Beyond the Boundaries

Sometime ago I meditated on the plight of our congregations, particularly our small churches, particularly those who limited their mission and ministry to care of those in that congregation. In every case decline is the result.

Let me tell you another story. Johnson Chapel is a small congregation. In October of 2002 Tom Salter, a retired pastor, was appointed there, sure that he would be the last pastor. For a couple of years, Johnson Chapel continued to decline (attendance under 20) then in 2005, in Tom’s words, “the stone was rolled away . . . and a near-death revival began.” Attendance doubled, offerings increased 80%, 28 new members were received in the next two years.

Because dozens of our congregations currently suffer the same plight as the old Johnson Chapel, I asked Tom to cite the major things he has learned about small churches:

“Our priorities (of focus and of financial support) are #1, outreach ministries and missions: #2, congregational ministries; #3, facilities and properties; #4, pastor’s compensation.

Factors contributing to our amazing growth are:

First: A giving spirit. A dying organism tends to preserve itself by conserving its resources. If you want to live – give!

Second: A seeker-friendly atmosphere. I have not made a single ‘cold-call’; the people reach out first. We use monthly ‘Friendship Suppers’ to attract community people. We now have an early worship service, and an inter-service ‘coffee time’ for mingling.

Third: Strong care ministries, both lay and pastoral. We now have an effective card ministry for sick, confined, and needy persons in the community. A ‘Compassionate Hand’ ministry is a community benevolence fund for the needy. We are asked by the school to ‘adopt’ 4 needy children. Instead, we adopted 11. Many of our new congregants came to Johnson Chapel as a result of our pastoral care outreach.

Fourth: Stable pastoral leadership. I have stayed there. The growth spurt did not begin until my third year.”

Our small congregations can grow! Thanks to this able “retired” pastor for his leadership. We are all learning what God can do when we join Jesus “beyond the boundaries.”

William H. Willimon

Clergy Appointments in North Alabama

We have recently added to our conference website the following video on how the North Alabama Conference is making clergy appointments: Click Here. I offer this as an invitation for every congregation to be clear about its mission and what it is doing in ministry so that clergy with the right gifts and graces may be sent to serve.

Leading Change and Transition

I hear that a number of our thriving churches are taking a critical look at their “contemporary worship” services – the services that we began over a decade ago that feature electronic, “contemporary” music and images. We appear to be moving to more eclectic, “ancient-future,” blended sorts of services.

I’ve sure had my questions about some of our contemporary worship – the music seems dated, highly personal, lean on biblical content, too much performance rather than participatory, etc.

However, looking back on the move of some churches to have a contemporary service, I think that perhaps the greatest, most lasting gift to the church will be that for most of our churches, their contemporary worship service gave them experience in change for the sake of faithfulness to the gospel. In about a decade, our worship changed more than it had changed in two hundred years. The risk, pain, and disruption caused by the move to these services required our clergy and churches to do work that many of us were ill equipped to do – lead the church to change.

For generations we clergy specialized in preserving the past, treasuring what was given to us by the saints, passing that on to a new generation, insuring continuity. Now we are required to be leaders of an institution that needs change.

In learning more about how to lead change I have been greatly helped by a great little book on change in organizations, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges.

Bridges begins by distinguishing between “change” and “transition.” Change is situational and external– new job, different goals, new rules. Transition is internal, what happens and is happening. Transition is what needs to happen in you as the result of the change that’s going on around you, in order for the change to be owned by you.

As one moves into change, it is helpful to note the predictable states that people in transition find themselves. In my past four years I have seen members of our Annual Conference in all of these three phases of transition. And, in Scripture, I have seen all of these phases evident in the people who worked with Jesus.

Three Phases of how people transition through change:

Endings – letting go, some grief, sometimes some relief. Any change begins with an ending. Major issue in this phase is loss of attachment, influence, power, security, meaning and relationships. People suffer from the loss of illusion. Ending requires letting go. In this phase it is important to honor the past and acknowledge what has been done up to this point, yet all with the understanding that the past will not continue to hold us captive.

Leaders must see the problem first, before attempting to sell the solution. Expect and plan for a variety of reactions and emotions, and acknowledge all of them as valid. Give people instructions and don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. In the ending, people can be expected to have a variety of emotions: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, and sadness. Expect to hear lots of “Why questions.” Why us? Why now? What did we do wrong? Why weren’t we told sooner? Is there a hidden agenda? Is there any way to avoid the pain that comes with change? Etc.

Neutral zone – this is the in between area of change. Limbo. People feel disoriented, “in between.” They are beginning to realize that some accustomed things are ending, but they are not ready, nor do they clearly see what comes next. Expect a lack of clarity and anxiety over the future. What’s going to happen? People are often less productive and less motivated during this phase. Rumors abound. People search for facts, hanker for answers but are distressed when the answers they get from their leaders seem vague and unsatisfying to them. Much energy is expended in what Bridges calls “Recreational complaining.”

And yet this can also be a very fruitful period. This time has much innovation potential. In this period, leaders must resist the temptation to get through the crisis and come up with easy solutions. This ought to be a time of experimentation and breakthrough possibilities. The new world and new roles have not clearly emerged so this can be a time to try out a variety of options, a time for resourcefulness, trying out different possibilities.

Leaders need to listen while an organization is in the Neutral Zone, says Bridges. They need to explain what the Neutral Zone is and to validate people’s feelings as normal. Leaders also need to strengthen intragroup support and communication, giving people opportunity to voice their fears and hopes. Be patient, while keeping up a certain amount of pressure.

New Beginnings -- at last we have reached new rules, new roles, and a new place. Now at last there is a higher degree of comfort, increasing acceptance and commitment to new vision. People step up and express a more positive mood, saying things like, “We knew we needed to change; we just couldn’t figure out how.” There is a new focus on the tasks at hand. The organization reaps the benefits of improved productivity and increased clarity but there is lingering concern about being successful in new environment or in a new role. People continue to ask, “How do I fit in and how can I contribute?”

