The Dreaded Meeting

I just finished my church's Charge Conference, the United Methodist annual meeting in which all the "important" nuts and bolts of the church is done. What is potentially wrapped up in the meeting is pastor's salary, updating of membership records, and electing people to committees. Now not all churches do this the same way, but what I have noticed is that the committees that we worry about electing people to are the finance, trustees, personal, and the nominating committee. What happens at the charge conference is largely about sustaining the church. What seems to get left out is the ministry.
I should probably place a disclaimer in here: I love committees and meetings. Perhaps there is a masochistic streak in me that has not been fully diagnosed yet, but I love meetings. What I love though is the exchange of ideas and the push for something new.
So what I am pondering is whether charge conference is a "necessary evil" or an under-utilized resource. I call it a "necessary evil" because I do believe that there is a certain amount of nuts and bolts business that must take place for a typical church to function, but at the same time, it is not the most exciting thing in the world. We end up gathering people in the church together for a meeting where their primary function is to listen and then consent to the process. Except for rare exceptions, the decisions are almost all voted on without a single nay vote. The problem I see is that what the church has done is voted to continue the church for another year, but has not really dealt with the ministry of it.
What I want to be sure of is that churches are giving the same emphasis to the ministry of the church as its corporate functioning. I would rather the large annual gathering of the church to be concerned not just with electing officers for next year, but also with voting on a plan for ministry. I do not think the process as a whole is flawed, but I think there is a tendency amongst people to deal with the nuts and bolts of without thinking about the larger picture and the purpose behind those nuts and bolts. In building up the church it is easy to pave over the real reason we are here, the ministry of Christ.