We just finished up a really amazing District Assembly. In addition to all of the other “normal stuff” that always goes on at Assembly, such as pastor’s reports, elections to District positions, and approving reports, we elected a new District Superintendent.
The process has always fascinated me: We are given blank paper ballots, then we pray for awhile, and then we each write a single name on that paper. In this case a new twist was added, in that we were given five names of potential nominees by the General Superintendent, but we were not required to write one of those names on the paper. We could write the name of ANY ordained Nazarene elder in the world (except for someone from our own district, due to a motion that was passed).
The first ballot is what they call a “nominating ballot,” which means that all of the names that show up on any single ballot form the pool of names from which each person must choose on the next ballot. If anyone gets zero votes on a subsequent ballot, they are dropped from the voting from that point on. A candidate needs to receive 2/3 of the votes cast to be elected.
After three electoral ballots (an incredibly short process by normal standards), we had elected Dr. Stanley Reeder as our new DS, an announcement which was greeted by a standing ovation. Our General Superintendent, Dr. Middendorf, called him and broke the news. After praying about it with his wife for a couple of hours, he called back to say that he accepted the position. (Another standing O!)
Some people seemed to be a little uncomfortable with our election process – compared to our nice, neat, pre-printed state and national ballots those blank pieces of paper can seem a little intimidating. But the whole idea is that, as Christians, we rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit, not popular opinion, to elect our leaders. Only time will tell how well we heard the Spirit’s leading, but all of the marks are there that this is indeed the man that God want’s in our top district spot. I think there are good things on the horizon for the Oregon Pacific District.