The Elephant
Posted June 3rd, 2009 by Michael Kooiman
There was an elephant in the room. I have yet to name the elephant, but I think it is customary to put "bo" on the end. This elephant was spotted roaming around my Conference Annual Meeting on the weekend, knocking over the odd table and crashing through the book display. Despite an obvious attempt to grab the floor, the elephant went unacknowledged.
Once or twice we hinted at the broad outline of our large friend. I think the treasurer referred to the fact that less people translated into less revenue at assessment time. A couple people spoke of former congregations or churches set to close. The General Council report seemed pretty candid. But the elephant roamed free, a protected species in our meeting.
Maybe the elephant was ignored because the crowd was artificially flavoured. There were young people present in abundance, participants in Youth at Conference. They provide an alternate voice, you see, because there are so few in our congregations. Inject a few dozen teenagers into any gathering and the meeting changes, and thank goodness for that. But the artificial flavour makes the elephant more transparent (mixed metaphor alert).
The elephant was also masked by the hopeful optimism of new and newly welcomed ministers. Sixteen people gave hopeful, forward-looking speeches (90 seconds of hope at a time) that made that elephant harder to see. Again, thank goodness for that and for the brave sixteen who will no doubt bring transformation to the places lucky enough to have them. Maybe 90 minutes each would have brought that elephant out, the new and the nearly new in ministry more likely to acknowledge the current state of the church.
The elephant, I'll call him Declinebo, was not addressed at an otherwise fine Annual Meeting. We hit all the right notes and spoke of the right causes, but we didn't speak candidly about the churches with 10 members left or the churches that get 70% of their revenue from tenants. We didn't speak of the volunteers ready to give up or the indifference of our communities. We didn't speak about ministers who rely on medication and a line of credit to survive. We didn't talk about a lot of things.
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Comments
A multi-jurisdictional elephant
Michael (and others):
The elephant of whom you so eloquently speak tried mightily to get into my conference as well. Here, however, he was not even allowed to lurk in the shadows. A tight time schedule, and a managed agenda and a truly well-managed presider kept his presence almost completely obliterated behind a "business as usual" wall of false optimism.
Declinebo is present in our conference. He/she roams the rural communities who are also in decline, lurks in the shadows of too many buildings in the wrong areas of towns and cities, and roars triumphantly in the face of those who call for transformation and renewal.
We did not talk about him here, either. For a few moments, we pretended it was still "all right" in the church. And thus, we didn't talk about anything real.
Declinebo
Michael,
For me, it's not so much Declinebo that is in my church's sanctuary, but it's twin sister, StatusQuobo. As long as the numbers stay where 'they've always been', i.e. not less, the zoo-keeper knows that there will be enough food to feed the elephant for the next few years because that's the way its been done for the last 4 decades. Sure there's a deficit, but we always break even after Christmas Eve......
StatusQuoBo doesn't get much exercise as a result and is seriously going to need some geriatric care - perhaps we should be wise and set up the 'do not resuscitate' order now while we still have optismism on our side.
Elizabeth Darby,
Mount Albert United Church,
Mount Albert, Ontario