How do leaders help in times of New Beginnings? Bridges says we must do four things: Give people new sense of Purpose – help people understand the purpose behind the changes. Picture – help people imagine the future and how it will feel. Plan: outline steps and schedule when people will receive information, evaluation, support and training. Give people a part to play: help people understand their new role and relationship to the new world.

And then we start all over again! Change tends to come in waves and in any healthy institution, change is constant. There is always something else to be fixed, some new task to be assumed. The leader doesn’t have to manage it all, but is there to interpret, reassure, and encourage. If our church is to keep up with the movements of the risen Christ, we are going to all have to gain more skills in constant change and transition.

The good news is, We are!
Will Willimon

Discussion Guide - Wesley Study Bible

For all of those interested in a Downloadable Discussion Guide for the new Wesley Study Bible, please Click Here.

The Wesley Study Bible

Last week I introduced the Wesley Study Bible, a new Bible with commentary edited by Joel B. Green and myself. The Wesley Study Bible represents not only an historic event in United Methodist publishing – utilizing writers from over a dozen different churches in the Wesleyan tradition – but also a wonderful resource for our church.

Every United Methodist Pastor and every member of our congregations are sure to find the Wesley Study Bible to be a great resource for study of the scriptures. Your congregation could have an entire course in Wesleyan Theology just by reading through the Wesleyan Core Terms sidebars. I’ve noted that our liveliest growing congregations have classes for new and prospective members. New Member Classes could be assigned a list of Wesleyan Core Terms to study over a period of weeks to give them a great introduction to United Methodist believing. The Wesley Study Bible , with its constant emphasis on Christianity put into practice, is the perfect companion for Disciple Bible Studies. Adult Sunday School classes could work through the entire Bible in the course of a year, reading selected Wesleyan Core Terms and Life Applications found within the text of each biblical book. Pastors could devise a sermon series that each Sunday takes a different Wesleyan Core Term and explicates it, pairing the term with nearby Life Application Topics – doctrine related to life. High School students who were introduced to this Bible said that they found that the introductory comments to each biblical book give just enough background in order to understand the biblical book. As one of the students put it, “I liked the way that this Bible is not just theoretical but also practical. It’s great to see that scripture isn’t just ancient stuff to be understood in chur ch but also truth to be practiced in my high school.” I see Father John smile.

I have written a free Downloadable Discussion Guide that takes the Four Emphases from the last General Conference and utilizes the Wesley Study Bible for study by an individual or group. Teachers of youth and children could adapt this study guide for use in leading even very young Christians.

This Bible is a perfect resource for your Confirmation Class. Give the Wesley Study Bible to each confirmand at the beginning of the Confirmation period and then conduct the class as a guided study through the Bible, utilizing the Core Terms in conversation with the Life Applications. The sidebars, particularly the Life Applications, are easily read by children from older elementary age up.

Just last week I was asked to lead a Bible study among a group of homeless persons in one of our urban congregations. Most of the participants are HIV positive. They wanted a Bible study that would be relevant to their illness. Wondering what to teach, I turned to the Wesley Study Bible. I immediately saw a trajectory emerging from the sidebars: Wesleyan Core Terms – Healing, Visiting the Sick, Health, Social Holiness, Physician of the Soul lined up nicely with Life Application Topics -- Acts of Kindness, Comfort for Illness, Mercy, Prayer in the Face of Trouble, and Suffering. I was on my way to a Bible study that traced these themes throughout scripture.

You probably know that Methodists were among the originating leaders of the Sunday School Movement in Nineteenth Century America. That movement was, in great part, a creative attempt to get the Bible into the hands of everyone, particularly those who had been excluded from the educational systems of the day. The Wesley Study Bible continues that grand tradition of scriptural accessibility. I know a woman who leads her congregation’s prison ministry, going into prisons and conducting Bible studies among the inmates and worshipping with them. I look forward to offering her the Wesley Study Bible as a resource for Bible study related to life in the Wesleyan tradition.

In the usage of the Wesley Study Bible a new generation of Wesleyan Christians is putting scripture into practice. Scripture is not only God’s word; it is God’s word for everyone and everyone is meant to put God’s word into practice. Through the Wesley Study Bible, John Wesley continues to correct, prod, and discipline the People Called Methodists through the study of scripture.

William H. Willimon

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"Reading the Bible Like Wesleyans"

This will be a discussion, led by Bishop Willimon, on the unique Methodist way with scripture. How does United Methodist "practical Christianity" inform our reading of scripture? Bishop Willimon will discuss the particular Wesleyan contribution to the study, interpretation, and embodiment of Holy Scripture.

This event is open to all interested pastors and laypersons. The same workshop will be repeated in two different locations on March 7, at Canterbury UMC in Birmingham, and March 14, at Trinity UMC in Huntsville, 9:30 - Noon. The Wesley Study Bible can be purchased through Cokesbury, Birmingham.

This event coincides with the publication of the Wesley Study Bible by Abingdon Press. The Wesley Study Bible is a unique study Bible that is edited by Bishop Willimon and Dr. Joel B. Green, formerly of Asbury Seminary. The Bible will be available from Cokesbury in February.

Reading the Bible Like Wesleyans

On March 7 at Canterbury UMC in Birmingham and on March 14 at Trinity UMC in Hutnsville, I will be leading a discussion on the unique Methodist way with scripture. I will discuss the particular Wesleyan contribution to the study, interpretation, and embodiment of Holy Scripture.

This event is open to all interested pastors and laypersons. The same workshop will be repeated in two different locations on from 9:30 - Noon. The Wesley Study Bible can be purchased through Cokesbury, Birmingham.

