Transitioning New Pastors

United Methodism practices as “sent ministry.” Our pastors are sent (rather than called) to where they are most needed. We now ask every pastor and receiving congregation to submit a “First Ninety Days” plan. This year each full-time pastor who moved received a letter from me and the DS that stated specific goals and expectations in the first year. District Superintendent, Mike Stonbraker has taken the process another step further. I asked him to describe his creation of the Transitional Team.

The Cabinet and I are attempting to change from just “making appointments” to “making appointments work.” - Will Willimon

Transitioning New Pastors

Transitioning in to a new church appointment can be one of the most stressful events in the life of a pastor, his/her family, as well as the churches. Saying farewell to one family and entering a new church ministry packs a great deal of emotion and anticipation.

From the time appointments are announced until Moving Day, we must live through Annual Conference, sweltering heat, (not to mention one of those pop-up showers on moving day), trying to live out of boxes for the first few days, and our “first Sunday.” Pastors work to unpack their office, begin meeting the new folks, and help the spouse as much as possible. Staff and team meetings are planned, and we begin living out our First 90 Days plan. The new school term begins, football season kicks off, and districts schedule pastor consultations. Before you know it it’s time to start planning the Advent Season.

I have been working on a system with a fresh approach that would begin the transition process much earlier for the incoming pastor and church family. This past year I requested that four churches work with me by creating a Transitional Team to be in place by late March early April. This team would be hand selected by the outgoing pastor and the Chairperson’s of the Pastor Parish Relations and Administrative Board/Council. The team would be composed of a cross-sectional group from the church, to be composed of no more than twelve and no less than six people including the outgoing pastor, the incoming pastor and the two chairpersons.

First the team was asked to schedule a two hour meeting with me. Together we talked about the most pressing issues facing the church’s ministry. Worship, small groups, evangelism, and staff positions seemed to always be placed on the table. We focused on ways to improve these areas while keeping the church moving in a positive, healthy direction. No concern or issue was off limits. Second, we focused on making the transition out and the transition in, smooth and fluid. The team was asked to work closely with the Worship Team on the final Sunday for the outgoing pastor and the first Sunday for the incoming pastor. I asked that both events be prayerful and uplifting through celebration and hope for everyone concerned. I also asked that Moving Day preparations and assistance be made available for both pastors. Finally, scheduled meeting dates were made with the incoming pastor for April and May to assure he/she understood the pressing issues and expectations coming with this transition. But above all I asked that this Transition Team be “cheerleaders” for this time of change and challenge. Learn about the incoming pastor and their family. Spread hope and excitement for the years ahead while praising God for the ministry past. Bring unity and joy for everyone involved. Claim this appointment for what it really is, change and renewal.

I have requested that the Transition Team stay together for one year. They are to meet with me again in August to share updates on how well the team has worked through this transition and how the future year is beginning to unfold. So far the feedback has been very positive. Combining the First 90 Days and the Transitional Team ideas and plans have helped the early days of a new move to be a bit easier and smoother. Pastors are getting their “feet on the ground” much sooner and in the scheme of things understanding their new role and priorities.

This has really helped me as well. I’m learning much more about the individual churches and their desire to grow and make a difference within the community. Will this work? Is there going to be some tweaking? Only time will tell. However, I truly believe that getting more of the church family involved in the positive transition in and transition out is crucial for every church setting.

Mike Stonbraker
Northwest District Superintendent

P.S. I recently noticed that two of our congregations, who have had a recent history of struggling financially and finding it difficult to shoulder their fair share of our connectoinal ministries budget, are now participating at 100%! Both of these congregations, Liberty Crossing and Highlands (Birmingham) received new, young pastors last June (Wade Griffith and Mikah Hudson, respectively) which makes this progress all the more remarkable. If you want to know how we've had the best year in four years in regard to connectional giving, this is the primary reason: committed, dedicated pastors who know that the purpose of the church and its ministry is focused outside of the congregation, partaking of Christ's ministry in the world. Congratulations to all those congregations (more than half of all our churches) who participated at 100% or better! - WW

Monitoring Key Indicators of Congregational Health

Our Conference has pioneered the use of metrics in ministry in our Dashboard. Part of the impetus for this effort has been my observation that in every one of our thriving congregations, there was a noted attentiveness to fruitfulness and accountability based upon measurement of ministry. The converse is true in declining congregations. One of our slogans is “you only count what is important and whatever you count becomes important.” This article, which appeared in Wesley Seminary’s “Leading Ideas,” (Jan. 5, 2011) takes measurement of ministry to the congregation. I thought you would find it both interesting and confirming of our work.

Will Willimon

Too many church leaders are "leading in the dark." Congregational leaders need to develop a "dashboard" to monitor the basic metrics of their church. And monitoring must be done "along the way," not just at the end of the year. If you only looked at your car dashboard at the end of each trip, you would miss the most important signals the indicators are sending.

There are several guidelines when developing a congregational dashboard:

• Keep it simple, up-to-date, and understandable…. it needs to be something that people can keep up with and understand.
• Share the dashboard…. Even if some of the trends are negative, the sooner church leaders know the problems, the better chance they have of reversing them.
• Compare trends over time…. Take the time to look at the larger, multi-year trends.

Monitoring People and Their Engagement

Worship attendance should be prominent on any church's dashboard. Congregations with more than one service should record the attendance for each service separately, as well as the overall total, so that changes in each service can be noted. A key metric of worship attendance is maintaining a 52-week running average of attendance that can be compared to the same average a year ago.

Tracking visitors is another important task related to worship attendance. Be sure you are greeting, engaging, and monitoring new and returning visitors. If there is more than one service, be sure to record visitors for each service. A key metric for gauging the success of your visitor follow up is tracking the percent of first-time guests who return for a second time and how that percentage compares to last year.

Membership is another important element of your dashboard — not just whether the church is growing, declining, or staying the same, but how it is gaining and losing members. Are membership gains coming from professions of faith, transfers from your denomination, or transfers from other denominations? If there are multiple services, how do they compare in terms of generating membership gains? Are membership losses coming from people moving out of the area, changing churches, dying, or drifting away? Once your congregation knows these trends, you can develop appropriate strategies to deal with them. A key metric is how many new members have been received so far this year compared to the same time last year.

