Last night I had the chance to attend an author’s reception sponsored by Upper Room Books, Fresh Air Books, and Discipleship Resources. During the event, George Donnigian shared that DR has a new book coming out titled “Mainline or Methodist” (I can’t remember the author). The driving premise of the book suggests that the decline of the Methodist movement began not with the merger in 1967, but when Bishop Matthew Simpson became a central part of Abe Lincoln’s inner circle, thus leading to Methodism becoming mainstream.

 

Is it possible to move back from mainline to “Methodist?” What would it mean for our communion to become a radical, fringe movement? Isn’t part of our problem the desire to remain a mainstream power rather than truly becoming a movement that is belittled by those in power? What is your take on the notion that we can either be mainline or that we can be Methodist?

On Wednesday, I shared some random thoughts about mission statements, suggesting that perhaps they weren’t all they were thought to be. This came after five years of searching for a mission statement for our congregation and struggling to find one.

On Thursday night, I met with our Church Council and one of the items for consideration was discerning our mission statement, based on previous conversation. In 45 minutes we walked out of the meeting with a statement that was agreed upon by consensus as reflective of who we are and providing guidance for our work together.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to cover myself with sackcloth and ashes as one of little faith.

I STILL believe that we have to hold in tension the lesson from Abraham that we can’t overly plan out where we are going, for we never know where God is leading us, and the need for a common mission that helps our ministries be efficient and effective. However, it is just like God that when we start to lean one way, God turns the tables and we wander about confused again.

Our leaders recognize that a mission statement is only valuable if the entire congregation can own it, and we are choosing to live into it for a season and then work at seeing if others can own it.

What did we come up with? Nothing too original:

The Antioch United Methodist Church is dedicated to learning how to love God, loving our neighbors, and living in the way of Jesus, for the transformation of our community.

Maybe, just maybe, we mean it.

 

Like many pastors of my generation, I have struggled with leading the congregations that I have served toward a coherent statement of our vision and mission.

Our forebears in ministry, those are have retired or are nearing the end of their tenure, didn’t have that pressure on their plate. The mission and vision were clear — to bring people to Christ while also marrying, burying, and conducting the business of the church. That task of pastoring was primarily about maintaining relationships, hoping and praying that those relationships would be enough to get the congregation to move forward in some sort of fashion. If there was a mission statement at all, it was found in the name of the congregation: “The Church of All Nations,” “Grace UMC,” or “Miller’s Chapel.”

With the rise of church growth consulting, modern models of church leadership taken from the business, and the trend of Protestantism since the time of Charles Finney to systematize revival, arose the insistence by many that congregations needed a concise and clear vision and mission to drive their ministry forward. These vision and mission statements would be derived through a variety of means, from coming down from on high from a visionary pastor, or arising from the grass roots through a variety of listening and discernment sessions.

As one who wants to see my congregations grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ as well as numerically, I too believed and still believe to some extent that any community needs a statement of mission and vision around which the group can coalesce. In every church that I have served, I have worked to get the church leaders to either take ownership of mission statements already in existence, or to craft a new statement of vision and mission for the congregation. And, in every church that I have served I have found it tough going.

The problem may be as much me as anything going on in these congregations. As one who favors the grassroots approach to ministry, I have wanted these statements to arise out of the congregation. However, the modern congregation has so many different agendas (thus the need for a mission statement) that getting even a majority to agree on the mission and vision of the church can be tough, and gaining consensus becomes even more difficult. This is even true at the Church Council level, with folks pulled in many directions about who we are and what God is calling us to do.

Adam Hamilton, a proponent of these statements, has suggested that United Methodists all already have our mission statement determined for us in the call to “make disciples for the transformation of the world.” I agree, but that statement is so broad as to be useless. Everyone would agree that we are engaged in the work of making disciples so that the world will be a better place, but translating that into a ministry evaluation tool with much meat on it gets tougher.

Perhaps part of my problem is that I am coming to a point in my ministry where I am wondering if we aren’t just spinning our wheels in trying to come up with these things when instead we simply need to go and let God guide us on the way. In a very real sense, I am becoming an advocate for the Abrahamic model of mission statements.

What is that model, you may be asking. Well remember the call of Abraham.

God: Abe, I want you to leave your home to go to a place that I will show you, and so that you can be a blessing to the world.

Abe: Where is that place God?

God: I’ll show you when you get there.

What would it mean to the modern congregation to throw out the mission statement and admit that none of us really knows where we are headed, but that we are simply going to faithfully follow God to a place that we don’t know about yet? This isn’t about sitting back and doing nothing while we wait for God to come through. Rather, this understands that we are probably going to drift all over the place in carrying out our ministry, with the understanding that God’s process of ambiguity is as important to our faith journey as the destination.

Maybe our mission is to simply sing: “Where He leads me, I will follow.”

For some, that may indeed be enough.

