On August 3, the Village SDA Church in Berrien Springs held a business meeting to see if Conrad Vine had done anything to warrant the Michigan Conference’s banning of him last September. Conrad was given an opportunity at this meeting to present his case, and the church voted 119 — 18 to keep him as an elder in good standing, thus restoring his ability to speak in the Village Church pulpit.
The interim Village Church pastor wasn’t a fan of the meeting outcome, but the people spoke, and a church business meeting is the highest authoritative assembly of a local church.
Upon learning of the business meeting outcome, Jim Micheff sent a letter to the General Conference, asking the Church Manual Committee to weigh in on the decision by Michigan Conference to ban Conrad Vine from speaking in any pulpit in Michigan. By extension, they are asking for the GC to give them permission to override a duly called church business meeting who voted to support a duly elected church elder and member in good standing.
This is essentially pitting the church manual against itself, with autocratic conferences using page 126 as a weapon against people who question their decisions. The big question is, does page 126—which some conferences (like Potomac and Michigan, who went after Stephen Bohr and Conrad Vine respectively) are using against people the leaders don’t like—override the autonomy of the local church and the authority of a business meeting? This is a big deal.
If conferences are allowed to use page 126 to invalidate a church business meeting and their right to elect local leaders, this is a fatal blow against local church autonomy, fostering more distrust throughout the worldwide brotherhood.
If heavy-handed conferences are not permitted to interfere in local church business meetings, Michigan administrators end up with even more egg on their face (they already have enough egg to fill a small brooder house on their respective faces).
Michigan has lost over three million dollars in tithe since their banning of Conrad Vine and subsequent firing of Ron Kelly—who stood up for Vine last year.
Bit of advice, Jim. “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
We’ll see how it goes.
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“I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us” (3 John 1:9).