Professions of faith and deaths. Comparing the number of professions of faith to deaths is a way of monitoring those entering the faith and those leaving the church through death. A key metric is the ratio of professions of faith to deaths.

Monitoring Giving

Keeping abreast of the key indicators of financial health is vital to sustaining ministry. Avoid the common practice of dividing the budget by 52 weeks as the standard to know whether the church is "ahead" or "behind" on the budget. Rather than coming in 52 equal units, each congregation's giving will follow its own pattern. Therefore, the most effective way to monitor offerings is to calculate the three-year running average of money received through each Sunday of the year and then use those figures to determine how much you "need so far" to be up to date on the budget. A key metric is where your year-to-date income stands in comparison to the portion of income that normally comes in by that same time of year.

Joseph E. Arnold is Research Manager for the Lewis Center for Church Leadership.

What We Have Learned About Planting Churches in North Alabama and Beyond…

Alan Beasley reports that Russellville First paid their entire Fund 524, Birmingham-Southern College, times two! I hope all of our churches follow Russellville’s lead and I hope all will receive an offering for our scholarships at BSC in Lent.
Will Willimon

Do you prefer the good news or bad news first? Most people prefer the bad first so here it is. Nationwide eighty percent of new churches fail. The only worse odds are among new restaurants. It is tough to start anything.

Why should we start new churches when many fail? Glad you asked.

• Because there is no more effective method on the planet to reach new people for Christ.
• Because the only denominations that are growing are those that are planting churches at a rate approaching two percent. (In case you are doing the math that would be sixteen new communities of faith per year for us. We start about a fourth of that number.)
• Because everywhere in the world where the church is expanding (ie. China, India, Africa etc.) it is happening on the foundation of rapidly multiplying communities of faith.
• Because Jesus commands us to go and do the new thing making disciples.
• Because…selfishly we need more vibrant churches to share the load of paying for our mission (OK…I admit that is not the best motivation…but it is motivation.)

Can the failure rate be reversed? Again, glad you asked. Now for the good news…YES! We can reverse the numbers to an eighty percent success rates by focusing on four areas. That is where we have been pouring our energy into over the past eighteen months. In Jim Collins Good to Great lingo, “The flywheel is slowly beginning to turn.”

Effective Assessment of the Plant Pastor

Dr. Charles Ridley identified thirteen characteristics of effective church planters. Potential church plant pastors must be assessed for their effectiveness potential based on these characteristics. Jim Griffith has trained a team of pastors from our conference to do this kind of assessment. We have also developed a partnership with Growing Healthy Churches to do detailed assessment for our potential church planters. We are committed to having no one plant a church in North Alabama without the pastor and church having the highest potential for success.

Proper Training

We have sought outside help, partnering with Griffith Coaching to provide training through his “boot camp.” This boot camp trains in habits and skills that lead to the highest likelihood of ongoing effectiveness. All new church pastors in North Alabama have now had that training as will all future new church pastors.

Ongoing Coaching

Jim Griffith has provided coaching for us for the last two years. In turn he has produced a group of pastors from our conference to begin providing ongoing coaching for our plant pastors. We have adopted the Growing Healthy Churches model of cluster coaching. An effective new church pastor from our conference will lead each of these coaching clusters. Here is the message; you are not alone when you go out to plant in North Alabama. There is a team and ultimately a person who will be a friend, mentor and coach. Church planning in North Alabama is now a team sport!

Parent Churches

Partnership with a strong, vibrant parent church is paramount for effective plants. We are evaluating the possibility of treating any money given from a parent church in a similar fashion as capital money. This gives the parent church a financial incentive and benefit for doing this important kingdom work. We have found that any parenting church gets a big spiritual boost from becoming a church planting church.

Our Greatest Needs

Our greatest needs: Gifted plant pastors. Only a few have the gift mix to do this difficult work. If your fell called to this, I need to hear from you. We promise to give you what you need to succeed. Committed partner churches. Church planting cannot remain the domain of the conference. In fact…I work for the day when it is no longer the work of the conference. Because ultimately; churches plant churches!

Tommy Gray

Director of Congregational Development

North Alabama Conference of the UMC

Our College on the Hilltop

For well over a century, Methodists in Alabama have delighted in our partnership with Birmingham-Southern College. This nationally prominent, academically excellent liberal arts college has been at the forefront of the mission of our church. Generations of North Alabama Methodists have grown in their faith, experienced their first hands on mission work, and deepened their commitment to Christ at our little college on the hill. The college has given millions in scholarship aid to UMC students, giving BSC the highest percentage of UMC students of any of our colleges in the country. Currently, over a hundred of our most effective pastors are alumni of BSC.

In the current financial crisis at BSC our church is once again having the opportunity to demonstrate our faith in and love for the college.

Here’s some of the ways we are helping BSC:

• Scott Selman has delivered a check for $250,000 to BSC, advance payment on our yearly apportionment for scholarship for UMC students.
• All of our churches are asked to receive a special offering for BSC on a Sunday before Easter
• All our churches that give to our special asking for BSC are being asked to advance pay that amount immediately, doubling their gift. This could produce as much as $300,000 for the college.
• All of us clergy trustees are making personal solicitations to all of our clergy alumni of BSC, asking them for special gifts and for contacts with potential donors.
• I have offered to appoint a Chaplain to Birmingham-Southern from our Conference, with the cost being borne by our Conference for one year.

As you can see, our conference is in high gear to help BSC. We’ve stepped up and saved the college before and we can do it again. Andy Wolfe and I have made a short video which will be appearing on our website in the next few days. I am currently serving on the Presidential Search Committee; we have some wonderful prospective candidates. The Faith and Ethics Lectureship that Patsy and I sponsor will take place this spring. A visitation team from our UMC University Senate will be visiting the college this spring. I urge all of our people to give generously to BSC and to send us your best students during this crucial time in the life of our beloved college in the hill.

