Fostering New Ways of Doing

This week I am attending the School of Congregational Development held in Evanston IL. This is an annual teaching conference hosted by the United Methodist Annual Conference designed to help church leaders learn new ways to grow congregations, launch new churches, think outside the box and develop quality leaders who will help take the church to new levels.

Overall the conference has been wonderful. The mornings start with music and worship and a message delivered by inspirational leaders (church pastors, seminary professors, church planters, bishops…) Cast from these people – including our instructors – is a vision to transform not only the Church but the very lives of individuals world wide. There is much being touted about crossing multi-racial barriers and this is evident throughout the conference. Our praise music is sung in different languages – Native American, African, Korean, and English. Our speakers are of varying nationalities and ethnicities. Young and old, Hispanic/Latino, men and women…. This multiculturalism is beautiful to behold. God is at work among the many! Indeed there is a wide and wonderful variety of people here.

Our classes are being taught by quality, experienced church leaders. Each class is different, yet each is teaching about how we may reach people in this new age and ever changing culture. One thing to note that the changes many of these instructors are teaching us take time to implement. I just completed a day and a half with a pastor from Grand Rapids MI who has helped his church grow in one of the most depressed, highly unemployed states in the US. It has taken 19 years for him to reach the point where they are today. They currently have about 600-700 in worship each Sunday. It took 19 years of hard work and effort. They have seen a 9-12% growth in membership each year – nothing astronomical, but certainly steady.

Growth in the church means change in the church. These do not come easily nor quickly. Rev. Dan Dick the Director of Communications with the Wisconsin Conference, and author of Vital Signs – the book the leadership of Milton UMC is currently studying – is in attendance at this conference and he writes in his blog, “The great divide between our vision and our reality gapes ever wider, basically because there is such pressure to deliver immediate results. The specters of declining numbers, aging congregations, lost credibility haunt us, and we’re embarrassed that with each passing day our denomination fails to resemble the changing dominant multi-culture more and more. We want desperately to be a different church, but most people wonder if we have the time, energy, resources, and connectional support to turn things around. Outside of the denomination, those with no church affiliation question whether we truly have any inclination or intention for real change.”

Change is something we must approach with character, competency and commitment. Change doesn’t happen overnight. The right leadership needs to be in place. Leadership needs to be open to the needs of a new generation as well as new ways of speaking their language. While many doubt the feasibility of making effective changes in our communities we must know that God calls us to foster these changes. The exciting news is that teaching conferences like this foster an excitement that is conveyed to the attendees which is hopefully carried back to our own churches and communities.

The tools and techniques we are learning about are only a part of what we are bringing back with us. Along with this is the realization that some of it will work and some will not – we don’t always know which will and which will not. What we do know is that when we stop trying our ministry is at an end. God cannot work with a lifeless husk. Sure, God can renew that lifelessness into life – but God will do that through some other being. In the mean time, we are the ones called to be God’s breath of life into others.

Brothers and Sisters do not give up. We may need to change our way of thinking and doing, but do not give up. Give it time – to let that seed you are planting grow; keep reaching – until someone let’s you take their hand; keep seeking – for those right co-leaders to work side by side with; keep praying – for God’s direction and blessing.

Our denomination has a saying you may be familiar with: Open Minds, Open Hearts, and Open Doors. I am often tempted to preach that we need to change this mantra – because I'm not convinced it’s working. Maybe we need to begin saying something like:
Grow Our Minds – To allow new thoughts, new methodology, new ideas to enter in;
Change of Heart – Let us no longer seek to serve only ourselves, but all the world;
Walk Out Our Doors – It’s not about just us! Our church and sanctuary is the world – let us preach and serve in it and not just within our four walls.

New way of thinking? Perhaps, but we need to Re-think our church and we need to cultivate this with all our church leadership – laity up to the bishops. And we need to not stop at re-thinking, but carry this over to doing.

I thank the Wisconsin UM Conference for all that it is doing to rethink and redo. I also give great thanks to the many wonderful instructors and leaders at this School of Congregational Development. It is this offering of instruction by those who are out their doing that gives to me (and many pastors) the inspiration to do more. Let us carry this inspiration out into the field of mission. The harvest is great! Let the workers gather!

Blessings to you