By: Annie
When we talk about serving at church or leadership, it’s often focused on what people aren’t doing. Look at all these vacancies. Why aren’t more people stepping up? If you’d only put your trust in God, you could do great things. I’m not saying there’s no value in that line of thinking, but what’s another way of looking at it? What are people doing?
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This series so far has been about reflecting on where we’re at as individuals and as a community so I thought I’d start talking about the logistics of our election.
Every church member (those who have been baptised at ET or have transferred their membership) has the privilege to vote for our church officers. The list of candidates is posted in the Inner Court and Fellowship Hall if you’d like to take a look. You’ll also find two ballots: one from the 2013/14 vote and the draft for this year’s.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to read our shamefully outdated Constitution, you’ll notice that members used to receive their ballots in the mail. Why do you think that is? I don’t know if ET’s actually done this, but I’d like to think the leaders intentionally put this in to encourage the members to pray and reflect on the candidates before voting. Everything at ET is rushed and we often accept things as they are. So we vote for the one person running for a given position thinking someone is better than no one. Or maybe you’ve bought into the notion of “trust our leadership” or (more appropriately) “trust God.”
I’m not here to disagree with that thinking but I want to remind you that God speaks through all of us. I firmly believe we all have a role in His Kingdom and sometimes, we need to be reminded that we are a body of many parts and not all of us are called to be leaders. Even David, the man after God’s heart, had to be told the temple was not his to build. So don’t take this ballot lightly. Be honest and compassionate about who you affirm in leadership.
If you have any questions or concerns about how voting works or how the ballots are counted, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].