order of elders meeting

So today I went to a meeting for the order of elders of the North Alabama Conference. It was basically a big meeting of ministers trying to figure out how to clarify our identity as elders and how to help the church in its mission. We spent about a third of the time talking about what we saw as the most urgent need facing our mission, about a third talking about the redistricting plan, and the last third in a worship service.

One thing that I noticed throughout this meeting was how poorly we communicate. It seemed like every person had a different idea of what the original question was, like the presentation about redistricting emphasized trust without providing much information, and that we can't even make a powerpoint slide that has all the words. I felt really bad for Denise, who was leading a prayer, because we got lost on the powerpoint, then the person switched back to the previous slide so absolutely no one was following along. She had the whole prayer in front of her, so she kept reading even when no one else could see the words. In all three sections, it seemed like we communicated either insufficiently or ineffectively, which undermines what I'm starting to see as one of the most central aspects of being a pastor: trust. Bishop White said yesterday that "pastors don't have great power, they have great trust." We identified trust as one of the things that congregations are losing with the annual conference, and I think it's one of the central things in our role as pastors as well. Developing trust in each other, in Christ, and in our mission as a global church is one of the hardest things we'll be faced with as pastors, but I think it'll be one of the most important.