The democratization of the Church. . .

As one who lives within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, I probably have no right to speak about this.  After all, we have institutionalized the democratic experiment of America and enshrined it all in a sacred voters assembly that can literally do what it pleases.  Of course, there are supposed to be boundaries on what is put up for a vote but that hardly stops us.  We tend to vote on things we should not and remain paralyzed by the things we should be voting upon.  It is not unlike the problems America finds in the political sphere.  While I am not quite saying the Church is hierarchical, neither is it a democracy.  More than this, giving people more opportunities to express themselves (or vote) will not repair what is wrong with our sacred institutions today.

Rome should send someone to a Synod or District convention or to a typical Voters Meeting and they may just back away from all their synodal talk -- which is really a cover for not only giving more people a voice but also giving that voice some teeth with a vote.  Levels of input, discussion, and consideration are worthless without the sense that at some point there will also be a vote.  It only disappoints expectations and embitters people to be asked what they think only to have it patently ignored.  So there is some duty to the creation of a structure in which people are asked to participate.  That said, it is also wise to remember Richard John Neuhaus' quip that the first words heard upon entering hell would be, “Break down into small groups, discuss, and then report back to the plenary.”

I fear that meetings will be the death of us and hell will be all the votes we took which we should not have and all that urgencies we ignored because we could not decide what to say or do.  I looked at my calendar and there are endless meetings and even meetings to prepare for meetings or meetings after meetings as well as meetings about meetings.  Is this really the way of the Kingdom?  Is this what God intended for His Church?  The other anonymous quip is the rewording of John 3:16 -- for God so loved the world that He did not send a committee.  The great temptation is that meetings end up be self-referential in a Church that is supposed to look to Christ and His Word.  The great fallacy is that the meetings are ways to invigorate the moribund Church when the reality is that meetings tend to focus more on the past than the future.  Worst, however, is the confusion of our meetings with God's work -- particularly the diminishing of the real work of God through the means of grace and the elevating of our own work of thinking, discussing, and judging.

Meetings are the bane of just about every pastor's existence.  Sometimes the essential, they are often the most extravagant waste of our time.  Part of that shows up in the way we end every meeting by setting a date and time for the next one.  Oh that God would disappoint all our agendas and show up to bring all things to completion before the next meeting!  Good luck to you, Rome, on your current infatuation with meetings and votes.  If anything comes of this, it will probably be nostalgia for the days of a benevolent monarch and pope.