The Wrong Direction?

To say that the local pastor’s licensing process was very basic in nature is quintessential understatement. I’m sure it was for good reason that the instruction presumed virtually no familiarity with UM polity, but it was so elementary as to make one wonder if my classmates had even completed some rudimentary form of training for the local church membership which was a prerequisite to applying for a license. Remember when I referred to the church as a business? Well, licensing school was designed to spell out the franchise’s policy and procedure for prospective assistant managers. And that was cardinal rule number one: don’t ever let yourself make the mistake of thinking that you were a manager. All authority of the local pastor is derived from the supervising elder, who in turn, I guess, is empowered by the district, which is empowered by the conference, and so on. The fundamental lesson I learned from licensing school was that by pursuing ordination in The United Methodist Church I was ironically putting greater distance between me and God instead of drawing closer.