Friday’s random plods:
Atlanta has been determined to be the crankiest city in the nation. While my address is not Atlanta, I am in its greater exurbia, and, I’m happy to report I have done my part to help achieve that distinction. Bah humbug!
Scenes of vein-popping outrage ensued when citizens of the obscure town of Bell, CA found out that its manager was being paid over $800k, police chief about half-a-million, and part time councilmen $100k annually. Rightly so. What would happen if Baptist Press published the total compensation package of all SBC entity heads (and don’t give me a ‘salary’ figure, most clergy are onto that game)? Apoplexy? Raised eyebrows? Ho hum? Let’s do it and see. It’s our money.
Plodder is happy to report that he is more like the apostle Paul in his advanced middle age. I can’t remember exactly whom I have baptized.
A perpetual complaint among my clergy brethren is the unwieldy, ugly, and sometimes dysfunctional system we have for churches calling pastors. The latest blog on such suggests that churches find pastors from within the staff. Great…for the fraction of churches large enough to even consider doing this. Irrelevant to the vast majority of SBC churches. We might try rejoicing that the present system, praised by almost no one, actually works in most cases.
Had a brief conversation with another pastor on how weddings were such minefields these days. I suppose the numerous ‘retchality’ shows (think…Bridezilla et al) give the lovely bride and stupefied grooms far too many ideas.
I have not preached for the past two Sundays because of the death and funeral of my mother, longest such stretch in my pastoral career. The church seems to be surviving.
1 comment:
William: … churches find pastors from within the staff. Great…for the fraction of churches large enough to even consider doing this. Irrelevant to the vast majority of SBC churches ….
Norm: I agree, and I fail to see how such directly addresses the issue of clergy tenure. I fail to see how home-grown pastors are inoculated from the aspirations and problems that other-grown pastors have and face; in reality, home-grown pastors likely would have a more difficult time establishing their chops, but after a lengthy, yeah lengthy, role as an associate, perhaps acceptance for pastoral leadership would be more forthcoming.
Second, the mean for pastoral tenure as has been reported in the aforementioned blog is mostly meaningless, given the plurality of church types and ministerial preparation in SBC. The complex interplay among congregation and minister cannot be adequately explained with a single statistic aggregated over the total population of churches and ministers.
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