We had our first "bishop's election discernment process" confab last Sunday, and everybody I've talked to since has been grousing about it. Surprisingly, my reaction was less negative--I thought the first hour was pretty good!
The handout on timelines was helpful, the summary of the synod business succinct. We even had a good discussion on the 1 Timothy passage about bishops. We'd all forgotten that the bishop should be "not a drunkard," and it was good to have a reminder.
After that, we had the "ministry audit," which sounds about as fun as it really was. Most of us took this to be "what we wanted in the synod" or "what we wanted in a bishop," rather like the navel-gazing faze we have congregations go through when they begin the process for a new pastor.
Some years ago, a former pastor in this synod, Keith Lingwall, gave me an article that spoke of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's views on the subject. Asked about "mission statements"--or "ministry audits"--Bonhoeffer replied that we already have a "mission statement"; it's called the New Testament.
In any case, there's an old Vatican saying: "You follow a fat pope with a skinny one"--meaning: You generally look for qualities in the new candidates that you found lacking in the old one, sometimes forgetting that the current bishop (or pastor) also had good qualities that you'd like to replicate. (Usually, this is remembered just after the new person gets in office.)
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