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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 16 August 2007 |
This article is announcing a new website called the Missional Methodist Movement. You can find it at http://www.MissionalMethodistMovement.com . The purpose is to help connect Methodists who feel called to a missional mindset or ministry. The vision is it will be a place where missional minded Methodists can come, be encouraged, challenged and inspired to continue the journey God has called them to. It is in the beginning stages now, so come, sign up and join in the conversation.
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Written by Jeff Newton
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Monday, 09 July 2007 |
I just finished Reggie McNeal's book, Practicing Greatness, (Jossey-Bass, 2006). It is a very good book for leaders, especially those moving toward a missional mindset. I found his insights on pages 102 and 103 to be particularly insightful for us a church.
Given the significant collapse of the influence of the church in American culture, and given the fact that church attendance is holding up only because people are living longer, and given signs of heightened spiritual awareness accompanied by a loss of affection for religious institutions and given how God is working in other parts of the world where Pentecost is happening every hour, you might think that North American church leaders would be scrambling to deal with the real issues underlying these realities.
McNeal goes on to suggest in the church today we are asking the wrong questions thus receiving wrong answers. He suggests a church leader's agenda will be shaped, depending on the question asked. He lists wrong questions, followed by tough questions:
Wrong question: How do we "do church" better?
Tough question: How do we "be church better? Or how do we deconvert from "Churchianity (institutional religion) to "Christianity"(the movement)?
Wrong question: How do we grow this church?
Tough question: How do we serve this community?
Wrong question: How do we develop ministers for the church?
Tough question: How do we develop missionaries to the culture?
Wrong question: How do we develop church members?
Tough question: How do we develop followers of Jesus?
Wrong question: How do we plan for the future we see?
Tough question: How do we prepare for the future God sees?
Wrong question: How do we develop leaders for church work?
Tough question: How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?
Asking the right questions may be the problem in the United Methodist Church. Perhaps we need to think beyond the problem of church decline and look at real issues that have caused us to cease to be a movement and to become a dying institution. What do you think?
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Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 )
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Written by David
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Monday, 18 June 2007 |
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After doing a search on Google , I found an article titled Problems Plague United Methodist Study of Problems . I assumed the article was about the recent study that found that ineffective clergy were the biggest obstacle to reversing the UMC's 40 year decline. Much to my amazement, the article was from 1994. It was then I realized, we haven't moved much in the past 13 years. One thing I found interesting was that we are still studying our problems relating to decline, but apparently haven't found any solutions. Paul wrote in Col 1:27  that Christ in you is the hope of glory. If we are going to have any hope it is because Christ is within us. Perhaps it is the role of the bureaucracy to always believe that the solution to problems come from the top. After all, that is why the folks at that level got involved. They are convinced that given the right environment they can make significant changes. The only problem is, I'm not sure that has happened over the past 40 years. Read the Rest Here
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 19 June 2007 )
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