By Bishop Robert Schnase

Coming mid-May

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Bishop Schnase’s 30-day Remember the Future series inspired you as we counted down to General Conference. Now as Annual Conference season draws close, share the insights in a paperback volume perfect for reading together as leadership teams, boards and covenant groups to understand more clearly the “why” of congregational ministry and the internal resistances and external challenges to the mission of the church.

Explore together how congregations can change to become more fruitful for the purposes of Christ. Remember the Future:  Praying for the Church and Change prepares leaders of congregations and conferences for courageous new conversations with readings that draw us toward renewed vision, cultivate hope and keep us attentive to the mission of Christ.

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“Bishop Schnase helps us to embrace change with faith, vision, hope and grace. I intend to make wide use of this book in my ministry with congregational leaders.”

— Gregory V. Palmer, Resident Bishop, Illinois Episcopal Area

“The biggest issue facing local churches, annual conferences and the national church is whether we love Jesus enough to change. We must remember the changes our ancestors made and make similar changes to remain faithful in the future. Robert Schnase has given us significant help on that journey.”

— Scott Jones, Resident Bishop, Kansas Episcopal Area

As I listened to some of our most creative leaders, I felt a more profound hope than I have in a long time. There’s a growing consensus of vision and future that I find compelling.

We see a new church, a church that is clear about its mission and confident about its future, a church that is relevant, reaching out, inviting, alive, agile, and resilient. We see a church that is hopeful, passionate, nimble, called of God, outward-focused, courageous.

Where do we see this new church? It is not yet, and it is not everywhere; nevertheless, there are a thousand signs of its emerging.

We see signs of this new church in those congregations that are thriving, those pockets of excellence that have managed to buck the trends to reach younger generations, to extend the ministry of Christ into unexpected places.

During recent months I’ve preached in rural congregations led by local pastors and lay ministers that have doubled in attendance, started outreach ministries that change lives, and welcomed new people even from areas with declining population. I’ve celebrated the merger of urban churches in creative ways we wouldn’t have thought possible five years ago, combining the excellent and passionate work of growing congregations with strategic facilities to reach neighborhoods afresh. I’ve shouted with joy at the success of new congregational starts in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. I’ve been humbled by the courage and vision of several long-established congregations who have opened themselves to deep and risky transformation. Many congregations are reappraising their mission, making hard choices, and realigning their resources toward more vigorous, fruitful, outward-focused ministry. I’m moved by the number of pastors who voluntarily join continual learning communities, delving more deeply into the dynamics of congregations and the theology of mission, and learning skills to reach new people.

Are these changes affecting every congregation? No. And yet every conference has congregations that are thriving, pastors willing to teach others, and laypersons with the passion to learn, change, and initiate ministry. We see a new church, with signs evident in church starts, unexpected mergers, experiments with second sites, transformed congregations, gifted young people entering ministry, creative initiatives, and risk-taking outreach.

And we see a new church shaping annual conferences, a serious refocusing after decades of restructuring committees and reshuffling staff. Through much experimentation, several annual conferences have truly realigned resources toward their mission. They lead congregations to lead people to active faith in Jesus Christ because they know that congregations do not exist to serve conferences, but conferences exist to cultivate ministries in congregations and communities. Many conferences take excellence, fruitfulness, and accountability seriously in bold new ways. They radically streamline operations, reevaluate the role of superintendents, focus the appointment system on the mission field, and rethink standards for ministry with attention to fruitfulness. I’m profoundly hopeful when I see conferences redirect the flow of energy, attention, and resources toward increasing the number of fruitful congregations. We can learn from them.

And we see a new church emerging at the general church. Several general agencies are unilaterally reducing their size and streamlining their operations. Ideas now abound about merging, consolidating, cooperating, removing redundancies, reducing costs, and most important, focusing on the mission of Christ particularly through congregations.             Conversations taking place now would not have been possible a few years ago. Suggestions about a unified governance structure that focuses outwardly on the mission, forces future-oriented thinking, reconnects the local church to the general ministries, and increases accountability—these plans give me hope.

And there is a new spirit in the Council of Bishops. The unanimous adoption of the Call to Action with its sustained focus on congregational vitality, the willingness of the Council to confront some of the internal issues that have hampered it, the openness to evaluation, and the development of learning communities within the Council—these give me hope as well.

The Call to Action invites United Methodists to sustained attention to congregational vitality, a focus on leadership development, realigning boards to support our mission, and reworking the Council of Bishops. These are significant undertakings, and I wrestle with my own impatience on how we shall achieve them.

And yet there are many signs of hope. Picture a heat map, where clusters of fruitful ministry activity are lighted against a dark background with the most fruitful and vital ministries shining brightest. The heat map of The United Methodist Church would allow us to see bright spots in unexpected places, concentrations of vital ministry and congregations that are thriving. Some are in urban areas, some in suburbs, and some in the most isolated rural counties. Africa is aglow with congregational vitality and mission partnerships, but also the map draws our attention to an exceptional campus ministry in one area and to a courageous witness for the homeless in another. A flourishing traditional church lights up near a dynamic merger. Some conferences and seminaries and foundations and agencies glow bright as they risk genuine innovation to realign with the mission. Lights here and there, bright spots appear in places we never expected.

