Thoughts on Unification Part Five: Equitable, Open Itinerancy?

MINISTERIAL COMPENSATION

Between the Rio Grande Conference and Southwest Texas conference exist fundamental differences in the role of clergy compensation, commitment to all economic contexts, and the collective responsibility to open itinerancy.

Within the Rio Grande Conference, ministers receive a much lower level of compensation, move more often and at greater distances, and ordained elders are more likely to require "missional support" - funds from the connectional church to bring them up to a minimum standard - respecting their credentials and experience.  There is much less disparity between high and low salaries, and district superintendents are compensated at a level less than denominational average compensation.

The scarcity the RGC servants experience and the sacrifice they endure collectively arises from the poverty of the context in which they work (the context systemically avoided by the SWTC), the difficulty in reaching that context within the theological, liturgical, ideological, and cultural "norms" of the Anglo-dominated UMC, and the lack of outside resources.  For this reason, the FACT team ruled that the RGC was "financially unsustainable" -  because their constituency (with an average per-capita wealth some 20 times less than their Anglo counterparts) lacked sufficient resources to provide for the institutional structure of an annual conference and the denomination lacked the strategy and will to correct this.  

The RGC considers a "full time" appointment to be an assignment requiring the full time attention of a minister, regardless of salary.  This is important, because being "full time" in status affects eligibility for ordination and for various other benefits.  Equitable compensation, likewise, is seen as an obligation to the minister - to bring that pastor up to a level that respects his or her ministerial credentials.  It is not seen as support given to a church.  There is respect for the Order of Elder.

Within the Southwest Texas Conference, the very opposite is true. 

Ministers generally receive a higher rate of compensation, there is a much greater spread of salaries, and the frequency of reassignment is inversely related to compensation - the higher the pay, the longer the stay.  Status is a function of salary.  Merit is often considered a function of salary (rather than salary being a function of merit).   Salaries for the "top appointments" lock down those positions for a privileged few, and the compensation of "cabinet level" positions seriously restricts the pool of candidates, creates economic distance between the superintendency and rank and file pastor, and creates awkward difficulties for placement at the end of respective terms.

Within the SWTC, "Cabinet level" salaries are calculated as a percent of conference average compensation (CAC).  CAC is a measure not of the vitality of the conference, but of the average social class of those it serves.  Close small, poor churches or deny them the talent of an elder, bias new church development to wealthy (white) areas, create financial policy biased against the poor, bias leadership development toward Anglo candidates, and the average increases.  What are we really compensating here?  Class and race bias?

Most importantly, the SWTC Equitable Compensation Commission considers the practice of providing elders in full time appointment with a full time salary to be an unjustified subsidy to a failing local church.  

As evidence, I provide the following letter, sent by the SWTC Commission on Equitable Compensation  to a bilingual, Hispanic, female provisional elder who was sent to two failing churches while in the 2-year process of ordination.  (The poor quality of her appointment prevented her from completing that process.)

Dear Rev. ___

At its meeting on (date) the Commission on Equitable Compensation approved your request for $9127 for the calendar year 2011.  We do recognize actions you have taken to address financial challenges confronting your churches.  However, (previous) pastors at both ____ and ____ churches have received Equitable Compensation for an extended period of time and, the Commission cannot continue to pay compensation on an open-ended basis.

During the deliberations, questions arose regarding the future of these congregations.  With the assistance of your district superintendent, we look forward to learning of your plan of action to address this issue.

If you have questions regarding this matter, please let me know.  I pray God's blessings on you and the people of ____ and ____ churches as, together you faithfully serve God and minister in the name of Jesus Christ.

Notice what is going on here.

• This woman has completed the academic and ecclesial requirements to be commissioned.
• She was commissioned as a provisional elder.
• The bishop sent her to a two point charge that was unable to support full-time ministry.
• The conference told her that because previous ministers received outside support at those two churches, she will be denied the same support the Anglo ministers who preceded her received. 
• The policy failed to provide a necessary constitutional check by the legislative branch against the appointive authority.
• The policy failed our standard of inclusive ministry.

The previous year, each of the two churches had a different minister, and each pastor received equitable compensation while there and in their following appointments, one of which being to an associate position at a large church.

Join these two difficult charges together, doubling the burden of the pastoral charge, and place an Hispanic woman in that charge who depends on full time status to be ordained, and suddenly, "equitable" compensation was an "open-ended" subsidy to failing churches and unwarranted. 

