Appointment Watching

It's a busy season. Although Holy Week has passed and clergy breathe a collective sigh of relief, Finals season approaches and Seminary students cringe. I'm currently in the home stretch, and I'm cringing. The end is in sight, but until it gets here my blogging time is limited, although my ideas become endless. Here are my current thoughts.

I've always been an appointment watcher. Growing up in a parsonage I would always cringe when I came home to hear my father talking to the District Superintendent in the Spring. Nine times out of ten, they were just chatting, but it always made me nervous. Growing up in a parsonage made me an appointment watcher. It was always fun to see who was going where...Where my friends were moving to, who was coming to the churches where we had been, feeling sorry for all the other pastor's kids who had to move. I've been an appointment watcher.

As I started to attend Annual Conference, my appointment watching changed. I learned who were the movers and shakers in the Conference. I learned about the appointments that were coveted above all else. I learned why the reading of the appointments is such a big deal. I'm still an appointment watcher. About every two weeks I log onto the Conference website to see who's going where, although my watching isn't as innocent as it was when I was a kid. Now I read and think things like "Good for them! That's a great appointment!" or "Wow...I hope the Bishop sees something in them that I don't!" or "That's the appointment that I want when I leave seminary" or even "I know them. There is no way that they deserve that appointment!". See, many times I think that we watch appointments out of jealously. We think that someone hasn't necessarily earned their new appointment. We wonder how a left-leaning liberal such as so and so could end up with a church like that. We wonder if someone from that no good, Evangelical seminary can make it in the city. We wonder why we didn't get that appointment, and why we're still living in East Podunk. We see people playing the system, playing the politics and we're upset at their seeming conceit.

Appointment watching can be dangerous. It breeds contempt among clergy and clergy families and makes us jealous or leery of others. As I read through Philippians last week, I realized that Paul dealt with Appointment season. As he writes the Philippians in 1:17 he speaks of those who preach the Gospel from envy and strife, saying that they proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, but then Paul makes a stunning statement "What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is preached in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice." (Philippians 1:18, NRSV). It doesn't matter to Paul who goes where while he's stuck in prison. It doesn't matter to Paul that he may not like a certain person. It doesn't matter to Paul why Christ is preached or even how Christ is preached. It only matters to Paul that Christ is preached and that God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, speaks into the hearts of hearers.

Where do we go from here? As I've been reading the new appointments I try to remember...Place, prestige, and power don't matter. The Gospel does. May Christ be preached in all appointments, both new and old.