The Measure of a Church’s Soul

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What a brilliant turn of phrase. Not where the heart is, the treasure will be, but what we count and pursue and value indicates what matters most to us. Genius. So, based on this premise from scripture, what does The United Methodist Church care most about? Well, what do we count and keep track of? We certainly spend a lot of time talking about “members” — they must be important. And attendance at worship. And dollars given weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, quadrennially. We talk a lot about launching new churches. So, if we look at what we treasure it is a straight line to what we value: MORE. We want more people, more money, and more property. This is what we value… at least on the quantitative side.

But there is a whole lot more to the story than that. Our mission, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” is impossible to evaluate based on members, attendance, dollars, or local congregations. These things have no qualitative standards by which to judge effectiveness in fulfilling the mission. There is one, and only one reason, we would continue counting what we do as a measure of discipleship, and that is we don’t know how to measure what really matters.

No, that’s not fair. We DO know what to measure, but we really don’t want to — because counting what really matters won’t give us what we treasure most: MORE. We need look no further than scripture to understand what will happen if we get serious about discipleship instead of institutional church — our numbers will go down. At just about every crossroads in scripture where followers were challenged to step up to discipleship, many went away unhappy. Church membership might be a hobby, but discipleship is not. Discipleship is a life-shaping vocation. It requires sacrifice and commitment that most Christians have no interest in giving. For this reason, we keep the standards of church membership low so that no one is made uncomfortable enough to leave. Attend worship once in a while, toss in a $10 bill, buy a ticket to a church supper you probably won’t attend, make a donation at the youth car wash and you’re golden for another year. Count warm bodies in pews and pretend it is a measure of congregational health. Increase the financial giving by ten percent and you might just get an article written about you. Cool, easy, and a clear indication of our deepest values.

Except that a growing number of people — not just outside organized churches, but inside as well — are no longer satisfied with such worldly and crass standards. They want something more. They want the metrics of our success to change — to shift from the quantitative to the qualitative, measuring how well we’re doing instead of how big we are. This group of Christians wants to challenge the notion that bigger is better — replacing it with the simpler “better is better.”

But what would this look like? That’s the rub. It is so easy to count heads in a sanctuary or dollars and cents in a collection plate. Spiritual growth and faith formation are much trickier. To measure and evaluate spiritual transformation means we actually have to talk to each other. It means we have to have clear expectations. It means we have to hold each other accountable. And we have to define clear goals and benchmarks for both personal and congregational improvement. Whew! No wonder we count — real measurement is hard!

The congregations in The United Methodist Church that are the healthiest (based on the research in my book Vital Signs) are very intentional in five areas:

expectations and standards for participation
a commitment to lifelong learning
personal and group covenants
fruits-based (outcomes-based) goal-setting
accountable support

Expectations and Standards for Participation — before you can measure and evaluate anything, you need to know what it ought to be like. In most of our churches, we offer very vague, hazy standards for membership or participation. I believe we do this intentionally, as a way to hold onto members and not scare them away. If we ask a person to “uphold the church by prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness,” but do not define more clearly what we mean, then the person can perform in any way he or she wishes, and everything’s fine. But if we say, “will you promise God and this congregation to pray daily for the ministries of the church and the well-being of the congregation, participate fully in the worship, study, fellowship, and service life this church each and every week, make both a monetary and a physical commitment to support the missional work of the congregation beyond mere maintenance, engage in service to someone outside the congregation every week, and share your faith in an intentional and open way with people you encounter through the week,” we’re asking for trouble. Oh, sure, we have actually given people something concrete to agree with or to reject, but because what we ask actually means something, more people will probably say no. These vows are vows of discipleship, not membership, and we all know that discipleship is no good way to grow a church! But, healthy churches do these very things (and while they might not be huge, they are solid, strong, and growing. Go figure…)

A Commitment to Lifelong Learning — there is no graduation from discipleship. There is transformation from a follower to a leader, from a student to a teacher, from an apprentice to a master craftsman, and from disciple to steward — but the function of learning is for all time. Learning, study, discussion, practice, and exploration are not options for disciples. They are optional for members, obviously, but healthy churches have virtually no interest in members. Leaders in healthy churches are focused on equipping Christians to be the body of Christ in the world. They don’t waste time strategizing ways to keep pewsitters happy and content. They strategize ways to motivate pewsitters to become priests, pastors, and prophets — and those most interested in active service receive the majority of the leadership’s time and attention. From every person from early childhood through extreme old age, healthy churches expect active participation in learning and formation experiences. Spiritual formation is a higher priority than Sunday morning worship. Healthy churches awakened to an important fact, worship doesn’t lead to discipleship nearly as well as authentic discipleship results in phenomenal worship. Worshippers might want to become disciples; disciples absolutely must worship.

