OUR PRAYER

We are no longer our own, but thine. Put us to what thou wilt, rank us with whom thou wilt.

Put us to doing, put us to suffering. Let us be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let us be full, let us be empty. Let us have all things, let us have nothing.

We freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Creator, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art our Lord, and we are your joyful servants.

So be it. Amen.

CALL TO ACTION

Jesus came near and spoke to them, “...go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything that I’ve

commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 CEB)

ORIGINS

• Issues & Innovations Emerging Across the UMC - Congregations and Annual Conferences

• Table of Agency Leaders and Bishops

• Council of Bishops

• Connectional Table

• Two CTA Groups

• Interim Operations Group

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the challenge from The Call to Action

1. For a minimum of ten years, starting in January 2011, use the drivers of vital congregations as initial areas of attention for sustained and intense concentration on building effective practices in local churches.

2. Dramatically reform the clergy leadership development, deployment, evaluation, and accountability systems.

3. Collect, report, review and act on statistical information that measures progress in key performance areas to learn and adjust our approaches to leadership, policies, and the use of human and financial resources.

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4. Reform the Council of Bishops, with the active bishops assuming (1) responsibility and public accountability for improving results in attendance, professions of faith, baptisms, participation in servant/mission ministries, benevolent giving, and lowering the average age of participants in local church life; and (2) establishing a new culture of accountability throughout the church.

the challenge from The Call to Action

5. Consolidate program and administrative agencies, align their work and resources with the priorities of the church and the decade-long commitment to build vital congregations, and reconstitute them with much smaller competency-based boards of directors in order to overcome current lack of alignment, diffused and redundant activity, and higher than necessary expense due to independent structures.

The Adaptive Challenge

To redirect the flow of attention, energy, and resources to an intense

concentration on fostering and sustaining an increase in the

number of vital congregations effective in

making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the

world.

Basic principles undergirding THE WORK

The local “charge” or congregation is the primary venue for making disciples.

We are focused on building and supporting United Methodist people & their witness on the ground, wherever they are in the world.

Basic principles

Annual conferences are the key venue for investment in organizing the work of supporting congregations and generating more vital congregations because they focus strategically on key levers for empowering vital congregations – including: recruiting, training and deploying gifted clergy.

KEY Recommendations

• Creating clear expectations and metrics for all leaders

• Creating a non-residential bishop to lead the COB and build collaborative work on the Adaptive Challenge

 

RECOMMENDATIONS, CONT.

• Cultivating a new generation of young UMC clergy with education and support systems that focus on the Adaptive Challenge

• Creating a unified UMC Center for Connectional Mission & Ministry constituted from 10 existing agencies and changing its governance.

Recommendations, CONT.

Redirect Apportionments in 2013-1016 by up to $50 million for work on the Adaptive Challenge including:

• Young clergy seminary scholarships• New faith communities for new peopleRedirect $5 million of the general

church receipts for theological education in the Central Conferences

Redirect $5 million of general church receipts for focus on developing young laity as UMC leaders

Assessing the State of the UMC

APEX RESEARCH

•Key conclusions:

1. Acute crisis of underperforming

economic model

2. Creeping crisis of relevancy

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ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT

Lack of mission clarity and congruency

Struggle with “global church” identity and mission

Institutional concerns block mission/purpose

Values and culture issues Structure and process issues

Environmental Context, Cont.

Declining US membership/attendance trends

Generation bound demographics of membership and clergy

Difficulty of attracting “young” generation

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REDUCING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN AND

AMONG THE CHURCH’S FOUNDATIONAL UNITS

Lack of relevancy linked to sense of distance

Annual Conference and District SizeAnnual Conferences and Districts often too largeBishop and District Superintendant leadership

ratios

Distance aggravated by apparent autonomyVarying views about accountabilityLack of alignment & agreed common measures

Apex recommendations

Strengthen Leadership and Management to Achieve Mission

Focus: General Conference, Council of Bishops, Annual Conference and, later, Clergy Effectiveness

Apex recommendations, cont.

