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Gavin Richardson

my letter to the bishop & conference connection director of tennessee conference on poor communication : updated

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update: jay has had a conversation with our bishop and got permission to blog about it. so if you have already read this stuff or will do, i suggest checking out what word jay has heard. my update, i still haven’t received an email or phone call.

in following up the events of recent with our conference & the recent "restructuring" moves. i wrote this letter this morning to the bishop & loyd mabry our director of connectional ministries for the conference. i will update with whatever reply i receive. probably not my best letter, but it will do.

Dear Loyd & Bishop Wills,

I am sending this note as your standing Tennessee Conference Youth Coordinator and CCYM member.

I
have been sitting and waiting hoping to be given some "official"
communication as to the change and restructuring of the conference
program staff. Beth is a friend of mine, we have worked together as
Director of Youth Ministries & Youth Coordinator for almost 7 years
now, not to mention our time before that. As a friend I am upset for
her. I know that the church is not just Beth and things will go on, at
what capacity is what I am burdened with.

What upsets me more is than anything is the lack of communication
in these moves. No CCYM member was informed or consulted at any point
prior and I know that I have not been given any official communication
as to the change. There was no phone call, no email, no listserv,
letterhead mail or txt message (though I would have personally deemed
those two insufficient, but it would have been something). I have since
fielded emails, phone calls, and text messages asking Me what is going
on. I have no answer to give. I cannot comfort by saying it is "okay."
All I can say is that FRESH will go on as it will be my last event as
Conference Youth Coordinator because you, Loyd, said that I had to
rotate off.

I know that others have called or emailed and gotten a stock
statement of "if you got the impression the conference doesn’t care
about youth ministries then you are misinformed" or something to that
effect. But the fact of this matter, there is no information being
communicated at any level, so there is no way for people to be informed
to be "mis-informed."

Is there a plan at all? Who will be overseeing Day at Nashville
Sounds, Conference Mission Trip, Nashville Shores, Summer Sizzler in
the short term? If I remember correctly we stated a few years ago that
a staff person has to be at events that involve youth & children
and event type situations. For example a staff person has stayed at
Cedar Crest during camp weeks, Beth has been present at all conference
events. So we are in danger of breaking our own policy.

There is more I could go on about, but consider this my plea for
some communication as to the plan or idea behind these actions and
where they will lead the conference. If we do not have any
communication than people have nothing else to work with than
"misinformation" and that fault falls on the administration of the
conference.

shalom
-gavin

my timeline & view of the breakdown of the youth ministries of the tennessee conference of the united methodist church

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this is an email i sent to the friends i have at our conference’s youth ministry institute 2. i wasn’t going to say anything, but word was getting out and i was getting asked questions. beth who is mentioned is our director of youth ministries for the conference. you first saw news of this on the blog late last night or early this morning.

here is a short list for the time being. trying to be factual &:~)

  • thursday beth got her 90 day notice of termination of her
    employment as it currently stands with the conference office. she was
    not happy
  • in this meeting there was some discussion, but no
    plan on what the conference was going to do about FRESH, the sounds
    game, nashville shores, & the conference mission trip as that would
    be after beth’s last day. they basically asked her to hang on and do
    those events. i suspect they didn’t have a concept of the summer
    calendars that youth people go through
  • there reasoning for the change was a restructure to the ccom.
    but there was no plan given as to this restructuring or how events or
    youth ministries will be done in the future.
  • she is going to be given a severance pay that i think goes through august
  • on friday beth was awarded her sabbath leave, which she is taking now and is part why her severance goes to august (i think)
  • we found out that susan groseclose (children’s ministries) was given similar information monday.
  • beth has been calling folks as she has been able
  • some, but not all of the ccym knows of this situation
  • sara
    williams (conference youth president) has called and gave the bishop her opinion on the situation,
    her father said she did a really good job with that. no youth,
    certainly not the ccym, were consulted on this change so sara was
    pretty angry. seeing that the conference staff works for the ccym &
    other committees.
  • there is talk of convening an unscheduled ccym meeting to
    discuss this and next steps, which will probably include a resolution
    to make sure that there is at the very least a part-time person
    dedicated to the needs & coordination of the youth ministries of
    the conference
  • beth and i talked today, i will be working with the ccym to plan out fresh in june. anyone want to lead a session? &:~)
  • after that? i don’t know
  • i
    hate that many of you are finding out this way, but you can only tell
    this story so many times in a day and you get angry, and it is beth’s
    story to tell, so i have stayed quiet myself. even had a long
    conversation with anne carty at cokesbury after i heard and couldn’t
    tell.. that is tough for me. &:~(

if you want to know what you can do. i would write and call the bishop (i think brett sent out an email with bishop@nasharea.org, and lloyd mabry (lmabry@tnumc.org).
it is my experience that when things like these start rolling in the
church it is impossible to reverse. but who knows. i would take
exception, and i will myself, to the way things are/were handled and
that the ccom staff is not to benefit the staff but the laity and
without any clear answers or plan this change is a reflection of poor
judgement and poor management. the tennessee conference is one of the
highest functioning conferences in the nation, maybe world, when it
comes to youth ministry.

i am looking for you tennessee conference united methodist

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i might go on later about how i’ve been pissed off at my institutional part of my church since last week. if you wouldn’t mind checking out and signing this petition one of our ex conference youth presidents put together it’d go a bit to help me feel better. this was her email

Hey Friends,
As you may or may not have heard, the TN Conference
of the UMC has decided to phase out the programming positions related
to children, youth, and young adults. These positions are currently
held by Susan Groseclose and Beth Morris. If your life has been touched
by these ministries (e.g. Warmth in Winter, Summer Sizzler, Youth
Ministry Institute, Children’s Ministry Institute, Conference Day with
the Bishop, etc.), please read and sign a
petition to have these positions reinstated at

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TNUMCProgrammingPositions/

We will send this petition as a resolution to annual conference.
Resolutions are due this Friday, March 14th, so please sign and pass
the word along to any one you know that would be interested. We hope to
get as many signatures as possible by Friday, but will continue to
collect them through Annual Conference.

