Bowman Tendencies

Last night I attended my first Administrative Council quarterly meeting at our church. At these meetings we discuss various committee updates as well as hear reports from each program area in the church. Program areas are things like the Music dept, Children's ministries, Media, and yes, Youth Ministries. The meeting itself was pretty uneventful, even with the chocolate cookies that someone brought.

There was however a point in the meeting that I found myself reminiscing of days of yore on Bowman Leadership. The leader of our church's prayer ministry opened the meeting with devotion and prayer. As he closed, I glanced down to the agenda and saw that the next order of business was to accept the minutes of the previous meeting. Apparently my church has not (yet) had to learn the same lesson as Bowman Leadership 04-05 did.

For those readers unaquainted with Bowman Leadership meetings, the most coveted places of honor in the meeting were being officially noted as the person who motioned to accept the minutes, followed in importance by the person who seconded the motion. This was something that occurred directly following the opening devotions and prayer, and is where the problem lay.

You see, while we would sit fairly quietly though the devotions and the first half of the prayer, as the inevitable 'amen' began to creep on the holy horizon, the entire group began to open their eyes, waiting for that litttle word, solely so that they could shout "MOTION TO ACCEPT THE MINUTES!!" (Looking back it evades me as to why this was such a coveted honor). Obviously this caused somewhat of a lack of reverance for the latter half of the prayer, so I think we tried to pray for the serious stuf at the beginning. Regardless, this happened at every Bowman meeting I can remember. (until of course the fateful day that our Resident Director became frustrated with our lack of respect and moved the entire motioning process to a different part of the agenda).

This brings me back to last night. Sitting in my first Ad Council meeting of my life, I thought maybe I could impress a few big guns in the leadership if I, the new guy, was the first to motion to accept the minutes.

"Wow," they would mutter, "this is his first meeting and he knew exactly what to do!"
"What an intelligent and responsible youth pastor we've hired. Who thought he knew Robert's Rules of Order?"

As Randy closed in a solemn 'amen,' I confidently began "I mo...."
And Sue, an older woman across the room interrupted "I motion to accept the minutes"

In my shock I completely forgot about my second chance for glory as someone else seconded Sue's motion. And just like that, the moment passed me by. Apparently this Ad Council has more in common with Bowman Leadership than I ever imagined. Who knew?