Within the SWTC, the EC fund shares functions with the reimbursement of moving expenses.  Moving expenses increase with the wealth of each pastor -the number of their belongings - so the rich ultimately receive the greatest benefit from "equitable" compensation.

This presents a very serious conflict of interests.

The conferences do share one thing in common regarding compensation.  The more demanding the mission field, the more burdensome the situation, the greater the need for bilingual and multicultural skills, the more critical it is to the church's future, the lower the compensation.  Here we find the disincentive to accomplish the stated goal of unification: reaching the mission field.

Why is this important to unification?  Equitable Compensation is the locus where financial and demographic sustainability meet.  If we continue to fail our Hispanic pastors and churches, we will fail the mission field that looks to them for leadership.

We do not need equitable compensation to subsidize failing churches, or to stigmatize "undesirable" pastors, but rather to facilitate the full deployment of every available and credentialed apostolic ordained human resource into the mission field in an accountable manner proportional with the need.

Anything less fails the open itinerancy, fails the Great Commission, fails our ministry, fails the standard of Christian charity and decency, neglects the mission field and wastes the vocation, experience, gifts, and graces of those who have committed their lives to full time ministry.

The UIT report explicitly states that the SWTC policy on Equitable Compensation and Moving Expenses will be the policy of the new conference.   Such a policy is partially responsible for the SWTC being "demographically unsustainable."

Thoughts on Unification Part Four: Resourcing the Mission Field

RESOURCING THE MISSION FIELD

One of the primary goals and claims of the unification effort is to move resources, both financial and human, into the mission field.

Within United Methodism, the two most obvious resources in question are funds raised through apportioned giving and grants, and the body of pastors serving under appointment.

The UIT report claims to accomplish this by the following:

1.  Reducing the number of districts

2.  Deploying "supervising elders"

3.  Deploying congregational coaches

We will examine each of these separately.

The Southwest Texas Conference currently divides its geographical area into seven districts.  Three of these districts exist in areas with significant Hispanic presence, McAllen, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio.  The Rio Grande Conference, covering all of Texas and New Mexico, is divided into two districts, Southern and Central, due primarily to the scarcity of resources.

Assuming that the map does not change, the UIT proposes dividing up the SWTC area into six districts and claims that doing so will "optimize the use of this new structure which is designed with the guiding principle of moving resources and programmatic decisions closer to the mission field."  

To overcome the obvious geometrical reality that larger districts do not place superintendents closer to any particular context of ministry within that district, the UIT proposes creating an office of "supervising elder" to work under the D.S.

The "supervising elder" will be trained by a new consulting office within the Annual Conference and by the District Superintendent to take up nearly all of the functions for which the Superintendency exists: supervision of other clergy, conducting Charge Conferences, itineration throughout the geography on behalf of the itinerant general superintendent (bishop).  In exchange, the D.S. will be free to become the "missional strategist" for the district, usurping the authority of the pastor in charge to create a contextual strategy for the area to which he or she is appointed, and liberated to pursue other interests. 

The selection of clergy to work as "supervising elders" will move the attention of our clergy away from the context of ministry and on to other clergy.  Besides being a distraction of time and talents, such a role will also likely break down collegiality as some clergy are hand picked to become agents of the cabinet.

What the UIT report fails to tell us is how a D.S. can adequately serve as a strategist without the intimate and personal relationship with each charge provided by the responsibility to visit each church and conduct charge conferences.  It fails to explain why a person compensated at $96,000 per year should have their responsibilities reduced.  It fails to explain how taking pastors out of the mission field in order to do the work of someone who is already compensated to fulfill certain administrative tasks moves resources into the mission field.  

Similarly, the proposal for "congregational coaches" is simply an attempt to further centralize and expand the influence of the conference staff over the ministries of the conference, weakening the authority of the pastor in charge.  This moves authority, influence, human resources, and financial resources out of the mission field and into a conference level consultant.

NO CHANGES IN APPROACH TO SWTC CONFERENCE STAFFING

The UIT report indicates that:

"The Uniting Table will have support staff."

and

"No changes in conference staff are included in the transition plan" and requires " 2/3 vote of each of the Transitional Uniting Table, the Joint Personnel Committee, and the CFA and Finance Resource Table" to make any changes.  The Uniting Table is dominated by staff related concerns.  

In essence, it makes changing anything about the conference staff near impossible.  The report creates a firewall to protect the interests of the conference staff from the legislative branch of the conference which has the responsibility of funding it and holding it accountable.

