I am sitting in the higher education and ministry legislative committee at General Conference. It’s fascinating to watch the church at work. They are dealing with issues such as clergy voting rights, which don’t have much appeal beyonf those who it directly affects, but it is important to model christian actions. What we do in-house, so to say, reflects on what we do on the outside.

The United Methodist Church, for the first time ever at General Conference, had an address specifically from those under 35.  It was a montage of speakers, ranging in ages from what appeared to be an young teenager, to an early 30-something young professional.  All the speakers added important messages.  Annie Arnoldy is a young pastor in the Rocky Mountain Conference.  Her part of the address was particularly moving to me.  You can watch it here.

The issues discussed by the speakers were close to my heart partly because I was asked to start, from scratch, a young adult ministry at a church whose building, resources, and parishioners were not oriented toward young adults.  With God’s help and direction, the young adult ministry at Arborlawn has seen tremendous growth, and perhaps more importantly, has made lasting impacts on the lives of those who come.   The church too has grown to accommodate, love, nurture, and support them.  Even though I am leaving to take another appointment, If you’re a young adult in the Fort Worth area, I cannot recommend Arborlawn highly enough.  The Crossing Point young adult blog can be found here.

The other reason this issues is close to my heart is because the age group that they were talking about is my age group.  As a late 20-something, I have watched friends and collegus leave the church, leave the ordination process, and more ore less leave God because they have become disenchanted with the church.  There are a number of different reasons that this has happened, but if I were to attribute one common denominator, it would be simply that they didn’t believe that there was a place for them.  Even the clean-cut, just out of college, married type, who had been in church all their lives suddenly felt that there was no place in the church for them, no community to be a part of, nor were there any leadership opportunities.

I have some ideas on what we can do to attract young adults back to the church, or even attract them for the first time.  But, for this post, I believe that sacred space and community are extremely important, and given that the root word for church in Greek (ecclesia or εκκλησία) literally means “a gathering” or “an assembly” then we would hope that church models community - and not just any community, but a community that means something and does something.  Young adults long for something to be a part of that is doing something significant.

We’ll see how this impacts general conference.  I hope that I am not hoping for too much hope.

The United Methodist Church meets every 4 years with delegates from all over the world that were elected from their particular (mostly geographic) region.   There are 1000 delegates, and they each have a vote.  They will vote on any number of things, from social justice issues to denominational structure.  Intertwoven in all of the votes are worship services, reminding delegates and observers that this really is about God.  Opening worship was last night; the real “work” of the delegations begin today.

The worship experience was incredible last night for a number of reasons.  The first was the quality of the service.  Everything was top-notch.  The music was fantastic, the use of technology was well done, but most importantly there was a definite flow to the service.  There were no awkward downtimes when people got up to speak or weird musical transitions. The dancers were perfectly placed throughout the arena.  Secondly, the preaching was dynamic.  Bishop Huie from the Texas conference was dynamic, yet thoughtful.  She reminded the delegates and observers that hope is not a word to be taken lightly - it should be viewed as a reality, an expectation.  Third, the creative use of multiple symbolic elements, such as the pulpit and the altar being built out of wood from Mississippi after hurrican Katrina, or multiple languages used to read scripture and pray, were reminders that methodists are a global connection and called to serve.

I will write more about GC08 in the next few weeks, but my initial impression is a positive one.

May we follow God’s blessing.

Today at Arborlawn, Stephanie and I announced that we would be leaving the Fort Worth area. The Bishop has appointed me the pastor of Discovery United Methodist Church of Hutto. Hutto is a community north east of Austin and about 5 miles east of Round Rock. Population estimates place it as the fastest growing city in the state. Here’s a google map link to it.

Now the work of getting a house ready, moving, and all the infinite details that will need to be worked out begins. We appreciate your prayers.

Stephanie and I are excited about the future as we believe that God is certainly leading us to Hutto. We will miss Arborlawn tremendously. The following is what I said in worship after the announcement was made:

I was reading Bishop Willimon’s blog and came across this post of his. Check it out. Let me (and him) know what you think. I think it’s brilliant, which may say more about the strategies I have heard about church growth than anything else.

http://willimon.blogspot.com/2008/03/practical-organizational-relevance-of.html

The Practical, Organizational Relevance of Resurrection

In a workshop with Paul Borden last year, someone asked him, “You
are a natural leader in starting new churches. What is the main thing
you look for in selecting new pastors?” Borden responded, “An Orthodox
faith, a vivid belief in the Trinity, and of course, a sure faith in
the resurrection.”

Don’t you find that an amazing response? I
thought Borden would say something managerial, “an entrepreneurial
spirit,” something like that. Or, I thought he might cite some
psychological configuration or organizational expertise in the pastor.
No. Borden demands theology, faith in resurrection.

It really
makes a huge difference as we go about reaching a new generation of
Christians, starting new churches, energizing established
congregations, making disciples (our Conference priorities), if Jesus
Christ has risen from the dead. If Easter is not true, then why bother?
Since
Jesus Christ is raised, let loose, invading a world, returning to the
very people who betrayed him, then we work not alone. The risen Christ
goes before us. We serve a God who lives to raise the dead–even us.
Therefore, we work with hope–not hope in ourselves and our efforts,
but with hope in Christ.

A couple of years ago, a District
Superintendent paid me one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever
received. He had told a pastor of our interest to move him to a
different church. “I can’t do this,” responded the pastor. “That church
is dead. It’s been dying for years and now I hear it’s really dead.”
The DS replied, “I’ll tell the Bishop but let me warn you, this guy
really believes that Easter is true. To tell him a pastor or a church
is dead means nothing to him. He just sees death as an opportunity to
see what Jesus can do.”

Will Willimon

I was looking up some stuff on the EPIC model Leonard Sweet advocates for ministry. Below is someone else’s writing (with quotes) about what the EPIC model for ministry is.

“[Leonard] Sweet outlines a four-step transformation process he calls EPIC to enable the B.C. generation to communicate with A.C. natives. First, he says older adults must move beyond rational thinking about faith to focus on a relationship with Christ….
This culture is not looking for something to believe in. Their hunger is for the experience of a relationship with God.”

“The second step of EPIC, Sweet says, requires older adults to move from a performance-based mode of thinking and doing to a participatory, interactive model.…

“Third, Sweet says, natives respond to the gospel when it is presented in images rather than words. “How exciting to present Jesus, who is the image of God, to an image-based culture,” he says. “… We must give them the right image through which to prepare for eternity.”

“Finally, Sweet says older adults must move from an individual to a connective approach to reach younger generations. “The essence of connectivity is, ‘I can’t be me without we,’” he says. … Sweet, a former college president, says he experienced a major turnaround in 1987 when he moved from being a learned academic talking to other academics to become a learner. “Stop being learned people and become learners together,” he urges.”

Anyone have any thoughts? Is the EPIC model for ministry a good one?

I leave to go to my Board of Ordained Ministry interviews in the next hour. Prayers are appreciated.