Personal and Group Covenants — “do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” This was perhaps the most diabolical and unChristian question humankind ever devised. It assumes and perpetuates a heinous myth — that religion is personal and private. It may be, as long as you do not come from the Judeo-Christian traditions. If you are Christian, you are part of a “people of God,” not a “person of God.” The “WE” of Christianity always trumps the “ME” of any one individual. It really doesn’t matter what individuals want or like or need or hope for or decide or expect. This church of OURS belongs first to God, and it exists to knit us together as the body of Christ. There is no “I” in “We” (unless you play Nintendo Wii, then there are two “i”s in Wii…). In our healthiest churches, participants make explicit, clear, and concise promises to each other. Participants are clear about the things they will do to build up and strengthen the community of faith, the things they will avoid and not tolerate that undermine good relationships in community, and they pledge to practice spiritual disciplines together as an act of solidarity and unity. The good of the whole exceeds the wants of the individual. This is very easy to measure: how well are we keeping the promises we make to God and each other?

Fruits-Based Goal Setting — how many of our churches go through the motions? We meet for worship on Sunday (or Saturday or Wednesday) and we have a couple Bible studies through the week, and we hold a half-dozen meetings, and we have a luncheon or supper, and the world keeps spinning, unchanged and completely unaware of our existence. And then we measure our success based on getting a few more people to attend worship or Bible study or a meeting or a luncheon. Jesus wept. One of the healthiest churches I visited has as its mission statement: “We will make it impossible for anyone in our community not to know who we are and what we do.” Isn’t that cool? Their whole vision and purpose is tied to their witness for Jesus Christ. A church of around 200 people where at least 180 are actively engaged each and every week in ministry in the community. Part of their Sunday morning worship experience is to “testify” to the places they have witnessed God’s love in the lives they touch. This is a church that produces visible, tangible fruit that feeds souls and changes lives — and that is what they measure. Another church stopped counting how many people enter their doors every week, and instead shifted to counting the number of people they serve outside the church each week. Counting (quantitative, true) but with a completely different intention– success measured by how much we give instead of how much we get!

Accountable Support — want to know the simplest measure of health versus dysfunction? Use the word “accountability” and see how people react. If there is health, accountability is something that makes peoples eyes light up. They understand what without some guidance and support, improvement is almost impossible. Just like physical fitness, development and improvement is much easier and more effective with a personal trainer (accountability). In less healthy and dysfunctional churches, the word accountability brings a negative reaction. People hear accountability as punitive and controlling. They don’t WANT to be held to their promises and responsibilities. Unfortunately, the majority of United Methodists fall into the latter category, and so we are pretty poor at accountability in the UMC. But, if our real treasure is spiritual growth toward authentic discipleship, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to attain it without accountability. Accountability is a clear indicator of where our heart really is. So, the people in our healthiest churches regularly talk to each other about their faith. “And how is it with your soul?” “Where have you experienced the grace of God in your life this week?” “Where have you been able to extend the grace of God to others this week?” “What is God’s will for our community of faith?” “What is the witness we wish to be making to our community?” “What difference are we making in the congregation, in our community, in the world?” These are not occasional conversations — they are the ongoing and never-ending conversations in our healthiest churches. And there are consequences. If people fail to pray, to study, to share, to serve, and to give, they are called to account. They are given whatever support and guidance they need to continue to grow and develop. Every person’s growth is the responsibility of every other person — no one is on the journey of faith alone.