Why is this important?

Over the last 15 years, the SWTC staff has experienced significant growth in both the number of staff and the compensation they receive.  Missional interests such as new church development and leadership development now dedicate significantly more of their apportioned and granted resources to their directors and support staff than when these ministry concerns were established, even tapping into other concerns such as Higher Education and Campus Ministry.  

One need merely observe how many new names are painted on the curb around the Conference Office to see this increase.  There are now at least four directors receiving "cabinet level" salaries in the executive staff, and funds needed in the mission field are no longer available because they are devoted to providing an inequitable level of support to those serving on the conference staff.

Furthermore, the UIT report proposes creating new classes of conference and district level staff: congregational coaches, vitalization directors, trainers, support staff for the Uniting Table, and more.  So in fact, there are changes to the conference staff.  New persons will be added.

Unification Part 3: Net Decrease in Expectations

NET DECREASE IN EXPECTATIONS

As a student intern serving in San Benito, Texas in 1994, I will never forget the moment the Bishop from Mexico called me.

The church secretary picked up the phone.  He asked for me.  She could not understand him.  She hung up.

Every other business and institution downtown had a bilingual person answering the phone, save for the United Methodist Church.  There is no Rio Grande Conference church in San Benito.

A few years later, I was standing outside a San Antonio church with a colleague.  A Salvadoran couple pulled up, looking distraught.  They related how they had lost their little girl and asked if we had seen her.  They feared she had been abducted.  My colleague could not understand what they were saying, and a little girl's life was in jeopardy.  Fortunately, during our conversation, a relative called and the girl was found.

During a recent stay at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, I noticed something amazing happening in the emergency room.  All of the professionals there, including my own non-Hispanic surgeon, spoke English and Spanish.  Why?

Someone's life depended on it.

Do people's lives depend on us?

Over the past few years, we have heard a lot of about effectiveness.  Our decline as a denomination has been blamed on ineffective churches and clergy.  Whether or not this is true, one thing is certain.  Fundamental to any ministerial relationship is communication, and for most people, signed or spoken language is the preferred medium of communication.

If you cannot communicate with someone, your effectiveness at listening to them, getting to know them, building a relationship of trust, and sharing the gospel with them is pretty much near zero.  If you have opportunities to learn from them, to experience their culture, to pick up their language, and you walk away, what message are you sending?

Within the "mission field" of this new conference, the dominant languages are English and Spanish.

This being considered, is it unreasonable to expect that clergy, staff, cabinet members, and churches have the desire and competence to offer ministry in both languages?

No such policy is being proposed.  Spanish is said to be "encouraged" but "not required" in the new conference.  Being that it was expected in the RGC prior to unification, this means that he proposed new conference has a net decrease in the expectation for effectiveness.

Expectations determine outcomes.  Spanish is currently being offered (at the cost of $300 for each short course) within the SWTC, but enrollment is very scarce. (One of our Korean pastors has signed up; praise God for his missionary spirit!)  

Why so few?  Could it be that there is an incentive not to know Spanish?  

As a member of the Residence in Ministry committee once told a bilingual Hispanic woman struggling in an inner city appointment to two failed Anglo churches: "Unification will be good for people like you.  It will open up more job opportunities for you."

The acquisition of RGC churches by the SWTC means job opportunities for Hispanics, not for Anglos?

The expectation here is very clear: the system will continue to discriminate against Hispanic clergy.  Inequity will continue to be the disproportionate burden of those able and willing to serve the majority Hispanic population.  Anglos will continue to congregate in churches where the only persons of color on staff are nursery workers and custodians. The merger will allow the few Hispanic pastors we have someplace else to go, freeing the dominant church from any responsibility to integrate its leadership.  We will continue sending people to areas like the Rio Grande Valley without the necessary skills to have effective ministry.

Now consider for a moment how an attitude like this, while not representing the official perspective of the episcopal area, is perceived in a context where Hispanics dominate politics, the economy, and all the large and growing churches.  Its absurd.  Its anachronistic.  Its colonial.  Its - well, racist - and on top of it, its self-defeating.  It is the root cause of our demographic non-sustainability!

This attitude will remain until every ordained elder entering the new conference is expected by a written and enforced policy to be proficient in both English and Spanish along with significant evidence of cultural adaptiveness.  This attitude will remain until every congregation willing to receive a clergy leader who is bilingual and offer its services in a language that the people can understand, as mandated by the UMC Articles of Religion.