Some Call to Action recommendations stretch us uncomfortably, and some don’t go far enough. There are thousands of details to argue over if we choose to do so. Or we can look at the big picture, the change in culture and process that redirects the flow toward vital congregations.

We see a new church, and there are signs of it here and there in congregations, conferences, agencies, and at the Council. Something is happening in our church. The Spirit that blows where it will is creating openings for conversation and for a way forward with faithfulness. The way things have been is not the way they will be. And this gives me hope.

Where do you see signs of a new church, of a burgeoning of life through fruitful ministry?

What initiatives and ministries in your congregation, your conference, or the general church give you hope?

Pray through 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 in Eugene Peterson’s The Message for fresh insight from a familiar passage

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

so touch his mom and dad that they will take a small, unexpected step toward faith.

Somewhere out there is an elderly woman who feels as if everyone has forgotten her. Her world has shrunk to her small apartment, the weekly trips to the grocery store, and the visits to the doctor’s office. Her television has become her best friend. She doesn’t know it,

but right now a nearby congregation has awakened to the calling of God to invite people like her to a weekly lunch and to a chance to serve others. Soon she’ll use her long-neglected skills to knit baby blankets that will wrap medical supplies bound for Central America, and this taste of community will save her life and give her a rebirth she never imagined possible.

Somewhere out there in a rural Philippine village, a young couple strive to cope with the unexpected loss of their daughter in a flood that washed away their home. They don’t realize it now, but even as they grieve neighbors are holding them in prayer and asking God for the best way to surround them with the love of Christ. They cannot imagine now how the stories of faith, the songs of worship, and the embrace of strangers will move them step by step toward a sense of life they thought they would never see again.

Somewhere out there is a teacher who thinks no one else cares about the children she has given her life to serving. Her schoolroom is rundown, and there’s less money now than ever before to provide the resources she needs to do her job. She has no idea that a congregation is preparing for a new ministry that will change her circumstances. Six months from now she will weep with joy as strangers repaint and refurbish her classroom. She cannot imagine

that droves of people will step forward to volunteer to tutor, to read stories, and to coach basketball. She has no inkling of the effect this will have on her and on her students, and how this will open the door by which she rediscovers her own faith in Christ.

Somewhere out there is a young man whose inability to cope with the basic mechanisms of daily living has caused him to lose his job, to stop taking his medication, and to slip through the cracks of every social, community, and family network. He kept falling until now he sleeps on the streets, carries cardboard for bedding, and digs through trash for dinner. He has no idea that a congregation is gearing up to offer a soup kitchen, and that this ministry will change his life. He cannot imagine that as he is served a meal, someone will engage him in conversation, treat him as human, listen to his story, learn his name, and reconnect him to his family and to the social networks that will allow him to live again a basic life with dignity. He has no idea that God, working through people desiring to follow Christ, will restore him to a life he barely remembers.

Somewhere out there in an African village a young girl and her little sister read stories together in bed, both of them safely protected by a mosquito net bought by the youth of a rural church in the American Midwest. No one can see it now, but she will grow up to become a doctor, relieving the suffering of thousands. She will live a full life that never would have been possible without a simple net and many generous young hearts across the globe.

When United Methodists work toward starting congregations and strengthening congregations and leading congregations, these are not merely attempts at institutional survival. Learning to deepen our life in Christ through congregations and to extend the outreach of Christ through faith communities are not merely submitting to worldly, corporate models of growth and success. Forming congregations are a means by which we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in fulfilling the purposes of Christ. Through people changed by belonging to the body of Christ, God transforms the world. God uses congregations to fulfill the mission revealed to us in Christ;  increasing the number of vital congregations deserves our best and highest insights, efforts, resources, and attention.

Somewhere out there, somewhere in Texas or California or New Jersey or Norway or Mozambique, somewhere in a town like yours or a neighborhood near you is a person who has no idea of the change that is coming his way or the grace that will transform her life, a person unknowingly prepared by the Spirit of God to receive the embrace of Christ that people will offer when they come alive with purpose and fulfill the mission of Christ.

Somewhere out there is a person God plans to use you to reach. Somewhere out there is a person God will use to change your life as you reach them. Somewhere out there is a person for whom Christ died, and for whom your church was built, and for whom God has uniquely prepared you to reach.

*Today’s post is adapted from the devotional book The Balancing Act by Robert Schnase (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009). Used by permission.

Who are the “somewhere out there” people you and your congregation are reaching?

Has your congregation ever helped start a congregation? How do you, your church, and your conference work to strengthen the ministry of Christ through congregations?

Who are you uniquely qualified and perfectly situated to touch with the grace and ministry of Christ whom no one else can possibly reach?

For further exploration, contemplate I John 3:17-19 from The Message.What does it mean to  suggest that our inaction makes God’s love disappear?

