Monthly Archives: January 2013
Nashville Area Strategic Mapping Team
I just finished two days of conferencing with our new Strategic Mapping Team and Dr. Gil Rendle (Senior Consultant with the Texas Methodist Foundation) in which we began to explore the question of how we align our resources in both the Memphis and Tennessee conferences to be more faithful and effective in achieving our shared mission. As I have reflected on that experience, I realized it was simply the latest step in a remarkable list of things that have happened in our Nashville Episcopal Area as we live into the invitation to “Expect Greater Things.” This new Team of thirty persons is wrestling with the demanding questions of identity and purpose that we need to answer in order to experience the renewal we know God wants for us.
Here is how we got here:
- Bishop Ben Chamness set in motion the Financial Advisory Consulting Team (FACT) from the General Council on Finance and Administration and the General Board Of Pension and Health Benefits. He selected 30 persons to engage in conversation about a wide variety of topics affecting the future of our two conferences. This took place in late October 2012.
- In December 2012 the FACT Team returned with their final report and we increased the group to about 60 persons from both conferences to look at their findings. These reports have been posted on the websites of the respective conferences.
- The two most significant issues facing us immediately were:
-To develop a shared mission and vision across the conferences
-To determine future of the work of the Uniting Committee
- Before the Uniting Committee disbanded, the group invited Dr. Gil Rendle to begin consulting with us around these dilemmas and to help us think about deep change. The Uniting Committee agreed with the findings of FACT as it related to shared mission and vision, as well as postponing the conversation about uniting the two conferences.
- At that time the Uniting Committee(s) recommended we begin a process of creating a Strategic Mapping Team for the future–one Area-wide group and two conference-specific groups.
- Those participating in the FACT process nominated persons to serve on the Strategic Mapping Team. Approximately 30 persons were invited to serve.
- Methodist Health Systems provided a grant for funding the consulting fees for four days. On Friday, Jan. 25, we concluded the first two days of work with Dr. Rendle.
- Dr. Rendle will return in February 2013 to continue working with us.
- We anticipate that Dr. Rendle will be with us at both Annual Conference sessions to help us understand our next steps. We also anticipate that the Strategic Mapping Team will bring a report to each annual conference to help us map our plans for 2013-2014 as it relates to mission and vision. To do things right, it will take time.
For instance, we have created four sub-teams:
Communication–This team is working on how to widen the circles of conversation, prayer and reflection on how we focus on mission instead of institutional survival.
Conversations–This team is initiating contact with leaders in other conferences who have done similar work to learn from them what has been helpful or not so helpful in shifting conference culture to a missional focus.
FACT Analysis–This team is carefully reviewing both FACT reports to discern what recommendations can be embraced quickly and which ones are more strategic and need more discernment.
Benchmarks–This team is reflecting on the kinds of measurements that we want to identify and utilize to know how well we are achieving our missional objectives.
The first task of leadership is to draw an honest picture of our current reality.
Dr. Rendle posed these questions as we began our time:
- What does God expect you to learn through this process?
- What does God tell you to risk boldly as you engage this work?
- Do our leaders have the capacity and the will to do what they say?
We learned we need to:
- Deepen Wesleyan tradition through laity and clergy
- Think Mission Field—not mission projects
- Move from the personal to congregational to community
Other questions are:
- What resources will we bring to the table for measurements?
- How do we create a path to sustainability?
If you have read this far, perhaps you are asking: Why are we doing this work?
We are engaging in this work at this time as an Area because there is wisdom across the Area and we are stronger together than we are apart. To move toward the mission field, we must ask:
- Do we have a conference that supports structure or a structure that supports mission?
- Are we willing to lay aside our legacy agendas, programs and activities to reach the mission field?
- Are we willing to ask the hard questions with regard to budgets and commitment?
Robert Quinn, in his book Deep Change, writes: When an organization or institution has lost its connection with its own environment there is only one choice: Deep change or slow death
Rendle invites us to reflect on this notion that we must connect out of missional reasons, redefine trust, and ask: What does the mission field need?
Much has happened in the last five months. Looking back, it seems like I have been here longer than five months.
