RE:Kings to Roadkill

We have to be focused on our mission, and if aren't then it will all just slide through our fingers like sand. If we are focused on our mission we'll be clear and we will not be as married to what has worked in the past. If the mission drives, then we'll always be looking at new ways to communicate, live and be the mission.

Detroit is in trouble because they were behind the curve. There were fat and happy in the day of the SUV. When the tide changed and no one bought SUVs anymore they were in trouble. So now, they are trying to sell what people want to be.

In the church we are still trying to sell 1950s style church to a society that has moved on.

What does that say about our future unless we rediscover the mission?

1000 Doors

maybe it's just me, but it seems like the information we need to share at the annual conference is extremely complicated. i'm afraid that if we try to do too much, people are going to walk away more confused than they are when they walk in. i have a suggestion and welcome your feedback.

okay. the theme is 10,000 doors, so the first thing we'd do is find like 3 sets of pictures of doors. it would be great if the doors could start off looking ancient and progressed to more contemporary and ended up classified as modern (like stephen suggested with the ancient/future theme). the doors will need to be animated to open so that words are revealed.

behind each door would be a single message, but all of the doors taken together tell a story.

the message behind each door deals with the number of new converts we have in our congregations. as the doors continue to open, the number of converts decreases drastically until one door finally asks what we plan to do about this trend. the next group of doors, ones that look different from the first set and are preferably a different color, begin to show the planting of new churches as well as the merging of other churches and the revitalization of still other churhes that meet our goal of mp3. these pictures would be of the success stories we have throughout the conference, that stephen mentioned, like bellwether and hope and the pointe and that one church that was highlighted at the convocation in rust and the like. here, we would be intentional about using real live people from small churches especially to show that we honor them and that the conference has not abandoned them nor does the conference deem them unworthy. at the end we could have a door open to show our goal of starting three new churches per year. the names of committee members should roll like credits behind the door as well, so people will know who to contact with questions, comments, or concerns.

basically, i'm just trying to roll all of what stephen said into a non-threatening visual that really doesn't even have to use a voice, just music as a way of communicating to the people the need to support the initiative to become more aggressive as it relates to congregational development.

honestly, what do you think?

RE:Kings to Roadkill

I think that Neville and Denise are the ones who are the voice of the annual conference in the sense that they both are very concerned about ous but their approaches seem to be different. After reading all of the emails, including this one my simple brain is asking two questions. The first is:

1. What is our purpose/mission?

2. The second one is one that Lovett Weems uses all the time and it is “You are doing this so that…?’’

If we can answer these two questions in relationship to God’s vision then I believe that we focused and on one accord. We may approach things differently but we will be headed in the same direction and striving for the same goal of “Making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”.

Therefore “Let us march on till victory is won”.

Kings to Roadkill

Howdy everyone,

Read an interesting article today: "How Detroit's Automakers Went from Kings of the Road to Roadkill." Listen to this paragraph:

"During the 1980's and 1990's, GM's leaders refused--and I believe some still refuse--to accept the reality of the presence of so many new automakers in the U.S. market, more than at any time since the 1920's. This hard truth means the company's US market share going forward isn't going to return to the 40 percent levels of the mid-1980's, or even the mid-20 percent levels we have seen more recently. On thing to watch as GM tries to restructure now will be what assumptions the company makes about its share of the U.S. market going forward. If they call for anything higher than 15 percent, I would be suspicious."

Could a similar paragraph be written about our church? Could that article be re-written something along the lines of "How Wesley's descendents snatched defeat from the jaws of victory."

I continue to plug away at posting churches on my map....I'm well into three districts worth and will hopefully have it done in the near future. As I look at the map in it's current state my mind starts whirling....what does it say? what does it show? how does it inform our future? What will it say when all the dots are posted. (Oh, I've also added community centers, colleges/universities/wesley foundations, and camps) I wish I had A2 scores for all the churches...I've only been able to post those for the Senatobia District & while it wasn't earth-shattering it was interesting nonetheless. With such a presence why aren't we growing? What are we missing? When I read an article in the latest Harvard magazine about early childhood education and look at the graph that shows children with the largest vocabulary in kindergarten maintaining that edge all the way through sixth grade I wonder why we don't have 1000 pre-k programs going on across the state. Then I read about playwright Christopher Durang and how his works are informed by "a bedrock hopelessness over the absence of a caring God" and I wonder if we are demonstrating the fallacy of that belief in 1000 different corners of Mississippi on a daily basis? If not, why not? How do we revitalize our way to relevance?

Oh well, as you can tell I'm feeling better...not 100% yet so I'm going to bed.

RE: growth potential

WOW!!!  I agree totally with your last statement about relevance.  And I think that is the core.  A new church is much more apt to relevant because it is designed to by such by the church planter typically but it is possible to plant a church that has all the same problems of relevancy, IFF, the folks that come from the parent church in the antioch model do not come with clean DNA and a commitment to relevance.  Also, a new plant only remains relevant until someone says, "We don't do things around here like that, never have."  At that point it is time to refocus.  The marks of the healthiest, largest and longest term relevant churches are the ones that are able to critically evaluate themselves and change as necessary sometimes on  a dime.  The clearest example is Granger Community Church this year in ditching their Wednesday night believers service which worshiped 1000 folks for 3 bible studies.  The had set an internal figure of about 500 I think to be a success.  The had 2700 the first night. Ability to remain flexible is very important.  Hold some things tightly (our doctrinal standard, our Wesleyan Arminian Theology, our history and commitment to practical holiness and social holiness, etc.) but other things loosely (worship styles, orders, agendas, pedagalogical theories and paradigms, and certainly locations).  Let us not forget Ecclesiates, "for everything a season."

