It’s that time of year again. Earnest hobbyists across the denomination have their highlighters and conference journals mapping the annual migration of the United Methodist Elder. Ahh, the sweet smell of spring, U-hauls, and the itinerancy.
After three years of watching this annual migration, I’ve decided it’s a good idea to announce the appointments as soon as they are set. With a quick Google search, I’ve found several conferences who are doing this very thing: Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. I’m sure there are several others, but I didn’t take the time to look them up.
Even though I’m curious about the reasons these conferences made the move to public announcements prior to Annual Conference, I still think this is a good idea.
This kind of openness in the process can’t help but limit some of the speculation that goes on. It also seems that lay people might want to have access to this information in order to keep track of clergy who’ve served their congregation or even those who answered the call from within their congregation. Finally, most of this stuff ends up making the rounds anyway. It seems that making it public as soon as it’s announced to the churches is just the next logical step.
Any potential problems with doing this?
mattjudkins.com 
I see no problem with posting the appointments once the local churches have heard the announcements as long as it is understood that there can be circumstances where the information might change. The speculation is rarely helpful.
I agree it’s not much of a big deal to make the postings with that “things might change” caveat. The person who was slated to follow me now isn’t — so there would definitely need to be someone in charge of updating.
Brett, can anyone really follow you? Actually, I hadn’t heard you were moving. Too bad we don’t post these things. Aha! Point proven…or not.