I’m writing this post from Atlanta where I’ve been serving as leader and moderator of a gathering of 80 of the 100 largest churches in the United Methodist Church (at least in the U.S.). These churches range in size from about 1,200 per weekend in average worship attendance (based upon 2005 stats – the latest we had when we put the list together) to Resurrection with about 7,500 per weekend. One of every twenty people who worship in a United Methodist Church in the U.S. on a given Sunday are part of one of these churches.

Spouses were invited to this event and have joined their clergy partners for several sessions. In two other sessions they were led by LaVon and several other spouses as they shared in small groups the joys and challenges of being the spouse of a large church pastor.

We divided the pastors into ten groups of eight, with pastors of churches of 3,000+ in worship serving as table leaders, and pastors of 2,000+ in worship serving as hosts or facilitators. The remaining six pastors in each group were from churches of 1,200 to 1999 in worship.

There are several aims of this gathering. The first was simply to build new friendships among the pastors of the largest churches in our denomination. Many of these guys are isolated and often lack significant relationships with other pastors due in part to the fact that they are often the only church of their size in their region. Building these friendships is also critical in bridging the divide that exists in the United Methodist Church between the left and the right. Something happens when you get to know another’s story, pray with her or him, and learn from them.

The second aim was to learn from one another and to challenge and stretch each other as pastors and leaders. In each of nine sessions I led off with ten minutes of opening comments and then invited the pastors to spend 45 minutes to an hour discussing and the issue or topic and sharing their best ideas and practices. In this way they acted as “iron sharpening iron” – strengthening one another’s churches.

The third aim, and the driving impetus behind this gathering, was to look at ways that the largest churches in our denomination can play a role in helping the United Methodist Church move from decline to renewed vitality and growth. We looked at the four areas of focus that came from the General Conference of the United Methodist Church believing that these are excellent goals and that they are important in order to bring about renewed health to our church.   These four, in the order we considered them, are: 1. Developing new faith communities, 2. Helping young adults to hear a call to ministry, 3. Engaging congregations in ministries with the poor. And 4, addressing the issues of poverty. Each pastor set goals in these areas for the church she or he serves. I’ll announce the goals the group set in my next post tomorrow.

For now I simply want to say that I have felt God was at work here in exciting ways, and that this may well be one of those events that ultimately has a tremendous impact upon the United Methodist Church. It is amazing to think of what could happen if you have 80 leaders, of 80 of the largest congregations, all pulling together in the same direction. More later…