AGM - Annual General Meeting
(particularly church agm)
Recently I was at a church service with a friend. My friend and I have attended fairly often and have both enjoyed connecting and participating in some ways, but being nowhere near as involved as we were in our previous church.
It was a Sunday morning in a lull between COVID waves. Public health orders allowed up to 50% capacity (not a problem for the church at all) and there was a COVID plan in place. The services during COVID were shorter, more sparsely attended, and there was none of the foyer banter that existed in non-COVID times. In other words, things were more than a bit unusual compared to church services of the past. The most unusual thing of all, for me, was not about COVID, but rather about the post-service AGM.
As the service drew to a close and the announcement was made that the AGM would follow immediately, Kim and I looked at each other and asked (without words) if we were going to stay for the AGM. Our faces both clearly displayed the same response, “Nope”.
As we took off our masks upon leaving the building, I commented to Kim that this was the first time I had skipped a church AGM since I was a teenager. It felt so good. Isn’t it amazing to consider the kinds of things that can feel like liberation?
Right now, from January through March, is when a whole lot of evangelical churches have their annual general meeting. This is, as directly noted in some churches, a “business meeting”. Major decisions might be made at the AGM. There are often reports given. Various roles are determined. Some churches nominate and/or appoint leaders during an AGM. There might votes on building matters, programming and staffing matters.
Depending on the denomination and leadership of the church, the AGM takes on a particular kind of feel. Most of my church life was spent within a church that had a Plymouth Brethren background (don’t google it, it might be upsetting to you). One key thing about the Plymouth Brethren is that they traditionally did not have pastors. They also did not have an actual denomination or organization that had oversight for the individual churches (called “assemblies” in Plymouth Brethren tradition). Another interesting note is that such churches did not have membership for the people in the congregation. This meant that the only legal members of the society (the church) were the “ruling elders” (don’t you LOVE that term?). So, in that context, AGM’s were not the legally required meeting. AGM’s at Plymouth Brethren churches were more like reporting updates. People in the church who attended could express their opinion, but there would be no official voting.
When I was a young pastor, the senior pastor with whom I worked (the church had moved away from no clergy idea to hiring pastors) referred to the AGM as the “Annual Genital Beating”. This was about as edgy as he would get, but it made sense that he would use such a term in regards to the AGM.
I remember that those meetings would be dominated by older men who had apparently been waiting to take their shots at the leadership and often particularly at the pastor. The senior pastor was a capable, loving, thoughtful and humble person, but that did not earn him any immunity at the AGM. These old men would stand up and say things like “We need to hear the gospel more” or “When I was on the board …”. There were positive things said at the meetings as well, but the pervading sense after the meeting ended was usually emotional darkness and mental exhaustion.
When I worked at a Presbyterian Church the AGMs were decidedly different than in the Plymouth Brethren context. I learned that Presbyterians love committees and rules of order. The AGM was more of a season at the Presbyterian Church than it was a single gathering. There was a budget committee, a music and worship committee, a youth committee, a missions and evangelism committee. There was the Session (the elders), and in any given year there might be a building committee, a personnel committee, etc. etc. I sometimes thought that there should be a committee committee, a group of people who could to keep track of all the committees. Only the most capable people would be on the Committee Committee.
The AGM had clear rules, procedures, and prepared motions on which the members of the church would vote. In my experience these AGMs were decidedly less depressing than the ones at the Plymouth Brethren church, but it did seem as if whoever had planned them had set a particular goal. “We want to make sure that any element that might feel personal or warm or human is removed. This is no place for that. This is about church business.”
If you have attended a church AGM or read church annual report documents you may be familiar with the following;
“This has been a year of transition…”
This might mean that it has been a year of transition, or it might mean that things are in fairly consistent decline, or it might mean that there has been a leadership issue.“We are excited about …” (could be kids ministry or new kitchen appliance or new staff member hired for 5 hours a week to oversee youth and worship and communications, or maybe just “the future”)
This might mean that there is excitement. It might also mean that there is no excitement, but that the person presenting the report wishes there was. It might also be a way of trying to make something that is very much unexciting sound exciting.“Point of Order”
That’s from Presbyterian AGMs. Language around motions and procedures, who has “the floor” was helpful for order and organization, but not really for feeling any sense of being a living human being.
Very many things might happen at an AGM. I’ll tell you more about it sometime, but it was an AGM that was the catalyst to my leaving the church at which I worked for 25 years. There had been some simmering difficulties at the church before the AGM, and there was no doubt that the “ruling elders” had not really prepared for the meeting, Aside from that, I actually did not think that it went terribly. I was not given a place by the elders to speak at the meeting which was okay with me. The AGM consisted basically of the chair of the elders speaking for 20 minutes or so and then fielding questions. After the meeting, the wife of an elder called and yelled at me for half an hour or so. Later in the day I received a text message from the husband of one of the elders that was full of accusation and threat. This man had not attended the meeting, but he was super upset. Things went downhill from there. (Side note; I actually quite liked most of the elders, and still do. We got along well for years until this particular season of conflict). The AGM took place in January of 2019. In July of 2019 myself and the other pastoral staff and the entire management team from the church left the church. There is quite a lot to the story that took place between January and July. For now, suffice it to say that it was not the AGM that caused the rupture and the conflict, but the AGM most certainly exacerbated it.
I don’t mean to upset you. You might have a church AGM to attend sometime soon. I’ll just say for now in my somewhat jaded, trauma tinged memory, “The Lord be with you.” Who knows? Maybe it will be great.
I have this imaginative game I play sometimes. I try to picture Jesus in various settings. Like Jesus at a hockey game in the crowd, or Jesus driving in a traffic jam, or Jesus at a church AGM. What would that be like?
I think that AGM Jesus might say, with honesty and also a bit of a shot at how seriously we take ourselves,
“I’m really excited about the future!”
I also like to imagine Jesus in various settings and try to see how a 2022 Jesus might respond. Sometimes I am amused and other times I just shake my head, shrug my shoulders, give a big sigh, and move on - the way I imagine he would!
The AGM Jesus is the best!!!