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside by thee,

exalted for thee or brought low by thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.*

Like many United Methodist leaders, I have prayed Wesley’s Covenant prayer hundreds of times, sometimes in gatherings and many times quietly on my own. The prayer always has the power to unsettle me and provoke me to deeper reflection about my own motives. Repeating the prayer strengthens me while also making me more attentive to my spiritual vulnerabilities. It restrains my propensity to use the language of God’s will to describe and defend what is merely most convenient and desirable for me. It curbs my natural tendency to justify my own views and desired outcomes and forces me to wrestle with what submission to God in Christ truly means for my ministry. Several phrases penetrate the veneers I hide behind to preserve my pride and ambition. It’s a powerful prayer, but be careful where it leads you!

The line that disturbs me the most is, “let me be employed by thee, or laid aside by thee.” This forces me to face the truth that while God works through me to achieve certain good things in the world, God also works around me to achieve many other good things. Sometimes I’m not the right person. Sometimes I don’t have the right gifts, the right strategies, the right voice, or the right ideas for this particular moment and context of ministry. My ways, my experiences, my passions, my certitudes and biases and approaches may not be the ones for this particular time and for a particular work God needs accomplished.

Sometimes my conference, my staff, my congregation, my friends, my seminary, my board, or my committee is the one that is ripe and ready for the task, and other times mine is the one that must be set aside so that God’s good purpose can be fulfilled in another way by someone else. There are challenges that are not mine to resolve and strategies that are not mine to develop. The institutions where I have found my place and the methods I have developed are sometimes those that need to be set aside because the season for which they served is past or because another voice and another approach are needed to reach a generation I cannot.

General Conference delegates will deliberate on several significant organizational initiatives that involve reducing the size of governing boards, unifying numerous functions under a fewer number of agencies, and streamlining the general church structure. Those who are most at home with the existing activities and arrangements are likely to most keenly experience the impact of such changes as personal setbacks. Even those who know that change is necessary will consider such suggestions strategic mistakes and ill-advised tampering. They will feel the losses far more acutely than they will see the opportunities. Most of the people voting, in addition to the bishops on the platform and the agency staff members in the audience, have been the beneficiaries of the systems that have brought us to this point, and so they naturally grieve the losses that come with transitions. And yet the models, behaviors, and attitudes that we need to let go of are the models, behaviors, and attitudes that got us this far. This requires a spiritual maturity that surpasses mere organizational strategy.

How do I pray for the fulfillment of God’s purposes when sometimes fulfilling them leaves me on the sidelines or redirects my path from what I had expected? How do I develop the humility to be laid aside graciously, and even joyfully? God has work for me to do as long as I have breath, but sometimes it is not the work I expected. Praying deeply the Covenant Prayer requires discernment, a countercultural spirituality and a counterintuitive openness to God. It requires saying with Jesus that we have come “not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45 NRSV). It requires accepting the emotional impact of truly believing that “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39 NRSV). It prompts us to think about what it means to no longer be our own, but God’s, and causes us to meditate on what it means to yield and step aside with humility.

* The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 607. Used by permission.[B.A.D.1]

When was a time you experienced God working around you rather than through you? How did it feel? How did you handle any negative feelings of uselessness or abandonment, and how did you come to find a renewed sense of purpose in serving in other ways?

Have you ever voluntarily stepped down or stepped back or stepped aside so that a ministry could move in new directions? Where did the spiritual discernment come from to help you do this?

For deeper consideration, meditate on Matthew 20:20-28.

For resources about the loss and grief that comes with change in organizations, check out Managing Transitions by William Bridges or Leadership on the Line by Ronald A. Heifetz and Martin Linsky.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

Criticizing political ads is convenient and popular. It’s easy to blame politicians, their strategists, and the media. Why have ads become so vicious and distorted? Evidently, negative ads work. Those who receive these ads are willing to avoid the hard work of learning about complex issues. We are happy to nod our heads based on 30-second soundbites rather than delve deeper, to think beyond our self-interest to the good of the nation and world. We’re willing to be seduced and deceived by oversimplification.

The same tendencies can shape our church life, including a propensity to oversimplify ideas, vilify opponents, and protect our own prerogatives.

“Most people, given the choice between having a better world, or a better place within the world as it is, would choose the latter.” We might restate this observation, attributed to 20th-century Methodist preacher, Ralph Sockman, for church leadership: Most people, given the choice between having a better denomination, or a better place within the denomination as it is, would choose the latter.” We can even change denomination to conference or to congregation!

I don’t think people always pursue their own self-interest above the good of the whole organization. In a more nuanced way, we vote based on behaviors and assumptions with which we are familiar, find comfortable, and want to hold onto without carefully testing whether the behaviors we defend are best in the current context or whether the assumptions are still valid for the mission of the church today. We have trouble letting go

One can discern a rhythm at General Conference. Those present move from moments of profound communion to times when they feel palpable mistrust. On the one hand, we use organic models for community to describe and celebrate our relationship with one another—body of Christ, members, communion, bread, family, sisters, brothers. Our singing and praying and preaching unify us in Christ. On the other hand, we use adversarial strategies for deciding business, experiencing conference as a cauldron of competing self-interests, regional alliances, and caucus agendas. Primary connection for many delegates comes through the mutual support they find in affinity groups based on theology, board affiliation, race, gender, or cause. Rather than a gathering to listen, learn, discern, and decide together on goals for the church, General Conference seems a collection of people elected to win advantage in their effort to represent an idea, protect a project, or pursue an agenda with little regard for competing claims. Some groups depend upon the cohesive quality of fear to mobilize response. Delegates find it difficult to moderate conflict when they are motivated to win at any cost.