Will Willimon

Pastoral Leadership Challenges, Part 3

A great pastoral leadership challenge is raising resources for the ministry of the church. I’m delighted to report that Scott Selman tells me our pastors and churches have participated in Connectional Giving in 2010 at the rate of over 80%. That’s the highest percentage in the last three years! It is wonderful that the majority of our churches, even in challenging economic times, found a way to contribute to Christ’s mission, a sign of the high level of leadership in our churches.

Dr. Hugh Ballou has done some great work in his transformational leadership seminars. Last year Dr. Ballou interviewed me on church leadership issues. Here is a part of that interview:

Ballou: Will, have you ever been to a boring, unproductive meeting?

Willimon: Are you kidding? That’s one of the major things that Bishops do!

Ballou: I live to put an end to the boring, unproductive meeting. How can we have more productive church meetings?

Willimon: The first thing is to keep your eye on the prize. Focus on fruit, on results, on productivity. Then, form the meeting on the basis of those goals.

This is a little thing, but it has been transformative for the meetings of our Cabinet, and that is 1) have an agenda, but 2) in the minutes, have the secretary put down action items with dates. And let those be highlighted in red. People complain that we go to these church meetings and we talk about everything (blah, blah, blah) and then it just dies – it goes nowhere. We never hear about it again. Christ calls us, not just to have good plans, good intentions, civil discussions, but also to action.

We begin every meeting in my Cabinet by going over the action items from the last meeting. That has really improved morale on the Cabinet. People know that if they have debated an idea that it will be responded to and not be left to die from passive aggressive neglect.

I’ve heard the laity complain that we preachers tend to have meetings in order to hear ourselves talk, in order to give ourselves the illusion that – since we have spent so long at a meeting – we have actually done something for the Kingdom. Well, I think that may be unfair, but I can see their point.

One thing that the gospel writers all agree upon, in their narratives of Jesus and his work, is that Jesus spoke and worked from a sense of urgency. The Kingdom of God is at hand! Repent! Believe! Follow!

I pray that this same sense of urgency, that sense that God presses urgent business upon us, will characterize our meetings. In that way, every one of our church meetings has the opportunity to become a true meeting between us and the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ.

For more information on the seminars, on-line coaching, and books by Hugh Ballou, visit www.hughballou.com.

Will Willimon

Family

Click here for the backstory on this post.

It didn’t take our new governor long to stumble with his comment that if you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, “You’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.” It took the governor a long time to apologize, saying he didn’t mean to offend. I’ve heard from lots of United Methodists who are not so much offended by the governor’s remarks as concerned that he – perhaps unintentionally – misrepresented the Christian faith.

While I’m glad that our dermatologist governor wants to be our brother in Christ, I want to assure him that, in Christ, we already are brothers. Christians don’t only accept Christ, Wesleyan Christians want to obey Christ and one way we obey Christ is by regarding those who once were strangers as our kin.

A number of United Methodists (many of whom say they are political supporters of the governor) have expressed dismay at his comments. Aside from noting the gap between our new governor’s rather irenic Inaugural Address and these comments in the setting of a church, I feel a need to clarify that Christians do not view someone as “brother” or “sister” on the basis of that person’s alleged faith commitments or personal virtues but rather on the basis of what we know of God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus has taught us to pray, “Our Father,” which naturally requires us to regard all children of the Father as siblings.

Christians don’t’ regard others as our brothers and sisters because they are members of our church, they affirm our creed, or because they are nice people. We relate to others as Jesus has related to us – making us brothers and sisters, not by virtue of who we are but on the basis of who he is.

As a Methodist preacher I know nothing of governing or dermatology. All I really know for sure is that God so loved the world (including those who, in my sin, I have yet to recognize as my sisters and brothers), that God gave us his Son who has a considerably more expansive definition of family than those in my political party, biological family, or church. I wouldn’t have known that my fellow citizens of Alabama are my brothers and sisters if Jesus Christ had not known me.

Will Willimon

Pastoral Leadership Challenges, Part 2

Dr. Hugh Ballou has done some great work in his transformational leadership seminars. Last year Dr. Ballou interviewed me on church leadership issues. Here is a part of that interview:

Ballou: As you know, I teach Transformational Leadership. One important part of this style of leadership is the area of relationships. Speak to the staff relationship area and how important that is to ministry and then, ministry overall is about relationship, with those whom you lead.

Willimon: There was a time in my ministry that I would have said that it’s all relationships and that, in the ministry, you have the opportunity to develop some deep, meaningful relationships. A pastor can only lead as far as people trust you and that you can talk into things. While affirming that relationships are key and that they are absolutely essential, I think along with that has got to be a vivid sense and commitment to the vision, to the results, to what we are all here together producing. A basic question: how do we know when we have succeeded? Or to put it more like John Wesley, What is the fruit of this ministry? I mention this because, it seems like in contemporary United Methodism, I think this is the result of pietism running out, relationships have become just about everything. I go to meetings where it’s a two-hour meeting. We spend the first 30 minutes on the hospital list reporting who is in the hospital and then we have prayer for them. Or we go to a meeting and spend the first 30 minutes of a one-hour meeting going around the room and introducing ourselves and telling where we are from. I know it’s better to do hard work with people you really know. But I question if just knowing people’s names and knowing where people are from contributes a huge amount to the output of the meeting.

More troublesome is that the overstress on relationships is a way of avoiding more threatening questions of productivity and fruitfulness. “By your fruits you shall know them.” When Jesus is asked, “Are you the Messiah?” “Are you God’s way of loving us?” Jesus says, “You go and tell John the following specific, measurable fruits of my ministry.”

As a Bishop, I am in the middle of moving pastors now for the coming year. A church says, “Why are you moving our pastor? We love this pastor. She’s the most loving pastor we’ve ever had. She sees my family when they were in the hospital. We’ve never gotten along better with a pastor. Everybody loves her. Nobody criticizes her and she loves us. Why would you disrupt that? We’re better off than we’re ever been.”

In too many cases I am forced to say, “Looking at the numbers, you’ll be closed in about 8 to 10 years. You are basically moving out of the business of being a church judging by how many people you have attending on Sunday, your professions of faith, your finances.”

Then the response is, “You don’t care about anything but numbers.”

