, so I'm outta here"? What is my responsibility? What should I do?
no subject
Forget it's a church. The way people should be acting has no bearing; people in a group engage in internal politics and power games, no matter what the organization might be. You have three basic options, as I see it:
1) you can become involved in the politics yourself and align yourself with those who want to move in a similar direction as yourself. Be aware that this will cause you to become actively 'against'' those who want to go any other way, and that may/will affect friendships and other relationships. You can push your own agenda and try to make the organization look and act the way you want it to.
2) Don't take sides and stay out of the fray. You can be passive and watch the politics play out. Eventually one faction or the other will become influential enough that it will move the group in the direction it wants to go. Maybe the New Order will be just fine for you. Then again, maybe it won't.
3) You can leave and find a place that feels better suited for you. Just be aware that it too will have internal politics and conflicts that may not be visible to you until you're inside the organization.
I know that sounds cynical, but in every group of more than a half dozen people of which I've been part or which I've seen close enough to know, assembled for any purpose at all, there have been politics involved. The three basic options above seem to be the only alternatives to me. This includes churches, dojos, academia, corporations, small business, RPG groups, fandom, writer organization, bands, and just plain old everyday social circles.
no subject
I second that. I think there's a danger here of thinking that one of your alternatives is that people will suddenly realize they're all part of the body of Christ and start acting in accord with that realization.
Ain't gonna happen. Trust me. Your real alternatives are the ones
no subject
That bit deserved to be in bold, because yes, darnit.