Perhaps I should wait and try to
understand this better but I’m not going to. I’m going to spit it
out.
In the place where I am one of
the ministers all sorts of wonderful things are happening. It is
wonderful to just go along for the ride. I feel like I’m surrounded by
people touched by God (Well I guess that is the way
always!).
Anyway, one of the things that
is happening is that we are finding whole new ways of helping little village
worship groups become places of real hope, and life, and
faith.
One of the components of this is
that we have tried to help these groups with the “admin” that is the painful
part of the church these days.
So, (and it happens to be my
uncle who is doing this) one of the members of a larger centre is being the
treasurer for a small worship group. They don’t have the skills for
all that sort of stuff and we didn’t want them to be leg roped by
administration.
Recently we purchased (actually
the presbytery purchased) MYOB. It was my uncle’s hope that he could
do all the treasurer tasks he is doing on MYOB. BUT MYOB has this
thing where you have to register, not just the software as a single user,
but the company (or in our case the congregation). That means that for
our 6 member congregations they would have to pay $500 each (actually $800
when you include the proprietary church stuff).
Now, I don’t like complaining
about the “synod office vs out there in the world” divide because it is all
too often just avoiding responsibility on the person doing the crowing, but
I cannot understand why we have gone head first into an arrangement with
MYOB that is clearly inaccessible to the vast majority of congregations out
there who might want to use it.
Let me put it plainly, I’m
crapped off. There are enough obstacles out there for the church … why
do we have to face one more? The synod screams for the lack of money
but the BFP just forces places that don’t have money either to go and spend
a $1,000 (if you add training) on to the rest of the cash strapped
church.
Where is the imagination?
Where is the consultation? Where is the thinking for out there in the
real world of congregational life?
Tom
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.milman.uniting.com.au
Ph: 6862 5502 Mobile: 0427 625
502
14 Bushman St
Parkes NSW 2870
'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the
comfortable'.
I prefer to die living than to live
dying!
"War is a poor chisel with which to carve out the
future." - Martin Luther King, Jr
"There is one rule for the industrialist and that
is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible,
paying the highest wages possible." Henry Ford