We already expect so much academically from our clergy, why not this, when it is so essential, so practical, so relevant?  Why not expect our churches to show the same relevance and responsiveness as area businesses and other growing, successful churches?

Why is that expectation missing from this proposal?  ¡Nuestro campo misionero espera la respuesta!

Why are expectations being lowered in an effort for renewal?

Thoughts on Unification - Part 2 - Demographics

DEMOGRAPHICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE

The unification process began in response to a report from the FACT team.  This report asserted that the Southwest Texas Conference was "demographically unsustainable" and the Rio Grande Conference "financially unsustainable."

During the first round of unification talks, I served on the demographics team.  The term "demographically unsustaintable" was a technical way of expressing a cultural reality.

Of the total combined membership of the SWTC and the RGC existing within the geographical boundaries of the SWTC, eight of out every 100 Anglos living in the area is United Methodist.  At the same time, only 2 of every 1000 Hispanics is United Methodist.  Hispanics make up around 55% of the population within that boundary, and Hispanics are growing both in number and in dominance.

This population change is geographic in nature, originating along the Texas-Mexico border, where the Hispanic population approaches 100% in many areas.

Other Protestant groups, and even a few non-Christian sects, have successfully reached this population but the United Methodist Church has not.  In fact, throughout the entire U.S. UMC, there are a mere 65,000 Hispanic church members out of 8 million.  To illustrate this point, there are more Hispanic Mormons and more Hispanic Jehovah's Witnesses, than Hispanic United Methodists.

This failure is unique to the U.S. side of the border, where Anglo-centrism has led to a systematic marginalization, cultural assimilation or alienation of Hispanic evangelical Christians from mainline denominations.  In Mexico, the Methodist Church is thriving, and this year celebrates 40 years of revival and growth.

In the unification effort, two conferences "go away" and another one is born.  One of those conferences is Methodism's only official conference devoted to reaching Hispanics and Latinos, the Rio Grande Conference.  Within that conference, it is a tacit expectation that pastors and churches will offer bilingual ministry.  That expectation is missing from the proposal.

The proposal mentions a new director of "language ministries" for example.  Here, we find a similar use of words to signify something that is non-Anglo.  "Ethnic" means non-Anglo, so "Language" must mean non-English.   In other words, Hispanics are still being treated as a minority even though in the context, grouped administratively with our Chinese and Korean churches, even though they are the majority in the population at large.

The UIT effort may have began in response to a demographic disparities, but that concern is absent from the report.

There is no policy expecting future clergy to be bilingual.
There is no policy expecting churches in Hispanic areas to offer worship in Spanish.
There is no written policy requiring business to be conducted in bilingual fashion.
There is no written policy requiring equitable consideration in site selection for new churches.

All of these aspects of the Rio Grande Conference are missing.

The word "Spanish" never appears in the document.  The words "Hispanic" and "Latino" appear only as the name of a committee within the new conference.  The word "language" appears only in reference to advances in digital technology.  Somehow, Hispanics got "scrubbed" from the Unification proposal!

If being "demographically unsustainable" is the symptom, the institutional failure to relate to a growing Hispanic population is the cause.  The omission of any specific policy to address the Hispanic population is a very serious flaw in this proposal, leaving unsatisfied the original concern behind unification.

Part Three... Declining Expectations

Thoughts on Unification - Part 1

The official report of the Unification Implementation Team has been released for consideration prior to a series of meetings to communicate its proposals to voting delegates.

In the next few blog posts, I will be offering thoughts on this proposal - beginning, perhaps appropriately, on May Day.

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation of Bishop Dorff for his leadership and for including me in the first round of Unification conversation though the Unification Steering Team.  I want express my personal appreciation for my colleagues on the Unification Implementation Team, who with the best of intentions have developed their ideas at the cost of tireless hours of meetings and great personal sacrifice.

At the same time, considering the tremendous potential that unification presents for substantial reform and renewal, I feel it is imperative to take up the task of "Holy Conferencing" by offering a critical reflection on the stated proposals.  In particular, I desire to examine whether the proposals satisfy the warrants for unification and live up to the rhetoric surrounding the proposals.

I have developed a table of these concerns which is available directly from me at the reader's request.  Simply e-mail me at jpfeagins_at_yahoo.com, substituting @ for "_at_" of course.  (I do this to prevent spam.)

