OR-ID Appointments IV

Some new appointments were announced today (including mine). Here's the new list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
David King: Coos Bay
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Ruth Marsh: Florence
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Dan Benson: John Day/Prairie City
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church
Daryl Blanksma: Roseburg

It's kind of interesting that two of the new appointments, Florence and Roseburg, are near Coos Bay. I know and really like Ruth and Daryl, so it will be nice to work with them.

And now I'm wondering who's going to Seaside, Daryl's current appointment.

My Appointment

It's public now. I can finally tell you. Bishop Hoshibata intends to appoint me as pastor to First United Methodist Church in Coos Bay, Oregon. I am very excited, and it sounds like they're pretty excited too. The congregation has about 150 members, with about 80-90 in worship on any given Sunday. Like the rest of the town, they are mostly older folks, with lots of newly retired people. There are very few children and youth, but some prospects. The congregation prefers a traditional style of worship, which is just fine with me, and they are very proud of their music program.



The town of Coos Bay has about 14,000 inhabitants. Timber, fishing, and shipping are the main industries. Located on the south coast of Oregon, it has the largest natural harbor between San Francisco and Puget Sound. There are two school districts in the area, with a total of 7 elementary schools between them, so Melissa should have fair prospects for getting a teaching job. The town isn't big, but it is a regional center, and has most of the amenities necessary. It looks like a great place, and I am really looking forward to being there.

OR-ID Appointments III

New appointments came out. Here is the current list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church

Hopefully, I'll be able to add myself to this list by Sunday.

Collectivist Mentality

So, I think I've finally figured out what's been bothering me with church lately. Do you remember the Borg? They're characters in Star Trek: half organic and half cybernetic, possessing a collective consciousness. They think only corporately, and have a very hard time comprehending the concept of individuality.

And that seems to be the conflict that I'm running into at the Baptist church. You see, I'm like the Borg (except, of course, I don't running around trying to assimilate other people, unless you consider this article an attempt at assimilation -- resistance is futile!!). I tend to think of Christianity as a fairly corporate matter, especially when it comes to rituals. My understanding of Baptism is that it is a grafting into the Body of Christ, the Church. Because of that, infant Baptist isn't a problem. But for Baptists, Baptism is a sign of a personal acceptance of Jesus as Lord. It's a very individual thing.

Or take communion. For me, it's another expression of the Body of Christ, something that mysteriously connects us all as the Church. For Baptists, it seems to be more of a remembrance of the saving grace offered by Christ to individuals (who are all equal).

Or ordination. For me, it is a setting aside by the community of certain individuals for a specialized task. If clergy have any sort of special authority, it is because it is granted to them by the community. They are representative of the community. So in our ordination service, the entire Conference is present, and several people are ordained at once, being accepted into membership in the conference. At a Baptist ordination, it's very individualistic. Only one person is ordained. The service is specifically tailored to them and their sensibilities. In fact, very little of the service is the same from one ordination to the next. And ordination is considered a recognition of the individual's ministry, not an acceptance into the overall ministry of the Church. (This is matter of degree of course. I just mean that the emphasis is different, not that the approaches are completely different.)

Methodist pastors are members of the Annual Conference. Baptist pastors are members of the local congregation. Baptist have a great tradition of individual freedom and allowing persons to hammer out their own faith. But I guess I must be a true Methodist (or maybe Anglo-Methodist), because I really long for that more corporate aspect of worship and spirituality.

Appointment

I'm sooooo excited. I was just offered an appointment. I can't tell you where it is yet, unfortunately. I'll have a phone meeting with the SPRC on Wednesday the 22nd. If they say yes, then it will be announced on Sunday the 26th. So, I'll be able to tell you then. So..... I guess I'll say, it's in the Southern District. That's about as much as I can say. And that's probably too much. Soooo excited!!!

Graduation Controversy

So, as is usually the case at Iliff, there is a controversy. This time it is concerning Graduation. You, this year it is planned at Trinity United Methodist. Well, apparently back in 1896 they had a funeral at Trinity, and this funeral was for Rev. Col. John M. Chivington. Now, Col. Chivington was definitely not a nice guy. He was the commander of the Sand Creek Massacre. But, he was also a great hero of early Methodism in Colorado, having been the District superintendent of the Denver area. Unfortunately, American Protestant history goes hand and hand with cruelty and violence.

So, back to Iliff, many students don't want to have graduation at Trinity because of this particular bit of history: the fact that Col. Chivington was honored with great pomp at his funeral at Trinity in 1896.

But I don't quite understand it. If it's not okay to have graduation at Trinity, then why is it okay to go to school at Iliff, where Col. Chivington played a major role in the school's founding? Wouldn't it be safe to assume that he was memorialized in a Chapel service at Iliff in 1896? But we still go to chapel? It seems to me that every step I take is on land stolen from Native Americans, every drink I swallow is of water stolen from Native Americans -- every square inch of this land is drenched in he blood of innocents. How does singling out Trinity, and sacrificing them as the scapegoat on the altar of white shame, help this situation? It doesn't make our history go away if we just decide to assign the blame to an old building.

Cabinet meeting

The Cabinet is meeting again tomorrow and Thursday. I eagerly await news from them. In the mean time, I've pinned a map of Oregon to the wall next to my desk and marked every city that has a Methodist church, connecting multi-point charges with lines.

I've finished one of two final papers for this quarter. Now I just have to write about Catherine Blaine.

Papers... urrrrgggh

I don't want to write any more papers. I'm just sick of it. They seem so pointless. I so long for the old days of Blue Book tests. These papers just have so little to do with the classes. They only measure my ability to write papers and do research. They don't at all measure the class content, or really even my ability to use it effectively. Argh. It's just so lame. It's just a bunch of work with no purpose because profs are afraid of giving regular tests anymore. I guess it's not "best practice" to give tests anymore, but its so much less busy work.

Commencement Speaker

I'm pretty excited that my bishop, Bishop Robert Hoshibata, is going to be the speaker for commencement at Iliff. I think I'm the only graduating student from Iliff whose in the candidacy process in the OR-ID conference, and so it's just kind of interesting that he's going to be the speaker here. It should be good, though. Maybe he'll draw a few more Iliff folks out west.

OR-ID Appointments II

Some more appointments were made. Here's the current list, to my reckoning:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro

That leaves the following loose ends:

Dallas UMC
Roseburg UMC
Deanna & Paul Self-Price

OR-ID Appointments

The first appointment of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The UMC came out today from the Cabinet. Jim Fellers, the current District Superintendent for the Eastern District (southern Idaho) was appointed to Corvallis UMC. Also, Scott Harkness and Donna Pritchard were named as the new co-deans of the Cabinet, implying that they will both be continuing as Director of Connectional Ministries and Southern District superintendent, respectively.

So, now we wonder who's going to be the new Eastern DS and what appointments Deanna and Paul Self-Price (currently assigned to Corvallis) might be anticipating.