Posted by Dean Calvert
on 5/8/2009, 9:08 pm, in reply to "Re: Metropolitan Jonah's Russian Interview - "It is Time to be Direct""
Dear Al,
Christos Anesti!!!
I have to admit that these membership numbers that are reported, all the way around, are a mystery to me. In business, I'm used to fluctuations of 10-15% between "your definition and mine"...not 10 times. I'm not sure we are talking about anything that makes sense to be honest. Are we talking 1.) pledged members 2.) people who attend 3.) the larger family of people who nominally "attend" a parish, but infrequently?
To be honest, that's why I'll take a series of data generated from a consistent definition (any definition) over time - which is what I did with the GOA. In other words, I'm really not nearly as interested in debating whether the OCA has 1 million members or 100,000 - what I'm more interested in is "How has that number (either one) changed over time?" Of course, that goes back to my quality management days, when some real smart people told me, "Don't sit around arguing about whether the data is perfect...you got six points...you got a chart...now go do something with it." Always thought that was pretty good advice.
With regard to your question about the "local candidates" for bishop, I agree that I had the same reaction - "no local candidates?" I also have to admit that I don't understand why the normal diocesan election process is not being followed. Am obviously staying tuned, and watching though. I'm impressed with most of what I see so far...but "local election of bishops" is, to me, a touchstone. It's the best way I know to keep the riff-raff out of the episcopacy. And God knows we could do without any more riff raff "Your Graces"!
Best Regards,
Dean
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