Jim Sefandonakis Offers His Thoughts Following Sunday's Meeting

I attended the meeting last night at the University Park Hotel, where many concerned members of our community gathered to discuss how decisions are being made in our church. Let me repeat that last part, "to discuss how decisions are being made in our church".  This community is not moving forward because our decision making process is broken. It's starting to look like our large community does not like to be told what to do by a small handful of people. This small group may have good intentions and feel strongly that they know what's best for everyone else but it's not evident from where we stand today. We have a board that was not elected by our community that meets and makes decisions that affect our entire group. And this same board wonders why stewardship is down? You will not get cooperation from people unless you involve everyone in the decision making process. Until we repair the way our church makes decisions, we as a group will not move forward but fall further behind.

It is time for our community to elect a board that will represent everyone. Now is time to have a general assembly where as a group, we can decide the best path forward for all. There is wisdom in numbers, a large group can better decide the difficult questions that face us much better than a small group. We can no longer operate under one decider in this community. We are the deciders. When we take these actions we will begin to move forward again.

Some think we should just give up our fight and let this small group run the future of our Church. But at what cost? What will our outcome be if this small group makes the wrong decisions? Even if they make the right decisions will they find support because the decisions were not made by all of us? What will the outcome be? Will stewardship continue to drop because no one cares? How will we pay our bills? Where will the money come from? If it does not come from future stewardship, then it will have to come from the many years of past stewardship. And where is this past stewardship you ask? It sits in the equity of our property, in the buildings we call our Church. Watch and see where this goes. When Denver demands that we pay up our dues and Bishop Isaiah says he will take our priests away if he does not get his money then we will have no choice but to take out loans against our property to pay our debt. You can only take out so many loans against your property before you no longer own it. This property belongs to all of us. And the future of this property is the cost we will have to pay by giving up this fight. I think the fight is just.

If we are not allowed to have a general assembly followed by real elections then what choice do we have but to take legal action to get it?