The first concern is in response to correspondence suggesting that various aspects of the new conference have been determined by the UIT.  This is contrary to the powers established for the Jurisdiction and Annual Conference under the UMC Constitution.  Our delegates, and our delegation, will ultimately decide these matters.

THE MAP

Aside from Constitutional Concerns, perhaps the most glaring omission is any concern over the map of the South Central Jurisdiction.  The original proposal for unification was in response to demographic changes, specifically and uniquely, the rise in dominance of the Hispanic population within the Jurisdiction.  That change is geographical in nature, as seen in the following graphic.

 (click to enlarge)

Geography delineates constituency, and constituency defines character.  This year, in the San Antonio Episcopal Area, only one person of Hispanic origin has been approved for ordination.  Within the SWTC, no Hispanics have been approved for commissioning or ordination in 2013.

By leaving the SWTC map unchallenged and unchanged, we have missed the unique opportunity to create a truly bold new conference in response to the emerging cultural reality of a large geographical area with an Hispanic majority population.  As a result, we perpetuate a map where Anglos remain the dominant culture over church matters (even though they will be an ethnic minority within the area).  Existing theological and ideological divisions that arise within the Anglo culture and SWTC are similarly commuted into the new conference, yet with increasingly cultural implications.

If there is any oversight in this process or proposal, it is the negligence of considering how a change in the map - creating a conference encompassing an area along the border - even into New Mexico- where the unifying characteristic is an Hispanic majority population, could benefit the mission of the itinerant ministry.  It is very easy to look at the map above and see how the map of such a conference could be drawn.

Next chapter...  Demographic "Non-Sustainability"

The Ordinance and the Ordnance

Guns weren't around in Jesus' day, so we can't open the New Testament and read a story of a Pharisee approaching Jesus to ask whether it was lawful for a person to own a gun.  They did have and carry swords, though, and Jesus said "he who lives by the sword will die by the sword."

With all the recent mass shootings and seeing all the heated debate about the 2nd amendment and gun ownership and gun control, I thought I would offer some experiences rather than simply opinions.

As a kid, I got introduced to guns early.  My grandaddy was an avid hunter, and he taught me how to shoot and kill for food.  I would go with him occasionally, but eventually, I turned to shooting photos instead.

My dad had a ranch in East Texas, and I carried a shotgun around with me a lot of the time in case I came across a wolf or a snake.  Poachers, trespassers, and other human annoyances were to be avoided or simply offered a friendly wave.  I was taught never to point a gun at another person.

I've been ministry 18 years now in a number of different places.  I've known a LOT of people who use guns to hunt and enjoy the sport and the game very much.

I'm going to focus on the other use for guns: personal self-defense.

The first funeral I did was for a guy who blew his brains out all over his next door neighbor's mobile home.   He was terminally ill.  It was a shotgun assisted suicide.  The fire truck had to come spray the whole place down.

About two years later, a suicidal man brought a loaded pistol with him to a counseling session.  He wanted me to promise I would take care of his mother after he killed himself.  By God's grace, after two hours, this man received Christ in his heart rather than putting a bullet in his head or mine.  He gave me the gun and I turned it over to the police to be destroyed.

At that same church, there was one elderly man who accidentally shot himself while cleaning a gun.  He lived, but had a stigmata to show for it.

In my next appointment, I was taking food to a family in need and found out their son was in jail in Mexico.  Turns out he was smuggling AK-47s. The kid was 19.  I later met the son inside a Mexican prison, and he thanked me for taking food to his mother.

In my next appointment, next to a military base, a young man came inside impersonating a military officer.  I walked with him outside and he showed me a cache of firearms he kept under the seat of his car.  These were not service weapons, but he claimed they were.  The next day, he set off a Draino Bomb in the empty lot next door. The cops never found him.

At that same church, a few months later, one of our elderly members was shot vertically through the leg when a pistol he kept as a home decoration fell, still in its display box, off the wall and discharged.  He lived after some major surgery.  I guess he forgot to take the bullets out 20 years earlier when he put it up there as an "antique."

In my current appointment I work with college students.   In five years, I've had to bury two of them due to mortal gunshot wounds.  The first was partying with friends when a stranger shot through the door of the apartment striking her in the back of the head.  The other killed himself just 11 months after marrying the mother of his 9 month old daughter with a gun that was kept in the home for self-defense.

We had a speaker come to our ministry once to discuss the issues of gun control.  He claims to have shot someone in self defense.