There is much to be done. So in the words of Gil Rendle, “Go slow.”
I invite you into a season of prayer around this difficult and challenging work.
Below you will find those who were nominated to serve on the Area Strategic Mapping Team.
- Angela Harris
- Bethany Huffman
- Carol Cavin-Dillon
- Cynthia Davis
- David R. Reed
- David Russell
- Debbie Robinson
- Dow Smith
- Gary Shorb
- Gerry Campbell
- Grace Phelps
- Harriet Bryan
- Holly Neal
- James Finger
- Jim Allen
- John Collett
- Johnny Jeffords
- Lynn Hill
- Max Mayo
- Michael Williams
- Opal Ransom
- Roger Hopson
- Selena Henson
- Sky McCracken
- Stephen Handy
- Susan Engle
- Whitney Mitchell
- Tom Laney is serving as convener of the Strategic Mapping Team for the Area.
Will you join us in prayer for this important work?
Bishop McAlilly
Missional appointment making
One of the interesting and unique things about being a United Methodist is that this time of year is the season when we love to talk, and do talk about appointments. It is a part of our heritage from our inception. Indeed, it is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of The United Methodist Church. The word we use is itinerancy, the practice instituted by John Wesley in 1746 when he appointed lay preachers whom he called helpers to definitive circuits.
Historically, before appointing helpers, Wesley asked three questions of those whom he would appoint:
Have they Faith? | Have they Gifts? | Have they Fruit?
These questions anchor us in scripture and in the Wesleyan tradition.
As we think together in this season between now and mid-April, these historic questions serve us well:
Have they Faith?
• Is the pastor’s call fresh and passionate?
• What is the pastor doing to intentionally deepen his or her relationship with Christ?
• What is the pastor doing to care for personal and family life?
Have they Gifts?
• Does the pastor have a sound understanding of and commitment to Wesleyan theology?
• Does the pastor effectively proclaim the Gospel?
• What are the pastor’s spiritual gifts and how is the pastor developing these gifts to serve the world for Christ?
Have they Fruit?
• How is our worship changing lives in Christ?
• What risks are we taking to reach new people for Christ?
• Is our church growing in mission and generosity?
Deeply rooted in Biblical theology we discover a God who not only calls, but also sends us. Throughout scripture God continually sends people to places where God needs leadership and transformation. Across the Nashville Area in the Memphis and Tennessee Conferences, districts are conducting Pastor Parish Relations Committee Training experiences. In the coming days, I will be offering information via this blog with regard to the process that is unfolding as it relates to the appointive process.
Keeping the ‘Connection’ through serving
It wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that I came to fully understand and appreciate the true gift of our connectional church. In the early days of the first responders, the United Methodist Church was present. UMCOR –United Methodist Committee on Relief – was there. With the generosity of the people called Methodists across the world, the organization of UMCOR, and the hands and feet and hearts of volunteers, the Mississippi Gulf Coast scrapped its way back. The heart of recovery, the heart of UMCOR, is the people of the United Methodist Church. Early on, people asked, “Where is UMCOR?” My friend Ed Blakesly, the first Disaster Coordinator after Katrina said, “UMCOR is us.”
130,000 volunteers later, there have been 13,000 homes repaired and 130 new homes constructed…all by done by the men, women and students who came for the last 7 years. We came to say, “A storm is a terrible thing to waste.”
Click the image for more info on the New Madrid Fault Line from the USGS
Tennessee and Kentucky are no strangers to natural disasters — namely in the form of tornadoes and floods. What we fail to think about is that West Tennessee and Western Kentucky sit on or near the New Madrid Fault. It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that the next disaster could be a major earthquake.
In the 2003 tornado in West Tennessee, Christy Smith oversaw case management, construction and volunteers for that recovery in three counties.