 

 

Now playing: Lucy Kaplansky - Amelia

One of the ongoing struggles I have in ministry has to do with the place of patriotic recognitions in worship. I have reconciled myself to having the U.S. flag present in the sanctuary, believing on the one hand that claiming loyalty in the state stands at odds with our loyalty to God, but also knowing that there are other beliefs at work and that it isn’t really worth the battle to try and remove it.

Where I especially struggle is in regards to the “high holy days” of the American patriotic season — Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, and Independence Day. Part of my problem is that I often forget in my worship planning that for some these days have some connection to the church. But my main struggle is with whether the observance of these holidays is appropriate in a church setting or not.

This is a special issue for us United Methodists, for the “high point” of our life in the U.S. (the 1940’s and 50’s) saw a church in which faith was often equated with patriotism and good citizenship. American Civil Religion (a description coined by Martin Marty) ran rampant in the Methodist Church, and one of the benefits of our “decline” is the recognition that our place in the seats of governmental power led to a faith with little connection to the teachings and example of Jesus. Like the religious right of today, Methodists believed that they held the power cards, and the fall since those days has been hard.

So, the question for the day is: How do you incorporate or avoid patriotic observances in your worship services? Do you grin and beat it, embrace the recognition of flag and country fully, or try to walk a fine line in between? What did you do this Sunday (today) to remember Independence Day, or did you avoid the topic entirely?

 

Let’s be honest, as much as we love our jobs and as deeply as we feel called, we all have pet peeves in regards to our ministries. They usually aren’t big things, for if they were we probably would give up and start working at McDonalds (something that is probably in the long run a more effective missional strategy!). But they continue to be an irritating presence in our lives, something that we wish we could change with a snap of the fingers.

 

So, without any further adieu, here my non-exhaustive list of this week:

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1	Air Conditioning Issues…. One of the things that they fail to mention in seminary is that most local pastors end up within a few weeks becoming experts in HVAC systems. Beyond dealing with the technicians who come on a regular basis, folks in the church are never hesitant to express their opinion that the church is too cold or too hot (and it is almost never “just right”). This morning when I got to the church I found our sanctuary at 63 degrees. Why? Because someone got too hot at an event of Friday and left units running full blast and the thermostats on 61 degrees. Yes, we could take the rigid route and put locking covers on the thermostats but they rarely work and the wrong people always have keys to them, so instead I will keep checking the thermostats regularly.
2	People who complain that we don’t offer enough programming and then never show up for what we do offer…. I am sure that this never happens in your church but it seems sometimes that the folks who are most adamant that we aren’t doing enough as a church are the ones who never show up to participate in much of anything. Most of us in the smallish to medium size church range struggle to keep folks from burning themselves out with church work. These voices of complaint only lead to more frustration and disappointment from those who put their hearts into developing a ministry offering only to see it poorly attended, and then have to hear in another setting that our church isn’t “doing enough.”
3	Knowing that there is never enough time to do all that I should be doing…. Have you read the job description for and elder in the Book of Discipline? The list of tasks and expectations goes on for pages, and it fails to include all the other administrative stuff that is part of ordering the church. Most of us tend to be pulled in so many directions that we function as jacks of all trades and masters of none. So, I find myself trying to decide which is more important: visiting a person in the nursing home that I haven’t seen in far too long (a person that the congregation expects me to keep in touch with) or writing a curriculum for a new discipleship series that we will be offering. Should I work on the sermon the ten hours a week that the experts suggest, or should I take that time to meet with community leaders so that our congregation will be more visible in our area. There are always too few hours and too many tasks, and the frustration level of that reality sometimes makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
4	The tradition that seems to think that weddings are more important than baptisms…. Have you ever compared the resources expended in your church on a wedding versus that expended on a baptism? Weddings are seen as high and holy events, and I suppose they are in many ways. However baptism is our initiation into the church and a special dispensation of the Spirit of God on our lives. Yet, baptisms are often inserted into worship services as an afterthought while weddings are given hours of preparation and lots of resources. Even worse, the cultural baggage of most weddings places the focus in the wrong thing – the couple being married – rather than the place of God in their lives and family. I will feel like I have succeeded in ministry when we get to the place in our church where we spend and much energy and resource on welcoming and new brother and sister into the Body of Christ in baptism as we do in getting folks hitched.
5	Religious Telemarketers…. Hardly a day goes by without the phone ringing with some overly cheerful person on the other end of the line wanting to speak with the pastor about how they can help me in my ministry. “We have this great teaching resource,” the person tells me, “and we want to send it to you to review for free . . . that is as long as you return it to us in 30 days . . . otherwise we’re going to bill you $200 for it.” Of course it sounds good in theory, but the thing will come and sit in the secretary’s office for two months until we finally realize what it is and send it back, usually without reviewing it. Do you really want to be helpful to me religious publishers and sales folks? Then why don’t you go to the pharmaceutical model and send a sales person by with free samples and the chance to look over the products (schedule an appointment first!). Even better, if you really want to help, don’t call. We get too many calls as it is, and I simply don’t have the time to waste trying to convince you that I really don’t need the product (see #3 above). Even worse, you cause my secretary to sin every time she has to tell you that I’m not available even though I am in my office playing Freecell . . . uh . . . praying. Don’t be an occasion for sin, so simply don’t call and we’ll all be much holier.

