District Presidents: Here is Why People Are Turning to the Interested Laymen Survey to Give Input – Lines at the Microphones in Northern Minnesota and Hardly a Positive Comment, by Pr. Rossow

Here is a comment posted Saturday afternoon by Steve Bohler on  the story about the Minnesota North District Convention and the Blue Ribbon proposals.

One thing that was very encouraging to me was that at the Minnesota North convention, when we got to the discussion period there were long lines at the microphones. And, as I recall, every speaker except one was displeased with various aspects of these proposals. The voting delegate changes, the circuit changes, the district changes, the certification changes (here was the one who was in favor — and he was a new seminary grad!), name changes, and so on. If the task force were honestly seeking input, they would have to come away thinking that their ideas were resoundingly rejected. But that may be too much to ask…

Several District Presidents have asked people to not make use of the very public and transparent survey put out by some Interested Laymen. President Benke even told the interested laymen to “cease and desist” from making their survey public. This comment from Minnesota North makes it clear why people want such a venue to voice their opinion. The Blue Ribbon Task Force has been taking comments since January and it appears as though they sink into a black hole. They have taken surveys at four district conventions and have yet to publish any results and they have been taking comments on their website and have not made any of them public.

The comments from Minnesota North are quite typical. The Interested Laymen survey has had nearly 400 respondents already and  the proposals have up to 10 strongly disagree votes for every 1 strongly agree vote. There is a lot of sentiment against these proposals. When will President Kieschnick,  the Blue Ribbon Task Force and the Council of Presidents acknowledge this? It is no wonder they are not publishing the results of thier surveys or making the comments public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.