This places upon delegates a great responsibility to foster the unifying elements of our life together in Christ. General Conference does better at reminding United Methodists of our common history than at binding them to a common future.

An intensely political organization that aspires to communion requires intentionality in how the members pursue passions with humility and accept limits to their will with grace. Can a diverse body of people have a process that is fair, prayerful, and civil, and yet focuses on the mission of the church? Can conference foster such an atmosphere when it means some desires of nearly every member go unfulfilled?

Paul writes about the need to moderate divisive or self-serving motives while remaining passionate for the purposes of Christ. He reminds us to be ardent in spirit, to hold fast, and to seek what is good and acceptable and perfect. On the other hand, he instructs us to love one another with mutual affection, to let love be genuine, to live in harmony, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think (see Romans 12). Balance passion and courage with humility and confession. We are one body in Christ, members of one another, and yet we have gifts and perspectives that differ. None of us sees the whole truth.

Paul was not inviting us to deny hard realities; rather, he was asking us to deal with hard realities with integrity, faithfulness, and graciousness. There’s nothing distinctly Christian about being gracious; but if we are distinctly Christian, then graciousness, truth, and fairness characterize our interests, involvements, and behaviors.

In another place, Paul writes:

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless . . .; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; . . . ugly parodies of community. . . .

. . . If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” (Galatians 5:19–23 The Message)

The phrase that jumps out is “the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival.” In Christ, we can do better. None of us has ever belonged to any organization or community where we have not at some point disagreed with others or with the decision of the majority. The unity of the church is a hard and unending task entrusted to all who follow Christ. More than a political strategy, this is a spiritual necessity, a calling of God through Christ. Thinking alike is not mandatory, but living as one in the body of Christ is essential.

How do you remain passionately engaged with those who view things differently from you in your own congregation? At conference?

In your spiritual life, how do you balance the ardent spirit that propels you to action with a sense of humility and community?

To move deeper, meditate on Romans 12:1-2.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

In The United Methodist Church, there is no connection between the missional needs of our churches and the number of people commissioned or ordained.

Or imagine that you supervise a large service company that has 400 employees. You are held accountable for progress, effectiveness, and results. Four employees do not complete tasks, foster conflict with colleagues and customers, miss work, blame others, are unwilling to learn, and undermine supervisors. No department manager wants to work with them. However, you cannot remove them or take disciplinary action without the approval of all 400 employees, which includes their long-time friends and relatives!

In our church, supervisors (bishops, superintendents, or boards of ordained ministry) cannot remove ineffective clergy without calculating the support or resistance they will find at the clergy session of annual conference, which alone determines the status of clergy.

Finally, imagine you are a young person with a calling or curiosity about Christian service. You ask your pastor how someone becomes a pastor, and she pulls out a lengthy, multipage description with numbers of steps, requirements, and educational criteria that take years to complete. When you ask which steps come first, you receive one answer from your pastor, a different answer from a campus minister, and yet another from a district superintendent.

Our systems for recruiting, interviewing, educating, training, and deploying clergy for certified, licensed, commissioned, or ordained ministry; combined with our various relationships to conference (lay members, affiliate members, associate members, provisional members, full members, retired members); and our numerous statuses (lay ministers, local pastors, extension ministers, deacons, and elders) contribute to lengthy and convoluted approval systems, confusing and contradictory interpretations of the sequences and steps, and practices that vary widely from district to district and from conference to conference.

The Call to Action calls the church to dramatically reform the clergy leadership development, deployment, evaluation, and accountability systems. A related issue is the guaranteed appointment. While the words “guaranteed appointment” do not appear in the Book of Discipline, the requirement to appoint each credentialed elder began in 1956 when a bishop refused to appoint a female pastor. Before 1956, there was no guaranteed appointment and no covenant linking itineracy to guaranteed appointment.

Every bishop I know wants a system that protects pastors from abuse of authority related to gender, ethnicity, theological bias, and so on. Reasonable checks and balances through boards of ordained ministry or judicial processes protect pastors from arbitrary abuse of authority by bishops and protect bishops from accusations of the same. However, most bishops want procedures that allow for quicker assessment and intervention regarding ineffective clergy.

Would adjusting guaranteed appointment stifle the prophetic voice of pastors? Our prophetic witness is protected not by guaranteed appointment, but by connectional episcopacy; pastoral appointments are the prerogative of bishops rather than of congregations, and this protects pastors from arbitrary removal by local criticism that is inappropriate.

The real issue surrounding guaranteed appointment is not the 3% of ineffective clergy. It’s the disconnection between the numbers of people credentialed and the numbers we need to maximize our mission. It takes an average attendance of 125 or more to support a full-time elder without strangling vital ministry. Each year we have fewer churches that can afford full-time pastors. Some conferences have one elder in a pastoral role per 70 people in attendance. This is unsustainable, and we need mechanisms to regulate the numbers to fit the mission. Frankly, we need to move from credentialing processes with a default of “as long as you complete the assignments and we find nothing egregious, you are approved,” to a default of “you are not likely to be approved unless you’ve demonstrated exemplary fruitfulness in ministry.”

