(Note: I think I am coming down with something. My mind is racing - which normally happens when I am feverish. My wife came down with stuff hard yesterday, I think it comes to me. One more post before laying down might be in order)
I have figured out why I like the Oklahoma District so much. It is just like a congregation.
We are having elections at our congregational voters' meeting this Sunday. No one really "wants" an office. In fact, I think everyone who is in office will probably just be re-elected. Why aren't people clamoring to be President, or this, or that?
Because it is just an office - a set of responsibilities over and above what one already has.
Thus the fundamental character of the Oklahoma District of the LCMS. No one here "wants" office. Our offices in the district don't give us power, or control, or cushy jobs. They just give us more work to do.
I'm the Circuit Counselor. I get no financial gain from this. I simply get more work (and I miss the yearly golf outing because our DP schedules a meeting during it!). Pastor Hall is the 3rd Vice President. No compensation, no extra glory. Just duties. There's not even that much prestige. One of the 9 of us needed to be CC - I got dumped with it. One of the Twenty of us needed to be the regional VP - Hall got dumped with it.
Thus, the work gets done quickly and properly - without extra hubbabblo, without fan fare, without expense or self-aggrandizement.
Imagine what your congregation would be like if the offices of President and Elders were paid positions. Doesn't that just make you cringe?
Then why for the love of all that is Holy did we ever decide to do this to our own Districts!?!?!?
2 comments:
You are absolutely dead-on in your assessment, although we should be fair to say that the man elected District President has the benefit of receiving a vicar paid by the district in order to assist him in congregational ministry so he can attend to part-time district functions easier.
But there is no sense of entitlement. We do receive respect--in part, and not enough to go to our heads, the rest of us make sure of that. We are taught to make fun of ourselves and be self-effacing too. And in my experience, if someone gets a little too puffed up, the brothers are quick to remind him in a humorous way.
It is a good district.
Vicars are benefits? Man, now Rev. Gaunt must have been REALLY good =o) I know I was a pain in the ying-yang to my supervisor.
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