Uther Pendragon: Blog

I have real problems answering the "how much sex" question on the posting site.

When I was reposting my short stuff, it was easy. A story of fewer than 10 K is either a sexual encounter or omits sex.

Long stuff is something else again. The current story, which will end up at 18 chapters posted over nine weeks, has chapters which are fairly heavy on he sex and chapters where there is no sex at all.

I figured it averaged out to minimal sex.

Where I am, I' writing this at a few minutes before midnight on July 13th.
So, it is about to be Bastille Day.
If you would like to read a story set -- in part -- on that day, May I suggest my:
Formez vos Battaillons >

I try not to post on Holy Week, Palm Sunday to Easter. The current pair of stories, Morning After, is part of the God Joined Together universe, but belongs to a later portion. It, however, was a convenient length when I needed a story to fit i n a single week.

Most people who attend church do so as consumers. They experience the style of worship but not the rather elaborate structure which produces it - brings a rehearsed choir, an organ in repair, and a paid organist to the music; prints those bulletins which they are handed and arranges for somebody to hand them out that Sunday morning.

Most of my adult characters are aware of that much; many participate and are aware of the next level up. Jen and David, as clergy, participate in the next level and are aware of the entire hierarchy. This is a very short summary of the structure. If it looks complicated, remember that one of the requirements for Methodist ordination is taking an entire course in Methodist polity and that a civil judge, told that the national United Methodist Church was not a body that could sue or be sued, announced that he was not going to deal with the structure as it was but rather as another structure that he could understand (the Council of Bishops stood in for the board of directors).

The first thing to understand is that the United Methodist Church is an international body in essence. Rather than the international body being an association of congregations (as in Baptist and Congregational polity), the local congregation is a branch of the international _church_. If you want a Methodist congregation in your neighborhood, rather than getting together with your neighbors to form one, you ask the conference office (defined later) to build one. If a majority of the board of the congregation decides that they would rather be Buddhist, they quit the congregation; the congregation doesn't turn Buddhist.

"Conference" is a frequently-appearing term in Methodism - too frequently. The most important to our stories is: "Annual Conference." This means several things:

1) A meeting of all the clergy and an equal number of lay people from an area. It happens once a year (duh!), mostly in July.

2) The area from which they come. In the stories, that is Northern Illinois. Generally, it is a state, part of a state, or several - usually two - states.

3) Occasionally, the time at which such meeting occurs. "Until Conference," "After Conference."

4) The administrative structure which serves - and, to a certain extent, governs - the church in that area.

5) As an adjective, the representative bodies which deal with special needs of the church in that area. "Conference Board of Church and Society."

6) The United Methodist Church as a whole in that area.

There is also General Conference, which meets every four years. It sets the rules for the church as a whole, the _Discipline_. This is a published book and is semi-permanent. That is, each General Conference changes the _Discipline_, but what is published after the General Conference is not a list of the changes but the entire set of rules.

The local congregation holds a Charge Conference. This sets the budget for the coming year. It, officially, elects the local congregation's boards and the delegate(s) to annual conference. (I have never seen a disputed election.)

"Conference" as an adjective by itself, involves one of those meanings of Annual Conference. There is a General Board of Pensions for the whole church and a Conference Board of Pensions for each annual conference (sense 4).

There are two other levels. Between the annual conference and the general level there is the Jurisdiction (five in the USA). This is primarily legislative; the Jurisdictional Conference meets right after General Conference, elects new Bishops, and assigns them to their annual conferences. (Bishops preside over one or two annual conferences, technically, the bishops I mention are not bishops of the Northern Illinois Conference, but of the Chicago Episcopal Area. Since it's the same place, the same institutions, and the same people, nobody uses that term.) A bishop serves one or two four-year terms in one episcopal area and then is moved to another until retirement.

Between the Annual Conference and the local congregation is the District. There were seven in Northern Illinois. This is purely administrative. The district superintendent is the pastor of the pastors in the district and their supervisor. See the next paragraphs.

Appointments: People with backgrounds in other mainstream-Protestant denominations are constantly being surprised (1) that Methodist congregations do not select their pastors, and (2) that Methodist pastors do not stay most of their lives in one congregation. Methodist congregations have an implicit contract with the Annual Conference. That they will always have a pastor, and, in return, that they will take the pastor that they are given. Methodist clergy will go where they are sent, but they know that they will always have a place paying at least the minimum "Equitable salary."

Humans being human, it doesn't quite work that way. Still, that understanding underlies what does happen. It's one process, but I'll describe it from three viewpoints. The bureaucracy is first. United Methodist ordination is tied in with admission to membership in an annual conference. (The laymen who vote at annual conference are delegates; the clergy are members of the annual conference.) The clergy members vote - usually as recommended by a committee which really does serious evaluation - on each application. The members are entitled to an appointment; various members are "appointed to society," are chaplains with the military or hospitals, professors or heads of Methodist-related institutions. If any one of those decides that he wants to pastor a local congregation, he notifies the Conference office in sufficient time, and he is assigned a church; if every one of them decided that in the same year, disaster would result. Clergy who are not appointed to a pastorate have a relation to a local congregation; at minimum, that relation means giving a report each year to the charge conference.