And guaranteed appointment feeds a sense of entitlement and complacency among some clergy rather than motivating them toward learning, growing, and enhancing skills. Systems that foster dependency tend to produce a sense of powerlessness in those who work within them. We’ve underestimated the deleterious effect guaranteed appointment has had on clergy morale and pastoral excellence.

Our lengthy, complex, and arduous process for credentialing pastors derives from the guaranteed appointment. Because our approval obligates the conference for years to come, we insist on greater certainty by adding more steps, more interviews, more sources of approval, and more testing. The system has not created the reliable stream of healthy, gifted, fruitful clergy we would expect; rather, the complexity and length filters out many creative and gifted people, and allows entry to some who merely conform to the modest expectations of meeting the requirements but do not practice fruitful ministry.

Imagine conference leaders looking 15 years into the future, honestly appraising leadership needs for current congregations, focusing on communities that have not been reached or that cannot be reached by current churches, and considering what qualities and preparation most help us to fulfill the mission. Imagine shaping systems that cultivate leadership for the church to come—reaching people outside the faith, engaging alternative communities, and using unconventional means and unexpected settings for mission. Imagine inviting, preparing, and equipping a healthy mix of part-time, full-time, bi-vocational, lay, and ordained pastors that fit the mission field of the future. Imagine entry processes that are elegant in their simplicity, that embed people in the immediate practice of ministry while deepening theological and historical reflection upon the faith. Imagine systems tailored to a new generation, relevant to the changing populations we are called to serve, and effective in identifying and cultivating excellence, fruitfulness, and the spiritual capacity to mobilize people in Christ’s work. Imagine systems that foster creativity, experimentation, and exploration, and recapture the sense of adventure in ministry.

Changing systems will not happen with a single vote. As a consultant said, streamlining processes is like changing the tires on a bicycle while continuing to pedal forward up a steep hill.

But imagine!

How do our current recruitment, training, deployment, and evaluation systems support excellence, faithfulness, and fruitfulness? What aspects are not conducive to excellence and fruitfulness? What would you change?

The post suggests changing the default expectations of our credentialing processes. What’s your response to this idea? What would that mean for district committees and conference boards? What might result?

To delve deeper, reflect on Luke 9:1-6 in The Message. What does  “Keep it simple; you are the equipment” mean for us?

For more, check out Lovett Weems’ Focus: The Real Challenges That Face the United Methodist Church, or his study with Ann A. Michel on young people and clergy trends, The Crisis of Younger Clergy .

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

Currently, we have more than 500 board members who govern 13 distinct agencies, each with its own mission statement, financial system, logo, and identity. The proposal suggests unified governance that includes a 45-member council and a 15-person board. The intention is to increase collaboration, align resources, reduce redundancy, and streamline decision-making. Most large churches and many annual conferences have discovered the effectiveness of small boards.

Is this the best organizational plan in the world? There is no such thing. But we can make the best decisions among options when we are guided by proven principles for large organizations. We need a plan that supports a clearly articulated purpose, with high accountability, good horizontal communication and vertical alignment, characterized by simplicity, missional clarity, and the agility to respond to change. This plan offers many of those objectives. Even better alignment, clarity, and simplicity in the future may be impossible until we take this first step that brings people into the same room for decisions regarding the mission and priorities of the church.

How we organize our work at the congregational, conference, and general levels is not merely a structural choice but a missional decision. We cannot evaluate whether a plan is good or bad by looking at charts. We can discern only how various plans affect outcomes. We would never spend time researching and debating whether to travel by train, plane, or automobile until we first determined where we need to go.

Organizational development pioneer, W. Edwards Deming said that organizations are perfectly aligned to get the results they are getting. If the thousand delegates of General Conference and the bishops and general secretaries stayed up all night to intentionally develop a system to foster 40 years of uninterrupted decline, the system we would design would look just like what we have! The functioning, policies and practices of our bishops, superintendents, seminaries, conferences, apportionments, general boards, and congregations—these comprise a system that is perfectly aligned to get the results we are getting. This brings us to the point of change.

Alignment means right processes and right structures for the mission. Some of our systems in congregations, in conferences, and in the general church are not conducive to our mission. They block and restrain innovation, create distance between leaders and members, foster outdated and unnecessary tasks, pull resources and attention toward conflicting priorities, or prescribe process steps that are ambiguous or irrelevant.

The United Methodist Church has many moving parts. What would a more technically elegant system directed toward increasing the number of vital congregations look like? Imagine people working together smoothly, supporting each other in the mission, with excellent communication, and minimal territoriality. Imagine a system where best practices and successful innovations receive support while overlapping functions and unfruitful programs are evaluated honestly and reduced quickly. Imagine a plan that allows continual evolution as contexts change. Imagine reinforcing the mission at the local church while fostering global connections. Imagine a system that is fair, simple, clear, and effective.

