Life in the Way

Euthanizing Churches.

There is a Task Force begin formed to the to study the benefits and advantages of uniting the resources of these congregations to develop an overall strategy for advantageous location, mergers and church starts in order that we may more effectively fulfill our ministry.

The full resolution is:

Study on Effectively Fulfilling our Missional Responsibilities

Whereas our mission is to make disciples in the name of Jesus Christ, and;

Whereas there are certain United Methodist congregations in The Greater New Jersey Annual Conference that are struggling to fulfill their missional responsibilities, and;

Whereas the members and assets of these congregations may lead to a vision for ministry by considering new ways of combining and using these assets,

Therefore, be it resolved that the Conference Congregational Development Team be hereby charged with forming a Task Force to study the benefits and advantages of uniting the resources of these congregations to develop an overall strategy for advantageous location, mergers and church starts in order that we may more effectively fulfill our ministry. This task force will report their findings at the next Annual Conference.

Be it further resolved that this task force be comprised of an equal number of members of clergy and laity.

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There are many ideas about how to make this happen. One of the ideas would be to close ineffective churches and consolidate their assets for future projects. One might consider this a sort of euthanizing churches.

With all the circular arguments and the challenges that any vision for the future of our conference will face, I believe this is an exciting opportunity for our Annual Conference to begin a process to figure out how to move in a united vision to make disciple of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, which apparently is not happening at several churches in our conference.

Some of my fears are that this will be a lot of work and no action taken. Anything done will require courageous leadership and an affirming vote(s) on any major changes.

The leadership - are there courageous leaders that will compel the entire conference (including the smaller churches) to in a way that will shift our focus? Second, the vote - if the majority of the churches in our conference are worshiping with less than fifty and struggling financially, then an affirming vote at conference would mean that the vision must be compelling enough for many of the smaller churches and pastor in those churches to yearn for it.

If we are going to struggle, let’s struggle for the right thing!

Anyway, I don’t want to over-simplify a complex issue.

How would you define effective discipleship or missional responsibilities?

But when it comes to consolidation of churches what are your thought?

Tags: Conference, Education, Evangelism, Theology