congregational meetings

So today at Santa isabel church instead of having a normal sunday morning worship service, there was a called congregational meeting. It started at 11:30 and didn't end until 2:30. Really, the only order of business was debating and voting on whether or not to call a half-time pastor (the church is currently without a pastor). After 3 hours of arguing, they ultimately decided against it. I think there were several reasons why the motion was voted down. Some people thought the session didn't spend enough time praying, fasting etc in making their decision on who to call. They also thought there should have been more than one potential pastor to choose from. Others didn't think we would benefit from a part-time pastor, and that we wouldn't be paying him enough to keep him invested in the church. And others were simply satisfied with the way things are now, without a pastor; the IEP (the name of the denomination) believes strongly in the "priesthood of all believers" so at Santa Isabel and other churches who don't have pastors, the people who preach and lead worship services are just regular members of the church or occasional guest pastors. They think the church's money would be better spent on something besides a pastor's salary. There was a lot more arguing/intense discussion today than usually happens at congregational meetings at PCUSA churches back at home, which usually don't last more than 30 minutes or so, in my experience. There are a lot more issues of church politics that I could probably discuss later, but right now I need to go to bed.