I’m simply noting that concerns about relationship can have a sad side. We need to keep telling ourselves that we are in the business of relationships as Christians because the mission Jesus Christ gives us. The most important “relationship” we have is the relationship to Jesus Christ and his mission.

Ballou: Absolutely! It supports the first piece we were talking about, clarity in the vision.

Willimon: I was just thinking about that. I love your stress on clarity. This week, this is my thing – clarity. I’ve just read a good book by Bill Brosen (Dean of Sewanee School of Theology) The Preaching of Jesus: Gospel Proclamation, Then and Now. And Bill says that when he listens to sermons, the biggest problem is clarity, just simple clarity. You can’t figure out what the preacher is talking about. Bill says that it’s a kind of theological problem and a sense of indecision when a preacher is unable to say, “I’m going to go with this as my subject; I’m not going to go with that.” Expanding that to leadership in the church, I’d say that one of the problems we have in the church is that we have these ridiculously broad, multi-faceted expectations - increase of love of God and neighbor, or we want to have a loving, caring congregation, or we also want to change the world and transform America into a Christian society. It’s a recipe for never accomplishing anything and never feeling that God has done something good through us.

So, therefore, clarity becomes a huge thing. What is it that God is most importantly calling you to do? What is it that the church says and does than nobody else can say and do? My complaint about and over stress upon relationships is that I feel that I am often in settings where you ask what is the main thing you want to do and the group could truthfully say, “The main thing we want to do is to spend an hour and a half together with no conflict and no uncomfortableness and then we want to go home and we don’t want anybody to ask ‘why are we meeting, why is it important, what is expected of this gathering?’”

The one thing necessary is Jesus Christ and his mission; all else is secondary.

For more information on the seminars, on-line coaching, and books by Hugh Ballou, visit www.hughballou.com.

Will Willimon

Pastoral Leadership Challenges

Dr. Hugh Ballou has done some great work in his transformational leadership seminars. Last year Dr. Ballou interviewed me on church leadership issues. Here is a part of that interview:

Ballou: As you work with the churches in your conference what perspective can you give our readers leading in many types of churches about this area of foundations?

Willimon: An important foundation for a leader in the church is a sense of being called to do it. We pastors must be convinced that God really wants us to do what we do. In a broad sense we feel that we are here because I have been sent here. Methodists practice what we call a “sent ministry,” that is that you can’t be hired to do it you have to be sent to do ministry. This is a core United Methodist belief. At key moments that becomes very important to a pastoral leader to believe that God is in this and that I am here because God means for it to be this way.

Ballou: I work also with leadership in the business work that have their own idea of how it should be. In the context of church leadership, we are implementing God’s vision with a sense of calling. It this your sense?

Willimon: Yes, that’s a good statement, just what I’d expect of a Presbyterian! Whatever work a Christian does is supposed to be vocational. I think we are talking of a kind of transcendent sense of why we’re here. I’m not here simply managing the moment, but I’m here from some larger panorama that is being worked out through my little faithfulness right here.

Ballou: As you know I served the church for over 40 years. You knew me when I served a church in North Alabama. One of the things I have observed is that on a Myers-Briggs scale, both pastors and musicians have a dominant profile of introvert. How does this effect leadership?

Willimon: I remember reading where one observes that tendency toward introversion among clergy. The first thing is – acknowledge it and also acknowledge it as a real challenge. I remember reading that actors tend to be introverts. Which is counter intuitive – people on stage projecting, playing a role, communicating, which says to me that this is one thing that attracted them to the role of acting. They like cultivating and developing a kind of “unnatural” aspect of their personalities. I would say, it’s hard for me, (maybe it’s because I’m an extrovert, although I don’t remember how I score on the Myers-Briggs) but I do think that the parish ministry is essentially an extroverted activity. You’re in a politically charged situation. You’re a public leader. You’re up on view. You’ve got to find a way to work that. I am thinking of some pastors who are very shy, but they get over that shyness when they are leading their church or they work their shyness in a very positive way.

I got into some difficulty with some people in my book, Pastor, where I just said that I thought it was problematic if one was introverted and a pastor because so much of a pastor’s work is “political,” that is, it’s very public. Many of my seminarians, confirming what you said, were introverted people. They like to think about ideas, they like to think about God, and they like to be alone with a book, or in meditation. That’s great, except, at some point, they have to be comfortable with standing up in front of a group and saying, “Hey gang, I’ve got a vision of this, let’s go with it. Who wants to go with me? What can I do to talk you in to this?” It’s helpful to acknowledge shyness or introversion and then to ask God to work with it.

For more information on the seminars, on-line coaching, and books by Hugh Ballou, visit hughballou.com.

Will Willimon

Prayer for a New Year

Christmastide ends this week as we move into New Year’s. As Christians we are reminded through the mystery of the Incarnation that we cross the threshold into a New Year not alone – God is with us. Thanks be to God!

By your grace, dear Lord, you have given us this New Year.

We give you thanks for more time to enjoy your goodness, more time to serve you, another year to show forth your glory that all may see your light shine through us and might come to faith in your Lordship and membership in your Kingdom.

Continue, Lord, to make all things new, even us. We move into a new year with some fears about the future. Give us faith that we venture into a New Year led by you and that you will give us all we need faithfully to serve you and courageously to follow you where you lead us.

Bless your church, we pray, set today amid new challenges and new threats. Give us what we need to meet the challenges and enable us not to be intimidated by the threats. Inspire all preachers with a fresh sense of the power and the urgency of your gospel. Fill each of our congregations with renewed vitality for the tasks that are set before them. Give us, we are bold to pray, wisdom, grace, and courage equal to the assignments that you will give us during the coming year. Help us to have half as much faith in ourselves and our discipleship as you have placed in us by calling us to be your disciples.

For all that has been, we give thanks. For all that is to be, we give you our determination to be half as faithful to you in the New Year as you have been to us in the past. Amen.

Will Willimon

Praying Our Way Through Ministry

I’m so pleased by the North Alabama Conference United Methodist Prayer Summit. It’s to be held once again this year at Sumatanga on January 24-27, beginning on Monday morning. If you are a pastor, I hope that you will join in this intense experience of pastoral prayer.

