Pastoral Care Worker

Yesterday my Pastoral Care Worker took me out to lunch.

In the ERC, each district is served by a person, who is paid by the Conference, to provide, well, care, for pastors pastoring in that district.

I actually was the first PCW in this district and was replaced, obviously quite a few years ago, by my late friend Wayne Boyer.

Anyway, the current PCW, has been trying to set up a lunch meeting with me for some time. Yesterday we were able to meet.

This guy is someone who has been a friend to me for quite a few years and, even with that, I had not been certain that he would keep me on his list of pastors after the ERC Ad Council voted to recall my ordination.

As you know, I consider their action to be illegitimate and have refused to surrender my ordination. But, I didn't know how my PCW would deal with the ongoing issue. After all, he is paid by the ERC to do the job.

We had, for me, a very nice meeting.

I wondered if he would bring up the fact that I was asked to surrender my ordination. And, he did.

We spoke at length about the issue. He listened carefully to what I had to say about what I think and how I feel. He filled me in on things he has done about it since he read about it here.

I repeated to him that no one from the Conference was in communication with me about these issues up to the point that I received the registered letter and that no one from the Conference has reached out to me since then.

And, more on the point of the ongoing conflict, told him that I still absolutely refuse to surrender my ordination until it is recalled by the Conference in session.

Surprisingly, he didn't challenge me on that point.

Actually, it might be accurate to say that he encouraged me on that point.

We did speak about what I am going to do about defending myself since I believe that I am not guilty of anything the Standing Committee has accused me of.

I told him that I still don't know but that I have seven months until next Conference.

There was some more that we talked about regarding the ordination issue, but I probably put more in this post than is wise....