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: Assumption vs Fact

Amen, Amen, and Amen to everyone’s thoughts.

 

I like Denise’s point about realigning resources and perhaps having more success than we think….gets into the area where Lovett was talking about moving resources although since I missed the presentation I’m not clear exactly what he said (slide 13 quotes Asbury and says move resources “from the center to the periphery” then on slide 25 he talks about drawing resources from the circumference….anyway, that definitely should be one of the strategic assessment tasks).

 

Of course you are right Andy. This is a complementary effort…I like to visualize a stool: it won’t stand upright without ALL of its legs and, in this case, the legs of our stool are new-churches, revitalization, and small-membership.

 

Last thought: do we have any liaison/relationships with the various Universities around the state (aside from Wesley Foundations of course)? What I’m wondering is if it might be productive/efficient/useful to ‘reach out and touch’ their business/management/leadership/sociology departments and invite them to participate in the strategic analysis of our conference.  I’m sure there are lots of students/professors who “do” demographic research, studies, etc., and maybe we could leverage some of that for free…offer students a chance to do research that benefits them and us at the same time. Also, as I mentioned to you once before Embra, I think it would be very useful to invite in some non-church type folks to talk about things like strategy, managing growth, etc. 

 

Well, okay, I fibbed….one more “last” thought:  considering things from a “business model” viewpoint it’s interesting to compare the approach of Wal-Mart and Walgreens to our conference.  In many ways as I look at our state and our churches it seems that we are perfectly positioned to follow a Walgreens approach (i.e. stores on every corner) vs the Wal-Mart approach of building supercenters and drawing people in to them.  Although, even more intriguing, is that we may be in a position to use the best of BOTH….i.e. revitalize/’Elijah-ize’ ourselves so that our ‘corners’ are productive, and ‘new-church’ ourselves into the growth areas.

 

Final last thought…..PRAYER….we need to PRAY unceasingly that we wake-up from our stupor and get out of the comfortable surroundings that our previous success has bequeathed us.  We need to PRAY that all our conference hears the words to the churches in Revelation 3, particularly Revelation 3:15-17 “I know your deeds, that your are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

 

Let the church say Amen.

 

Assumption vs Fact

As I looked at Lovett’s presentation from the 27^th a question arose.  On slide four it states:

 

•       Existing churches alone cannot be expected to increase attendance in proportion with population growth.

 

•       The only means by which the denomination can possibly keep pace with population growth is through new church starts.

 

Are these assumptions or facts?  In planning I’ve always been taught that you make assumptions to fill in the gaps where you just don’t have enough information to conclusively make a statement of fact. Then, as the situation develops, you either validate or replace your assumptions.  I mean, I don’t disagree with either of those statements because they seem intuitively obvious to me. But, at the same time, how do we know they’re true?  For instance:

 

·        Existing churches alone cannot be expected to increase attendance in proportion with population growth.

o       Why not?

o       Does past failure pre-determine future outcomes?

o       Is this a uniquely American experience/phenomenon? Are churches in our growth areas (i.e. overseas) able to draw people in to them without the apparent necessity to go to where they are?

o       Have we told “existing churches” they are expected to grow in proportion to population growth in their areas?

 

I’m also curious as to how the current economic situation and its short-to-mid-term projections impact all this?  What was the economic situation during the data gathering period and how does a change in that situation (either positive or negative) influence projected future church growth activity.

 

Also, not to be overly “business like” with this, is it too much of a stretch to set benchmarks & goals for churches once they’re chartered?  I mean, we start new churches and EXPECT them to be successful. We give them targets, goals, and objectives which are big motivators (in addition to the motivation of the Holy Spirit!)  In such an environment everyone involved knows they need to succeed and they do what it takes to accomplish that goal.  However, once they’re chartered we just seem to let them go their own way.  It seems only reasonable to me to say to churches that if they expect to remain part of the UM connection, draw on UM pastoral resources, apportioned dollars, etc., that we ought to hold them accountable for success, however we’ve defined that for each congregation. That’s just basic Wesleyan thought isn’t it?  I mean if you were in an early society meeting and weren’t living up to the standards you were voted out.

 

Peace,

 

Neville