malignant apathy
(another case of unrealistic expecations)


"fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me."

i've happened upon some unwanted alone time (thanks for nothing again, sewage problem at the softball fields that won't go away) this evening and the frustration will feel more fresh this evening than it will in the morning, so we'll go ahead and touch on yesterday's meeting and analyze, for the short term, what it all means according to me.

the "game-changer" (spoiler alert) was this. in any and all churches, special monies are given to the church in memory or honor of a person(s) all the time. those monies may be designated to a ministry or ministries in the church that was special to the person being honored or remembered or special to the one bestowing the gift. in addition to this, church members may also designate or earmark their tithes and/or special offerings to ministries or projects within the church that they believe in or feel passionately about rather than tithing directly to the church's general budget. a good example of this would be a church roofing project, such as the one humc undertook several years back. the church needed a new roof. it was asked of the church to offer monies for the project. those offerings were "designated" to a "raise the roof" line item in the budget. when bills came due for the roofing project, they were paid out of this line item. simple enough, right?

there are probably between 25-40 of these designated funds in our church budget. and the shocker yesterday was that if they were all "cashed in" at one time, the church does not currently have enough actual cash (as opposed to that on paper) at it's disposal to honor all of the requests. let that sink in for a second. people have donated funds to places like the children's place, projects like the new welcome center and ministries such as youth and children with the simple and honest trust that the church could use their donation, their money for that place, that project or those ministries when needed. the fact of the matter is that all of these funds will not be asked to be "cashed in" at one time. but the point is that if they were, we couldn't honor the simple and honest trust that people have placed in the church to responsibly handle the donations.

before i go any farther, let me be clear. there has been NO embezzlement or NO malicious mismanagement of these funds. as far as our finance committee can tell, the funds have been used to float the church and pay bills for who knows how long. looking at it from one perspective, one could certainly see and argue that the money was given to the church, so, in trying times such as where we find ourselves, the church should be able to use the money in ways not perfectly symmetrical to the donation's intent. and i get that. i do. there is a part of me that appreciates the wool having been pulled over my eyes. that someone, somewhere made me feel like everything was fine and ok when, really, it wasn't. there is a part of me that values the effort it has taken to make my house of faith not feel like a financial house of cards.

and then there's the part of me that cannot reconcile the feeling of it being wrong. it's the part of me that has been calling for openness and honesty in every small group and committee that i've been a part of since the turn of the new year. the part of me that wishes the church could've been made aware of the problem sooner so that instead of stop-gapping all the time, we could've dynamically changed our direction without feeling like we were giving up. but we weren't made aware sooner. not in the same way the twenty-some-odd people that felt like it was worth their time to come out to the most important meeting the church has had in years (because in a healthy church, the "most important meeting" is always the next one) were made aware yesterday afternoon. and therein lies the problem.

huffman united methodist's world changed yesterday, and nobody not enough were there to hear it. oh, they'll hear about it eventually. through misinformed channels from people with different agendas than the open and honest environment that was cultured in the meeting yesterday afternoon. they'll hear about it and they'll grumble and move to have their own parking lot meetings in their own private idahos.

where were you, anyway? were you busy? are you meeting-ed out? have you already left the church or joined another congregation because sticking around isn't nearly as much fun as stirring the pot was? tell me. tell us. tell someone.

wednesday night, i told one of our members that she needn't worry about having enough hands to help ferry yard sale items across the street. "don't stress out about it.", i told her. people won't just leave after dinner or the studies. we'll get it done together. no problem. i was wrong. a handful chose to stick around because i am sure those that didn't thought the same thing that i did. "they'll have plenty of help. lost is coming on. we need to get home anyway. scary people come out in huffman when it's dark." or something like that. they were wrong too. high-fives to the handful that did stick around. high-fives to the group that stuck around and watched the vast majority of the choir travel down the stairs, past the work left to be done and to their cars because they probably figured "they don't need our help. looks like they are almost done anyway. i need a cherry lime-ade." or something like that.

i am not sure what world we (humc) live in anymore, but i wish we would stop fooling ourselves. it only seems right that if we want to be a part of this church, we have to be aware that we aren't big enough anymore that we are going to accidentally stumble into enough volunteers to make every ministry move the way it's supposed to or used to.

WE CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN'S WORSHIP BECAUSE YOU WON'T VOLUNTEER!

CHILDREN'S PROGRAMS ARE BEING CUT OR CANCELED FOR THE SAME REASON!

this is not me yelling at you.

this is me begging you. if you are interested in us, we need you to be all in. prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness. we need all of it. again, we are not big enough anymore for some of us to do part of it and some of us to do the other. it's on US. the ball is in OUR court. those that are left. or left behind.

WAKE.

THE FREAK.

UP.

please.

you likely were not there sunday afternoon. so, you are going to have to hear through the grapevine. but make no mistake. the game changed sunday afternoon. doing something about it will be challenging. but it could also be very fun...if you let it.

will you?