Organizational simplicity is both beautiful and functional. In a strange paradox, most United Methodists deeply desire simplicity but choose complexity. We choose complexity through incremental decisions at general and annual conferences that restrain and control rather than support innovation and contextual, outward-focused ministry. How do we shift the conversation from “What’s the perfect structure?” to “What matters most?”; from “Here are a thousand reasons we can’t change” to “Here are the steps we can take to align toward our mission”; from “We don’t have enough money” to “Let’s direct our resources toward what is essential”?

I’ve been involved in restructuring plans since I was 26 years old, and I’ve discovered that if people want to make a new system work, they can figure out the details, snags, setbacks, and resolve legitimate concerns. But if they fundamentally do not want to change, then they can find hundreds of reasons why any plan is impossible. The Call to Action plan is not perfect, but it is a step forward. It leads us toward a new future that we know is unachievable through the systems we now have.

In the short term, growing churches will continue to grow and declining churches will continue to decline no matter what General Conference does. But in the long term, it matters how we address issues of clergy recruitment, education, training, deployment, and evaluation. It matters how we realign resources to start new congregations, interrupt decline, and help congregations focus on their mission fields. It matters that our leaders focus on the right questions and deal with issues relevant to our mission around the globe. It matters that we connect our money to our mission.

Through our decisions at General Conference, we leave a legacy to future generations of United Methodist leaders. Is the legacy we leave going to be a mishmash of convoluted rules that serve our purposes today? Are we going to tie their hands, limit their choices, and draw generations to come into our current territorial struggles?

Or are we going to provide a springboard for creative change, for new models of ministry, for connectionalism that is alive and vibrant and agile and effective? I hope we leave a legacy to the next generation, not of complex and impenetrable rules and ineffective systems, but of a church that is clear about its mission and confident about its future and engaged with the world for the purposes of Christ. I hope we make decisions that lay a foundation for a new expression of United Methodism, the next phase of our mission.

What systems within your congregation are not conducive to your mission because they restrain, dampen, limit, or slow new initiatives? Within your conference? In the general church?

Your congregation (and conference!) are perfectly aligned to get the results they are getting. What new insights occur to you as you think about this idea?

Read John 5:1-18 (NRSV), especially reflecting on the significance of Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be made well?” What does the question imply about our various forms of paralysis?

To delve deeper, read Gil Rendle’s Back to Zero: The Search to Rediscover the Methodist Movement, and George Hunter’s The Recovery of a Contagious Methodist Movement.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

Let’s look at why we face some hard decisions in the United Methodist Church:

We operate using financial models that are intrinsically unsustainable. Membership and attendance in the US fall while expenses at the local, conference, and general church increase. The closing of churches, the move to part-time ministry, and the reduction of costs for hundreds of churches result in ever-increasing cost shifts to the 15% of our churches that are growing. If we do not radically reduce costs or create new systems for supporting connectional work, then the disproportionate weight will slow the growth of our most fruitful congregations. In addition, some conferences face pension liabilities that they cannot meet, several seminaries face financial hardship and reduced enrollment, and because of our high median age, we will lose large numbers of our most generous donors during the next two decades.

Most of our congregations are not reaching younger generations. The age disparity between the leadership of our congregations in the US and the communities we serve increases each decade. Our denomination, like most mainline churches, is perceived by youth culture as irrelevant, conflicted, hypocritical, insensitive, and out of touch.

Our clergy leadership systems for recruiting, educating, training, credentialing, deploying, evaluating, and (when necessary) removing clergy are not serving us well. The default in most conferences is: “if you meet the requirements and have done nothing egregious, you will be approved,” rather than “you will likely not be approved unless you demonstrate exceptional fruitfulness and promise for ministry.” The number of people approved for commissioning and ordination has no relation to the number needed to serve churches. Even among our most gifted clergy who are excellent at maintaining current ministries or leading a growing church to further ministry, few have the ability to actually transition a declining congregation toward growth.

Our organizational structures are not conducive to our ministry. Local churches struggle with complex disciplinary requirements derived from an era when we expected uniformity. Annual conference sessions conduct business with three times as many people present than thirty years ago, even though we have fewer districts, churches, and members (the unintended consequences of changing the status of local pastors, lay/clergy equalization requirements, and the role of retirees). Vertical alignments between general, conference, district, and local church boards, based on 1950s centralized organizational models, restrict creative contextual organizing according to the mission. At the general church level, autonomous structures function with limited accountability and with few mechanisms to unify efforts. The disconnection between members in the pews and the bishops and the general agencies fosters the perception that congregations exist to serve conferences and general boards. The Council of Bishops gathers as a group of leaders rather than functioning as a leadership group. These dysfunctions foster mistrust, conflict, and despair.

We lack clarity about our mission. Most of our churches do poorly at connecting with the unchurched and nominally churched in their communities. We wait for people to come to us, to find our churches and to like our worship styles rather than reaching out to engage people. We began as a “go to” church, but we’ve become a “come to” denomination.

We are resistant to change, suspicious of accountability, averse to metrics, defensive about letting go, and protective of the patterns and models that have brought us to this point. Congregations long for young adults but will not make the changes that would attract them and involve them in new forms of ministry. Pastors resist asking for help from those who are successfully experimenting with outreach models that work. Conference leaders have difficulty truly aligning resources and personnel toward the mission.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Take a sip of coffee. You are still loved. God is still with us.

