well, that went...
...as expected.


first to report? good news. no asses were made of myself sunday night. i approached my first administrative board/disciples council/black hole meeting in over three years with an eye towards not speaking up unless things got absolutely out of control. and they didn't. so, that was positive.

that's it for the good news.

it was painful (and expected) to see that the format of the agenda had not changed one iota since the last time i had graced the hallowed walls of whatever room the meeting was being held in with my presence. if it's not broke, don't fix it, right? what's that you say? it seems to be broken? what do you know, you casual observer from the outside that knows nothing?!?! at least we're having a meeting! what are you doing? watching t.v. on your couch, that's what. you suck. humc will never die. not on my watch! (excerpt taken from current disciples council chair's inner monologue...may or may not be accurate.)

it was also fairly painful to watch my former teammate's presentation fall on either deaf or defensive ears right from the get-go. as i mentioned last week, the idea behind the presentation was simple in form. allow my classmate to play the role of phil hartman's caveman lawyer in front of the group collected sunday night. he would ask possibly rhetorical, possibly not questions to the crowd and honestly gauge the honest responses to those questions. how many committees does humc currently have? who are the chairs of those committees? does each committee know their role within the infrastructure of the church? if a member of humc/visitor to humc was interested in finding a role on one of these committees, how would they search for that role? is there some type of oversight committee, bound and determined to keep the other committees on point and working for the common goal of the church as defined in our "mission statement"? why not? do you prefer mcdonald's fries or rally's fries?

it took all of one question before it all went wrong. chip asked his first question after a short introduction and the floor was all but taken from him. sure, he was allowed to stay up front and participate in the farce that the presentation had become, but he was not allowed to be in control. you see, once you have control, once you have power, it's hard to give it up. i've been there. done that. i know. but you have to set yourself up with a check or a balance that can say to you "wait a second, mr. chair. this guy is speaking. why don't you go get a cup of coffee or something." there was no such check or balance in the crowd sunday night. not even the senior pastor. imagine that.

the unfortunate end to the presentation's grand plan was a small victory for those of us that were there to support it. when the floor was "taken back", the point was driven out of the park. the flaw was illuminated for all to see. it has yet to be determined who in the room was wearing their proverbial sunglasses and who was not. but the flaw was there. "this is not the forum" will be the everlasting or quickly forgotten legacy to sunday night's meeting, and it could also well define every problem that our poor church currently struggles with.

if the group/council/yes-men that is responsible for all the "big" decisions in the church cannot allow a member of the congregation to suggest something is wrong, much less make it's way to the solution phase, who can? the "greatest senior pastor ever"? probably not. the cheerleader? um, no. then, who?

"who?" is right. and wrong altogether, but we knew that already, didn't we? well, at least some of us did. the question now becomes, "what?" what is the next step? what do we do in the face of such extraordinary stubbornness, hubris even? what rock do we turn over next?

i guess we eat bbq and baptize more hispanics.

christ.