Jonathan LeMaster-Smith

I am headed up to Lake Junaluska on Wednesday, and I am glancing over the petitions again, and one comes back to me that bothers me. I am not usually one to encourage votes one way or another, but this one is something I passionate about, due to my work.

Petition 18: Voting at Church Conferences

Page 47 In This Report

Traditionally, a church conference is held to offer all church members a chance for voice and vote on matters of the church. This has most recently been used for disaffiliation votes. In fact, some churches have used this to their advantaged, asking inactive members to come back only to vote their way on the disaffiliation votes. This petition would place restrictions on who could vote based on three points of the baptism/membership vows: presence, gifts, and service. Prayer and witness are not quantifiable according to the petition (but honestly, neither are the other three). It calls on church leadership to determine base minimums for giving financially, presence at worship and church functions, and service to the church to be considered active enough to vote on church matters.

I am not in favor of this petition. For four reasons:

1) It is a circling the wagons, reactionary response grounded in fear of past events and not hope for God’s future,

2) Church membership is something we are moving away from at rapid pace in the current models of discipleship (so is regular attendance, which I believe is now once every six weeks in some studies),

3) It creates a pay to play situation, with those in power setting the requirements for “real” membership and leadership roles, and

4) It is a repeat of 19th century (and earlier) pew taxes and promoting the best givers as the best Christians.

You might say, Jonathan, we rarely use Church Conferences. True, but some churches do in fact use them as their Charge Conference model to allow every member a vote. Moreover, a leadership team or pastor could manipulate the system to have every charge conference be a church conference, and thus limit who can vote and make decisions. Sneaky math can lead to people just being out of reach based on missing two Sundays or not giving $15 more.

True, lapsed membership is an issue, but this is not the way to deal with it. In some churches, people move off for years and return. Others stay on the role to be buried in church cemeteries. Others don’t know they’re on a role to start with. But there are models to hold people accountable, clean up roles, etc.

I am in favor of reworking our theology and practice of membership to hold folks more accountable and to move away from a membership model to a discipleship model.

I am not okay with models that are reactionary and limit people based on income or presence.

If you can vote in the WNCC Conference, I encourage you to vote against this petition.