These few factors are signficantly different ways of measuring and evaluating our life together as the church. Most UMs don’t want to get this serious about it, but a growing number do. While the majority of UM leaders look at the numbers, a faithful remnant are more concerned with discipleship. Shifting focus is hard. Many of our pastors are trapped between wanting to measure qualitatively — evaluating the spiritual growth and development of their communities of faith — while being required by “the system” to measure quantitatively — being judged “failures” if they don’t “grow the church” and make sure apportionments are paid in full. It takes real courage and conviction to actually take our mission of disciple-making seriously in a system that punishes those who do so. But the system will never change until enough people say “enough!” I believe we are at a critical juncture. The number of leaders who are deeply committed to institutional preservation as their main “treasure” are on the wane. Those who treasure discipleship and global transformation are on the rise — the challenge is to not lose heart.

Rate this:

61 responses to “The Measure of a Church’s Soul”

Taylor Burton-Edwards

February 17, 2010

Jeff,

Both-and is EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

We CAN hold pastors and congregations accountable for how they’re connecting people in their congregation and community to groups that can help them grow as disciples and function as “Christ’s representatives in the world.”

What we can’t reasonably do is hold pastors accountable for whether the congregation ITSELF does that basic discipling and deploying work within its own congregational structure– because congregations are fairly unlikely to do that, and often not able to do it well.

Reply
1. Jeff Uhler
  
  February 17, 2010
  
  Doesn’t the method/s for which we can hold pastors and congregations accountable become that congregations system for discipleship? And, if that’s the case, I don’t understand your second point. It seems like pastors and congregations must do this work together, not individually. Very few are the congregations that will go where a pastor is not leading, save to their comfort zone.
  
  Reply
  1. Taylor Burton-Edwards
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    Jeff-
    
    I suppose you could look at it that way.
    
    But I’d counsel there’s a subtle but real difference between the pastor/congregational leadership helping connect people to appropriate discipleship/deployment systems that may not be part of the congregation per se (which is what I’m talking about) and saying that those systems ARE the “congregation’s” discipleship system.
    
    The congregation doesn’t control those external systems. It may (and should) covenant and communicate with them. But those “outside” pieces aren’t “theirs” per se. So the congregation really can’t claim those outside systems as “the congregation’s system” of discipleship. It can claim them as “partners in discipleship” or “partners in mission” (or pick your term).
    
    And those external systems can also claim congregations as partners in discipleship and mission.
    
    But neither controls or claims ownership over the other.
    
    And each is accountable for what each can do– both in the work each does separately and in making whatever connections they make to each other.
    
    Does that help?
  2. doroteos2
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    In our culture, a corporation is a legal entity. The congregation (by my definition) is an “it” that should function as more than a gathering of individuals. I agree with Taylor that the vast majority don’t function that way and can’t be expected to. I believe we made this very expectation explicit at a denominational level and it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference whether we like it or not. If we cannot live up to out stated mission, then we should change the mission. If the mission stands, the system has to change. I’m not sure compromises and double standards will get us where we need to be. I think part of our current problem is that many outside the church see us as equivocators — indecisive and not really serious about the claims and promises we make. There needs to be grace, there needs to be patience, there needs to be acknowledgement that all the people who make up our congregations are not at the same place — but there also needs to be a clear purpose and identity to which we hold everyone in the system accountable. Idealistic? Yes, but “church” by definition is idealistic, yeah?
Taylor Burton-Edwards

February 17, 2010

Becky,

I don’t think you have to settle for a virtual covenant group.

But you’re right– that group may not be found already existing in your congregation or your community. You may have to go out and find 5-6 others whose eyes light up when you talk about this– and they may have connections in a variety of congregations of multiple denominations.

That’s exactly what the early Methodist class meetings were like– at least a good number of them. These folks were not necessarily part of the same parish nor even all Anglican. What bound them together was a commitment to watch over one another in love so they could all “flee the wrath to come” and grow more fully into “that holiness without with no one shall see the Lord.”

This is why John Wesley wrote his sermon, “Catholic Spirit.” It’s because it was a truly catholic spirit that was being fostered in the class meetings and societies because people with all sorts of congregational/denominational connections were part of them, working together to grow in both inward and outward holiness.