Address Agency Governance Structure

Improve alignment

Turn, Turn, Turn

• Anatole FranceAll changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

Church Vitality Research

Conducted by Towers Watson

•Comprehensive and robust research intentionally focused on North America

•Response & participation rates in interviews and surveys ensures the findings are reliable at a 95% level of confidence

Church vitality research

•Calculation was done for 32,228churches where data were available

Church vitality research

•Based on vitality index, we found that all kinds of UMC churches are vital –small, large, across different geographies, and settings (e.g., urban, rural)

findings

•We conducted regression analyses to identify drivers of the vitality index and four key drivers of vitality stand out –findings are actionable

•Four key drivers of vitality are consistent across different types of churches

AN OBVIOUS KEY LEVER IS PASSIONATE AND EFFECTIVE

CLERGY LEADERSHIP

We asked:

What would make it possible to recruit, develop and deploy more

gifted clergy leaders for connectional ministries to foster

vital congregations?  

IOT CALLS FOR CHANGE IN clergy system

• Foster consensus about the personal and professional gifts, skills and practices needed for effective clergy.

• Congregations increasingly foster a "culture of call" in which they regularly invite and encourage persons with the needed gifts to consider if they are being called.

• Make the recruitment of gifted young people to full time ministry a priority and devote resources to helping them complete their theological education.

CLERGY SYSTEM

• Expect & work with seminaries to train for the skills and practices most needed to revitalize existing churches and start new ones.

• Continue to purposefully avoid deploying clergy based primarily upon seniority/salary and toward deploying persons where their gifts can have the greatest impact.

• Improve ability and processes to more promptly exit low performing clergy from the system.

1. Greater consensus about leadership qualities needed for Bishops in the 21st Century.

2. Bishops have public accountability for improving vital indicators in their Residential Areas

3. One bishop dedicated and accountable for the encouraging and supporting others on the Council of Bishops

4. Align appropriate work of general church more closely with Annual Conference strategies for embracing the Adaptive Challenge

Changes needed in the episcopal system

CONNECTIONAL TABLE ACTION ON IOT

RECOMMENDATIONS

 

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AFFIRMATION Performance of Clergy

•Adopt updated performance qualities and vital indicators for clergy

•Bishops lead in requiring that assessments are used consistently in every annual conference on an annual basis

•Focus training and continuing education efforts to enhance performance of new and experienced clergy in relevant competencies based on assessments

•Appointments should be made based on proven performance and potential for achieving the desired outcomes

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AFFIRMATION Performance of Bishops

•Adopt performance qualities and vital indicators for bishops, addressing both spiritual leadership and temporal oversight

•Jurisdictional Committees on Episcopacy and Area Committees on Episcopacy lead in implementing annual assessments with results sent to COB

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AFFIRMATION Role of Seminaries

•COB and appropriate general church offices shall work with seminary leadership to identify and develop curriculum requirements for seminaries as well as clarify expectations, measure performance, and tie funding to the outcomes

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Recommendation Guaranteed Appointment of Clergy

•We must make necessary changes in policy and practice to allow for a just, reasonable, and compassionate process that provides for the transition of low performing clergy from the itinerancy.

•Therefore, the Connectional Table supports legislation for policy changes which improve the process for transitioning pastors.

An Additional Set of Recommendations

Consolidate program and administrative agencies, align their work and resources with the priorities of the Church and the decade-long commitment to build vital congregations, and reconstitute them with much smaller competency-based boards of directors in order to overcome current lack of alignment, diffused and redundant activity, and higher than necessary expense due to independent structures.

The interventions are not our mission.

The Adaptive Challenge is a focused way to help us better direct our resources and efforts to achieve the mission.

The mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

We welcome your encouragement, critique, thoughts & prayers

Turn, Turn, Turn

• Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.