Since the United Methodist Church cannot agree or even be agreeable about issues surrounding homosexuality and the grace of God for all persons, Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter have this proposal.

Twitter / @BryantManning: Heres @RevAdamHamilton an ….

It’s been several days since the General Conference of the United Methodist Church removed the guaranteed appointment for Elders in the church. They were reluctant to do the same for bishops and so did not. In part this was meant to bring in us in line with the “real world” where people can be fired for poor performance most of the time. There is a clear process that will be set up top transition “non-performing” Elders out of jobs.

Personally I am not frightened by losing my “job security.” I never signed up for security and have served at the discretion of several bishops, some of whom were competent to serve in the position. It doesn’t take removing a guarantee for a job to handle non-performing clergy; it takes courage. Someone has to actually stand up to some of the crony-ism of the church. There are non-performing clergy who with the right friends continue to move up the “ladder” (not to be confused with Jacob’s ladder of Biblical fame). If we were able to be a bit more honest with each other, our congregations and our clergy colleagues would confront us early on when we lost our effectiveness and suggest we do something else. Now we’ll be able to to do this behind a faceless process and those for whom no accountability is demanded (“bishops”) will be the bad guys/gals. We don’t do honesty too well in the church. We think being church is about being nice, at least when it is inconvenient to be honest.

And what about holding non-clergy accountable? What about those few who have come to think church is about them and will do anything to control the local setting. Who will call them to accountability? When will close churches that are no longer churches but clubs? When will hold difficult congregations to accountability? Accountability must be a multi-directional tool used to hold accountable laity/clergy/bishops. I have no idea if that is even possible by the church’s standards but certainly all things are possible through the One we worship.

I’ll be interested to see what comes of this new development in United Methodism. I’ll be interested in seeing if indeed it stills the prophetic voice which always agitates and irritates the powers that be. In the end, all we can do is trust ourselves to God who works in and in spite of the systems we humans create.

I have begun my morning by dealing with the display issues on my macbook pro. I have no real idea what these issues are related to and if I have done something to gork my screen. I am only aware that it is distracting to be focused on fixing the tools of work rather than using the tools of work!

Wollstonecraft: Girl Power for Young Readers | GeekDad | Wired.com.

I, too, am glad to see that books with strong female characters are being developed. I always thought Nancy Drew was pretty cool but to have strong characters as role models for our girls is important. Thanks, Jordan Stratford.