Christy tells this story:
”I stopped at a client’s house several months into the recovery and apologized that it had taken so long for us to get to her. (The storm was in May and this was probably August.) What she said changed my life, ‘That’s okay, Honey. I knew God would send someone!’ What? Me? I knew behind me was the invisible strength of God’s hand and people …praying, giving, organizing, training, preparing. She couldn’t see them…just me. So for her, I WAS the visible evidence that God cares about her. ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I finally stammered. ‘God sent me.’ I had never really thought of myself in ministry…until that moment. ‘”
Here’s the reality: When there is a disaster, someone…just like that woman…is EXPECTING God to send someone. That’s happening right now all over the country, but particularly in the sorrowing Northeast. When we don’t come, it’s not just survivors we disappoint, it’s the God we love and serve that we disappoint. Christy continues: “That takes me to my knees and makes me want others to have the opportunity to serve.”
There are many places and ways one can serve. I want to appeal to you to consider serving in Disaster Response–now in responding to Hurricane Sandy and in the future as we anticipate the next disaster that will hit Tennessee and/or Kentucky. And one will. An opportunity is just around the corner for you to engage in training. The SEJ Disaster Academy will be held February 18-21, 2013 at Simpsonwood Retreat Center in Atlanta, GA.
Register here: http://www.ngumc.org/registrations/register/222 Let’s send five people from every District in the Memphis and Tennessee Conferences!
For more information contact Christy Smith ([email protected]) – but beware! Christy is relentless. Also, Bill Carr, Memphis Conference Disaster Response Coordinator, and Jason Brock, Missions Team Leader for the Tennessee Conference, can assist you.
Evangelism 101
Across the Tennessee and Memphis Conferences we are continuously looking for opportunities for ministry and mission. In unlikely places we often discover a need that we did not know or worse, had known and turned our eyes away. One of the burdens and blessings of our area is that, on the edge of the Clarksville District, is Fort Campbell, which has seen more combat deployments in the past twelve years than any other post in the nation.
While most of the country can afford to look the other way, we in Middle Tennessee cannot. Deployments come regularly and are still coming. Some soldiers deploy multiple times, some as many as 7 of the last 12 years. Every district in the Tennessee Conference is affected because unprecedented numbers of National Guard units have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The result is much suffering—mostly silent. Most military families don’t speak up. They have learned like their soldiers NOT to ask for help. They learn to “soldier up and move on.” And they feel isolated because so many of the rest of us are able to forget we are a nation still at war.
The problems:
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Brain injuries with memory, balance and vision losses
- Financial problems
- High divorce rates
- High rates of adjustment issues in children and teens
- Depression and substance abuse
We now have children whose parents have been away from them every other year for the past twelve years, children who know about war, serious injury and death in ways their counterparts cannot even imagine. They, like their parents, feel isolated.
We are STILL deploying to Afghanistan and if the war there does end as planned next year, then the real problems will begin because many soldiers and their families will finally have to face the issues they have avoided during the hectic deploy-return-train-redeploy cycles of the past twelve years.
Last November, SAFE: Soldiers And Families Embraced (formerly Lazarus Project) sponsored a gathering of ministers in the Clarksville area. Present were more than 150 lay ministers and clergy from churches of all denominations. However, woefully absent was a United Methodist presence. In fact, only two United Methodist clergy were present.
We look every day for opportunities to share the Gospel. Right before our very eyes, we have men and women who are longing to connect with Christ and the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, men and women who have already shown a desire to sacrifice and be in mission, who struggle with guilt, grief and the need to share stories they fear no one will want to hear. Nothing could energize our United Methodist Men more than connecting older veterans with younger veterans. All that is required is that we listen to what they have to tell us about war and peace.
If you are wondering how to engage with our veterans and their families, contact Rev. Jodi McCullah at [email protected] or visit www.umc.org/military. Please do not wait for another opportunity. The time is now.
* This blog was a collaborative effort between Bishop McAlilly and Rev. Jodi McCullah.
MORE RESOURCES:
> View official press release
> SAFE informational packet (.PDF)
> U.S. Census: A Snapshot of Our Nation’s Veteran’s (.PDF)
> SAFE Executive statement (.PDF)
New Year’s Revelation
The Common English Bible translation is available at Cokesbury.com by Abingdon Press
Perhaps you saw Bishop Ken Carter’s post on Facebook yesterday inviting others to join a group of us who are reading through the New Testament this year. Our goal is both simple and doable—that is to read a chapter a day beginning with the Gospel of Matthew and reading through the Book of Revelation. Having completed the New Testament, we then would repeat the Gospels. By following this pattern we will, together, read, pray, and reflect on the sweep of the New Testament.
