Atypical Randomness.

Little Isaac has been quite sick the past few days. It turns out that he has atypical pneumonia (caused by a bacteria that doesn't respond to the normal treatment). But he is finally on the right combination of medicines, so there is every sign he will be feeling well enough to make it to his own party Saturday.

Today was a completely unproductive day. At least from outward appearances. I guess I over exerted myself too much yesterday. Anyhow I've been spotting and cramping. So to protect the little one inside of me, I've mostly laid on the couch and let the children run wild. Fortunately, my mother was able to come over and help out this evening.

My house definitely does not look ready for out of town company. Paul's mom and sister will be here Saturday. They are both totally awesome, and they won't be offended by our messy house. But unfortunately, they'll probably feel like they need to help clean.

And speaking of out of town company we'd like to have some kind of a get together this summer (especially since we might not be able to have a New Years Party --though we aren't calling it off yet). Originally, we thought memorial day would be a good time, but a couple of the people we've talked to have conflicts then. So what weekends are good? Are any bad?

If it hadn't been for the cramps and such, I was planning on going to a meeting a church tonight. It was a meeting for the board of ministry. Not to be confused with those who are bored of ministry (which is the joke Paul likes to make). I'm technically not on the board. But Paul is. I don't know if he made it or not (he was going to take off work for an hour to go. And since I don't know what the agenda of the meeting was, I really don't know if I missed anything important or if it was just boring everyday stuff.

It seems that our church is a church ruled by committees. There is a committee for everything. I am on the Evangelism committee. There are also committees for stewardship, missions, Christian education, site-development. Plus there is a board of trustees, board of ministry, official board, and Pastor's cabinet. (I have probably forgotten some). The pastor of the church is member of all the committees (I think). Then our congregation belongs to a conference of churches in the region (we are the Wabash conference) which includes Indiana and parts of Illinois... and West Virginia (If I recall correctly, this is because Ohio didn't want them -- I don't know it seems really strange to me). The conference has a office in Indy and they are presided over by the superintendent (who knows that I am "Paul's wife"). Now I know that there are bishops and deacons. But as far as I can tell there main job is to make sure that the committees don't get out of line. Bishop Joe James, who has oversight of the Central part of the US spoke at our church on Sunday. This was my first encounter with a Free Methodist Bishop. He didn't seem very bishop-like. Maybe because he wasn't wearing a funny hat.

Every year our conference has a big meeting known as "Annual Conference" and they vote on things like how to handle having West Virginia in the conference. I don't really know. It always sounded boring to me. Our church is small so we only send one delegate. We used to be bigger so we still vote on three delegates each year. This way in case the actual delegate can't attend we have a back-up. (For instance, the delegate might run off and leave his wife and four children to go live with another woman --making him no longer qualified). This year there is no danger of that happening (for one thing he doesn't have any kids). Our delegate is someone I highly respect. And our first reserve also. But in case they both get sick, Paul is second reserve. The cool thing about this is that it earns him a position on the Pastor's cabinet. Which he already served on, but that's beside the point. The pastor's cabinet gets to have meetings and talk about stuff that is really interesting and work to solve major problems in the church. They don't actually have any authority, but they are generally listened too by the pastor. And then Paul comes home and isn't allowed to tell me any of the interesting stuff.

So I'm kind of curious how does stuff get done in a Catholic church. I mean I know there is the authority of the bishops to decide things. But what about evangelism, education, stewardship, missions? Who does all that?