This event coincides with the publication of the Wesley Study Bible by Abingdon Press. The Wesley Study Bible is a unique study Bible that is edited by Bishop Willimon and Dr. Joel B. Green, formerly of Asbury Seminary. The Bible will be available from Cokesbury in February.

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The Wesley Study Bible

Dr. Joel B. Green, (distinguished biblical scholar, formerly of Asbury Seminary, now at Fuller Seminary) and I have been working for the past three years on the Wesley Study Bible. To be published this February, the Wesley Study Bible is quite an event. Dr. Green and I have invited nearly two hundred of our church’s best biblical scholars, Wesley scholars, and scholarly pastors to produce the Wesley Study Bible. I thank the Cabinet and the North Alabama Conference for giving me the time and the encouragement to work on his project. Hailed as a landmark event in this history of the United Methodist Publishing house, I believe that this Bible will be a grand resource for ministry. I commend it to our pastors and congregation.

The most wonderfully Wesleyan aspect of the spectacularly successful Disciple Bible Studies is its name. It’s not the “Thinking Long Thoughts about Scripture” series, or the “Noble Ideas from the Bible” series. It’s Disciple. As I see it, John Wesley made two enduring contributions to the church universal: (1.) Scripture is meant to be embodied, performed, and enacted in our daily lives. We’re not talking distinctively United Methodist Christianity if we’re not talking practical, incarnate, obedient Christianity. We read the Bible to strengthen our disciplines of discipleship. (2.) Discipleship is for everybody, young and old, rich and poor. Wesley’s vision was that it was possible for ordinary Eighteenth Century people, of every age and rank, to be saints – if they were disciplined, educated, and formed by Scripture. Early Methodists designed a score of creative means to enable the accomplishment of those two goals.

Randy Maddox showed me an exchange of letters between Wesley and Miss J.C. March that illustrates the twofold particularities of Wesley’s practical Christianity. Miss March had written to Wesley about inadequacies in her spiritual life. Wesley replied, without noticeable sympathy for her plight, chiding her to give up her “gentlewoman” airs and be a disciple of Jesus. How? “Go see the poor and sick in their own poor little hovels. Take up your cross, woman!... Jesus went before you, and will go with you. Put off the gentlewoman; you bear an higher character. You are an heir of God!”

Two years later, in response to Miss March’s continued whining about her sad spiritual state, an aggravated Wesley replied, “I find time to visit the sick and the poor; and I must do it, if I believe the Bible….. I am concerned for you; I am sorry you should be content with lower degrees of usefulness and holiness than you are called to.” It’s vintage Wesley. For Father John, biblical interpretation meant not just thinking about Jesus by reading the Bible but also getting busy in Christ’s work, going where Christ goes, doing what Christ commands us in the Bible. (I count 86 references in his sermons to the importance of prison ministry.)

This vignette from Wesley’s life is a rationale for the usage, in our congregations, of The Wesley Study Bible (NRSV). Joel Green and I, working with editors of the United Methodist Publishing House, assembled a diverse, distinguished group of scholars and scholar-pastors whose marginal notes and sidebars enable biblical passages to speak in fresh and revealing ways. Their work on this Bible proves the fruitfulness of reading scripture from an enthusiastically Wesleyan perspective.

Here is the beginning of the introduction to the Letter of James:

Martin Luther dismissed the Letter of James as “an epistle of straw”…. For John Wesley, however, this small letter was central for Christian faith and life. In his journal he described James as a remedy against the general temptation of leaving off good works in order to increase faith…. Elsewhere, Wesley observed that, when James wrote his letter, “That grand pest of Christianity, a faith without works, was spread far and wide; filling the church with….envy, strife, confusion, and every evil work’”….

Throughout the text are sidebars that (1.) treat Wesleyan Core Terms related to various passages and (2.) apply the text with selected Life Application Terms for individual believers and the church. You will find Wesleyan Core Terms ranging from Acceptance and Almost Christian, to Yielding to Temptation and Zeal, concise discussions of Classes, Connection, Conscience, Conversion, Conviction of Sin and more. This Bible is a treasure trove of Wesleyan believing.

Here is part of the sidebar for the Wesleyan Core Term “Faith and Works”:

For many faith and works are two aspects of Christian living that seem to be in opposition to each other. But not for Wesley! For him, faith and good works are united in God’s love. God expresses God’s love for us in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ; and we, in turn, express our response to God’s love through our good deeds, particularly toward those in need….

Distinguished pastors from a dozen different Wesleyan church families have tackled Life Application Terms that encompass the full range of Christian discipleship, everything from Acts of Kindness to Christ Died for You, from Justice to Conflict in the Church.

Linked with the Letter of James, Chapter 2 is this Life Application Topic, “Caring for the Poor”:

Today, we honor the rich as potential patrons of our church; James says the poor are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom (2:5), and the rich are in big trouble. Where did John Wesley get his scorn for the rich and his advocacy for the poor? He read James…..

With its constant combination of historical and theological background, paired with Wesleyan theology and practical application, I think that you will find the Wesley Study Bible to be a great to explore again that life-giving territory that Karl Barth once called, “the strange new world of the Bible.”

William H. Willimon

Interview with Wesley Report

Click here to see a recent interview with Shane's Wesley Report:

Will

A Short Account of a Continuing Journey – 3

In two earlier Bishop’s weekly messages this month I’ve been reflecting upon the journey that we have made as a church, in the past two decades – decades of unprecedented decline for our church but now – thanks be to the work of the Holy Spirit among us, a time of increasing growth.  I have highlighted what we have learned and what we are doing differently within the church.

This week I want to name a few of the external, cultural factors that we are struggling with and building upon that make life in the church today such an adventure.  As I’ve said before, the main difference between a growing, thriving church and a church in decline is usually the difference between a pastor and church that focus upon the internals as opposed to the externals.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son….”  God loved the world, all of it and we must respond to our world in the name of Christ, loving as God loves.

