Room at the Church Table (Part 1)

Sometimes, when you start writing, your piece takes on a life of itself. That’s what happened here. What started out completely different, stirred up some memories that I hadn’t really considered for a long time. Remembering actually helped me understand more about how my views on church leadership have formed. This piece is dedicated to Pastor Lin, for faithfully shepherding me through my adolescent years. Thank you!

I grew up Methodist. Our denomination runs much like government in that each local church is run by different committees and is headed by an Administrative Council. In addition to the different committees, each year the church had an Annual Charge Conference in which all church members voted on church business. United Methodist Church pastors are appointed in their pastoral positions (a year at a time for typically less than a decade before being reassigned) by a Conference and are overseen by a District Superintendent who is also appointed and serves in that position for a limited time. On a larger scale their are bishops who oversee conferences and a General Conference that meets every four years to discuss the business of the entire United Methodist Church. It was part democratic rule and part corporate America and of course ideally always lead by prayer*.

My family was steeped in this tradition and on more than one occasion I recall a conversation comparing our church’s form of government to other church systems. My family tree has at least one UMC pastor for at least four generations, dating back into the 1800s. I have a stack of conference minutes from the turn of the century and a pair of Bishop’s chairs from the 1948 conference in Boston.

It made sense that my family was well represented in our home church. I think it was a rare period of time in which my mom and/or dad was not on the Pastor Parish Committee or Administrative Council. My parents understood not only church government but also the unique challenges of pastoral life. Every time a new pastor was appointed to our church, my parents were sure to invited them over and let them know that our home was a safe and understanding place. (Being a pastor is hard!)

I grew up active in my church, and in my senior year, when I was elected president of the newly formed youth group, I petitioned my pastor and the Administrative Council to include me in this leading council which was after all comprised of the presidents of all of the other church committees. And because I was too young to know better, I didn’t fully understand the value that my church instilled in me at 17 by agreeing to my request. As a result, I sat as a voting member on that council for a year until I went off to college.

I recall one Administrative Council meeting in which a financial issue came up, and my passionate, change the world attitude had me in opposition to most of the more fiscally conservative members of the committee. I had so little life experience, very little understanding of the true cost of things at this scale, and an unrestrained passion for doing good. I might have actually read aloud the parable of the rich fool where a man who has stored up his wealth dies and cannot take his money with him. If memory serves me right, I did this while sitting with the fake “baby” I had to carry around for a month for my health classes life skills project. Seriously, God bless those people for the grace they showed my 17 year-old-self. (For the record, I still think my perspective was right. We should have spent the money. I was, however, outvoted. Truth be told, I’d probably still read the Bible verse if I had the chance again.)

That was also the year I found myself in the pulpit preaching a sermon on Youth Sunday. Of all the things I am grateful for in my life, the fact that there is no evidence left of this is at the top of my list. I think I tried to cram a dozen sermon illustrations into the thing and share my deep love for Jesus with others. It was very emotional, for me, not for the congregation who had to watch me choke back tears as I concluded my ill written sermon. This is proof that some aspects of our personalities really do not change.

When my friends and I wanted to lead an after school Bible study in our public high school, Pastor Lin came and joined us/helped teach that study and supplied the Bibles that lived in my locker that year.

When I wanted to run a contemporary church service, my church supported it by giving us the sanctuary on Sunday nights and you guessed it, Pastor Lin came.

My point in sharing this with you is to express the impact the church’s and especially Pastor Lin’s openness to including me in church life had on my Christian walk and faith. By including me in church life as an equal member, I learned that my voice mattered. I learned that my opinions had value. I learned that I wasn’t too young to live for Jesus. I also learned life skills like public speaking, what business meetings looked like, and how to civilly disagree while expressing one’s own viewpoint. I developed leadership skills, a strong work ethic, and learned a lot about ministry through trial and error. Eventually, I would lead youth ministry for over a decade in the church I would later settle into as an adult. My youth ministry time was directly impacted by the experiences I had in my own youth group days in my first home church.

My views on church leadership and ministry have changed over the years as a result of my life experiences and deepening understanding of scripture, but I am so very grateful that what I learned when I was young was that I mattered to God, and I mattered in his kingdom.

“We are too young to realize that certain things are impossible…
So we will do them anyway.” 
― William Wilberforce

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*This is a brief and incomplete overview of this particular form of church government. All churches have some form of governance which are all ideally lead by Biblical teaching and prayer.