Reply
Becky Coleman

February 17, 2010

I thank everyone for their thoughtful input into the conversation. I daresay that some covenant groups may have to be virtual; if no one in my local church or neighborhood is interested, I may need to partner with people elsewhere to help me be accountable for my becoming a disciple. I imagine many of us read this blog and others with the idea of “moving on to perfection.”

Reply
Taylor Burton-Edwards

February 17, 2010

I need to add something to my post above about trying to add criteria that were about discipleship to the “standard questions” on the charge conference form.

Basically, I think the committee that deleted some, toned down others, and then made them all optional for conferences or congregations to include were accurate in their assessment that these questions were too challenging for most of our congregations.

Is that the fault of the congregations per se? Are they bad or unhealthy because they can’t answer those questions well?

I’d say no. I’d say they’re just being typical congregations. That is, they’re being “public, institutional expressions of Christian community.” That’s not a dig on public or institutional either– I use those just as descriptors. What public means is they serve the public– a heritage from at least 375 AD when Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and congregations suddenly became the official public religious institutions. (They had been such already for nearly 100 years in Armenia).

What public means also, over time (within 2 centuries of that in many places), is that congregations as a public format of religious community are logistically able to address morality and formation pretty much only just a tick above if not to the same level the public in question does. Accountability and serious formation in congregations from that time forward were the exception rather than the rule (and they had absolutely been the rule!). Pretty much the only ways to receive serious formation as a disciple were to join a religious order or enter the process of becoming and living as ordained clergy. Discipleship simply wasn’t what congregations did for most people– and so most people have expected, for about 1400 years now, that congregations per se don’t do this.

Not themselves, that is. Not as congregations. At least not generally. Perhaps a very few congregations who choose this path– generally those who choose to live more on the fringes rather than at the “mainstream” of culture– will. But once those congregations become more mainstream themselves, that becomes less and less sustainable.

So if I’m looking for a solution to forming disciples at a far higher rate that the vast majority of our existing structures can and will buy into in some way, frankly, it may not be about congregations AS more or less whole congregations pursuing discipleship seriously. But they can (and I would argue should!) do a far better job of referring people out to other groups (Covenant Discipleship Groups, Emmaus 4th Day groups, local missional groups) that can and will– not as a replacement for the congregational community, but as the necessary supplement for discipleship to take root in their lives. And where such groups don’t exist locally– then it seems congregations could (and should) work to help create them– and not as “points of entry into the congregation” as if the congregation were the be all and end all of Christian community (it’s not!), but rather as effective disciple-making/missional deploying groups that people of any congregation are welcome to participate in provided they actually live the covenant and fulfill the mission those groups are designed for.

So as Steve and I think about presenting these questions again next quadrennium, we’ll likely frame them not primarily as examinations of what the congregations themselves are doing as congregations, but rather as explorations of the larger environment of Christian communities… asking not “how many active covenant discipleship groups do you have in your congregation” but rather something more along the lines of “how many CD groups are available in your local community, and how are you effectively referring people to participate in them?”

UM pastors and congregational leaders can and should reasonably be held accountable to answer that kind of question.

And I would also argue that if you are a UM pastor or a leader in a UM congregation, you ought to be able to say you are actively involved in such a group yourself. But that may be another challenge for another quadrennium…

Reply
1. doroteos2
  
  February 17, 2010
  
  For congregations to take discipleship seriously, a safe, reasonable context needs to be provided. The journey of discipleship has to begin somewhere, and not everyone can be expected to be fully engaged, especially at the outset. Discipleship is also a corporate (rather than solely individual) journey. The healthiest congregations in United Methodism see themselves as communities of discipleship. As to key questions, I lift again the four questions our healthiest churches have answers to: what is our story? (who are we and how did we come to be the church we are today?), what is our purpose? (why are we here and what do we discern God’s will and call to be for our community of faith?), what is our witness? (what is the main message and ministry in which we engage and how are we known/seen/understood outside the congregation?), and what is our impact? (what difference do we make through our service and how well are we fulfilling our sense of purpose and God’s will for our congregation?). Further, healthy congregations continuously reflect on the questions, what do we want our witness to be and how can we increase our impact for good? Any congregation can answer these questions… or at least begin the process of answering them, and when they do, they begin the journey toward a more authentic discipleship.
  