How our world is changing and how we as a church must change.

1. While we were changing, the culture was also changing.  Perhaps half of our congregations are now in areas that were centers of population a century ago but where today people are departing.   We grew as a church because we went where the people were, willing to make any sacrifice to start new congregations where no other church would risk.  At some point in our history we decided to maintain the churches we had and stop moving with the people.  This is the single most important factor in church decline.   About a tenth of our Conference budget now goes to establish new churches where the people are – that percentage needs to double in the next couple of years if we are to come close to keeping pace with our people.
    
2. Most of our institutions (colleges, children’s homes, and homes for the aging), that we founded in the last two centuries, are no longer totally dependent upon our church for their financial survival.  Much of our early growth and development was fueled by higher education.  How will we retain these institutions as truly Christian institutions when our financial stake in them has become negligible?  Two hundred years ago Methodists established dozens of institutions that would serve other people’s children.  We need to recover some of that same spirit in creatively ministering to contemporary needs – particularly because one of our Conference Priorities is reaching a new generation of Christians.  We need our institutions to teach us how to reach a generation that we have nearly lost.
    
3. Our VIM teams have experienced some of the explosive growth of the church in our southern hemisphere.  Hispanic immigration is presenting our church with some dramatic challenges (Alabama has about the third highest percentage of Spanish-speaking growth of the Southeastern states.).  We need to expand our Conference tradition of mission work in the southern hemisphere.  We also need to double our efforts to start Spanish-speaking congregations.  Thomas Muhomba is giving us great leadership in this area with a half dozen new congregations begun in the last two years, but we need many more.
    
4. We continue to be an aging church, with the average age of our clergy and our membership higher than the national average, particularly in our predominately African-American congregations.  While we have had some success in attracting younger clergy candidates (we are about fourth from the top in the Connection), we must do many things differently if we are to buck this trend.  Every church needs to make inviting new, young Christians into the leadership of the congregation.  This year’s Annual Conference will focus upon this priority and will share some of our successes in this area.
    
5. The past two decades will be known as the time of rapid growth in the number of our very small congregations (churches with under seventy-five members).  In many ways the United Methodist Church is organized to support, to find pastoral leadership for, and to produce more small congregations.  Our small congregations have shown themselves to be wonderfully resilient.  Our medium sized congregations have been those most threatened by present trends. Most of our resources, and most of our pastors continue to support small congregations.  We’ve got to find a way to deploy more of our pastoral and financial resources to start new congregations and to take new initiatives to reach a new generation.  All of our small congregations were given birth by a church that was determined to go where the people were.  We’ve got to show that same pioneering spirit in our time.

I fervently believe that God will continue to bless us and give us what we need to reach a new generation, to be faithful to the mandate of Christ in our time and place.

Will Willimon

An Affirmative Action Plan for African American United Methodists

Recently I was asked to contribute a commentary on the website of the General Commission on Religion and Race. I reprint it here, as a thought piece on this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend.

When I saw the racial composition of the delegates to the Republican National Convention I saw a political party that was sadly out of touch with the future of this great democracy. In that vast throng of delegates, no more than thirty-seven were African Americans! Any party that so limited in diversity was doomed to failure in the election.

And yet, as a United Methodist, I grieve that our church is steadily looking more like the composition of this secular political party and less like the Body of Christ – racially speaking. During three decades of programs, agencies, and millions of dollars of funding to foster greater racial inclusiveness in our church, we have proportionally become less racially inclusive. I consider this to be one of our greatest scandals and an affront to the gospel.

We have made some remarkable progress in addressing historic patterns of racial exclusiveness in our church. In the past few decades we have shown growth in the number of Bishops, District Superintendents, General and Jurisdictional Conference Delegates, and Directors and Staff of General Boards who are persons of color. The trouble is, in all these categories, the percentage of people of color represented is much greater than the presence of people of color in the membership of the denomination.

Therein lies the problem. We have tried to address the issue of “racial inclusiveness” in an exclusively top-down fashion – electing and appointing persons of color in a high proportion to positions of authority in our church while failing to make racial inclusiveness a bottom-up phenomenon. The statistics suggest that we’ve got “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” only for people of the racial group that is in decline of the percentage of the American population. Years ago, Bob Wilson and I said (in Rekindling the Flame ) that our church loves slogans about African Americans more than we appear to love actual United Methodist African Americans! African American United Methodists are a shrinking proportion of our church. In my own Annual Conference, 25% of my Cabinet is African American. Yet we are struggling to have thriving, growing predominately African American congregations. The rate of death of our African American constituency is about five times higher than our rate of new African American members.

True, our church shows decline in many segments (though our Korean and Spanish speaking congregations appear to be happy exceptions). My worry is that my African American congregations are declining faster, proportionately, than my non-African American congregations. The age of the average African American United Methodist appears to be even higher than the average age of United Methodists in general (which is already terribly high). We are losing our African American constituency -- particularly African Americans of the generation of our new President. Obama is President, in great part, because he marvelously succeeded in appealing to the generation that my church has (be they white, black, or brown) excluded – people under forty.

Though my immediate concern is reaching a new generation of African Americans, I fear that we are having similarly poor response from some other racial minorities. According to a breakdown of conference statistics by GCFA, since 1990 the conference that showed the greatest decline in average worship attendance was the Rio Grande Conference, declining by 30.14%. This decline is particularly sad because this geographic area has been the beneficiary of dramatic growth in Spanish-speaking people.