This morning I read Matthew 2, the coming of the Magi.
“From the east they came to Jerusalem asking, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east and we’ve come to honor him.’ Well, as you know, when King Herod heard this, there was trouble. The king was troubled and that made everyone else troubled. So they gathered the important people and Herod secretly called the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. The Magi did as they were instructed, as you know, and followed the star from the east, found where the child was—they entered the house—and saw Mary with the child. They fell on their knees; they honored him, opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, having been warned in a dream went home by another way.” (Matthew 2:1-12)
After reading chapter 2, I picked up Tom Long’s commentary to Matthew and read his introduction. He reminded me of something I have known, but not remembered in a while: “The Gospel of Matthew was not originally written to be a book in the Bible. It was intended to be a resource for the church—a particular group of people worshiping, serving, praying, striving Christians.”
He further writes: “He wrote his Gospel to speak to a very immediate and urgent congregational crisis. His original readers were wrestling with how to be faithful to Jesus Christ in a changing world and in difficult circumstances, and the Gospel of Matthew was a first-aid manual for this church in the midst of struggle.” (Matthew, Tom G. Long, pg. 1 italics added)
Rev. Jorge Acevedo
My library is full of books to address the same dilemma. Jorge Acevedo, one of our most creative and dynamic United Methodist leaders, is writing a resource for the United Methodist Church. The title: Vital Churches Changing Communities and the World. It will be read widely and devoured by many. It promises to be a helpful, effective resource in this age of the rapidly changing landscape of the United Methodist Church. The book will address five areas: Pastor, Lay Leadership, Worship, Small Groups, and Mission.
For the last 35 years I have been buying and reading and buying and not reading similar such resources. The bookshelves in my library are overflowing. I have done my part to keep the United Methodist Publishing House in business. I keep reading and buying, thinking that somewhere there is as nugget, a word, a story, something that will make the penny drop and it will all become clear and I will finally have the missing link. I keep reading. I keep buying. (Well actually, I did not buy Jorge’s sample. It was sent to me by the UM Publishing House. It comes with the territory, I am discovering.)
I have a notion, though, that perhaps the month of January will be better spent reading the Gospel of Matthew—a book on how to be faithful to Jesus Christ in a changing world and in difficult circumstances. Lord knows, this is a changing world and we live in difficult circumstances.
• We are hoping to ease our way down off the fiscal cliff of a bruised and broken economy. This morning I read The Tennessean headline: “Weary lawmakers passed emergency legislation to avoid a national ‘fiscal cliff’ of major tax increases and spending cuts in a New Year’s night culmination of a struggle that tested divided government to the limit.”
• We are becoming increasingly aware of the plight of the Veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Jodi McCullah, Dir. of S.A.F.E. writes “I find there are military families who struggle with more than 12-years of deployments and usually refrain from speaking up about it at their churches because they learn, like their soldiers, NOT to ask for help – they learn to ‘solider-up and move on…’”
• We continue to struggle with violence in our land as an open house is held today at a repurposed school for students who attended Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
You could add your own list to the difficult circumstances in this changing world of ours.
And yet, across the Nashville Area of the United Methodist Church the Christ will be honored because some congregation will offer shelter to those in the cold, a meal to those who are hungry, a coat to one who is cold. Across the Nashville Area of the United Methodist Church a family will find their way into a congregation, seeking to begin again and that congregation will open its arms and hearts and connect them to Jesus Christ. Across the Nashville Area of the United Methodist Church a veteran will find hope, a child will find love, a teenager will hear the call of Christ and respond to full-time Christian ministry. Somewhere this week, because of the faithfulness of the people called Methodist, darkness will be turned back and the light of Christ will shine.
So this day, I fall on my knees, and worship the Christ child who brings “Hope for the hopeless, Love for the loveless, Peace for the restless - Because greater things are yet to be done, greater things are still to come!”
I pray you will join me as together we seek to honor the One who came so that we might be faithful in the hard places this world brings our way.
