Can an old-line institution do this? Most organizational consultants I speak with say, no. However, we’re not just an organization. If we re-think who we are as a church and who we want to be as a people in the 21st Century following Jesus, we may find energy and strength to be renewed in ways we thought impossible before.

I watched bishops meet with immigrant day workers at a Home Depot parking lot yesterday morning as part of the launch of re-think church. They listened to the stories of the workers, heard about their families, prayed with them, invited them to connect locally with the church and served them breakfast. We had church in the parking lot.

I take great hope from this, and much more. I hope your thoughts provoke the conversation to continue to rethink who we are as a connected people following Jesus.
Larry Hollon

The key to the survival of the UMC is in finding an identity and that being an identity found in the Gospel. If we would be people who proclaim it to the lost for justification from sin, and remind the saved about it during sanctification, we would be obedient to God’s call on His church. We could live joyfully in that fact and let the results be up to Him.

Sadly, decline, in my opinion, is predicated in religion/morality having replaced the Gospel in our churches over the years.

My expanded thoughts can be found at the article attached to my name inn this post. We can still be that “city on a hill” and let the light of Christ shine to the world.

Your article and the comments that follow provided me with much insightful material for reflection.

In my small town, three of four small UM churches voted recently to merge. The anguish on all sides has been brutal and the lack of basic Christian behavior has been disappointing. I have never heard the phrase “the will of God” used as often and as haphazardly as I have since the merger issue arose.

I don’t have the answers. But I remain willing to listen, to reflect on writings such as yours, and to pray.

My wife Roxanne and I have relocated to Dallas from OP. We are attending HPUMC. I enjoy Mark Craig’s messages but yours touched me at a deeper level. I mention this because you are rare. Your inspirational messages laced with humor are a gift from God. If there was a way to use you to inspire like minded people to lead the church, I would agree with your idea of consolidation.

We are in the business of creating a company unlike any other in our industry. Of course the key to our success is finding the correct people to get on our bus. Like minded people who do what we do because it is their passion. The message we deliver to our fellow team mates is one that you gave in a sermon. We ask our co workers to find their own song.

The church needs to find a way to attract and keep more pastors like you plain and simple. By creating an environment for people like you to live a successful and fulfilling life the church will attract a more dynamic group. People that want to make a difference need the vehicle to affect change. By consolidating and focussing the mission of the church more leaders will emerge.

To begin this movement, an inspirational leader needs to emerge to set the tenor of the movement. You are the perfect candidate to assume that role. Your charismatic leadership will inspire many to join. You just need a bigger stage to reach a broader congregation.

Every revolution has a leader. I vote for you.

Ted

But I also think Adam is asking the church as a whole to think missionally. Many small churches pride themselves on blending into the American landscape; and what’s a landscape without a little church? That’s not mission: it’s museum.

Tiny Methodist churches dot small towns across America. This is testimony to the time when Methodists pushed west with the pioneers. Yet demographics and society itself have changed significantly. Small churches cannot provide the upkeep on their aging facilities, nor provide for full time pastors. I have often wondered what sense it makes to scatter our resources.

For example, I serve a church with about 50 people in a town of about 2,000. There are at least 6+ UM churches within 10-15 miles of my charge, most of which are already yoked together on a multi-point charge. Why not consolidate some of these churches into one regional church, providing a fresh sense of misison and pooled resources to reach the region the members hail from? If people will drive 30 minutes to work or shop, why can’t they drive 15 minutes to worship?

Whatever correlations exist show a lack of faith in what God can do with His bride…the people He loves…the people He sent His Son to die for.

GM is facing the consequences of sin! Greed is their downfall!

Adam…Adam…Adam…this isn’t time to close churches and create COR’s all over the place.

This is time to give our churches, small and large, the hope that with God all things are possible and that any church who finds their calling to their particular community will find support from their district and conference, not a video feed from on high!

For disclosures sake, as a UM elder, I’ve served the smallest of churches and now serve a church of 400 members. Part of our ministry has been reaching out to smaller churches and sharing our resources including personel and we’ve seen some sort of growth of each congregation.

I’m not ready to write off any church who is still ministering to their communities effectively.

How dare anyone have the audicity to say that small doesn’t work. Shame Adam…shame.

GM spent the 90s and the first 2/3rds of this decade selling SUVs and Hummers. Big cars that made money in the short term. Who cared if they were bad for the environment or for the most part unneccesary for the 99% of Americans who do not drive offroad.

And they killed their innovative electric car program, like they killed the urban rail system sixty years earlier.

Toyota developed the Prius. And while the fancy HUMMER dealerships now look like abandoned wastelands, Prius’ are everywhere and the 2010 Prius might be one of the best cars ever built.

I think the UMC has spent too much time and money building and selling Hummers and SUVS when they should have been developing new models that took on modern day challenges.

I think the UMC has spent a good part of its history–at the local congregation level acting more like GM than Toyota.