I therefore find myself in agreement with Dr. Lovette Weems, Jr. of Wesley Theological Seminary who, last fall, told the Council of Bishops, “We need an affirmative action program for ethnic minority United Methodists!” Our church has proved that having more bishops and denominational executives of color, while enriching the quality of leadership of our church, has no positive effect on the number of members of our church who are persons of color. It seems that no African Americans become United Methodists simply because we have slogans about racial inclusiveness and a few persons in top positions. We need a church wide effort to do what we need to do to increase the number of professions of faith by people of color.

Weems noted that, “All mainline denominations have wonderful statements about racial inclusiveness but no mainline denomination has demonstrated that it can reach any racial group other than whites at the same rate it can reach white people.”

If one examines the website of the General Commission on Religion and Race one searches in vain for emphasis on increasing the diversity of our church through making our church more accessible, attractive, welcoming, and inclusive of a new generation of persons of color. It as if the Commission has not heard that “making disciples for the transformation of the world” is the bishops’ priority for this quadrennium. (To be fair to the Commission, most of the other agency websites are guilty of the same omission.) Sadly, it is easier to elect and appoint a few persons of color to leadership positions in our church than to welcome new United Methodists. I wish the Commission on Religion and Race would show the same commitment to set goals and monitor diversity in the areas of evangelism, new members, baptisms, average attendance, and professions of faith that it has shown in monitoring delegates to G eneral Conference.

My friend Nathan Hatch, great American church historian, notes that in the Nineteenth Century, “More African Americans became Christians in 10 years of Methodist preaching than in a century of Anglican.” Our movement, in its first years in this nation, showed a peculiar genius for reaching African Americans for Christ and Wesleyan Christianity. A gracious, ever seeking God can use us again if we decide that reaching a new generation of Christians and making disciples is a priority. We do have a few congregations and pastors who know how to do this crucial ministry. They must teach the rest of us. In my experience, persons of color are attracted to a congregation and decide to join that congregation for exactly the same reasons as anyone else – vibrant, Spirit-filled worship, engaging preaching, a warm, exciting congregational culture, and opportunities for service and witness in the name o f Christ. Though it pains me to admit this, I have never met a single person of any racial group who became a United Methodist Christian because of bishops!

The way to be a more racially inclusive church is not through monitoring, slogans, or the election of bishops – it is by being more racially inclusive in our membership. The youthfulness of the growing racial ethnic diversity in the United States makes its impact even more significant for the future of an aging denomination. Our church’s vitality in the next century will be dependent upon its willingness and ability to respond to the changing face of America.

I would love to see our church move from a vague statement like “making disciples” to set specific goals for reaching persons of color as members of our church. Then we should commit to give pastors the skills they need to lead toward that goal. We should hold bishops like me, churches and pastors accountable to those goals, and we should appoint and deploy pastors on the basis of how well God uses them to reach a new generation of United Methodists who will enable us to be a church that not only talks about racial inclusiveness but embodies, practices, visibly demonstrates inclusiveness in our membership.

William H. Willimon

P.S. Next week, I’ll return to and conclude my messages on A Short Account of a Continuing Journey and focus on how our world is changing and how we as a church must change.

A Short Account of a Continuing Journey – 2

Last week I noted some of the things we have learned about how to grow our church and better to position ourselves for reaching a new generation for Christ. Now I note some of the ways we are doing the work of Christ differently in order to get different results from our labors.

What we are doing differently in order to keep up with Jesus:

1. Our pastors are learning the skills needed to be transformative leaders. Most of us inculcated those skills needed to maintain the church, to react to crises in the church, to organize the church on the basis of our Discipline, but we had no training in how to change the church, grow the church, or reorganize the church for different results. Our pastors told us that they needed a new skill set to lead in the ways that the church was asking them to lead. NCD, our Healthy Congregations program, the interventions by the Pastoral Care and Counseling Center, and the attention of District Superintendents who now function more effectively as trainers, coaches, and mentors is making our pastors more into transformative leaders than merely care givers.
   
2. In A New Connection Andy Langford and I urged every congregation to devise a mission statement in order to mobilize and focus for the work that Jesus demands. Little did I know that soon I would be serving a Conference that had one of the most succinct and empowering mission statements in our Connection. When I came here, I inherited The North Alabama Conference has a vision statement, which I have found very helpful in focusing our ministry. The Cabinet and I have utilized that statement to set our Conference Priorities. The statement and the Priorities, now given quantifiable shape in the Conference Dashboard, are revolutionizing the way that our church is led by its pastors.
   
3. We learned how to do community demographics as a way of starting new churches. Methodism is a movement that grew in great part because we obeyed the Great Commission and went where the people were. Having noticed that we had many churches today where the people had left, we became savvy in analyzing where the people were and in finding the resources to move toward them. We moved from being a church that occasionally did good things for marginalized persons to a church that started congregations that are led by and who empower marginalized persons to be the church. Here I’m thinking about new churches like The Church Without Walls in Birmingham, Glen Addie in Anniston, and Genesis in Guntersville.
   
4. We realize that our clergy who seek to be transformative leaders place themselves under more stress, and have a more demanding ministry than if they simply tried to maintain the church as they received it from the last generation. We have therefore encouraged clergy sabbaticals, sought grants for clergy renewal leaves, worked with ICE to obtain training for clergy leaders, and sponsored retreats in spiritual formation and spiritual groundedness for clergy. In addition to this, the Cabinet took steps to exit some of our noticeable clergy non-performers, attempting to deal compassionately with those clergy who seemed unable to function well in a new culture of growth and accountability for outreach.
   
5. We have transformed our clergy recruitment procedures, revolutionizing the way we make visits to seminaries, making our Conference a magnet for talented new clergy, regardless of their place of birth. We have brought in new personnel to help us in our work (like Thomas Muhumba and Eddie Spencer). Our new, young clergy said that they needed better supervision and mentoring so we created the Residency in Ministry program for probationers and we are continuing to revamp our mentoring process.

