WormTape #3

Jan: “Dr. Wormtape has arrived on Skype. Dr. Temple, he wants to speak to us.”

Dr. Temple: “What’s the topic for today’s instruction? I forget.”

Jan: “Special Pleading 101. I’m putting him through now.”

WormTape: “OK, my little monsters, today’s briefing is to prepare you for your presentation to the annual shareholders’ meeting. Each of you will do well to plead that your ministry is unique and that it requires special circumstances, considerations, expertise, and personnel. This suspension of norms is part of the necessity and joy of Special Pleading.”

The Situation: “Like, is that when we plead for money? Is that what you mean? We already receive millions that are given year after year, and most folks have no ideas where those dollars go. Should we use more LIA (Line Item Ambiguity) to disguise where these go? Why plead for more?”

WormTape: “No, Guido, Special Pleading is what a leader does when faced with any budgetary questioning from shareholders in which he asserts that his department or committee should be excused from regular financial rules. One historian once said: ‘If you can suspend the rules (claim a crisis if need be to accomplish that), anything can happen.’”

Secre Terry: “Oh, as in the earlier rule: you can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant, except for Alice? That earlier principle was that if a department head claimed that this was ‘ministry,’ then all other norms are cast to the wind. I think this is where we quote Aquinas as saying, ‘Define it as ministry and do as you will.’”

WormTape: “Or more specifically, plead the case with an emotional story or two—be sure to use a name, show a slide of an aging widow (or 3 children with mud-smeared mouths, looking Dickensian pitiful), and argue: we can’t desert these people, they are counting on our committee to aid them. The Spirit has called us to do this, and shame on anyone who will not empty his pockets or give more to our ‘sharings’ to help the central committee hire several more staffers, take out ads (like the US Census Bureau), and make a video for more ‘sharings.’”

Dim Wit: “But won’t shareholders look at our budgets?”

Coordinator: “Haven’t in years; why would they start now? Especially if we present them under a mound of paperwork, and razzle-dazzle the meeting with our afternoon, mind-numbing infomercial. Then just run the trains.”

WormTape: “Take a case in point. As long as no one scrutinizes individual items or budgets, it will remain unknown how much operating loss it takes to run By Sight magazine. If our folks keep saying, “but it won an award, won an award, won an award. It was the best publication ever, even though hardly anyone will actually pay for a subscription, we can easily get a $300,000 line item to use for an editor (and add two part time staffers for our own office) and collect ad money on the side. All that will help us fund other initiatives (that we won’t really run by the shareholders) as well as allow us to publish articles that are directly contrary to what the shareholders’ meeting has just resolved. In that case, all we claim is that ‘there is much debate, therefore we will continue the debate (even though rejected by the last two shareholders’ meetings)’, and we’ll invite mainly advocates of our view, with a token or two as long as he doesn’t toe a hard line. Plead that the culture is changing, this issue is like Slavery, and this is so special that we must overlook our rational standards. This is the joy of Special Pleading.”

Coordinator: “Or take our committee. We found that for years, even though every program or conference—except one—lost money, heh, heh, we’d just keep doing ‘em. It gave our staff and sub-staffs something to do. They could report that they were busier than ever, continue to sow progressivism, and no one’s noticed. Of course, one of the reasons is that the large LIC (Ladies in the City) Conference draws tons—man, do those girls love a pampered break in a nice cultured hotel—and then we use that profit to cover our losses in other sectors. But no one looks.”

WormTape: “If, however, anyone does raise a question, that’s when you reflexively . . . Special Plead. Fire back, ‘why are you so opposed to ladies meeting for fellowship? Do you want to keep them barefoot and pregnant? What’s wrong with them gathering for crafts and decorating tips? How chauvinistic.’ But don’t stop there.”

Head Guy: “Let me see if I have it: From there, then say, ‘times are rough, and our cuties need all the free time away from a stove that they can get. This is MINISTRY. In fact, this is a gospel issue. It is a matter of community and the sharing of equals. If you cannot sense the joy (look at the hugs and smiles in the video), the church is a family; and we must provide free ‘escape vacations,’ tied to nice meeting places, uh, in the city, near the art museum. Don’t mention the shopping, the squealing of joyful voices over the happy hour, etc. Right?”

WormTape: “That’s a good Special plead. Use ‘ministry,’ ‘community,’ ‘life-coaching,’ ‘relational,’ and overlay all with ‘gospel’ and ‘grace’ as much as possible, and you should receive as much funding as last year; maybe more. And no budget cuts should ever touch staff or cherished initiatives.”

Secre Terry: “Like the Sitting Judicial Commission. Has anyone noticed how much that costs and how that charge is added as an expense for the shareholders’ meeting? Didn’t, in days gone by, the supine commission have no budget?”

WormTape: “Shut it. We wouldn’t want, particularly in a time of economic austerity, anyone to think that that an entire budget could be reduced to zero, with shareholders hearing cases at the meeting. Moreover, we would lose both the expertise of those who have sat on this body for years and risk the chance that others, in a random pool, might view things independently. Charlie, how do you special plead that one?”

Charlie: “Lemme try: how’s this. ‘The shareholders elect members who are best suited for this task. The same would be true for all committees. Then, you should sit back and not interfere with their work. After a while, these experts know the Law and the Prophets better than any regular ol’ group of pastors and elders possibly could. This is ministry, and there is no price too great to pay. We cannot judge real gospel ministry by the numbers. How shortsighted is that. It is a weightier matter of Justice—and Lord knows we all want that—which is being meted out. Therefore, please pitch in tens of thousands of dollars for these expenses, rather than divert such to Haiti, New City Development grants, or study materials in India.’”

WormTape: “Nice job; much improvement. But especially guard the larger sectors. We could not lobby other votes if we had to do without the “vision trip” junkets or the new programs to gather “key leaders” at the golf resort in Arizona in January, or expenses to fund travel to exotic resorts, while calling those Area Conferences.”

Coordinator: “So, one of the things we want to do is keep spending. We don’t want budget shrinkage. Others may cut back, but not us. After all, it is the church’s obligation to give all ‘sharings.’ Programs, especially ‘gospel-graced, community-engaged, relational-propelled MINISTRY’ should never be cut nor fall under any normal economic principles. Even if we have to run up debt to fund our ministry care reform, we’ll get away with that. Who’s gonna read budgets when they can go to Disney!?!”

Jane Lennon: “Imagine. Imagine all the budgets. Imagine if each committee contributed 50% of its income to an evangelism fund and would live on the rest of the millions? They could probably still do what they really needed to do, if all they sought was to service; and then we might do some gospelling! Just imagine. Instead of paying for bureaucracies, we could put money into fields ripe with harvest or actually start churches.”

WormTape: “Well, it looks like this meeting is heading south, plus I have another Consulting call scheduled. More advice to give later. Do your special pleading, make it sentimental, and don’t allow any of your staff or programs to be victims, and we’ll meet in Davos to celebrate at mid-year. Just get through the shareholders’ meeting.”

Jan: “Or follow the money. First, see if you can find it. Then would it not be good to ask a basic question: If this were my own retirement money, would I allocate it for this as an investment? If we review the expenditures according to normal spending principles, major change might be in the air.”

Coordinator: “Oh, Jan, Don’t be afraid of change. Don’t react in fear or ask too many questions. Why apply the hermeneutic of suspicion? Please have open mind about this.”

Jan: “Right; and was it P. J. O’Rourke or N. T. O’Wrong who said that ‘an open mind is like an open window—it lets all the flies in.’”

Next week: the Grand Plan presented to the administrators.
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WormTape is a satirist and a member of the Presbyterian Church in America.