Chapel of Awareness pastor's letter

"Your current Board members are all free thinkers and none were held hostage or coerced into making decisions they didn't agree with."

Reverend Don Miller, Chapel of Awareness pastor

In such a fractious time in the world, in an era where unity is needed most in the name of "loving kindness" (as the Friends of Chapel have put it) Chapel of Awareness Pastor Don Miller takes an uncalled-for slap to the faces of a good amount of the Chapel of Awareness membership who supported the previous Board prior to (and during) the Friends' lawsuit.

Reverend Miller has opted to turn what was once a positive, inspirational, and unifying annual letter to the congregation by previous pastors into a negative political play designed to ostracize those he and the Friends of Chapel do not agree with. Coercion and "hostage holding" are serious accusations. He has thrown them at current members without qualification or example. This is inappropriate and unbecoming of a pastor -- especially one who admits in his own letter that he has been gone from Chapel for about a third of a year.

Reverend Miller states in the letter that Reverend Nell Rose Smith took over as Pastor in his absence, yet the present church bylaws do not state a procedure for such a handover (the closest that can be found is the calling of a special meeting of the congregation); even if such a handover was done properly by board action, no notice was ever sent out to the congregation.

Before he takes this slap at members and the previous board (representative of the chapel membership as elected), Reverend Miller refers to church founder Reverend Eugene C. Larr's "mundane practices" of teaching. Does he really mean to call the founder's teachings "mundane"? As to say, by definition, "common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative"? From Chapel Guardians' observations, this approach falls in line with the very publishing of the book In the Beginning, material that (by the book's own admission) founder Larr did not want published (a position he was consistent on for years).


Reverend Miller's letter is ironic in that he literally sat on both sides of the fence during the church conflict, serving and voting with some of the very board members he accuses of "hostage holding" while supporting the Friends' lawsuit. This calls his loyalties into question when it comes to a whole congregation, which Chapel of Awareness members assumed would be made whole by the Friends' stated goals upon taking over the church. This letter does not make the congregation whole; it only keeps the wound open. Many argue that it is the Friends of Chapel who fractured the congregation to begin with, and based on the actions (recall: right thought, right action) of the sitting leadership, Chapel Guardian must now agree.


Reverend Miller says the current Friends leadership is working to make sure there are no hostile takeovers of Chapel of Awareness. But there has been one. Theirs ..... From the filing of a lawsuit to the banning of ministers, corporate members and leadership against mediation, to the publishing of a book the founder didn't want to a new leadership that has been consolidated into Friends of Chapel backers.


From the letter, Reverend Miller would have the membership believe that Chapel of Awareness was saved from some underground force bent on taking it over (odd, given that the alleged ringleader was pastor for about two decades). That was not the case, no matter what Friends of Chapel propaganda would have you believe.


Reverend Miller's tone -- his statements in this letter -- is a new unfortunate chapter in Chapel of Awareness history. Is this what Chapel of Awareness has come to? Is this what Reverends Eugene C. Larr and Donald Schwartz would advocate? Is this what you want out of what has often recently been termed "Your Chapel"?

Chapel of Awareness annual meeting and chairman's letter

As Chapel of Awareness enters its annual phase of electing members of the board, Chapel Guardian take note of some points made by Reverend Nell Rose Smith in her letter to the congregation in her capacity as board chair. [Mailed election materials are at the bottom of this post]

As with last year on the heels of the Friends of Chapel take-over of Chapel of Awareness, Reverend Nell states: “nothing is more precious than the generosity of those who make it work through their commitment, time and energy, their ideas and resources” … none of which Reverend Nell provided herself when she and the Friends of Chapel faction disappeared from Chapel of Awareness and then proceeded to sue the church as it struggled.

She thanks the following people whose behavior was questionable over the year: She thanks Reverend Sherry DeLoach as membership director [who has resigned her board position], who sent collection notice-style letters to corporate members warning them of their “termination” if they did not pay their corporate dues. A stick-rather-than-a-carrot approach with shades of the very behavior she and the Friends accused the former board of. Reverend Nell also thanks Terry Hall as the webmaster, who was cited by Yelp and Wikipedia for terms-of-service violations and who proliferated Chapel of Awareness “business” listings across Websites of questionable taste and information.

Finally, in the annual meeting materials provided to the membership this year, the sitting board opted not to provide pre-stamped proxy envelopes to mail back to chapel. The stamping of the return proxy envelopes, for years, was designed to encourage members to return their proxies in the event they could not attend the annual meeting – as a courtesy. The sitting board has apparently chosen to forgo courtesy, and perhaps discourage proxy voting by this quiet, albeit incidental, change of procedure.

"Election day"

re: Election day
Kick Boxaah xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 1:41 PM
To: chapelguardian@gmail.com

Chapel Guardian:

Thanks for posting your info about the election on April 18.