I give thanks to God not only for the privilege of serving in a transforming, forward moving Conference but also for being able to be the Episcopal leader at a time when, having debated and studied church growth and decline for the last two decades we at last are doing things differently in order to give as a very different future. The things that we are doing differently, the new ideas that we are embodying are all evidence of the renewing, transforming work of the Holy Spirit among us.

Will Willimon

A Short Account of a Continuing Journey – 1

As we move into a new year together, our 201st year as a Conference, I thought that the next three weeks would be a good time to assess where we have come from in recent years and where we think God is leading us.

Just over two decades ago we began to wake up and realize that we were experiencing a phenomenon that had never occurred in the two hundred year history of the Methodist Church. Since that time, the North Alabama Conference has been one of the leaders in honestly confronting our contemporary challenges and organizing ourselves to confront the challenges.

What we have learned:

This has been a grand two decades of self-reflection and beginning realignment by our church. Most of our thought has been stimulated by the realization that we have lost nearly 20% of our membership. We could not continue doing church the same way without getting exactly the same poor results.

Church growth guru Gil Rendle (who has been very helpful to our Cabinet in its work) notes some of the stages we have been through on our way toward positioning our church for reaching a new generation for Christ.

1. We have confronted our passive barriers to growth. We discovered that we have unintentionally excluded new members and younger members simply by the unintended passive barriers that we erected. Some of our churches had to unlock the doors that lead into the church from the parking lot. We found that many congregations lacked noticeable, effective signage. We placed reserved parking signs for visitors and worked to make our church more accessible. We shortened, and attempted to make more effective our church meetings – dramatically shortening the time expended for Annual Conference, making Annual Conference more accessible for the laity.
   
2. We debated the theological factors that might have contributed to our decline. We learned that it wasn’t a simple matter of conservative vs. liberal (such labels came to mean less and less). It wasn’t a matter of taking controversial stands on social issues (sorry, IRD and Good News, that’s virtually irrelevant to the issue of church growth). We found it was a matter of robust believe in the Trinity – a God who is constantly reaching out into the world, a Christ who is determined to have a family, constantly calling disciples. A faithful church is a church that is always growing, always making new disciples.
   
3. We heard some saying that, for a new generation, our denominational identity had become a problem. People had moved from being apathetic toward denominational labels to being downright hostile. We were told to take “United Methodist” off our signs and letterheads. Eventually we discovered that our denominational identity could be a gift – many people in Alabama have a very positive reaction to the name “Methodist.” We have a great theological heritage and a responsible polity. Furthermore, we have found that our Conference can be a great resource in training church leaders in how to grow their churches (NCD) and a means of growing new churches (while I look forward to the day when individual congregations will start new churches, today ALL of our successful new church starts are attributable to planning and funding by the Conference).
   
4. We realized that too many of our congregations had no expectation that they could grow; they thought that unmitigated decline was their fate. We therefore have been engaged in a decade of training churches in who to move from being inward focused to outward focused, in how to stress mission over maintenance. Although over half of our congregations are still in decline, we have at last communicated to all our churches and pastors that growth is expected, planned, and is God’s will for the church. The new Conference Dashboard is a dramatic, visible means of creating expectation for growth and recognizing and honoring those churches where God is giving a rich harvest.
   
5. We heard those church observers who taught that the fastest growing churches, the churches of the future were “megachurches” – young, large congregations. By my count we have only two of these megacongregations, yet they account for a disproportionate share of our growth. These two congregations – Asbury and ClearBranch – have had a remarkable effect upon dozens of our growing churches, pioneering new practices and changing the attitude of decline to the expectation of growth.

All of these understandings have arisen in the last few years of reflection, critique and visioning. Next week, I’ll focus on some of the things we have learned about transformative leadership and change in our church.

Will Willimon

Faithful in the New Year

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 for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for 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.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

as used in the Book of Offices of the British Methodist Church, 1936

The Baby Jesus Among Neighbors in Need

On Christ the King, the last Sunday of the church year, the Sunday before Advent, we always read from Matthew’s gospel, the twenty-fifth chapter -- Jesus’ parable of the Great Judgment. At the end, when the King sits on the throne, all shall be judged on the basis of how well we responded to the needs of “the least of these.” Christ is encountered in giving the cup of water, the loaf of bread, in visits to the sick and imprisoned. Jesus is served by deeds of mercy to the “least of these.”

The parable is typical of the Savior who was born in a stable, the King of Kings who came among us as one of “the least of these.” Christians learn to encounter Jesus incognito, in the form of those who are marginalized, pushed to the bottom, neglected.

In my visits to dozens of United Methodist congregations this fall I’ve been impressed by the sort of people who are formed by listening to stories like the Great Judgment and the babe who is born in a manger. They are people, these Methodists, who, though their church is tiny, gathered a ton of food for Angel Food ministry. They got organized and built this year, by my count, about a dozen Habitat Houses. They welcomed the homeless into their churches and they continued work on the devastation of Katrina. In a year of economic stress, dozens of our churches, large and small, have postponed anticipated building expansions or staff increases and pastors have forgone salary increases so they can pay 100% of their fair share of Conference ministry support. They have put the needs of poor children, and overseas missions, and a wide array of benevolences ahead of their own.

Why, in a society that encourages much self-centeredness and personal acquisitiveness, did these Christians buck cultural trends and take responsibility for the needs of people who weren’t among their own family or friends? I think it was because they know by heart the story of the Nativity, the story of a God who came among us as a helpless, needy baby, born to peasant parents, lying in a feed trough.

“There are many of you,” Martin Luther scolded his sixteenth century German congregation, “who think to yourselves: ‘If only I had been there! How quick I would have been to help the little baby!’…You say that because you know how great Christ is, but if you had been there at that time you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem…. Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor.”

