Each year as a Licensed Local Pastor I have to have my license renewed. Part of that process is to come before the ‘District Committee on Ministry’ or DCOM. I recall my first DCOM, where I was hoping to be licensed for the first time. I was terrified. I had no idea what to expect. Was this to be a tribunal? Some form of examination like a PhD candidate goes through?

My friend said, “maybe you should read that before you go before them.”

I recall asking a friend who was a retired minister what I should do to prepare. He said “how are you on the Book of Discipline?” The ‘BoD’ is the book that the United Methodist church uses as its polity manual. Think of it as a Constitution and a book of laws all rolled into one. It sets forth what we believe, our organizational structure, the layers of office, even how to operate the local church. It is a book of rules and contains a lot of them. My copy of the 2016 BoD is 818 pages. My friend said, “maybe you should read that before you go before them.”

Years ago, I began a different journey, one that also had a big book of rules. That book was called ‘The Pilot’s Manual, Ground School.’ Like the BoD, it was filled with facts figures, lists of authorities, and how-to’s. The journey was also about a license of sorts, a license to fly an airplane. You aren’t actually given a license by the FAA, you earn a certificate. My instructor gave me an abbreviated version of the Pilot’s Manual, a student copy. Maybe he did not want me to run away screaming when I saw the size of the real thing. We would spend the next six months, every weekend, going through that manual, section by section. The goal was similar. I would take a written exam and an oral exam (along with an actual flight exam) and if I could prove I had learned enough, I would get my ‘license.’

Learning to fly, has at its roots not the pleasure of flying but how to operate an aircraft safely to get you from one place to the next.

That training, learning to fly, has at its roots not the pleasure of flying but how to operate an aircraft safely to get you from one place to the next. Every bit of information in that training was designed to make me a safe pilot. The flying skill was something to be learned, the rules and knowledge in that book was critical to my staying alive. I took it very seriously.

So, when my friend said “How are you on the BoD?” I applied myself exactly as I did when learning to fly. My reasoning was “if it was important enough to put it in the BoD then it was important enough that I should learn it.” And so over the next month (my DCOM was a month away) I spent countless hours reading and studying the BoD. I read about the founding of Methodism, about our core beliefs. I read about the structures of governance, about leadership, I knew what it took to become and Elder, a Deacon, basically every position. I read and studied about management at the global, conference and local levels. I studied it all, cramming like in college, the night before an exam.

Pilots understand a lot of things can go wrong. They know they are sitting in a complex mechanical thing where they will be alone, responsible for their own and their passengers’ lives. They know that other planes will be around them, that weather is fickle, that engines can present problems. They gain the deep knowledge and they learn to be prepared. They practice over and over again how to handle things when they go wrong. Every two years they have to prove they have retained that knowledge in front of a flight examiner. Knowledge is the difference between staying alive and falling to earth.

“God, if this is what you want for me, I accept.”

It was this background and the warning from my friend that caused me to burn the midnight oil on the BoD before I went before the DCOM for my ‘flight exam.’ As always for things like this I arrived way too early. The meetings, there were a string of LLP’s having their reviews were being held at a church in meeting rooms down the hall. When I arrived I was told I could have a seat and wait. I instead went to the sanctuary and decided to spend a little time in prayer. My prayer was simple, “God, if this is what you want for me, I accept.” That’s pretty much it. I repeated it several times and then waited in silence.

The church secretary came to get me and I was greeted by a familiar and friendly face, David, another LLP who what chair of the DCOM. He loved to joke and with all seriousness (which was hard for him to do) he said ‘THEY are ready for you…” I knew his ominous voicing was meant to be a joke and it worked a little.

I recalled my flight exam decades before, the part where I actually got in the plane and flew not with my instructor but with a flight examiner, in this case Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Deeds. My instructor had keyed me up in much the same way. ‘Colonel Deeds used to fly for the Luftwaffe, a real stickler.’ When ‘the Colonel’ got out of his own plane, he flew in for the flight exam, he had a broad smile and not a hint of a German accent. A glance back at my instructor told me everything I needed to know.

We went into the meeting, there were eight people there. Some of them Elders (ministers), some LLP’s (also ministers), and two Laity. The meeting started with a prayer. From their we went on through a series of questions, some of these I had written answer for that I had submitted earlier. Some of the dialog was around a sermon I had submitted to them. At one point they came back and asked me about my response to a written question about ‘why Methodist?’ As a part of my answer I had said I had admired the structure, the organized way that the denomination was managed in particular I said that having the BoD was a great resource, like ‘The Pilots Manual’ was to a pilot. I reiterated that response again and they all looked at each other, somewhat confused by my answer.

“Have you read the Book of Discipline? All of it?”

One of the Elders asked me “Rick, have you read the Book of Discipline?” to which I replied “Yes, all of it.” There was a kind of stunned silence. Someone said, “All of it? Why?” I was a little confused at this point. I mean I was supposed to be prepared to be a minister and so I should know about all the structures and rules, as if my life depended on it, just like flying. My friend had encouraged me to study it after all and he was a seasoned minister. He had recently retied after decades of service. Of course I would read and study it.

So, I answered the “Why?” question, “Because I was told it was important to do.” Again the committee was strangely silent. “Who told you to read it, all of it?” I mentioned my friends name and the look in the room changed from confusion to smiles and laughter. “He was joking Rick.” was all I heard. Colonel Deeds, the German pilot was a patient, talented, warm, and friendly person. We took off together, he slowly walked me through all the things he wanted me to do and after we landed, he simply said, “Congratulations Pilot.”

During the DCOM meeting, I had prepared as I have done all my life. I had applied myself as I had learned to fly, as if my life depended on it. The DCOM group admitted that no one, no other LLP candidate had ever read the entire BoD and in fact most of them hadn’t either. That has stuck with me over the short years since that meeting. I have used that knowledge gained in studying the BoD to shore up a faltering church. I applied the principals within that book on organization and structure to navigate the denominational landscape through our challenges. I also came to realize that the BoD, like the Pilots Manual, lags behind the real-world. We Methodists are stuck in the middle of that redefinition around accepting the faithfulness of our brothers ans sisters on Christ that are LGBTQ.

“my basic studies as a pilot saved my life, more than once”

Perhaps we need to all revisit our basic understandings, our rules of flying if you will. I know that my basic studies as a pilot saved my life, more than once. I also know that getting our fundamentals as LLP’s requires us to have basic knowledge as well. Perhaps one day I wont be the only one who read the BoD, the whole thing, maybe just the first.