Is the Presiding Elder's office absolutely necessary in light of today's improved communications and means of travel? Perhaps we should consider eliminating the office and consolidating the PE functions in the Bishop's and Pastor's offices. If the office is essential, what about a rotating Presiding Elder/Pastor office where one pastor of six churches would serve as presiding elder for those churches for a one or two year period? The office would rotate among the pastor's of the churches. Surely if we assign one pastor to a membership of 1000, the pastor of a 30-member church can also perform the duties of presiding elder.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 1998

Answers

I THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA, THIS WOULD SAVE MONEY FOR THE LOCAL CHURCH. I DON'T AGREE WITH THE ROTATING PE'S.

-- Anonymous, October 21, 1998

The office of Presiding Elder in my district has been a joke! There is no age limit or evaluation of their abilities to handle the districts assigned thus causing the entire area to become stagnant! Please do not take this as a chance to say they should be "put out to pasture." However if they are unable to handle the job physically and must depend on younger ministers to do their jobs, then what messages is being conveyed? I say rewrite the disciple and add a retirement age for "active" duty for not just P.E,'s but Pastors as well. AME"ism" MUST continue to move forward because a new millenium is quickly approaching and we can't afford to continue to lose our members to the new "non-denomination" movement because of emotions.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 1999

The office should be eliminated where it is not needed and retained in those cases where ot is effective and needed. If we streamline our financial reporting the office becomes more unnecessary. It should not be done in a spirit of meaness however. WE have aretirement system--we just need to enforce it. God Bless

-- Anonymous, January 20, 1999

NO, we don't need Presiding Elders. The bureaucracy in this church is one of the main reasons for its shrinking membership!

-- Anonymous, May 16, 1999

Mr. Fortney's comments succinctly express my feelings on this issue. The Presiding Elder is an office which has clearly out-lived its usefulness today.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 1999

My Presiding Elder is doing a find job. Sometimes you need a buffer between the Pastor of your church and the Bishop. If your not pleased with your Presiding Elder,I recommend that you pray for him until something happen. God loves you, but don't mess with His annointed.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999

Our Presiding Elder in the 6th Episcopal District (SW GA Central District) Elder Tatmon is doing an excellent job. He is the liason between the Pastors and the Bishop. It would put too much stress on the Pastors that are sincerely pastoring. My pastor is a busy pastor. He is a people person, especially with the elderly and the children. I can't imagine anyone wanting to "fix" something that is not "broken". I would be against it. I respect and admire my Pastor and my Presiding Elder. They both are doing an excellent job!

-- Anonymous, December 29, 1999

I strongly feel the office of presiding elder should be retained, but rewritten with a job description like that of a middle manager in a corporation. we have two excellent presiding elders in the washington conference the rev goodwin douglas and george manning. they are prime examples of how the office of presiding elder should function. they provide leadership counseling and motivation and inspiration as well as creative programming and planning for their respective districts. they are models for the 21st century for ministry in the ame church.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

I feel that the P.E. position is needed, however, the position description should be revised. Too many of the elders are praising the pastors on one hand, and bashing them on another. Too few pastors and elders are living the life that they preach about, and we wonder why the membership is decreasing. Stop focusing on money, and focus on telling someone about the goodness of Jesus.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2000

I can't see how a bishop all of the churches in a district without another level of orginzation under him to help handle some of the issues that the PE SHOULD be taking care of. I know that there are some PE districts in the connection that only have 7 or so churches, but there are others that have 25 or 30. I don't think it is an issue of an ineffective position but ineffective people in the position in some cases.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2000

I guess the question is: "Is there a better wy?" If so, what is it? If we use Electronic Transfer of Funds to send our Assessments directly to the Bishop or maybe to the Church Treasurer, about 75% of the PE's work is done.

-- Anonymous, February 21, 2000