Christ gave us himself, present in the needs of our neighbors. The one who was born in a Bethlehem stable commanded us to care for “the least of these.” We cannot see Christ, we do not truly worship him or follow him without obeying him in our acts of mercy to those in need. Thanks be to God there are thousands of Alabama United Methodists who not only believe the Bible, but obey it as well, who not only love Christ, but see him in the neighbor.

Merry Christmas.
Will Willimon

I'm convening a Bishop's Summit on Ministry to the Marginalized on the morning of February 19, 2009, here at the United Methodist Center. If you are working in ministries with those in need, please mark your calendar now.

Effective Churches

Earlier this year our Conference Lay Leader, Ellen Harris and I participated in a conversation, with Jurisdictional leaders on what makes for an effective congregation.

What are some of the main characteristic of a growing, effective church? I thought they devised a fascinating list. How does your congregation embody, or conflict with, these characteristic?

EFFECTIVE CONGREGATIONS:

1. Love their particularly community. Their pastors have found a way not only to love their congregations but also their neighborhood. Effective pastors help their congregations move beyond love of themselves, turning their congregations outward.
2. Rise above mere contentment with things as they are and do what is necessary to expect and welcome change, disruption, and movement, similar to that of the Risen Christ.
3. Find a way to welcome the stranger and to practice radical hospitality in the name of Jesus Christ. They find a way to be as interested in those who have yet to join the church as those already in the church.
4. Have a clear sense of their primary purpose and keep focused on their primary God-given missions.
5. Enable lay leaders to lead, not just manage. Lay leadership that feels a strong sense of responsibility for the future of their congregation.
6. All have a strong, change oriented, gifted pastor.
7. Make growth a priority and figure out how to grow.
8. Keep focused upon Jesus Christ as the originator of, and the purpose for the church (rather than church as just another human oriented institution).

How does your church answer to these qualities of effective churches? What specific steps would your congregation need to take to live into the future in a different way?

William H. Willimon

Church Growth Keys: Multiracial, Happy, More Males Active

Kirk Hadaway is a veteran church observer of mainline church growth and decline. Recently, Hadaway released the results of a study he completed on mainline churches. I think it has real relevance for our work in North Alabama:

Congregations interested in increasing their weekly attendance would do well to make a plan for recruiting new members, become multiracial and make sure that serious conflict doesn’t take root. That’s the message of an analysis recently released by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary. The “FACTs on Growth” report, based on data collected in a 2005 survey of nearly 900 congregations, found that congregations reporting growth in worship attendance between 2000 and 2005 tended to exhibit certain common attributes.

Multiracial congregations had a better chance of growing than those predominantly consisting of one racial group. Some 61 percent of multiracial churches said they had experienced growth, while just 31 percent of predominantly Anglo congregations said the same.

But even more important may be whether people in the pews, no matter their race, actually get along with one another.

“Whether or not a congregation finds itself in serious conflict is the number one predictor of congregational decline,” writes C. Kirk Hadaway, director of research for the Episcopal Church and author of the report, released in December. “This finding points out the need for conflict resolution skills among clergy so minor conflict does not become serious, debilitating conflict.”

Conversely, congregations were most likely to grow if they:

• had a clear mission and purpose as a congregation
• conducted “joyful” worship services
• adopted a specific plan for recruiting new members
• had changed worship format at one or more services in the past five years
  

What’s more, congregations were likely to grow if men constituted the majority of active participants, said Hadaway.

Among congregations in which at least three out of five regular participants were men, 50 percent reported growth, but among churches where no more than two in every five regular participants were men, only 21 percent said they had experienced growth.

“As American congregations become increasingly populated by women,” the report says, “those congregations that are able to even out the proportions of males and females are those most likely to grow.”

-- Excerpts from Christian Century, January 23, 2007, p. 14

Will Willimon

Church of the Second Chance: Empowering A New Generation of United Methodist Leaders

In Anne Tyler’s novel Saint Maybe, nineteen-year-old Ian tells his parents, Doug and Bee Bedloe, of his decision to leave college and become an apprentice cabinetmaker. This will enable Ian to raise the young children of his deceased brother, Danny. Ian has arrived at this decision because of the influence in his life of Rev. Emmett and the Church of the Second Chance, a congregation that believes in actual atonement, that is, that you must do something “real” to be forgiven for your sins. Ian’s sin was that he led his drunken brother to believe that his wife was unfaithful, after which Danny committed suicide.

In the crucial scene in which Ian tells his parents of the change in the course of his life, church and faith enter the conversation. Ian explains that he will have help from his church in juggling his new job and the responsibility for the children. This alarms his parents.

"Ian, have you fallen into the hands of some sect?” his father
asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Ian said. “I have merely discovered a church
that makes sense to me, the same as Dober Street Presbyterian makes sense to you
and Mom.”
“Dober Street didn’t ask us to abandon our educations,” his mother
told him.
“Of course we have nothing against religion; we raised all of you
children to be Christians. But our church never asked us to abandon our
entire way of life.”
“Well, maybe it should have,” Ian said
His parents
looked at each other.

His mother said, “I don’t believe this. I do
not believe it. No matter how long I’ve been a mother, it seems my children
can still come up with something new and unexpected to do to me.”[1]

Ian’s is a story of two kinds of churches. Dober Street is a church that mainly confirms people’s lives as they are. The Church of the Second Chance disrupts lives in the name of Jesus so that people can change. In my experience, young adults are more attracted to the church that promises them change, new life, and disruption than in the church that offers little but stability, order, and accommodation. Alas, too many of our churches have contented themselves with meeting the spiritual needs of one generation with the resulting loss of at least two generations of Christians. If we are going to fulfill our Conference Priority and summon a new generation of young Christians, I expect that we’ll have to look more like the Church of the Second Chance.

William H. Willimon

[1] Anne Tyler, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991), p. 127.

