"The Least of These"

Choosing to enter the ordained ministry of The United Methodist Church via the Course of Study was probably as close to experiencing discrimination as this little white boy was ever going to come. While the Discipline of the church allowed for those COS students who demonstrated exceptional promise to actually be ordained Elder and given full membership in an annual conference, the chance of that ever actually happening was as thin as the paper it was printed on. The reality was that most—but not all—annual conferences would begrudgingly ordain COS graduates as Deacon (translate that to “servant of the servants”) and then assign them to the appointments that Elders refused to accept. (As I completed the COS at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, I was surprised to meet local pastors from the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference which had strictly abided by its “seminary rule” while I was living in Colorado. The reason that the RMAC was now tolerating these second-class wannabes?; because the conference could not find seminary trained Elders willing to accept appointments to the boonies.) Now, going strictly by the book (Discipline) it is theoretically impossible for any pastor who has taken her/his vows in the UMC to refuse an Episcopal appointment, but that, too, is only on paper. The truth of the matter was that we Deacons were regarded as the caddies for the elitist Elders playing the country club course of church politics.