Unfortunately, I can vouch for the accuracy of what you reported based on my experience that day.

I personally have nothing against the Friends of Chapel people and I don't really know a lot of them. But their hisses at me as I walked to the podium to give my 30-second statement were a shabby and immature way to treat a child of chapel. (I first experienced chapel as a child when my mom started there in 1975-76.) Their schoolyard display didn't hurt me, but the intent seemed clear.

I didn't expect to win, but I chose to clap for them when they did, in good faith. I even had a nice conversation with Rev. Nell Rose Smith afterward, and Rev. Don Miller and I had a nice exchange as we all signed in.

But with the overall behavior I witnessed, and now the postings on the Friends blog, I have lost whatever faith I had in this group's good intentions and abilities. I really hope that faith can be restored because ultimately I believe in the goodness of human nature.

(I give Chapel Guardian permission to post this.)

Thanks,
Roman Koenig

Newly empowered, badly behaved

We of Chapel Guardian were ready to congratulate the new pastor and board members this week in light of their successful election on Sunday April 18. But in light of the newly elected pastor’s tactics reported to Guardian on April 18, and now a posting at the Friends of Chapel blog site, it is apparent that such congratulations are not in order yet. We hold out hope that can change sometime soon.

We are saddened, disheartened and disappointed that their tactics continue despite their success. We had honestly hoped that a new era could begin with both sides abiding by mediation and moving Chapel forward. It was even hoped that the purpose of Chapel Guardian would come to an end. This week has shown that this cannot yet be the case.

Rather than empowering harmony for everyone at Chapel of Awareness, they are pouncing on a power play. We believe they have failed the benefit of the doubt already.

Cases in point:

Newly elected pastor Reverend Don Miller is already bulldozing over the new Board of Directors (which happens to include his own allies such as Reverends Nell Rose Smith and Sherry DeLoach), setting agendas that are not appropriate for him to set.

It was reported to Chapel Guardian that to the protest of the third-party election mediator who ran the election on April 18, Reverend Miller proceeded to take the podium and announce the setting of a board meeting and the opening of the chapel, a direct challenge to the new Board of Directors’ functions. This was followed by his Friends of Chapel announcement on their blog that he “announces the immediate re-opening of the Chapel of Awareness Sunday Services”. (http://friendsofchapel.blogspot.com/2010/04/chapel-of-awareness-sunday-services.html)

The former Board voted in a properly convened meeting to close chapel services as the church was under the assault of Friends of chapel. Now it is for the new Board to vote the Chapel open, and to unanimously approve the reactivation of retired Chapel ministers (one of whom happens to be Reverend Miller). So a retired minister who has to be approved as reactivated is setting service dates and Board agendas before the Board even has had a chance to meet. That is not appropriate and does not make sense, in Guardian’s opinion. It is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of cooperation and a “new era”.

It is ironic that the Friends of Chapel who have cried “Point of Order!!” throughout the last six months over the chapel’s Bylaws are now flouting those very Bylaws. This further calls Friends of Chapel motives into question: Friends of Chapel never had intention of following Chapel’s Bylaws themselves. Or they do not understand or know the Bylaws as they claim.

It was also reported that in the course of the April 18 election that Reverends Sherry DeLoach and Nell Rose Smith were sharing a proof of the so-called Spiritualist’s Bible, which claims to be a compilation of Founder Reverend Eugene Larr’s works. (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZVukuKH9FnkZGNnZng1YmpfMTdmd3Y1NXNmNg&hl=en and http://sites.google.com/site/friendsofchapel/)This book has been clearly established as a Friends of Chapel publication, yet they revealed it at the Chapel of Awareness election. Will Chapel itself ever see a cut of this book’s profits when it is released, in support of the church he founded? Doubtful.

It was also reported to Chapel Guardian that certain candidates for office, among them Reverend Ann Lorenzini and advisor candidate Roman Koenig, were noticeably hissed at by Friends of Chapel members as they prepared to make some remarks. Chapel Guardian assume that these hisses were Friends’ attempt to prove their stated mission of “loving kindness”. So be it.

Based on the time and date stamps on their posts April 18 (http://friendsofchapel.blogspot.com/2010/04/special-election_18.html), Friends of Chapel flouted the stated order of the third-party election mediator to turn all cell phones off. Yet Friends of Chapel defied this order as they posted election actions live to their blog in the middle of that election.

Those who care about the state of Chapel of Awareness, as expressed through Chapel Guardian, will continue to call Friends of Chapel on their behavior. They cannot honestly expect that their questionable behavior will go unnoticed or unchallenged by those who desperately seek a balance of some kind, especially knowing what Reverend Larr's philosophy truly represents.