[Having the priest cancel the service...] Would that be a conflict of interest for church staff?
Why would that be? Unless you also decide that God is in conflict of interest for calling a snow storm!
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[Having the priest cancel the service...] Would that be a conflict of interest for church staff?
If the minister is not a member of the committee that decides to cancel, then they are not in a position to be accused of that.
OTOH, if the minister is one of the ones at risk due to the inclement weather (e.g. many of the local UU fellowship's interim ministers, and the current contract minister, have commuted from places like Waterloo), then I think they legitimately have to have a say in what happens
Yes, but the minister should have the right to declare that they cannot safely get to the church (as an independent decision from cancelling the service.) If the minister lives far away, and cannot commute to the church that day, then they should be able to inform ministry and personnel that they cannot get safely to the church. Then the cancelling committee can decide if they will go ahead with worship without minister, or whether roads are unsafe for all, and best to cancel service.
But a full-time, settled minister generally has responsibility for the pulpit with the worship committee as support and should, I would argue, be part of the decision.
So, mgagnonlv, I'm going to answer your question seriously.
Suppose that there is a committee of 3 who decide if the service will be cancelled, and one is the minister of that church. So now it's Saturday night, and it's snowing, and 40 cm of snow is forecast. Sunday morning comes, and there's 45 cm of snow, and the plows are only just going out.The trio text each other, and cancel the service and get the message out.
Next week on Sunday morning, after the service, people are having coffee hour. The congregation heckler (and let's face it: every church has at least one) says "Of course Rev ___________ voted to cancel last week's service. He/she probably didn't have anything prepared!" (Rolling eyes)
So this is what I mean by a conflict of interest. ...
It was one of the highlights of our trip to BC and our visitwith Tabitha.We actually close our church for reasons other than weather. We shut and rented a bus for sunday worship in nearby city when General Council was there, we shut and joined an outside service with Gary Patterson (and mr and mrs Seeler), we shut for Presbytery and Conference services. As well we participate with other mainline congregations and have joint services 2 or 3 times a year.
We announce it several weeks in advance in our bulletin-hard copy available at church plus e-mail.
We post it on website and facebook and we put a sign on the door.
I hesitate to jump in here since I'm not a regular parishioner anywhere, but I think I might find it helpful if the bad weather policy was announced early in the winter season and reinforced everywhere weekly.