Thanks and let us know if you have any questions.
Peace,
Rachel

n.t. wright in nashville

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Ntwright
Cokesbury and West End United Methodist Church invite you to enjoy an evening of
conversation and fellowship with N. T. Wright

Tuesday, April 22, 2008,
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

The Anglican Bishop of Durham, Church of England, Wright is called by many the world’s leading New Testament scholar. He will discuss his latest book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the
Church

"Surprised by Hope is a bold and vigorous articulation of the ‘blessed hope’ of the Christian witness.
Grappling with a vast array of controversial topics, this book is sure to surprise you and will, no doubt, fill you
with hope."-Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline

"Tom Wright gives us a powerful account of ‘the hope that is within us.’ Here, in Wright’s masterful work, Christian hope is defended, explicated, and proclaimed with all the wit, wisdom, intellect, and grace. This is quite simply the best book we have on the substance of Christian hope."-Will Willimon, Bishop, The United Methodist Church, and author of
Conversations with Barth on Preaching

"N. T. Wright brings his enormous erudition to a most urgent contemporary question, the cluster of issues around the future and hope and resurrection, and life in the kingdom. Wright makes clear that resurrection hope cannot be understood by reference to universal categories, but only by the particular narrative of Jesus. His book is an important interpretive contribution to an ongoing theological pastoral task."-Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological
Seminary

"This book is N. T. Wright at his finest: dismantling the tired old theologies of escapism and evacuation to help a whole generation of us more clearly grasp a Jesus revolution for here, now, today."-Rob Bell,
author of Velvet Elvis


Tuesday, April 22, 2008
7:30-9:30 P.M.
West End United Methodist Church
2200 West End Avenue
615-749-6123

i am putting it on my calendar. anyone else in the nashville area care to join me?

if you are into this thing: you might be interested in this thriving church thing with tom bandy. i might go if the schedule permits. thrivingchurchbrochure.pdf

surely you don’t mean me?

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Youthblog1
michael spencer @ internet monk has a fab post on why he doesn’t read my blog.. this really hit home though michael.

3. Your level of knowledge regarding the subjects you write about is
so low that a discussion isn’t moved forward by what you write. This is why I don’t blog very much on baseball- which I love. I don’t know enough to make it worth someone’s time to read what I write. Many
bloggers aspire to be pundits, theologians and culture commentators, but they simply haven’t done their homework. They don’t know the subject, they haven’t read the books. They don’t have a freshman major’s level of understanding. If you don’t believe me, read 95% of what’s written about philosophical topics like “postmodernism.” The blind leading the blind, to much applause. Unlike what appears to be
the case with some famous bloggers, most bloggers don’t have a staff paid for by denominational funds to do their research.

Even though I am a seminary grad with post grad hours and extensive reading, and even though I teach Bible professionally, I know the difference between myself and Ben Witherington III, which some bloggers
clearly do not. Reading some rookie blogger tear into a guy with three Ph.d’s is, at the least, unlikely to yield any real insights.

dang, i claim my stupidity, all the time. you should see the email exchange i had with dr. aj levine on a part in her book "the misunderstood jew." her response to my question, or maybe more a clarification..

Thank you for your note.

I think the sentence to which you are referring is this:
" The
occasional king who burns down a city or bridegroom who shuts the door
in the face of five virgins who have run out of oil — that is, the
parables in which the difficult readings cannot be swept away — tends
not to get much sermon time, especially in liberal Christian settings. "
I’m sorry if I was unclear — my pint is that is, parables of judgment tend not to be the focus of sermons in liberal settings, and by liberal I mean the type of church is which the focus is more on social justice,
inclusivity, the condemnation of the ills of society, etc. (all splendid concerns, of course)  than on personal soteriology, divine judgment, eschatological punishment and reward, etc. (i.e.,  I am defining ‘conservative’ along the lines of Missouri Synod Lutheran, most of the leaders of the SBL, the PCA, Churches of Christ, etc., noting that there are exceptions to any label and that all generalities are inexact.
Does this make sense?

my response back

thanks dr. levine,

that is the sentence and no need for apologies. i think being the decently read, but not formally schooled lay/staff person i get myself in places where i have to interpret to my capabilities and something of what i thought just didn’t jive. so i asked

thanks for the clarification. it is certainly different from the assumptions i was coming too, so i am glad i asked and grateful for your time in responding. i cannot honestly say, "sure it all makes sense".. but let me consult my harvey’s theological terms book to remind myself of the "big words" that, i know i know but could never tell you exactly what they mean. does that make sense? 

&:~D 

again, thanks for your time
shalom

because she is cool like that!

smiling back at you …

and never hesitate to ask questions.

oh, sorry for the tangent. i’d agree with michael and it is okay dude, you don’t need to read my blog. i might have started it actually shape other peoples thoughts but quickly realized that was stupid, so it is me being me and what God has shaped me into. i figure there are a few people out there that would care for that.