When faced with the facts about this situation, the bishop has retracted this statement. None of this is true.

since loyd has come into office (6 months) he has had a new vision every time the staff has met. one time over the summer beth told me she might have to quit helping with our jr. high ministry at hfumc because loyd was talking of her attending a new church each week. she told him that she would no longer be able to attend church with her family and it seemed that ‘vision’ got dropped. there was no discussion, action plan, job description change, or goal setting to formalized that ‘vision’ for that week. things like that constantly happened, and myself having worked in the state system you hear swirlings of new ideas or change of jobs all the time and everyone seems to take on the mindset, “until they put it in writing i will keep going with what i am doing.” one might say it is the boy who cried wolf, if you have a new idea every week without any backing of action plan or showing of serious intent, then why should anyone take the 3rd 4th 5th 6th idea seriously.

beth in december received a glowing job description in which the only “needs improvement” on was more of an emphasis young adults.

just felt like that needed to be said. i think someone has misled the bishop if he feels this way whole heartedly

All of these statements assume that vision comes from one person (i.e. a bishop) or small group of people (CCOM executive committee), and that communication about that vision is a one-way process. I don’t want to be communicated TO, I want to be communicated WITH. If this change is truly about a new vision, then why weren’t youth and young adults invited to collaborate on this vision? We have the people and systems in place (Gavin Richardson, Coordinator of Conference Committee on Youth Ministries; Gail Britt, Coordinator of Conference Committee on Children’s Ministries; Bill Lizor, Chair of the Young Adult Council; Sarah Williams, president of the Conference Youth). Not one of these people were consulted or invited to participate in this new vision. To me, vision is best when it comes from community – from the people – and is tested and refined by the community.

I also must disagree with your conclusion that what we need to do now is to get on board with this new vision. I believe that our staff and leadership were living a vision that was working, was being affirmed by our conference, and was being emulated by other conferences. This decision feels like one of those “smoky back-room deals” that we abhor in our current political system.

Again, I appreciate your thoughts and am glad you relayed your conversation with the bishop to us. However, if you change your mind and want to join the 155 people (currently) who have signed the petition, feel free to join us at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TNUMCProgrammingPositions/

Thanks,
Mark F. Hagewood