  Reply
  1. Taylor Burton-Edwards
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    And what I’m suggesting Dan is that the vast majority of our congregations (or any congregations) will never take those steps or answer those questions, and we have no real means to ensure they could or would.
    
    Historically, the four things congregations as congregations can be expected to provide are public worship of God, teaching of basic Christian doctrine, some way of caring for each other, and being a reliable institutional player in their local community.
    
    That’s what the congregational system has been designed to achieve for 1400 years. A very few have gone beyond that. Many don’t even do these four things well.
    
    Expecting congregations to do these four things AND, if they’re Methodist, to connect people to systems that take them beyond the basic formation a congregation can provide is reasonable. Expecting congregations to be, themselves, comprehensive discipleship systems, I would argue, generally speaking is not. It’s asking them if not causing them to overfunction– to try to take on and deliver on things they’re simply not set up to do and don’t want to be. And it predictably invites massive resistance and hostility.
    
    And isn’t that exactly what John and Charles Wesley experienced before they gave up on trying to change congregations and started developing formats of Christian community outside the congregation that COULD actually change people?
    
    I have nothing but high regard for the healthy congregations that also do discipleship well to some degree. May their tribe increase!
    
    But if I’m looking at how we leverage the actual assets we have– the vast majority of our existing congregations and the lived experience both of our heritage and of most growing disciples I know– I’m going to go for re-connecting a network between congregations (that do what they do well) and other forms of Christian community with a more specific focus on disciple formation and missional deployment.
    
    We know that does work. And we know, too, that it can generate far less hostility and anxiety than continuing to kick our feet against the goads of congregations that don’t want to or can’t do this well themselves.
  2. doroteos2
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    And the point I try constantly to make is that our denomination raised the bar by redefining our mission, and that one of two things needs to happen: 1) we design an appropriate system for accountability and support of our mission or, 2) we revisit the mission and realign it with what we are and stop pretending we are something different. It is the same trap as “open hearts, open minds, open doors” — we cannot even properly claim it is a vision for what we’re trying to become when the vast majority of people calling themselves United Methodist have no interest in making it true. Whether there is historical precedent or not, we have a mission of “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” and we no longer have the luxury of saying this is too hard or too demanding for most congregations. Either it is our mission or it isn’t. What we have been designed to do for 1400 years is interesting anecdotal information, but our future does not lie in our past. I think we do more than hold discipling congregations in high regard — we make them the gold standard by which we hold our denomination accountable (until such time as we back off of our current mission and offer something simpler and easier).
  3. Taylor Burton-Edwards
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    Dan,
    
    The problem I have is conflating “our mission as a church” with “the church basically is primarily a congregation, or located almost solely in congregations.” Congregations are ONE form of Christian community, but not the only one. Church consists in the network of various forms of Christian community– each doing what each does best– not solely in a collection of only one format of community, the congregations.
    
    I agree fully that we need to find effective ways for the Church to accomplish its stated mission. Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world IS the mission of the Church– the whole network. It’s that the role of the congregations can be far more effectively about FACILITATING that happening than actually doing it themselves. That’s not about living in the past– it’s about recognizing the vast majority of the facts on the ground.
    
    You’re absolutely right that measuring worship attendance and professing membership figures and apportionment giving have almost nothing to do with making progress on the stated mission of the Church. I couldn’t agree more. In philosophy, you’d call claiming such measurements relative to the stated mission a classic example of a “category error.”
    
    My point is that it would be equally a category error to apply measurements of significant disciple formation and missional deployment to the vast majority of our congregations, because, as you’ve pointed out, that’s not what they do!
    
    But it is what covenant discipleship groups do. And it is what Emmaus 4th Day groups are supposed to do. And it is what all sorts of missional groups do. And it is what early Methodism did while ALSO (as nearly all the above examples also do) insisting that persons be actively engaged in the format of Christian community called the congregation– even though what the congregation does isn’t as directly connected with what forms and deploys disciples well as the other groups they’re ALSO part of.
    
    To those groups we can certainly apply standards and measurements relating to disciple formation and deployment. We can, and we should.
    
