WELCOME!

Associates in Advocacy now has two sites on the internet. Our primary help site is at http://www.aiateam.org/. There AIA seeks to offer aid to troubled pastors, mainly those who face complaints and whose careers are on the line.

Help is also available to their advocates, their caregivers, Cabinets, and others trying to work in that context.

This site will be a blog. On it we will address issues and events that come up.

We have a point of view about ministry, personnel work, and authority. We intend to take the following very seriously:

THE GOLDEN RULE
THE GENERAL RULES
GOING ONTO PERFECTION

Some of our denomination's personnel practices have real merit. Some are deeply flawed. To tell the difference, we go to these criteria to help us know the difference.

We also have a vision of what constitutes healthy leadership and authority. We believe it is in line with Scripture, up-to-date managerial practice, and law.

To our great sadness, some pastors who become part of the hierarchy of the church, particularly the Cabinet, have a vision based on their being in control as "kings of the hill," not accountable to anyone and not responsible to follow the Discipline or our faith and practice. They do not see that THE GOLDEN RULE applies to what they do.

If you are reading this, the chances are you are not that way. We hope what we say and do exemplify our own best vision and will help you fulfill yours. But we cannot just leave arrogance, incompetence, and ignorance to flourish. All of us have the responsibility to minimize those in our system.

We join you in fulfilling our individual vow of expecting to be perfect in love in this life and applying that vow to our corporate life in the United Methodist Church.

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If you have any questions or suggestions, direct them to Rev. Jerry Eckert. His e-mail address is aj_eckert@hotmail.com. His phone number is 941 743 0518. His address is 20487 Albury Drive, Port Charlotte, FL 33952.

Thank you.

(9/26/07)


Tuesday, July 20, 2021

JCD 1402

ee.umc.org/decisions/81528

 

General Conference’s Authority Vs Pastoral discretion

 

The Michigan Annual Conference raised an interesting question.  Is the choice to participate in a same-sex union ceremony or wedding a”distinctively connectional matter?”

 

The question forwarded to the Council does not indicate as opposed to what other kind of matter it could be.  I do not know what was in the brief of the appellants but I would have pointed to ¶340.2a(3) which says “The decision to perform the ceremony shall be the right and responsibility of the pastor.”  

 

Nothing there about intrusive laws passed by General Conference. . . .  

 

Every pastor that I have heard about who went ahead despite what General Conference imposed on the kinds of marriage pastors may perform did so because their pastoral sense of dealing with the individuals asking for a gay ceremony was to support the couple and perform the celebration.  In the face-to-face setting of pastoral care, the human needs have prevailed over church law.

 

As the number of decisions cited by the Council to nail down their ruling indicates, the matter of what was distinctively connectional has been challenged frequently over the years.  From the time when the abstention from the use of tobacco and alcohol was mandated by General Conference through annual conferences adding educational requirements beyond what the Discipline says to one jurisdiction trying to tell another what to do about a gay bishop, there have been questions raised.  And the Council has upheld the General Conference’s authority on such personnel matters.

 

The General Conference sets the policy, the annual conferences enforce them.  The pastors find “work-arounds” when the policy appears to them to be onerous.  And after each judicial testing, everyone tries to work toward what each thinks perfects the Church in love by working within the framework of church law and democratic processes.  Well, most do.  


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