Reflections on appointment-making

I've had a personal investment in the appointment process my whole life.
I can remember as a teenager praying that my daddy didn't get moved before I graduated from high school. Daddy served only 2 ten year pastorates during my growing up years so I didn't actually move a lot. But every year, as decision-time approached, the possibility that we would be moved was a miserable feeling. Our lives were in the hands of "the cabinet"and, quite frankly, we didn't think much of them.
When I was growing up, the cabinet made the appointments at Annual Conference late at night after the Conference sessions. The appointments were read out at the last session of Conference. And that's how we learned whether we were moving or not-and, if we were moving, that's when we learned where we were going. Would preachers kids and their families should get consideration in the appointment process?
As a youth delegate to conference, I (and other young people) would stand outside the building where the cabinet was making appointments. We could see the lights on in the room where they met. We wondered what they were going to do with the young ministers who were our heros. Would these bright, dedicated young ministers ever be recognized for their gifts? I always thought they should be.
As a woman who came into the church when clergywomen were new to most churches and conferences, I constantly heard how difficult it was to appoint a woman. "The churches just won't accept a woman..." If I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times. Would women ever have a chance to be welcomed as assets and not resisted as liabilities?
I thank God that I have lived to see the day when those questions are answered in the affirmative. Preachers' families do get consideration in the appointment process. Especially in this economy, the jobs of clergy spouses were priorities in cabinet conversations and decisions. The preachers' kids matter now, too, I am proud to say. Preachers' kids have all manner of education needs and medical proximity needs as well as location needs for custody arrangements. They are important factors in the consideration. And now, family needs are broader than wives and children. Clergy husbands are in the circle of concern...as well as aging parents and a wide range of other family caretaking needs. Yes, the day has come. The families of our clergy matter greatly in appointment-making.
And yes, the day has come when gifts and leadership get priority consideration. The church is in a day of great opportunity and crisis. Great leadership -- from clergy of all ages--is essential. The church cannot continue the old system of "paying your dues" and gradually working up to leadership. The demands for leadership in the church are too urgent. Gifted people of all ages need to be placed where those gifts can be most fruitfully, effectively employed. Yes, the day has come. Gifts matter in appointment making.
And, yes, the day has come when we--at least on the cabinet--have stopped automatically classifying ministers as problems because they are female. We have--at least on the cabinet level--gotten to the day when we embrace diversity in gender and race. We know that the diversity on our cabinet contributes to the wisdom and creativity on the cabinet in a unique and powerful way. While there still are churches that still say "We don't want a woman". (And, God bless 'em, they don't have any better sense than to say that to women DSs). But the attitude of the cabinet is now, "They can get over it." Yes, the day has come when gender -- or race--doesn't automatically go to the problem list.
So that day I have longed for is here just in time for appointment-making to be more complicated than ever before. And it is more complicated than anyone can describe.
This week's work with the cabinet was inspiring, discouraging, exhausting. And, as the bishop has written, a "perfect storm" of circumstances has left us with an unprecedented challenge: finding appointments as well as deploying those credentialed for ministry. We began early and we worked until late at night. The work was prayerful -- not just a beginning polite jumping-off prayer. But significant prayer morning, afternoon and evening.
And the work was hard. It was worse than hard. It was agonizing. Tough choices and tough realities. Complications upon complications. And yet, this is the day I prayed for. I prayed for the time when families mattered and gifts mattered and inclusiveness mattered. That has made our work more complicated...but those complications, as vexing as they are, still are in the direction of moving us toward perfection.
Even though we will not be able to give churches their projected appointments as we had originally scheduled this coming week, we will be getting that information to people as soon as the work can be completed. No one will learn about their appointment following the Sunday morning service at Annual Conference. And as an appointment-maker, the agony of appointment-making doesn't go away. And at our best, we are imperfect superintendents with an imperfect bishop making appointments of imperfect pastors to imperfect churches. And yet, we have the best imperfect system I know of. Keep us in prayer. We know we need it.