This gathering pleases me because (1.) I had nothing to do with its institution – Paul Lawler and Robin Scott are among those who created the Prayer Summit a couple of years ago, and (2.) my own ministry in North Alabama has reawakened in me a conviction that Christian leadership is so demanding that it can only be undertaken in prayer. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Christian leadership is a form of prayer.

You may have heard me recall that the morning I was elected bishop, an older, experienced bishop whispered to me – as I sat in shock on the stage at Junaluska – “Friend, you have just improved your prayer life.”

It was true. The work that Jesus calls us to do is more than that which can be done through good technique, savvy leadership skills, or even wise corporate management. As Jesus said to his disciples (when they had failed at Christian leadership), “this sort of thing can’t be done without prayer.” (Mark 29)

Therefore our prayer, as Christian leaders, ought to be for the wisdom, strength, insight, inspiration, and empowerment to do the work that Jesus calls us to do. No Christian ministry can be done alone. We ought to pray for ministries that are so demanding, so difficult, that without the constant blessing of, intervention of, and will of God to make them work, they will fail miserably.

Without the empowerment of prayer, ministry too easily degenerates into that which can be achieved by merely human effort. What Jesus calls us to do cannot be done except by miraculous divine intervention. Therefore, we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done right now, on earth, in Alabama as it will, through your saving work, one day, forever in heaven……Amen.”

Will Willimon

Making Membership Mean Something

In our determination to start more new congregations among those who are under served by our church, we created The Community Church Without Walls on the west side of Birmingham. R.G. Lyons is the pastor and he is convening a very different and very exciting sort of new United Methodist Church, thereby leading us into new dimensions of urban ministry. Noting the wonderfully high AVM number (attendance as average of membership) at The Community Church Without Walls, I asked R.G. for his interpretation of this wonderful outreach. Below is his reply.

I love R.G.'s distinction between “belonging” and “membership.” The Church Without Walls seems to really be making “membership” in the Body of Christ mean something. Amen!

Hey Will,

A while back I got a letter from you requesting a response about why our attendance is so much higher than our membership. For us, it is pretty simple...we make membership mean something. Everyone who seeks membership must go through a 12 week class and retreat and we have expanded the membership covenant to be more specific in the commitments we are making. So everyone who becomes a member, commits to worshipping weekly in at least one house church (unless sick or out of town or some other emergency that can't be avoided), spend time daily in Bible study and prayer, lives in love and peace with members/attendees of CCWW, and be involved in at least one ministry of CCWW in a hands-on capacity.

I explain membership something like this: "Membership is not about belonging. Everyone belongs; everyone is welcome. Membership is not about gaining special privileges...becoming a member does not mean you get something that non-members do not get. Rather, membership is about a commitment that you believe God is calling you to serve him by serving the church." Something like that.

For us, it has worked very well. I am very pleased that the overwhelming majority of our members have taken this covenant very seriously. So, the reason our AVM is so high is simply because we make membership a high commitment.

Peace,
R.G. Lyons

Church on the Move: In the Power of the Holy Spirit

This fall I was fortunate to participate in a church wide study of the Acts of the Apostles at our dynamic Canterbury Church.

The Acts of Apostles is addressed to a church in trouble. Reading between the lines of the text, here was a church that was constantly clashing with culture, a church that was holding on by its finger tips, a church with severe money problems. How does Luke, author of Acts, inspire and ignite a troubled church? By reminding them that church isn’t about us in the first place. What is “core” of church, what is the basis of the church’s life and mission? It’s the Holy Spirit descending, convening, and sending.

So much so is the Holy Spirit the chief actor of Acts that some have said we ought to rename it to “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.”

For instance, if one were to ask the church in Acts, “How did you decide to leap over all traditional boundaries and launch a mission to the Samaritans?” the church could have responded, “We didn’t. We didn’t decide, plan or program any of the Samaritan mission. The Holy Spirit dragged us out of our churches and into that mission.”

After the first martyrdom, the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, a great persecution arose against the church. The church ran away to Samaria. Surely nobody would pursue them there. And while they were there, Philip did what Christians do – Philip told some people about Jesus. To the church’s surprise, the Holy Spirit descended and the Samaritans, outsiders to be sure, were baptized.

My image of the church that appears in the Acts of the Apostles is a church that is being dragged kicking and screaming into ever expanding areas of ministry, breathlessly attempting to keep up with the movements of the risen Lord. That’s evangelism, that’s mission – attempting to keep up with the movements of the Holy Spirit, attempting to keep up and not lag too far behind God’s relentless, restless movement to retake the world.

There is little biblical justification for a church that’s located, situated, bound to one place either geographically or organizationally. “Location, location, location,” was never a statement made by Jesus. How sad that the mission of many of our churches is the acquisition of and the upkeep of real estate.

The major reason given for the non participation in our Conference’s program of fair share mission and connectional giving? Real Estate. It’s a sad irony that our churches that built buildings for ministry have now allowed their ministry to be consumed by buildings.

We have found that when a church attempts to reach a new generation of Christians, Christians under 35, we know of no young Christians who respond to the appeal “Come! Help us to keep up our building!”

As Bill Gandy (DS in Mountain Lakes District) keeps reiterating, “The main difference between a growing church and a dying church is INWARD / OUTWARD.” A Church that focuses mostly on inward concerns falls under the judgment of a God who says, “For God so loved the world that God gave . . . . “

In the Acts of the Apostles, the church is always on the move, always pushing out, always outward rather than inward, always being drawn, pulled and pushed by the Holy Spirit into “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1).

By God’s grace we are that church. By God’s grace, and the pulling and prodding of the Holy Spirit, we can be that church!

Will Willimon

Impacting Church Attendance

I have often noted the importance of Sunday attendance as an indicator of a congregation’s vitality. Each week I correspond with those pastors who, according to the weekly Dashboard reports, lead churches who show the largest gain in attendance. Attendance, as a percentage of total membership, is one of the most important measurements of a congregation’s spiritual health. (Do you know your church’s AVM number? The Conference Dashboard can tell you.)

I’ve asked dozens of pastors to share with me something that they have done that may account for a sustained rise in attendance.