RE: Growth Potential

I think these are great points, and urgent points. Part of our church exists in the mindset of the 1950s where having a building across form the captiol would be the hight of the kingdom and height of releveance. But, in the postmodern world, what does that matter in the end. As you said we have to look at what it means to throw oursleves into this, what woudl the mission look like, and what are teh budgetary realitites. These things are all help in tension. And I know I beat dead horse that I always do, but it's not an either/or thing, it's a both/and. We can plan new churches while at the same time do ministry in existing and turn around churches. Study after study has shown that NCDs actually increase worship attendance in existing churches. In Tupelo, both The Orchard and FUMC (and many other churches) are strong.

The magic bullet of NCDs is relevance. That is not owned only by the NCD, but any church can have it and be relevant. For the existing churches, that means change. For an NCD its easier, it is just born. But, in both cases, if they are relevant, the kingdom will blossom.

Growth Potential

Hey, I have really enjoyed reading the discourse on planting, revitalization etc.  You all are some very bright folks and ask a lot of the right questions.  I am very glad our conference has you as leaders at this critical junction.  I think the decisions made in the next couple of weeks will have a profound affect and effect on our conference for a generation.  Over the last few years there has been a movement among United Methodists recognizing that there is a need to plant new churches.  It grew out of subject experiences but was backed up by statistical research.  Throughout our history we were the strongest and were growing disciples, calling larger and larger number of folks to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ when we were planting churches, in the places where people were and where they were moving too, the frontiers of America.  At one time there were more Methodist meeting houses than post offices.  We also have evidence I am going to try to post here for you from the North Carolina conference who had a season of renewed church planting in the 60's under one particular Bishop.  However, parallel with this realization and movement came a push back, "But what about our existing churches?"  And it has been in this tension that we have seemed to stay for the last few years in United Methodism, not willing to break faith with already existing communities of faith but recognizing a need to plant all of this with a limited pool of resources to draw from, no comprehensive plan to implement either revitalization or planting, and no decision as to which path we will choose.  Slowly however conferences and the denomination (See Path1)  are beginning to make the decision that the most cost effective use of limited resources is to invest in starting new faith communities (by that I mean number of professions of faith or renewed faith journeys per $ invested).  That is not to say that existing church should be abandoned to their own devices.  We are still a connectional church and they are still a part of the body of Christ and can have important ministries.  What we are learning, however, is that as someone said earlier the churches must be willing to develop new ministries, to invest in themselves.  It must, if it is to happen, come from within.  We can expose them to ideas, we can help them understand where they are in the life cycle, we can send them trained and competent turn around pastors but end the end the impetus for change must come internally.  They must be so unhappy with the status quo that remaining the way they are is more painful than the pain they can imagine that will come in change.  Or as Steve Compton, former Director of Congregational Development North Carolina Conference, said, they must experience death or a near death experience before they are willing to move around the circle to new birth or as he put it, "you have to have a corpse to have a resurrection."  Also it might be helpful to note the experience in North Carlolina over the last 4 years.  I am in touch with Steve now trying to get the right figures but they have invested somewhere in the range of $500,000 in a series of church turnarounds over 4 years.  I believe he said that of the churches only 20% experienced any real growth.  However one of the things that North Carolina and Florida have documented is that in the communities where they plant new churches, existing churches see an increase in their growth rates and vitality and spiritual health.  So it seems that one of the benefits of planting new congregations is the positive affect on existing congregations in the area.  I think as I have studied church planting over the last few years I have arrived at what I believe are some truths.

1.  Planting new congregations results in the greatest kingdom growth per $ invested.

2.  There is no one right type of church plant or ideal church plant model.  The plant type must be right for the community and for the skills, leadership, personality and affinity of the church planter.  The planter must have the right affinity for the community and the community must have an affinity for the pastor.  That can mean parachute (but rarely), mother/daughter or Antioch model plant, Elijah church model, merge and move model, merger model, dual campus model, nomadic church model or anything new that the Holy Spirit does.  The key is matching up the right person with the right type in the right place at the right time.

3.  Planters/revitalization pastors need to discern their call here, be trained (Interestingly Jim Griffith is offering a church turn around bootcamp on a Friday, Saturday so that the turn around pastor and key lay people can attend and must attend together), and have a tough coach.

4.  Church planting and revitalization efforts can come from the top down and bottom up.  Yes, we need to have a comprehensive and strategic plan identifying strategic places to plant and strategic churches that might be revitalized.  But yes, if a church not so identified in the strategic plan and a pastor not identified as a planting or turn around pastors self identifies as a church and a pastor that is seeking help and is willing to do what is necessary to effect a turn around then there needs to space left for that work of the Holy Spirit.

5.  There will be some that will never embrace change in whatever form, for whatever reason.  We believe in free will, after all we are not full reform calvinists.  Some may by action or inaction choose death and that is their choice.  We should celebrate their ministry and help them to die with dignity.  However, we should not expend a great amount of resources forcing them to become something that they do not wish to become or do something that they do not wish to do.  

6.  Planting and revitalization are really two separate things.  They involve different skill sets and require drastically different timetables of standards (and yes Neville I think we have to have standards, church planting and within all our congregations).  Florida conference has two separate staff positions for new church and revitalization.  

7.  For any plan there has to be buy in at every level.

and as a last personal note, perhaps this is also a discussion and struggle we should be having over our general conference budget and property holdings.  How many persons are we adding to the kingdom by owning a building across from the U.S. Capital?