Last Saturday (2/21/09) about two o'clock New ACT adopted a Working Vision and Purpose Statement. This statement will serve as both compass and yardstick for United Methodists in Upper New York as we plan for our new conference. It's intended to guide us into the future we seek and ensure the work we do to build our new conference measures up to our hopes and dreams.
I told New ACT members the work we did to draft this statement was a lot like making good maple syrup. To make syrup you take sap from many different trees, gather it in a big cauldron, and boil it down into something sweet and healthy. Our Working Vision and Purpose Statement is New ACT's attempt to boil down the contributions gathered this past year from various sources around the Upper New York region. This information was prayerfully and carefully reviewed using an intentional process of discernment grounded in prayer, Scripture and holy conversation. Despite the urgency of the "ticking clock," New ACT waited until this statement looked and felt right for our new conference.
Of course, the old adage "if you get four United Methodists in a room, you'll wind up with five opinions" is still true. No one expects every aspect of this statement to ring true for everyone. It's intended to be a first word, not the last. We expect this statement will change as United Methodists in the Upper New York region gain further insight and understanding.
We've also written this statement primarily to help "missionary planners" do their work, not appeal to"potential converts." All good communication is audience-specific and this statement is addressed to lay and clergy leadership at all levels. To reach a broader audience, leaders will need to do some translation. But that's not new for us. Just as our denominational mission statement to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world has been translated into Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors and Rethink Church, so you and I will find new and innovative ways to reach persons in the neighborhoods around our churches.
The final and perhaps most important thing I'd say about this statement is it's intended to help us prepare for the future, not define it. Our statement is a transitional tool to help move forward during this in-between time. As our life together emerges, we'll need a new and better statement. In other words, this syrup has a shelf life of about fifteen months! But in these days, my hope and prayer is it will sweeten and nourish our work together.
Please be in touch as you are led. - Bill Gottschalk-Fielding
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Good stuff...I'd would just like to recommend a statement that sticks...without easy recall, it has no real guiding power...I've seen it time and time again...mission statements that hang on the wall without them shaping what's going on down the hall.
ReplyDeleteBill - and members of the New ACT - I think the statement is excellent. I particularly appreciate that you have identified its audience and noted that it is a "transitional tool" designed to help us prepare for the future rather than define it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love Maple Syrup - pastoring in Vermont for 14 years prior to coming to the Adirondacks, I used to time my pastoral visits in the spring by looking at the horizon - where I saw the steam rising, I decided to go and have a prayer with them. So many wonderful hours sitting, loading wood, stirring, and of course, tasting. May our work - now and in the future - be every bit as joyful and fruitful - "sweet" - as the effort required for the producing of liquid gold.
One thing that has surfaced frequently on the BOM has to do with the awareness that our current structure is more temporary with each passing day. It feels to me a bit like waiting for surgery. The patient just wants it to be over so the healing and physical therapy can begin. So ... we wait in the midst of this uncertain present, expecting the future to bring us something better than ever we could have anticipated.
Thanks for the blog ..... Mark
I am hopeful about this process and trust that together we will work out the details in due time. Occasionally, I hear anxiety about the "new conference," mostly around size matters. There is a concern that the districts will get bigger. There is also anxiety that we, as a whole conference, will overlook the concerns and input of our ethnic and racial minorities. Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt Psychotherapy defined anxiety as "excitement while holding one's breath. To feel the excitement as excitement and not as anxiety we have to breathe. I look forward to the process unfolding.
ReplyDeleteRev. Will Baez
Bill (and the hard working friends you represent),
ReplyDeletePlease accept my heart-felt thanks for the hard work you have done so far. I am very pleased with the vision/purpose statement that you have crafted as a document to guide us toward the future. I love the emphasis placed outside the church walls. I love the focus on leadership development. I love the fact that you are saying this is a start, and not the end of the conversation. I believe this is a vision that can unify us. Thanks for asking for our input!
I have just two simple thoughts I'd ask your committee to consider. Maybe these things do not need to be in the vision/purpose statement. Perhaps they are better seen as aspects of the way we will live into this vision. Or, maybe few others see these things as important. I share them because these are things I feel God is calling us to move toward. Please take use them only if they seem helpful to your entire committee:
1. I believe we need to focus (along with our entire general church) on creating "new places for new people." It seems counter-intuitive to plant new churches when so many of the churches we already have are in decline. However, research shows that there is a typical institutional life span... and that turning around a declining church is much harder work than starting new congregations. Rapid church growth typically only happens in the first 20 years of a churches life span. If we really want to reach new people with the good news of Jesus, I believe we must be starting new communities of faith.
2. I think we somewhere need to add the word "witness" to what it is we are trying to do when we are "being the body of Christ in the world." One of the most significant practical changes made at General Conference was the addition of that word "Witness" at the end of the four commitments made at the time of membership ("...prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.") If we are serious about spreading the good news of Jesus, we need to not only show folks Jesus in our actions, but also tell people about what Jesus means to us.
Once again, thank you for your leadership and hard work. I am so hopeful that we will be able to create a truly new thing together that glorifies God and transforms the people and the communities of upstate NY.
Dave Masland
Binghamton District, Wyoming Conf.
From Pastor Jeff McDowell in Bath, NY, NCNY conference:
ReplyDeleteThanks to Dave Masland for his insight in beginning new churches.
I want to add another slant:
Chaplaincy appointments. I have thought for years we need to train some pastors to have role of chaplain at churches whose demongraphics and energy will be most likely to only sustain them as a church for a decade or less as a viable church. These church can play a vital role in the context of rural churches by attending to the needs of those within them. When the time comes for them to disband or united with another area church, they will have been cared for, intentional about their end - game strategy, and feel a part of a greater whole: church for Jesus' sake.