The district superintendents of the annual conference form "The Bishop's cabinet." Together, they decide the appointments for the year. The Bishop's decision is final, but he comes from outside for four years or eight. The DS (district superintendent) is appointed from among the senior pastors of the conference for - at the time of the stories - seven years (rolling terms, so one is appointed each year). He starts out knowing the clergy as a colleague who has served on committees and gone on retreats with them. He starts out knowing several congregations from having served them and many more from gossip and reports. Then too, he has served on committees at Annual Conference with laity from many other congregations. He spends the rest of his term dealing intimately with the clergy and congregations of his district. The bishop would be an idiot who didn't listen to the advice from his DS. While, officially, every appointment is up for consideration every year, most of that consideration goes, "Is Smith doing well at Elm Street? Let's leave him there." The cabinet is supposed to get each pastor the appointment which will do him the most good and give each congregation the pastor which will do it the most good; these goals are obviously in conflict. Then too, the cabinet is dealing with a finite number of slots and a finite number of pastors, and every pastor needs a pulpit while every pulpit needs a pastor.

From the clergy's perspective, he (or she) is mailed a form in the fall. "Would he like to stay in the same appointment?" If he says 'yes,' his is likely, but nowise certain, to stay. If he says 'no,' he is quite likely, although not quite certain, to move. If the cabinet wants him in a new place, the DS from the new district - which could be the old one - calls him in and pitches the new local congregation. He can decline, but unless his reason impresses the cabinet as good -- 'My spouse is a teacher in a school district which requires residence within the district'' good - he goes down in the books as uncooperative. In theory, and sometimes in practice, the bishop can say, "Tough; you are going there." Then, he could always resign his membership in the conference; otherwise, he goes where the bishop sends him. He certainly cannot stay as pastor of his old congregation.

From the congregation's perspective, it has a pastor-parish relations committee. (The name has changed over time, first to "staff-parish relations" and then to "pastor-staff parish relations." It not only deals with the pastor, who is not an employee, but with the custodian, secretary, and organist, who are.) The DS every year before the charge conference, meets with that committee. He asks them about the relation of the pastor with the members. They also get a letter late in the year asking simply whether they want the pastor for another year. The cabinet, however, knows that a wise pastor can get the pastor-parish committee he wants after a few years; they don't take too seriously the favorable responses. If the pastor is going to be reappointed to the same congregation, he is told, and he tells the congregation. If not, there is a meeting of the pastor-parish committee to which the DS brings the cabinet's choice for new pastor. He sells him hard. Then the DS and possible pastor go into another room while the committee discusses and votes. If the vote is positive, the appointment is made. If the response is negative, the cabinet gives careful attention to that response. Still, it is in the power of the bishop to appoint that choice anyway.

All the players have things to keep in mind. The congregation is being told, "We think this is the best choice for you." They know that declining it would mean that the cabinet won't consider their needs until the rest of the appointments shake out. Similarly. The cleric knows that his next chance will be a place where something went wrong with the appointment process. The bishop might appear to have unlimited authority in this sphere, but he is dealing with clergy who vote at annual conference and congregations which send voting delegates to annual conference. If he has any other plans, he can't afford to make too many enemies. They can't get rid of the bishop, but they can ignore him.

People being people, the bigger, richer churches are likely to get more choice. Still, churches which have to depend on conference help to pay their pastor equitable salary know that they will have a pastor next year.

The commitment to having the pulpit filled extends well beyond the appointment process. If the DS learns at 10:00 p.m. Saturday that one of the pastors has been hospitalized, everyone expects him to recruit a preacher for that church for services the following morning.

Appointments normally begin right after annual conference. They can be made any time of the year, however, to accommodate needs. Having them scheduled for one time facilitates the rest of the processes that I have described.

Methodists expect pastors to move from pulpit to pulpit during their careers. After some time, the trope changes from, "Smith is having no problems at Elm Street; why move him?" to, "Smith has been at Elm Street for a long time; why don't we move him?"

The government of the congregation is controlled by the _Discipline_ in theory. By now, the book gives several options for churches of different sizes.

One group which must exist in each congregation is "The Board of Trustees." This holds title to the church building _in trust._ The Annual Conference has the right to have Methodist services held in the building, and those congregations which get into financial trouble often borrow from Methodist sources which then get a claim on the building if it is sold. The trustees also care for the property of the congregation; they can do it by contracting the work out, but some -- at least - of the maintenance work is generally performed by the trustees themselves. The trustees are governed by state law as well as by church law.

The Jen story was planned to appear just after 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. Chapter 2 appeared early today. That was because I was too slow posting it.

The original story was a single long piece on ASSTR. I cut it into chapters, but I didn't get those chapters into postable shape. I did for the first chapter, and I posted it. Authors can't put later chapters into the posting queue until after the first chapter appears. So, I delayed doing the final pre-posting work on Jen. And delayed, and delayed.
Wednesday, as I was finishing me session on the Internet from the library, I realized that I still hadn't done that. So I did it this morning. Authors can't put something into time-delay for the same day, so it went up soon after I had put it into the queue.

So, my delay led to an early posting.