It is important for Friends to not lose sight of the fact
that nominating is a spiritual process – not an assert Tab A in Slot B
process. Now a days as attendance at
Meetings dwindle but the number of positions on committees stays the same, it is
easy for the nominating committee to feel somewhat desperate (leading to many
inside jokes about not leaving the room or nominating committee will nominate
you.) So Friends may need to think about
other ways to address the shortage of available people to staff committees.
As originally envisioned by Friends, nominating was a discernment
process, discerning the gifts that members brought and matching those with the
needs of the Meeting. This meant
starting with a clear job description for each of these positions and asking Friends
to thoughtfully consider where they might be led to serve each year. Now a days, a sort of secular posture has
crept in of both members just sort of waiting to be “assigned”. But also modern nominating committees have
taken it as a goodness if people volunteer for positions and seem to fail to
stop and discern if the enthusiasm of the person matches the skills needed in
that committee. As a result, we can get
people who volunteer for a position because they view it as powerful or
interesting but have wrong gifts for that committee.
Many Meetings have rules about needing to be a member to be
clerk, assistant clerk, treasurer, or on Pastoral Care or M&C if they are
combined. Some extend this to
M&W.
This was out of realization to
that to Clerk a whole Meetings business Meeting you need robust exposure to
Quaker Business practice and how it differs from secular consensus processes or
world business meetings run by voting or Robert’s Rules of order. It has also been felt that to be trusted
with all the money of the Meeting you needed to have a committed relationship
to the Meeting. Since Pastoral Care or
M&C often deals with confidential, personal matters of individuals in the
Meeting, it was also felt that seasoned and well trusted friends needed to
serve here. Because M&W (or M&C
in Meetings which combine them) is responsible for the spiritual well being of
the meeting – for nurturing the members spiritual growth, tending the health of
the worship hour, and eldering Friends when needed it was again felt that this
needed to come from Friends who has spiritual depth and experience with Quaker
practice.
One of the kinds of mistakes I have seen is where people who
do not have gifts of ministry are put on ministry and worship, because they are
“available” to serve or because they ask.
If they themselves are not grounded in Spirit how will they help the
whole Meeting to ground? Or how will
they think in a spiritual way about the Meeting? Another mistake I have observed is putting
for example men on Care and Council who were not called to it for “gender
balance”. I have known men with
wonderful gifts of nurturance and emotional support. I have also known men who live in their intellect
24 times 7. If one of the former were
put on C&C for gender balance, it will achieve that but only that. Members seeking support from the committee
will not wind up feeling supported. This
would be as silly as making someone treasurer who does not know how to balance
a check book or read a financial statement.
These same issues are more starkly clear when nominating
people for a clearness committee. If we
put people on there for balance of gender, or length of time in Meeting, or
because they are married (for a committee seeking clearness on marriage) the
person may or may not know how to help discern clearness. Since clearness committees are suppose to be
spiritual discernment and seeking processes, it is most helpful to put members
who believe Spirit is available to help us find answers and are willing to
listen for those answers. Not just a
magic number of people on the committee.
Many nominating committees today create a form they ask
members/attenders to fill out and turn in.
That is certainly time saving – and could be an ok starting point. I would be careful in the language on the
form. It should ask things like have you
spent time in reflection and discernment about which committee you could best serve
the Meeting on? (Rather than: “On what
committee do you want to serve?) It
should also ask: What are your
gifts? How are you feeling called to
serve the meeting right now? I
personally have been surprised sometimes that I’m called to things that I would
not have expected to be “my choice”.
An
ideal might be for the committee to divide up the Meeting directory and try to
talk with each person about possible openings and where they might match. But then the nominating committee needs to
have frank conversations with each other about whether what is put forward by
members really fits. How many nominating
committees have regretted later the service of someone they inwardly knew was
not right for the committee but “we just needed one more person”. Frankly in situations like that the committee
might be better off short one person!
Another thing which I see becoming more of a practice in
some Meetings these days which I think is not proper process is the practice of
not nominating the clerks of committees but leaving that to the committee to
decide. The main problem I see with this
is that sexism, racism and classism, all lead towards white men assuming power
and those from less privileged groups having a hard time speaking up for
leadership, or being taken seriously if they do. By nominating committee being in a neutral position
outside of the committee they are in a much better position to decide who will
provide good leadership to a committee and don’t have to worry about serving
with someone they just offended by saying they did not think they would be a
good clerk.
And Heaven forbid they have put together a committee that
has no one fit to actually lead it! It
seems to me that failing to figure out the answer to that question in advance
is an abdication of the responsibility for creating healthy functional
committees. If someone says yes to
serving on a committee knowing they have time for only that, not leading it and
gets “drafted” this is a recipe for either resentment or for the committee
barely functioning from neglect. The nominating
committee needs to determine ahead to time if they have tapped that kind of
energy and availability ahead of time.
Next month I will address the issue of what if you don’t
have enough people? Or if no one wants
to serve in a particular position/committee.
