Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Importance of Relationship

I am at the annual meeting of the United Methodist Church in North Central New York, and have been making some observations. The most significant right now is the inability, or unwillingness to build relationships with each other. I am sad to say that I see this most in my clergy colleagues. Sure there are those whom we share the highest affinity with, but we are in connection with all those who are clergy persons. We should be building relationships with people who we view life differently than, especially those people. Why is it that what we were designed and created for, what we long for, we are so poor at doing?

2 comments:

smkyqtzxtl said...

Part of it, I feel is the way conference is structured, I'm from the Western Pa COnference, and part of it is from the need of a system in place that encourages intentionality in relating. We sit in meetings and are talking to and preached at a lot, but the collaborative model is not taught or shown or implemented. Hence it is not in our vocabulary. The way the church appointment system is set up begs becoming a lone ranger, that and our human nature: fear, jealousy, insecurity. I agree, it's a problem.

Beth Quick said...

Hey Aaron - wanted to point you to this post on another methoblogger's blog:
Unclaiming Labels