[Mins] Question about Nomination of Office Bearers

[mins at crca.org.au]

Hi Jack,

Greetings.

It seems to me that over recent years (perhaps the last 10-20 years) there
has been a shift in thinking on these matters.

I guess the "ideal" would be for the nominator to receive permission from
the one being nominated before forwarding their names to Session.  This
would prevent delays in the election process for if there were no
objections by session to his nomination and he was duly elected by the
congregation he would probably accept his election to office.

The draw back is that over recent years for various reasons more and more
people are unwilling to stand for the offices in the church.  Some have
possible legitimate reasons, (i.e. involved in other ministry work already
- School Boards, Rotary clubs) whilst others see the whole call to office
and serving in the Session far to onerous on their time and their families
time and hence refuse to be nominated.

The difficulty with nominating someone only when you have received their
permission seems to me to leave out the 'call' that the Lord of the church
may send to someone to serve.  It seems to be 'easier' to say 'no' to one
individual's approach to be nominated, where as the 'call' to serve in
office would be far more 'weighty' if a whole congregation made that call
by a vote.

Regarding explaining to a nominator why their nominations were not put
forward to the congregation is fraught with danger.  It may perhaps appease
a nominator, but there may be reasons only known to the Session why a
nomination has not been put forward and those reasons may of such a
pastoral nature that it is unwise to divulge reasons to the nominator, more
over it may be a confidential matter.

So I would suggest, that to give reasons to a nominator for someone's
failure to be put forward to the congregation doesn't need an explanation.
 People just need to trust the office bearers' judgment on these matters.


Perhaps one other thought.

The difficulty with our system is that a leadership team (Session) may only
wish to have certain 'types' to be put forward so as to maintain a current
direction or emphasis and to have someone come on board whom they know may
be a descending voice could be problematic and slow down whatever 'vision'
or 'five year plan the Session has adopted.  I guess people could always
vote 'no'.

Anyhow, they are a few of my initial thoughts.


John Z.

On Monday, March 18, 2013, wrote:

>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> In Launceston Session we have always followed what I thought was fairly
> standard procedure when it comes to nominating office bearers, that is we
> call for nominations from the congregation, we receive some names in reply,
> we add some extra names of our own, we consider them carefully and
> prayerfully, we come up with a list of candidates and then we announce this
> to the congregation. It has recently been suggested that we do a couple of
> things differently, namely:
>
> 1) That it should be specified that nominators should always gain
> permission from the person they wish to nominate before putting their name
> forward to Session.
> 2) That if someone is nominated and Session decide not to put them up for
> election, that Session should go back to the nominator and the nominee and
> explain why their nomination was rejected.
>
> We are wondering if anyone has any experience, thoughts or wisdom for us
> on this matter?
>
> Yours in Christ, Jack Kapinga.
>


-- 
John & Trudy Zuidema
19 Heather St,
Wheeler Heights.
NSW, 2097
Australia
(http://jtzuidy.blogspot.com.au)
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