Strategic Dis-Harmonization

In their excellent book, Episcopacy in the Methodist Tradition, my friends Russ Richey and Tom Frank quote from a book that I wrote some years ago with Andy Langford. “In a church that is overmanaged and underled, we desperately need our bishops to become leaders in the decentralization and creation of a new connection.”

I believe that more than ever after four years as a bishop. Tom Bandy has a wonderful phrase, “strategic dis-harmonization.” That is what a declining institution needs from its leaders, in my opinion. Unfortunately, too many of our leaders continue to administer the church as their greatest challenge as leaders was to insure constant, undisturbed harmony in the church. They still act as if the church were growing by leaps and bounds, as if our greatest challenge were to keep things in order, slow down movement, and stifle change.

We have expended too much time tweaking structures and machinery when what we need is to abandon unproductive, laborious, slow moving structures. Sometimes I think that many of our traditional ways of working were designed to make sure that they take the maximum amount of time to produce the minimal amount of fruit! Simplify, simplify!

I therefore applaud the work of the leaders of the North Alabama Conference who, in just a few years - completely reorganized the work of Connectional Ministries, getting the staff out into the Districts; moved from twelve to eight districts thus greatly simplifying administration and saving nearly a million dollars a year on administrative costs, money than can now be put directly into ministry; and changed the format of Annual Conference to make our annual gathering less expensive, more accommodating of the laity, and more efficient.

A number of our elected members of this year’s General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference said that they did not know how much had been accomplished in North Alabama until they witnessed the laborious, poorly planned, time-consuming and ultimately unproductive work of these gatherings. (Hooray for the North Alabama Delegation that introduced a resolution at Jurisdictional Conference entreating the planners to be more respectful of delegates’ time and patience by planning a better Conference.) All the more reason for us in North Alabama to forge ahead and show the rest of our Connection the good that can come by holding the church more accountable for the use of our time, the actually results of our work, and the stewardship of our resources.

William H. Willimon

Weak Clergy, Watered Down Christianity

I’ve said it before, I say it again. Few writers are as tough on us clergy as Soren Kierkegaard, that melancholy Dane. However, few writers better remind me of the high calling to which we clergy have been summoned.

Kierkegaard, here in his Journals, notes that in his day clergy had moved from being powerful people in their societies to “being controlled” by the surrounding culture. The result was a desperate attempt on the part of the clergy to be useful, to get a hearing, to appear to be relevant to whatever it was that the culture wanted. Thus was Christianity “watered down,” according to Kierkegaard.

The good news is that the situation now calls for clergy who are as tough on ourselves as the gospel is tough on humanity. Lacking the former crutches and accolades of the culture, we now must get our courage strictly from the gospel itself. We clergy must begin by applying the gospel to ourselves, before we apply it to others.

“Even then,” says Kierkegaard, “things may go badly”:

As long as the clergy were exalted, sacrosanct in the eyes of men, Christianity
continued to be preached in all its severity. For even if the clergy did
not take it too strictly, people dared not argue with the clergy, and they could
quite well lay on the burden and dare to be severe.

But gradually, as the nimbus faded away, the clergy got into the position of themselves being controlled. So there was nothing to do but to water down
Christianity. And so they continued to water it down till in the end they
achieved perfect conformity with an ordinary worldly run of ideas – which were
proclaimed as Christianity. That is more or less Protestantism as it is now.

The good thing is that it is not longer possible to be severe to others
if one is not so towards oneself. Only someone who is really strict with
himself can dare nowadays to proclaim Christianity in its severity, and even
then things may go badly for him.
--Kierkegaard, Journals[1]

Still, all things being considered, being a pastor is a high vocation, a great way to expend a life. The way of Christ is narrow and demanding, but it is also a great gift, even “in its severity.”

These are my thoughts, thinking with Kierkegaard looking over my shoulder, as I begin this week of ministry.

Will Willimon

[1] The Journals of Kierkegaard, Ed. Alexander Dru, Harper Torchbooks, 1958, 205.

The Best of All God (Yet) With Us

Saturday, a week ago, we had a grand celebration of 200 years of Methodism in Alabama. Thanks to our North Alabama Conference Historical Society for providing us this opportunity to celebrate our heritage. From the Flint Circuit, we’ve grown to a strong, far flung Conference. This past month I’ve preached in two of the churches of the Flint Circuit (Shiloh and Ford’s Chapel). They have a grand 200 year history. The best of all, both churches are growing
The week before, at our Cabinet Retreat, I asked the District Superintendents, “What Biblical text have you found most helpful in your current ministry?”

One DS responded with Joshua 1:9 – “I was with Moses, I’ll be with you.” Joshua was reassured by God that even as God had supported and led Moses in the past, God would stand with Joshua in the present and future.

We have a wonderful past. We have huge challenges in the present. We wonder if we can show half the risk, creativity, and faith in a living, moving God that was shown by our forebears 200 years ago.

To us, as to them, God promises us that we need not face these challenges alone. God says to us, “I was with Lorenzo Dow (1803), I’ll be with you.” “I was with Matthew Parham Sturdivant (1808), I’ll be with you.” “I was with James Gwinn (1808), I’ll be with you. Therein is our hope for a future.

The last words of John Wesley were, “The best of all, God is with us.”

As we tackle our present challenges, as we hold ourselves accountable to the Conference Priorities, as Jesus demands our obedience to his Great Commission and the Great Commandment, the best of all is, God is with us.

William H. Willimon

“The weather is so bad today, there’s nobody out and about but crows and Methodist preachers.”"the Methodists around here are few in number, poor, and much despised."
- Comments heard in early 19th Century Alabama

Young Pastors' Network

We have had four young clergy from North Alabama attend the Young Pastors' Network that recently met in Tipp City, Ohio, at Ginghamsburg UMC. One of our young pastors recently posted about his experience at our Young Clergy Blog