Business meetings...vote yes or vote no

Just my personal opinion, Rosa - Depends on your particular personality, if you will. A negative vote in the minority sometimes brings with it some heat (snide remarks) about your feeling differently on a matter.

My personal persona requires that I voice my opinion, regardless of how persons voting differently react. Please don't take that statement as meaning I have no tact however.

I perceive it bothers you that you are often mum in these situations. Voice your vote sometime when you disagree and see how you feel afterward. If that just doesn't work out for you, just plan to attend another church's services on those evenings and pray for those who seem to continously find reasons not to have a church service!

A friend - Jim

 

I know what you mean. I am often the only dissenter in the congregation too. Often silently, but sometimes I voice my NAY.

 

I have voted no several times, and even insisted on a recount once as it appeared to be too close to just look at the hands and tell for sure. Of course the yes vote won. Been too many years to remember what it was.
If it's important to you then vote no. Not voteing is actually a yes vote, as then there was no oppisition to those voting yes.

 

We move our Wednesday night service before Thanksgiving to Tuesday night.

We always have a Christmas Eve service.

As to voting, it appears that most things have been decided before they are brought up for a vote. When a project or subject is controversial, we have written ballots so that people may vote more freely.

Perhaps you could suggest the written ballots on such matters.

In my opinion, not voting is the same as agreeing, but it is very difficult to go against the majority.

 

I agree. And in such cases, I wonder why a vote is even called. To call a vote on a decided matter (like not having a service on a particular day may be a pre-decided matter) is just a sham, and I don't think it should be encouraged.

That said, it's essential to vote no on business you disapprove of. Silent dissent means very little. I'm not saying you have to make a big production over it, but you should at least voice it, and if your church is open to it, express why you voted apart from the group.

Even if your "no" doesn't change the outcome of the vote, it lets the people know that at least one person isn't satisfied. Very important, dissent.

The whole voting thing has come to bother me, but that's another thread.

[ November 14, 2002, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: stubbornkelly ]

 

In our baptistic understanding, it is Gods business we are discussing and we beleive we are met to discern the mind of Christ.
That has a number of implications and will trouble you with just some:

1) The meeting is couched in prayer, both before the meeting and also during the meeting. This ought to have a bearing on our attitude to each other.

2) As we come to discern the mind of Christ, we should all be open to the prospect that the Lord may reveal things through others, but if it is the Lord speaking through us we need to be prepared to share what we are feeling in order that we might together see the wider picture He is presenting.

3) We ALL need to be open to the possibility that the Lords mind was not what we thought the decision might be before we prayerfully came together.

4) Having "discerned the mind of Christ" as we had sought to, we all should accept collective responsibility for the discernment and prayerfully apply the decision.

yours, Jon.

 

Consensus in a nutshell. Thanks, Jon.

Would that more Baptist churches used this approach. I've never been part of one that did.

 

I have found sometimes that voting "NO" to an idea popular to the preacher often gets one in trouble. There are many vendictive, sorry excuses for preachers out there who don't like anything but yes men or women. I recommend if anyone is a dissenter from the majority to expect some flack. Pastors know how to stir up trouble just as well as regular church members. If it sounds sort of negative, sorry. But, I've had it happen too many times. I speak from personal experience.

AJL

 

I hate business meetings. Usually on major things, (which that is all we vote on anymore), we have a discussion meeting, then another day we vote without discussion.

As far as cancelling services, the pastor has that authority with consultation with the deacons.

 

rosa,tuff spot huh? God will have his remnant-the ones who just won't quit,the ones who love him more than holidays etc...
thanx for being one of those......bill

 

Bro.billrighter! I appreciate your little post...it speaks volumes!

 

The baptist church often operates under democracy and the majority-rule, but the efficiency of those philosophies stalls when two sides of an issue do not voice their opinion.

I encourage you to vote "no" and politely and kindly state your argument. If anything, its food for thought. We lose our Christlikeness when we get upset with another Christian for disagreeing with our own views on disputable matters.

 

Sis.Rosa~When churches where we were members, decided to close down services "because of the holiday"-we, as a family, always went anyway. I think you may find the following article very interesting...my,my, how things have changed!

"Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

--William Bradford
Ye Governor of Ye Colony

 

We move the normal Wednesday night service to Tuesday on occasion.

I understand you wanting to spend Jesus' birthday in His house. However, there is nothing in the Bible that says anything about mid-week services being on a specific day. Actually I don't remember mid-week services being specifically addressed at all in the Bible.

[ November 21, 2002, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: WisdomSeeker ]

 

You vote what your heart tells you to vote! God knows your heart, so don't let the politics and leaglism bind you.
I have voted no on 2 occasions in 3 years. OF COURSE they did pass, but as someone mentioned above we had a vote that did not go the way the Elders wanted it to go but when they "recounted" them it did. That is on them not me or any of the others that voted no. Now they are regreting their decision in many ways. Our church is dying and there seems to be no stopping it!
Hang in there and pray for dicernment and HE will show you!
Love in Christ Angie