 

So, what are the things that you hate in your task of parish ministry? Let us know your top five list in the comments below.

Recently there has been a great deal of rhetoric tossed around about the need for better systems to deal with the issue of clergy effectiveness. I saw it in the report of the Conference Lay Leader, who harped on the need for more effective clergy, somehow implying that the challenges facing the United Methodist Church could be fixed if only the clergy were more effective. In fact, it’s become a mantra among a certain segment of lay folk that the reason the United Methodist Church has lost its place of standing in the world is that we have too many clergy who are incompetent and that we need to simply run the bums off.

 

Certainly, the UMC has to deal with helping clergy to be more effective. The system of tenure we call “guaranteed appointment” (which was created for good and just purposes) has many problems, and once someone is ordained as an elder and gains full conference membership, it is difficult if not impossible to deal with persons who continue to have problems in their ministries. There are far too many persons on the two year service cycle, a sign that something isn’t fully kosher in Jerusalem, and we DO have to find ways of helping persons succeed or gently moving them into the career that God has gifted them for.

 

However, in all this conversation about accountability and clergy effectiveness, we overlook an even more important concern in our fold. That concern is congregational effectiveness.

You see, our current systems of accountability focus on the role of the pastor in the ministry of the church, but never ask congregational leaders what they are doing to further the work of God in their communities. The annual charge/church conference contains much good information about the church, but the primary business is to hear a report of the pastor, to nominate new leaders, and to set the pastor’s salary. At no time does the conference through the district superintendent ever question the leaders about their faith, their vision for the church, or their responsibility for evangelism.

 

Yes, the pastor is the appointed leader of the congregation, and as such represents the congregation to the general church. Yes, there is a sense in which the accountability of the pastor is a form of congregational accountability. However, as any pastor will tell you, there is a limit to what he or she can do in a congregation that is dysfunctional, hard headed, and simply isn’t particularly concerned with being anything beyond what they already are. Ministry for the transformation of the world requires a partnership between pastor and congregation, and there are situations all through our communion in which congregations aren’t willing to be active participants in that partnership. “What?” Us be in ministry,” they say. “Isn’t that what we pay the pastor for?”

 

One of the problems that we have is that there are no systems in place for the Bishop and/or the D.S. to meet with congregational leaders for conversation on accountability. Congregational leaders need to be quizzed on their visions for the future ministry of the church, and in a denomination struggling with resources, congregations that refuse to be held accountable or simply want to continue as they always have should be informed that they are a drain on the ministries of the church and cannot be fully supported. Why should a family chapel that has no intention of ever reaching out to the community or the world receive an elder as their leader simply because they can afford to pay for one? Why shouldn’t a congregation that has caught a vision for God’s kingdom and is making steps to move out into the world be subsidized in one way or the other by a conference whose very mission is making new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?

 

A few years ago I was talking with a D.S. who had been in the church for many years about my belief in need for accountability of congregations. He suggested that one of the great losses of the UMC was the move to the annual charge conference from the quarterly conference model that had been in place before.

 

“ What meeting quarterly offered was a chance for ongoing conversation about what the church was doing as well as the D.S. thinking with them about possibilities for the future,” he said. “What we have now tries to do too much, which means that there really isn’t any chance to converse in a meaningful way about the direction of the church.”

 

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think he’s right.

 

Accountability, be it pastoral or congregational, requires a sense of relationship that only comes through familiarity. Pastors gain that familiarity through their relationships with the congregations and their relationships with their D.S. through monthly pastor’s meetings and other conference activities. Congregations, however, never have an opportunity to enter into relationship in a meaningful way with persons in the denominational hierarchy and so “those people” have little authority to hold the congregation accountable for its actions (except in the most glaring of offenses). Moving to a quarterly conference would remove the pressure felt in the charge conference system that we have to do everything at once. It would also allow the D.S. to enter into an ongoing relationship with congregational leaders that would help facilitate conversation about the mission and ministry of the church.

 

I can hear D.S’s already rolling their eyes and groaning. “We have too much to do already!” they are saying. “How could we possibly meet with every congregation in our district four times a year?”

 

I confess that I don’t have the answer for that. Possibly we could empower elders from other congregations to serve as “class leaders” on an ongoing basis with another congregation to meet with church leaders and ask them how that congregation is moving on to perfection? Maybe we need to take away some of the annual conference responsibilities in order to allow D.S’s more time in local congregations. Maybe we could utilize effective retired clergy to become mentors to congregations, not to undermine the work of the existing pastor, but to hold the congregation accountable to their role of ministry?

 

The ultimate goal is the recognition that the United Methodist Church has an investment in the success or failure of all of our member congregations, and that those congregations must be moving forward if they want to receive the full support of the UMC.

 

That can never happen when the only intersection between the denomination and the local congregation happens for one hour once a year.

 

Isn’t the success of every congregation worth more than one hour a year?