    What we have to get over here is the notion that congregation equals the fullness of church in a local place, and thus also the notion that congregations can take on and directly fulfill ALL the purpose or mission of church. They don’t. And most can’t or won’t. But they can be a significant part of it. They have gifts to bring to that table. It’s just that, unless they become as “small-scale,” “intimate” and accountable as these other groups generally are (if they’re doing their job right!) they’re rarely if ever going to be able to produce the results those groups can and regularly do.
    
    That’s no warrant for those groups to boast they don’t need congregations. Those groups cannot provide public worship, teach basic doctrine, provide a means of caring for one another beyond their small group, or function institutionally in the local community like congregations can.
    
    These two different but equally vital forms of Christian community need each other– and need each other to do what each does best– for the fullness of the mission of the church, and yes, for the fullness of Christian discipleship that enables people to participate in God’s mission to transform the world– to take place.
    
    Church does not equal congregations. Church is what happens when congregations and other smaller groups more specialized in disciple formation and missional deployment, working in network, do what each does best.
    
    So it’s not the mission of the church that needs to change. It’s our odd fixation on congregations alone as the delivery channel to achieve it.
  4. Jeff Uhler
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    If we state that making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world is our denominational primary task, then our local congregations and pastors should be held accountable to this primary task. Too often, however, we end up “counting beans” rather than seeing transformed lives. Are we, pastors and congregations, willing to do whatever it takes to proclaim the gospel, seek, welcome and gather persons into the body of Christ (note: the focus is Christ, not necessarily the local congregation), lead persons to commit their lives to God through baptism and profession of faith, nurture persons in Christian living, and then send persons into the world to live as Christ? If not, then we have nothing for which we can be held accountable until we change our primary task.
    
    Too many congregations aren’t ready to make this change because too many pastors aren’t ready to make this change. The pastors who are become celebrated anomalies. The churches that are become models, but too many congregations will only try to become that church rather than apply the learnings and principles to their own community and situation. Far too many pastors find it more comfortable to stay in the office waiting for the member to drop by. And many members want the pastor to serve them and their needs as a primary focus.
    
    Yes, Church does not equal congregation, but it also doesn’t equal denomination nor the majority of those who claim to be Christian in America today. So do we give up on the denomination and local congregations if we are called more to develop the smaller groups? How do we affirm this ministry outside the current structure? How will we help bishops and superintendents to effectively evaluate such ministries?
    
    Basically, it shouldn’t be an “either-or” situation, but a “both-and.” But our current systems will be (and are, in many places) sorely tested with even this amount of change.
  5. doroteos2
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    The problem appears to be in our different definitions of “congregation.” From a systems perspective, the parts cannot be divorced from the whole. Once one part of the system is suboptimized, the whole system suffers. In critical chain theory, the “chain” is only as strong as its weakest link. The United Methodist Church is defined by its weaknesses, not its strengths. Of course, congregations are not the only place where the mission of the denomination is carried out — though the mission as defined cannot be successfully achieved apart from healthy congregational systems. For any organization where the local “franchise” is the place where the transactional “business takes place, you have to hold the “franchise” accountable… as well as all the teams, sub-groups, shifts, and individuals within. A local UMC is the franchise outlet of the denomination. If it is failing in its mission (primary task), it is failing. Can it continue to exist? Sure, but that doesn’t mean it is healthy. Congregations as we know them are a relatively recent phenomenon. I do believe, however, that they were intended to be the basic unit of spiritual formation by providing the means and structure for small groups and missional service. Once again, just because we have created an underfunctioning mutate doesn’t mean it is what we ought to have. I have never, and will never, equate “church” with “congregations.” In at least three of my books I write that the place we congregate for worship and formation is where we are equipped to be the church in the world — and even by this standard I have to say I think there is an enormous margin for improvement.
Gregg E. Graening

February 17, 2010

I am inspired by your posts and most of the reply. The original “system” has been corrupted by our own selfish means. This sefishness includes all of us, not just some because we are failing to understand all Believers should share that “Hope” which is in them.

