"Church Ministers Consider A Union". (Go to www.thespec.com and search "union" - you'll see the article there)
My first response was a Charlie Brown style "Oh good grief." A ministers' union? Thank you, no. I am not interested in paying union dues, nor do I care to start referring to complete strangers as "brother" and "sister".
My second response came as I actually read the article. A minister had done his job, reasonably successfully (in his opinion), and then was told he'd be best off to leave. "It just sucked the life right out of me," he said.
I have friends who have been there. Pastors reprimanded for not dressing up while playing basketball with the youth; pastors whose spouses found out they were hired as part of a 2-for-1 deal; pastors who quietly left their jobs after painful, unfair and ungodly treatment by their congregations.
It goes both ways - I remember hearing of a church member who told their pastor that the congregation needed a union! There's always a pastor somewhere who is heavy-handed, controlling, manipulative, unethical, and for some reason, still wildly successful, at least from outward appearances. Many people quietly leave their church families after painful, unfair and ungodly treatment by their pastor.
Maybe we should consider unions after all!
Except...wouldn't that be a sign that we've failed? Aren't we supposed to be recognizable as followers of Christ because we treat each other right? It seems to me that unions are formed when relationships fail. "We need a union," the Spec article says, "because the church has failed to show it can deal equitably with conflict."
And there's the clincher for me. There aren't enough unions in the world to make us act in a Godly manner. If I can't do my job in relationship with people...I think I'd rather not do it at all.(My musing for this week's bulletin - thought I'd put it in this space too.)