I don’t pretend to have the answers to all the challenges listed above. Nor do I believe that the Call to Action, the petitions from various task forces, or a service of repentance will fix everything overnight. And this is not a good people versus bad people discussion. I am one of us. Like you, I’ve inherited, lived with, worked through, cultivated, benefited from, and led the systems we now have. Blaming others is not nearly as helpful as taking responsibility.

These challenges do not tell the full story of United Methodism today. We touch the lives of hundreds of thousands of people through our ministries, we have thousands of deeply committed and highly gifted laity and clergy, and we practice a theology of grace that the world needs. God continues to work through The United Methodist Church. However, the fact that we do many things well should not keep us from addressing the elements of our life together that restrain and weaken our mission.

The Call to Action expresses a healthy sense of urgency. I pray we begin to address these situations seriously and courageously. We need all the creative responses we can imagine.

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, writes, “We can either have a hard decade or a bad century.”* We have to make some hard decisions—about our own discipleship, about our congregational mission, about how we organize our work in conferences and the general church—or we will face an increasingly difficult future.

*My appreciation to Lovett Weems for drawing my attention to the Thomas Friedman quotation, from The New York Times, September 20, 2011.

Do you feel the challenges listed above are real and valid concerns which need our attention? What other challenges are critical to our future?

How do you personally feed the passion for ministry while also fostering the patience to work through an organization that responds slowly?

What ministries, initiatives, and experiments with new models and practices give you hope?

For deeper reflection, explore Philippians 4:6-9 from The Message for new insight into a familiar teaching.

For more, Lovett Weems’ new book, entitled Focus: The Real Challenges that Face The United Methodist Church, may be the most helpful resource for understanding our unsustainable financial models in particular as well as the larger missional challenges. Also, I would commend to you Gil Rendle’s Journey in the Wilderness.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

Jesus uses fruitfulness to draw our attention to our impact, the consequence of our ministry and of our life in Christ. He describes kingdom fruit, the effect and promise of the reign of God. Fruit refers to what Christ accomplishes through us. Jesus cursed the fig tree that bore no fruit (see Matthew 21; Mark 11) and describes the pruning of fruitless branches (see John 15). Fruitless means inconsequential, ineffective, showing no result. Jesus expects our life of faith and our ministries to make a difference. If it’s not working, stop doing it.

Jesus says, “My father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (John 15:8). Fruit evidences discipleship; following Jesus and fruitfulness are inextricably linked. Disciples bear fruit.

The writings of John Wesley are replete with references to fruitfulness. “Have they fruit?” was one question he commonly asked pastors, leaders, and churches.

These teachings and our passionate commitment to Christ’s ministry stimulate us to honest evaluation of the impact of our personal ministries, and the ministries of our congregations, conferences, committees, and councils. Honestly, churches, conferences, and other non-profit organizations are usually weak on evaluating outcomes, results, and impacts. The Call to Action explicitly invites greater use of metrics and evaluation to measure outcomes at all levels of the church. Some people celebrate this as a positive step, and others see this as acquiescence to corporate organizational models that have nothing to do with the spiritual life. But doesn’t Jesus clearly emphasize fruitfulness?

The fruit of some ministries are easily measured—in numbers of people participating, real changes in life conditions, homes rebuilt, dollars given, meals served, inequities resolved, illnesses cured. Other fruit seem beyond measure—the changes of the human heart, the growth in compassion, the stirrings of the call to service. Just because some aspects of ministry are immeasurable does not free us of the God-given call to focus on fruitfulness.

When we become unclear about our mission and fail to focus on fruitful outcomes, we begin to measure “inputs” instead of fruit, taking great satisfaction in how many people, meetings, dollars, buildings, and hours we’ve given to a task with little regard to whether these things have truly changed lives or made any real difference. Many churches and conferences have come to believe that spending more money, having a larger staff, holding more meetings, and preparing longer reports are progress. But these are all inputs. They are not fruit. The purpose of the church is the changed life—hearts deepened in Christ, children protected from malaria, vulnerable people sustained against injustice, the poor receiving access to education, mourners supported by the grace of community. There are thousands of ways of impacting lives through the ministry of Christ and a thousand forms of fruitful ministry. Some are measurable, and these we should count and learn how to do better. Where we cannot measure outcomes, we can describe changes and bear witness to the visible signs of the Spirit’s invisible work through us and our churches.

I readily confess that there are limits and problems with metrics, including finding the right things to measure that reflect and enhance ministry for churches, conferences, boards, and councils. Many strategies have us counting membership in a time when people are not joining, worship attendance in an era when people relate to the church in countless ways beyond worship, baptisms when parents are allowing their children to decide for themselves at a later age, and Sunday school attendance when most small-group discipleship takes place during the week. And far too many pastors, local church leaders, and cabinets are using numbers with an implicit “contingent/reward” modality: if I do this, then I earn, deserve, or receive that. This use of metrics risks becoming a disincentive to creative ministry.

