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BY MELISSA LAUBER and LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

In an effort to assist pastors as they seek to serve God and engage congregations in the Discipleship Adventure, the Baltimore-Washington Conference is making changes in the way it appoints pastors.

The new clergy appointment system will move beyond the traditional itinerate system with a goal, to allow pastors to stay in their churches for a minimum of seven years, 'with 10 or more to be the norm,' Bishop John R. Schol said.

These changes were recently outlined in a series of eight meetings, scattered geographically throughout the conference and led by the bishop.

The 'myth' of guaranteed appointments will also be put aside, as pastors earn their appointments through the fruits of their ministry; and new evaluation and discernment procedures will be put into place to assist the bishop and the conference?s nine-member Cabinet in selecting the best person(s) to pastor each church.

At the session at Mt. Zion UMC in Highland Oct. 29, Bishop Schol said that the goal of the process is to assist pastors in their calling to serve God, spread scriptural holiness, and engage congregations in the Discipleship Adventure.

Scriptural holiness, he stressed, is both personal and social. Every pastor is appointed to a congregation and a community.

An advantage of the new system is that it will cut down on the number of moves being made. Currently, the average tenure of a pastor in the Baltimore-Washington Conference is four years.

Two years ago, the Cabinet

appointed 120, or almost 25 percent, of the conference?s pastors. The goal will be to decrease that to less than 14 percent, or only 60 moves in a year.

Increasing the time a pastor serves in one church is expected to increase the pastor?s ability to develop lay leaders and produce the Acts 2 fruit of increased membership, increased worship attendance, missional giving and participating in community and global outreach, the bishop said.

If a pastor requests a change of appointment before the minimum seven years, only lateral or downward moves will be considered, the bishop said.

The first two years of a ministry are often a honeymoon period, the bishop explained. In years three to five, conflict often develops and in years six and seven effective ministry begins to happen more consistently.

It?s a pattern some call 'forming, storming and performing,' Bishop Schol said.

The appointment process, which is outlined in detail in the Resources section of the conference Web site (www.bwcumc.org), will begin each year in January. A change in appointment will only be considered if the church, pastor and district superintendent all concur that it should take place.

When appointments are planned between February and April, pastors will be given 48 hours to request reconsideration; Staff-Parish Relations Committees will be given 36 hours after they meet the new appointee.

According to this new policy, 'Pastors and congregations may ask for reconsideration of an introduced appointment based only on missional issues (the pastor?s or congregation?s ability to spread scriptural holiness, make and engage disciples in the Adventure and bear Acts 2 fruit). The following will not be taken into consideration in appointment-making: race, class, educational achievement of the pastor or congregation, as well as the size of a congregation.'

The passions, abilities and track record over the previous three appointments, of both pastors and congregations, will be reviewed as appointment changes are considered.

To assist congregations and clergy in this process of self-understanding, a new evaluation process has been implemented.

Recently, three forms have been provided for evaluations: the ministry of the congregation; the ministry of the pastor by the Staff-Parish Relations Committee; and a self-evaluation of the pastor.

'The congregation evaluation will come into play in the appointment process,' the bishop said, 'but it?s mostly to help the congregation.'

These evaluations will look at issues of style, character and accomplishments, or 'gifts, graces and fruits,' the bishop said. 'Some people have said this feels like a ?stick.? We added the fruit portion that nobody had asked about before. But we?re just trying to do a faithful evaluation.'

The purpose of the forms is to build on strengths and clarify expectations. 'It is not about grading people,' Bishop Schol said.

Additional refinements will continue to be done to the clergy appointment strategy, the bishop said, especially in areas concerning associate pastors and deacons.