While I’ve earned much in these conversations, here are a few insights on how our churches are finding ways to grow participation:

• An increase in the AVM number (attendance as percentage of membership) is a sure sign of congregational confidence in and responsiveness to pastoral leadership. Last year Bill Brunson and Wade Langer (Trussville UMC) have set specific goals for increasing their AVM number, carefully monitoring their progress each week, and they got specific results.
  
• Mike Skelton (InnerChange) and Mike Edmondson (Helena) both stress the need for a culture of hospitality.
  
• Mary Bendall (Tuscaloosa First) has initiated a fine program that trains greeters and hosts to begin the welcome of guest in the church parking lot.
  
• Do something to show expectation and determination to grow the church. Any growing congregation is a testimonial to a pastor and a congregation who have determined to grow rather than to decline and have asked God to show them how. Calvin Havens at Friendship in the Northwest District has a congregation that has exploded with young adult growth. Calvin says that a big factor is deciding that “the church exits for those who are not here as much as it is for those who are here.”

Will Willimon

Is your congregation growing? Is its AVM increasing? You can find out exactly how well your church is doing this week by logging on to the Conference Dashboard.

Jesus is Better than Politics

Knee deep in the church’s response to the crisis in Haiti, overwhelmed by the determination of United Methodists to respond to the suffering there, I received an unsolicited email from the folks at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) complaining about the President’s health care plan. (Victims of Obamacare, By Mark Tooley, 1.28.10) Thousands of you are on the IRD’s unsolicited email list. From time to time I hear from you, upset about something that the IRD is upset about. They tend never to be concerned about anything that concerns the church – like the suffering of sisters and brothers in Haiti, the content of our preaching, the quality of our discipleship, the orthodoxy of our theology.

The email tirade was fairly typical for the IRD – snide, caustic, right wing conservative, devoid of any reference to the Bible or Jesus. Mr. Tooley is a good enough writer but he is utterly innocent of any theological interests. And so is the IRD. Note their title: Religion and Democracy. They never talk about Christ and they seem to think that politics and government is the answer to everything. The IRD seems to be a group of people who worship “religion” and “democracy” whereas the United Methodist Church is trying to worship and to obey Jesus. Emails from the IRD could as easily be released by Mormon Glen Beck or some Islamic Society as by any Christian church. Though their main function is to attack mainline churches, “church” is not in their name. Right wing politics appears to be their church.

Of course, I’ve been critical when left wing politics plays a greater role in our conversation as a church than scripture or Jesus. But standing there, trying to get those water purification systems out of Alabama and into Haiti, wading through the hundreds of health kits that Alabama Methodists produced in one week, with our Conference website jammed with Methodists attempting to give money to Haiti, I was once again reminded of the irrelevancy of the IRD. They may have generous funding from a few right wing fanatics, they may have some interesting things to say about politics, and Mr. Tooley may be (in certain moments) a good satirist, but they don’t have much to do with being the church. Jesus Christ ought to control the church’s imagination – not politics left or right.

I hope that you will keep this in mind the next time you receive an email from the IRD. We’re United Methodist Christians. We have more important things to worry about than the purely infatuations that worry the IRD. In a world that worships politics as divine, we have more important things to do than politics.

This week of Thanksgiving, as you give thanks to God for the gifts of religion and democracy, be sure to give thanks that we are saved neither by religion nor democracy but rather by the work of Jesus Christ!

Will Willimon

Accentuating the Positive

It is unsurprising that there is much failure in the Christian church. After all, we are attempting to worship and to serve a crucified savior.

It is also unsurprising that we have many dispirited pastors and churches – after all, leadership in an organization that has as its mission the conversion of the world, the rescue of sinners, the worship and service of a true God, is hard, countercultural work subject to much resistance. Christianity is a minority movement that has, from its inception, had friction with the surrounding culture.

What is surprising, considering the mission of the church, is that we have churches (like Haleyville UMC and Canterbury UMC) and pastors who are positive, fulfilled, excited, and fruitful. A few of our pastors and churches failed to participate at the full, fair level of expectations in our shared giving. We all know all of the reasons and excuses they give for their failures.

However, nearly two-thirds of our churches and pastors paid 100% of their apportionments and showed their full, fair commitment to our mission.

Nearly half of our churches have not made a new Christian in two years. These churches are dying and are failing to fulfill the mandate of Christ.

However, about a third of our churches made four thousand new Christians last year.

As those who deploy our clergy, the Cabinet and I need to continue to identify, to learn from, and to effectively utilize those pastors who have shown (as demonstrated on the NAL Conference Dashboard!) a remarkable ability to lead God’s people. We also need to note those congregations who want to grow and who can grow and spend most of our energies with them.

In a declining institution there are always some people who have influence in the institution simply because they are negative. “See? I told you this wouldn’t work,” they say.

Therefore our prayer as church leaders ought to be, “Lord, give us eyes to see all those faithful ones who are being obedient to you, who are daring to trust your promises, and who are offering their gifts to you in your service and whom you are blessing with fruitfulness and growth. Amen.”

Will Willimon

North Alabama Conference Innovations Leading The Way For The UMC

I’ve been at the Council of Bishops in Panama this past week. At our meeting we heard the final report of the Call to Action Project, an assessment of widespread structural, governance, financial, and leadership issues that must be addressed in order for the United Methodist Church to be effective in its mission.

When I first read the full report, my reaction was “This is obvious. We’ve been doing most of this in North Alabama for the last four years.” But upon reconsideration, I realized that it is important for our church to rally around the obvious work that we need to do and get on with that work now. I also realized that the North Alabama Conference’s work has had far reaching implications in the General Church.

Our Conference leadership decided, a half dozen years before the CTA Steering Committee, that “as a Church we have pursued self-interests and allowed institutional inertia to bind us in ways that constrain our witness and dilute our mission." Through our Priorities, radical changes in budgeting, transformation of Connectional Ministries, the weekly Dashboard, reorganization of the Districts and the Cabinet, and the augmented process of consultation, evaluation, and accountability related to pastoral appointments we have been busy taking specific measures to address the obvious need for change. We are much better focusing our energies upon solving the issues that the CTA cites: decades of membership and attendance decline, decline in baptisms and professions of faith, less ministry fruitfulness, an aging demographic of members and leaders, and financial stress. We have also been enacting what the CTA says our whole church must do: “fostering and sustaining an increase in the number of vital congregations effective in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

All of the congregations of the North Alabama Conference should be gratified that our innovative leadership is being noted and followed by the rest of the Connection. I see the CTA report as not only giving the Council of Bishops a much needed agenda but also as confirmation, by the General Church, that our Conference leadership is indeed leading us in the right direction.