This is not to mention the people I've met whose minds became tormented after sniping people with "one shot, one kill" or dragging unarmed strangers out of their homes and killing them in front of their families in the "war on terror."

In all, I've had to do funerals for four murders. One killer used her bare hands, another a jar of pennies, another a pillow, and one an assault weapon.  I've encountered six suicide attempts, three successful.  Two used rope, two used pills, and two used guns.  The guns worked every time.   Rope and pills succeeded half of the time.  I have had firearms brandished in my face twice.  I've encountered two people injured by the accidental discharge of a firearm, and one person who successfully used a concealed weapon in self-defense.
 
In my kids' school district the school police carry guns.  The most recent three "school shootings" there were two accidental discharges of a police weapon and one shooting of an unarmed truant student off campus by a police officer. The student died for skipping school and accidentally hitting the officer in the face with the metal door of a shed where he was hiding.

And there was the time I called the police at the college for help with 30 smokers who had surrounded the student center, were laying waste to the landscaping and choking us out with smoke to protest school policy.  The armed officers came into my office, tried to close my office door, then chewed me out for calling them.  They then threatened to bring charges on me since I was not technically on campus.  I told them to leave and realized how much more stressful that official oppression was knowing they were armed.

Guns are killing technology.  That is their purpose.  They aren't like cars, or chain saws, or band saws, or combines, or some other machine that accidentally maims or kills people.  Guns are killers by design, like nuclear weapons or nerve gas or electric chairs.

Since you need to kill animals before you eat them, people use guns to hunt.  Killing people is the other use.  Shooting stop signs doesn't count.

As with any technology, there are three possible outcomes to using killing technology:  1- a use that serves the common good  2- use that is contrary to the common good, and 3) accidental use.   Most accidental use is also contrary to the common good.

When a deranged person uses guns to kill lots of people, that's an accident caused by the breakdown or negligence of safety protocols.  Accidents happen.  With guns (or other lethal weapons that can be "triggered" like nukes), those accidents cost lives.

The probability of evil use and accidental use increases with the prevalence of guns in society.  Its a statistical fact.  The probability of forest fires increases with the number of campers in the forest for the same reason, and the denser the forest or the more numerous the campers, the more chance for harm.  (Peaceful ownership of assault weapons is like allowing campers to use flamethrowers to light their campfires.)

Jesus wasn't making some ideological statement when he said live by the sword, die by the sword.  He was making a factual claim.  If you carry or keep something lethal around long enough, someone is going to get hurt with it, and only a psychopath can kill another human being without also being harmed / traumatized by so doing.

Profile of an Ineffective Pastor

Ineffectiveness is a serious concern for any denomination, especially one that is suffering decline.  We felt it would be helpful to provide this profile of an ineffective pastor, taken from actual history, as an important reference point.  The person will remain anonymous in order to respect confidentiality.

Over the course of three years, church leaders received reports of the following incidents:

1.  Distributing alcoholic beverages to persons who were already intoxicated at a wedding.

2.  Insulting an immigrant woman in need of help for her family.

3.  Neglecting to promptly conduct a hospital visit until the parishioner had already died.

4.  Alienating wealthy visitors to his ministry.
5.  Consistently working on his day off.

6.  Pilfering food.

7.  Disowning his mother and brothers in front of church members.
8.  Practicing psychotherapy without a license.

9.  Exposing his co-workers to infectious disease.

10.  Private meetings with women of ill repute.

11.  Insubordination.  Consistently insulting the character of his superiors.

12.  Grandiose claims about his own self-importance.

13.  Cruelty to animals.

14.  Placing a known thief and insurgent in charge of church finances.

15.  Losing his temper and violently disrupting a local church fund raiser.
16.  Making a terroristic threat against church headquarters.
17.  Securing only one profession of faith in three years, and that person later recanted. 

18.  No baptisms.

In addition to these complaints, the pastor was moved so often that he himself claimed to have "no place to lay his head," having been asked to move from several parishes, including one in his own home town.  His last pastoral charge suffered a 99% loss of worship attendance and membership.

This pastor was brought before a committee and a hearing was conducted, yet he failed to answer or refute any of the charges brought against him.  The committee then consulted with the secular authority to verify that no employment laws would be violated and issued a verdict against him.  To ensure fairness, this verdict and sentence were placed before an assembly of his peers for a popular vote. The assembly, including many of his former parishioners and followers, unanimously upheld and ratified the verdict.