This was true from the earliest times of the Church to the time when there were few ordained amongst most of the early plus Colonial Methodists. Afterall, the Great Commission does not say – ordain or license first – then – go, does it? Ergo, we believers (yes, lowercase “b”) have failed and do not deserve to be called by our name with an upper case “B.” I am chief amongst them as a sinner and I pray to do better going forward. Thank you Jesus, for your help.

Finally, your point about “accountability” sounds similar to the same attitude Thomas Rankin faced in Philadelphia upon his arrival in the 1770’s. He stuck to his principles and the regular program outlined by Wesley – which is not dissimilar to your suggestions above. The church in Philly survived and experienced growth even in light of the British invasion. St. John’s in New York did not fair as well in the same period as they were not as prepared for the difficult times. History teaches us, the Wesley program works – you have expressed it in current terms, it is time we return to our roots. We will be prepared for difficult times to come!

Reply
dave

February 17, 2010

Dan, it is my experience that retired pastors are not invited to circuit meetings around here. Could retired folks offer any support to active pastors wanting to employ some (or some more) of the things you propose? Could a circuit working together begin to make a difference in the collective attitude toward “being church” for those congregations/pastors in that circuit? I understand there’s an active listserv for circuit leaders, but I never got in on that….

Reply
1. cindy thompson
  
  February 17, 2010
  
  Dave, don’t take it personally. Those of us serving beyond the local church are also not truly welcome in circuits, although a local circuit can choose to invite us. We are also not part of the listserv. When Dan mentions an interesting dialogue going on through that list it stings with the realization that the conversation does not include voices from those of us in the connection who are serving outside the walls of local congregations with those on the margins.
  
  Reply
2. Jeff Uhler
  
  February 17, 2010
  
  Dave, I appreciate your willingness to be part of the circuit. Having served as circuit leader in two circuits, and now as a pastor in a third, my experience with the retired pastors in my areas was that they didn’t want to be a part of it. I do think that “support” would be a key as well. Some retired pastors have overstepped appropriate boundaries and seemed to want to control the ministry in their area. I’ve known some active pastors who didn’t care for any retired pastor’s input merely because they had too many negative experiences in this regard. So my question is this… if we are to actively invite retired pastors into the circuits for “support”, how can we communicate that purpose clearly so that those with negative experiences don’t automatically shut out what the retired pastor has to offer?
  
  In my current circuit, we have invited the retired pastors to be involved. Some are, some aren’t. It’s their choice.
  
  Thanks for your input.
  
  Reply
  1. dave
    
    February 17, 2010
    
    Jeff, Alas, thanks for pointing to the elephants roaming the congregations. Off the top of my head, perhaps those who are retired and wish to be part of circuit work/ministry could be asked to be in covenant with the active pastors–in written form–and held accountable to that.
    
    Some active pastors will not want the support, help, or counsel of the retired for a variety of reasons. Some may. I could see a retired person as an interpreter of what the congregation could do or the direction the pastor is trying to move the ship. Taken as “wise counsel,” maybe that added viewpoint could help persuade congregational leadership.
    
    My father retired due to health matters (many years ago). We stayed in the parish area, and Dad’s successor made the very good decision to name my father as “Pastor Emeritus.” (This was not a UM parish.) This gave him some “status” (even though he was clear about his not being pastor anymore), and it afforded the active pastor a way to assign some particular responsibilities to Dad–like a particular denominational fundraising effort. I could see something like this working (within the bounds of the agreed-upon covenant) in our time. It would assist the active pastors and with any good luck at all, make use of the particular skills and interests of the retired.
    
    Some dinosaurs will be interested in helping with church life as they know it; others of us might really have come to a point at which we find this stuff that Dan Dick highlights as the place ministry needs to be…. Together ISTM we need to figure out how to do the transitional work needed to provide cutting-edge ministry and also some needed organizational structure and pastoral support for those who continue to “equip the saints.” The future is before us.
Peter Davidson

February 16, 2010

I can’t quite believe the United Methodist church allows you to continue serving. You are asking that we actually be Christian. I didn’t know that the church actually valued real Christian behavior. You are challenging us to be serious about our faith. Are you crazy? Nobody really wants to be Christian. They wants all the benefits without any of the costs. The church could care less about Christianity. It only wants compliance. You are a truly radical voice in a retarded system.

Reply