However, when metrics are used properly, they become tools toward an end and toward the goal of changed lives. They help us understand what works and what doesn’t, and how to redirect resources toward greater fruitfulness. Even if we measure imperfectly and even though much of ministry is immeasurable, we have an obligation to focus on fruitfulness. Otherwise, we simply increase budgets, staffs, buildings, and meetings in ways that are unintentionally but insidiously self-serving, institutional, and inward-focused.

When Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” he reminds us that all our fruits derive from our relationship to God in Christ. When Jesus says, “and they will know them by their fruit,” this should make us extraordinarily attentive to the end and purpose of our calling. Our fruit is God’s fruit.

What do you see as the fruit of your personal ministry as a layperson or pastor? How does God use you to shape the lives of people around you and through them to change the world?

What are the most fruitful ministries of your congregation? What are the least fruitful? Of your conference? Of our general church? Do ministries need to be pruned? Do new seeds need to be planted?

How do you deal with the fact that some outcomes are clearly measurable and some are not? What fruit are describable even when they are not easily measurable?

How does the discipline of focusing on fruitfulness strengthen ministry? How does an attentiveness to fruitfulness shape your discussions, deliberations, and decisions as a church leader?

For deeper consideration, read John 15:1-17 or search the New Testament using a concordance or online resource for the words fruit or fruits.

For further reading, check out Good to Great for the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer. This is a short monograph by Jim Collins that supplements his book, Good to Great. Daniel H. Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us may be of interest.

Also, pick up Bearing Fruit: Ministry with Real Results by Lovett Weems and Thomas M. Berlin.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days

Throughout the history of Methodism, the primary means by which we have brought people into this way of life has been through faith communities. Congregations offer the invitation and embrace of Christ. They offer worship that connects people to God and that stimulates the change of heart that transforms lives so that people see the world through God’s eyes. Congregations provide the means to grow in faith through small groups, Bible studies, support groups, and the care of souls. People cooperate with the Holy Spirit in their own sanctification, growing in grace and in the knowledge and love of God. And fruitful congregations help people discern the calling of God to ministries of service, mission, and justice. They provide avenues for life-changing, sacrificial service that transforms the world. Congregations draw people into the body of Christ, and through congregations God changes the world.

Consider the impact of congregations on your own life. Suppose we could extract from your life all the influences that God has had on you through congregations. Imagine we could pull out of your mind and heart all the thousands of sermons you have heard, the tens of thousands of hymns you have sung, the pastoral prayers and personal devotions that have formed you. Remove from your life all the pastors, friends, colleagues, laypersons, youth leaders, and teachers who have encouraged and embraced you in the faith. Extract from your soul all the work projects, the meetings, the soup kitchens, mission projects, hospital visits and support from others you have experienced. Remove all the volunteer hours, stewardship campaigns, mission fairs, camp experiences, and youth ministries.

If someone removed from your life all the influences congregations have ever had on you, you’d be someone totally different. The congregations you have belonged to have changed and shaped you. Congregations are a primary means by which God reaches into our lives to work on our behalf to create us anew, to claim us as God’s own, and to call us to God’s service. It is through congregations that God’s Spirit shapes how we understand ourselves, how we relate to our families, how we view community, and how we participate in the world.

Jesus intentionally formed his followers into a community of disciples to fulfill this mission. United Methodist congregations exist today for the same mission for which Jesus gathered his disciples and for which the Holy Spirit unified those who gathered on the day of Pentecost. The United Methodist Church makes disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by repeating over and over again what has happened in your life and mine. In small congregations and large, in urban and rural churches, in every place and culture and language, God works through faith communities to change lives.

The Call to Action invites the leaders of The United Methodist Church to redirect the flow of attention, energy, and resources to an intense concentration on fostering and sustaining an increase in the number of vital congregations effective in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. The focus on congregations is not about institutional survival, an obsession on numbers, or a fear of failure. It is about returning to the basics. In the first sentence that immediately follows our mission statement in the Book of Discipline, we say, “Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs” (¶120, italics added).

Imagine if we really allowed this priority on Christ’s mission through congregations to direct us in our alignment of resources, personnel, and energy in every district, conference, and general agency of the church. Imagine bishops and superintendents and conference staff and lay leaders and pastors viewing Christ’s mission through congregations as job one. Imagine if reaching the poor, the vulnerable, the hurting, and the lonely with ministries driven by the grace of God focused our energies. Imagine fostering congregational leadership and spiritual depth and invitational culture and courageous witness in every community of faith. Imagine how God could use our churches all the more to change lives, foster communities in Christ, and relieve suffering if we really behaved as if local churches provide the most significant arena through which we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Imagine!

How has God used faith communities to shape your life?

How can decisions at General Conference foster life in Christ for more and more people?

For deeper exploration, read Acts 2:37-47 in in The Message as well as in the NRSV for added perspective, and reflect on the practices that formed the earliest faith communities and how these form congregations today.

To expand horizons about the purpose of faith communities for the future, try one of these: Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation by Carol Howard Merritt; The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch; Church Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt; Transforming Church  by Kevin G. Ford; or Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolgar. Also, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Robert Schnase offers a clear line of sight between the work and practices of congregations and God’s mission in the world.

Read Bishop Schnase’s series “Remember the Future: 30 Days of Preparation” here on the Five Practices website or at www.ministrymatters.com/30days