Will Willimon

Below are some of the highlights of the CTA report. Note how well these emphases align with our North Alabama Conference Priorities:

Key Drivers of Congregational Vitality include:

• Effective pastoral leadership including management, visioning, & inspiration
• Multiple small groups (study, fellowship, and service) and programs for children and youth
• A mix of traditional and contemporary worship services
• High percentage of spiritually engaged laity who assume leadership roles
  
  *Approximately 15% of the 32,228 U.S. churches scored high in vitality based on the vitality index established by the study.

"Leaders, from bishops, clergy, and laity across the connection, must lead and immediately, repeatedly, and energetically make it plain that our current culture and practices are resulting in overall decline that is toxic and constricts our missional effectiveness", according to the committee findings.

The CTA Steering Committee will present a set of five interdependent initiatives.

1. Starting in January 2011 and continuing for ten years, use the drivers of congregational vitality as initial areas of attention for sustained and intense concentration on building effective practices in local churches.
   
2. Dramatically reform the clergy leadership, development, deployment, evaluation, and accountability systems.
   
3. Collect, report and review, and act on statistics that measure progress in key performance areas in order to learn and adjust approaches to leadership, policies, and use of human and financial resources.
   
4. Reform the Council of Bishops, with the active bishops assuming a) responsibility and public accountability for improving results in attendance, professions of faith, baptisms, participation in servant/mission ministries, benevolent giving, and lowering average age of participants in local church life, and b) establishing a new culture of accountability throughout the church.
   

Consolidate program and administrative agencies, align their work and resources with the priorities of the UMC and the decade-long commitment to build vital congregations, and reconstitute them with much smaller competency-based boards of directors in order to overcome current diffusive, redundant, expensive, and independent structures.

Ministry to Our Senior Methodists

North Alabama United Methodists honor our elder United Methodists with one of the most generous pension and insurance programs in the country, our extensive Superannuate Homes Program provides housing for retired Elders and spouses, and the Reverend Don Neal's office provides extensive supportive services for our retired clergy.

Most notable of all, The United Methodist Retirement Homes of Alabama and Northwest Florida is a national leader in ministry to the elderly.

In November the Rev. Wray Tomlin, the Executive Director Emeritus for The United Methodist Retirement Homes, will retire after more than 30 years of service among us.

Ray came to Birmingham from the Tennessee Conference in 1978 to lead our Methodist Homes for the aging in its ministry of meeting “the needs of God’s Older Children by providing a retirement community environment of abundant life, combined with the care of qualified professionals.” At the time of his arrival the United Methodists had two homes. Today, under Ray’s leadership, we have 13 facilities for elder care under the Methodist Homes for the Aging organization. There are more than 1600 residents and more than 800 employees that offer 6 care levels from “independent cottage living” to assisted living, to skill nursing care to Alzheimer care units.

Our goal has been to provide a safe, secure environment whereby our seniors can continue to make significant contributions to our church and Ray has helped us to achieve that goal.

A number of years back Rev. Tomlin put together the “Fountain of Love” program and began to ask churches and individuals to assist in enabling some of the Homes for The Aging residents who with loving care were outliving the financial resources they had saved for retirement. Today the “Fountain of Love” program continues to help many residents stay in one of our United Methodist Homes long after most or all of their financial resources are depleted or gone.

Although Ray officially retires this fall, I have no doubt that he will continue to be concerned for this marvelous program he has helped create and has guided so wisely. Likewise, his example and dedication to the ministry of caring for God’s Older Children will be an example for the church for many years to come

Well done Wray! You have made us a nationally recognized leader in ministry to seniors. It’s our way of honoring our past by preparing for the future care of our honored elders.

Will Willimon

Birmingham-Southern as a Church College

I’ve had a relationship with Birmingham-Southern College long before coming to North Alabama. My friend Neal Berte had invited me to speak at the college. I am the grateful recipient of an honorary degree and, until this semester enjoyed teaching classes at the College.

Having been on the campuses of dozens of church related colleges, I can say without fear of contradiction, that BSC enjoys one of the most positive relationships with the church of any college in our connection. Our church not only gave birth to BSC but, in Neal Berte's presidency helped save this college. BSC currently receives about $300,000 from the North Alabama Conference per year, our largest size, local benevolence.

When our previous president was installed, I said at his Inauguration, “We entrust to your care a college that we have birthed, a college that we have loved, a college that we have saved, and a college that we have sacrificially sustained.”

The current, unprecedented crisis at BSC is the results of: the CFO’s pattern of financial mis-statements to Administration and Board, financial aid to students at an unsustainable discount rate, expensive and inadequately funded building projects. These mistakes have caused a huge amount of pain and anxiety about the future.

I also believe that we are in this crisis because the college, for a moment, lost sight of its identity as a church college.

I want you to know that we trustees are determined to preserve and even strengthen our beloved college. BSC is blessed with a self-sacrificial faculty of great academic ability, some of the very best students in our region, a beautiful campus, and a church that loves its college.

Some of the very best students, in a college with academically able students, come to the college from United Methodist Churches. Laura Sisson, our Director of Church Relations, provides support for these students. Some of our most able pastors are products of BSC. The majority of our Board, including our chair are Methodists. My message to North Alabama Methodists is:

1. Our college is going to weather this crisis and prevail. We are making changes in the way the college is governed and we are seeking a new President who can lead us forward.
   
2. Send us your well qualified UM Students. Birmingham-Southern is a quality, church-related environment for undergraduate education. The education offered here is superb.
   
3. United Methodist Alumni need to speak up for and to generously give to the college now. If your congregations are not currently paying its full higher education apportionment, we desperately need that paid in full this year and the next.

God has graciously given us a great treasure in Birmingham-Southern College. I’m determined that this crisis will be an opportunity to recover and to strengthen our church’s ties with the college. We need BSC and BSC needs us.

I’m in a rare and privileged position: I get to go to work on the campus of one of the most beautiful and academically rigorous small colleges in America – BSC – a church-related college.

William H. Willimon

One of BSC’s greatest alumni is Bishop Robert Morgan. For more than a decade he has taught popular courses at BSC and thereby sent us some of our most talented new pastors. This month Bishop Morgan will be honored by Candler School of Theology with its Distinguished Alumnus Award. Congratulations to Bishop Morgan and to BSC on this honor.

Getting Off to a Good Start

The sending of pastors is a demanding, prayer-filled process. Along with our innovative use of NCD scores, the Strengths Inventory, the Dashboard numbers, and the Triad Interviews (discussed here over the last three weeks), one of the Cabinet’s most striking innovations is our First Ninety Days process that Dale Cohen has designed for us.

After a rigorous appointive process that has made North Alabama a leader in appointive innovations, pastors and PPRC chairpersons are notified and a date is set for an announcement to be made on a Sunday.

All pastors who are moving attend a First 90 Days Training Event to help them prepare for the transition and to learn how to develop a plan for succeeding in their new appointment. Lay Leaders in churches that are receiving pastors are also invited to attend an event called “Getting Off to a Good Start: The First 90 Days for Local Church Leaders.” This training is designed to facilitate dialogue and partnership between the new pastor and their church. The outcome for pastors is having a written plan in place that their share with their DS who reviews it and then monitors the implementation of the 90 Day plan. Part of this plan is shared with the leadership in the local church through a series of conversations held over the initial 90 day period.

We have never had a pastor or church who faithfully followed the First 90 Day Plan to have any difficulty in the first year that necessitated a move in the first year. Every pastor having a definite, public plan for the first days in ministry has been one of our most effective ways to help pastors succeed in a new congregation.

This past year every full time pastor who moved received a letter from me and the DS citing specific expectations for results of ministry in the first year: specific, measurable expectations such as “a 10 percent increase in Sunday attendance,” or “a two percent increase in baptisms of those under 21,” or “a five percent growth in children’s ministry,” etc. Our pastors are responding so well to this increase in expectation and accountability. These letters, signed by me, the receiving DS, and key lay leadership as well as the pastor, are giving congregational leadership the tools they need to lead their congregations to growth.

Moving can be a stressful time for pastors and for congregations, too. The conference insurance program offers assistance for pastors and pastors’ families through United Methodist Pastoral Care and Counseling and when facing a move, many people have found this to be a useful benefit.

Every time your church experiences a pastoral transition, God gives you another chance to demonstrate once again your faithfulness to the Kingdom of God as you dream of the possibilities that lie ahead and move forward with faith, believing that your best days are yet to come. This is one of the great gifts of United Methodism’s practice of sent ministry.

Will Willimon

Pastoral Transitions: Consultations and Triads

We have made major improvements in the way we appoint pastors in our Conference. For the next few weeks I’ll be highlighting some of these changes.

Nearly all clergy moves in our Conference begin with a request from the pastor or from the congregation. Generally, a DS is made aware through a pastor or a chairperson of the Pastor-Parish or Staff-Parish Relations Committee that there is a need for a pastoral transition. For moves made in June, this contact is generally initiated in January or February of the year.

Sometimes pastors initiate a move because they feel they have accomplished their main goals. At other times they request a move because they feel like they have reached an impasse in the congregation. Just because a pastor or SPRC requests a move does not mean that a move is automatic. Sometimes the DS may urge the pastor and congregation to work through their impasse, to dig in and seek transformation of the congregation.

A pastoral transition is requested only through its PPRC which represents the congregation to the DS. Congregations may initiate a move when they have determined that the current pastoral leadership is unable to contribute more value to the congregation in mission and ministry. This could be the result of the changing needs in the congregation and in the community and the gifts and abilities of the current pastor not lining up with the needs. Your DS has been trained carefully to evaluate what is in the best interest of both the congregation and the pastor and represent to the Cabinet their understanding of what should be done.

If a DS determines that a move is in order, either through the DS’s own assessment of the situation, the request of a pastor, or the request of a PPRC, the DS notifies the remainder of the Cabinet that a pastoral transition is anticipated for your congregation. After a series of steps are taken, a master list of all the potential moves is compiled and presented to the Cabinet for consideration.

It is the responsibility of a pastor who requests a move to relay this information to the PPRC. It is most helpful if the pastor shares honestly and openly with the PPRC so that the PPRC understands that the move is being initiated by the pastor. It is the responsibility of the PPRC that requests a pastoral move to relay this information to the pastor. Again, it is most helpful if the PPRC shares honestly and opening with the pastor about the reasons for requesting a change. It is the responsibility of the DS to consult with the PPRC of a congregation and with the pastor if the DS is initiating the move and to inform them of the reasons why the DS feels this is necessary.

The process of discussing the possibility of a pastoral transition is known as “consultation” and is directed by ¶430-¶435 in the Discipline. Even with consultation that the PPRC’s role is advisory to the Bishop and Cabinet. In the North Alabama Conference once it has been determined that a pastor may be up for a move, the first step is for the pastor to prepare a DVD of a sermon preached in an actual worship service to be presented to their DS and to the Bishop. The Bishop and DS respond to the pastor in writing about the sermon. Then the pastor meets with a Triad Interview Team consisting of three members of the Cabinet in late January or February. This is one of our most effective North Alabama contributions to the appointive process. Generally, the pastor has been asked to respond in writing to a brief series of questions about his/her ministry and his/her congregation and the reasons why a move is being considered. The responses are distributed to the Triad Interview Team members prior to the consultation so that they can prepare further questions for clarification and insight to ask at the interview. A pastor’s spouse is welcome to participate in the Triad consultation.

These Triad consultations have dramatically changed our appointive process. Each pastor has at least four members of the Cabinet who have spent the time to understand the dynamics related to the anticipated move—both to provide the best opportunity for the pastor to utilize his/her strengths in a new appointment, but also to understand the needs of the pastor’s current congregation to assist in finding the right pastor to follow in their appointment.

Will Willimon