News and Views

Proposed changes mean more effective ministry

Posted by Melissa Lauber on

By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff 

United Methodists join people, churches, ministries, leaders, needs, causes and prayers together in a way that cultivates disciples and transforms the world. Because of that, United Methodists are strong in their discipleship.

To further deepen this discipleship, Baltimore-Washington Conference leaders have begun to develop a new approach to ministry that will streamline efforts, awaken potential for partnerships, and shift the focus of hundreds of people from meeting to ministry, from silos to oneness, from operating in fits and starts to moving more rhythmically together.

“The changes we are testing and implementing will allow for significant gains in collaboration, relationship and impact,” said Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, episcopal leader of the BWC. “During the next year or two, as we live into the changes, we’ll discover together how God can best use our efforts to meet the needs of faith communities, their mission fields and the broader world all to the glory of God.”

One example of this is that the ministry staff and budget are in the process of being reorganized around five areas, or Tables, that correspond to denominational and Annual Conference strategic priorities.

“At the 2019 Annual Conference Session, a team will be bringing recommendations for changes to our structure after we have had a year to experiment with the details of what would best serve the purpose of each area and the conference overall all in light of the outcome of the Special Called General Session,” said Christie Latona, the conference Director of Connectional Ministries, who has been working with leaders toward streamlining 14 existing ministry committees into five Tables, which will operate like purpose-driven, non-profit boards.

The Tables will focus on the areas of leadership development, new faith expressions, young people’s ministry, abundant health, and advocacy and action. These Tables would oversee strategic planning, goal setting and implementation in their given area, organize skilled servant workers via working groups and short-term task forces as needed to both expand the number of people connected with each area while also providing more boots on the ground for implementation support and impact. 

One of the factors that led to this streamlined approach was a review of current conference discipleship committees. That review found nine of the 17 committees had not met the previous year or had only convened to create a report for the Conference Journal.

Most of the non-functional committees were not meeting regularly because they didn’t see how their work, described in the Book of Discipline, was connected to meaningful change within the Annual Conference. Additionally, the disconnect and poor communication between the annual conference, districts and local churches and other ministries were named.

Only two committees seemed to be functioning well (they knew their “why” and were implementing their “what” and “how”), and their leaders expressed a need for increased alignment and integration with priorities of the annual conference.

In a series of stakeholder meetings starting in July 2017, the realignment began to evolve. “In the course of holy conferencing, the path toward greater collaboration and impact is being built one conversation and relationship at a time,” said Latona. “There is much trust to be built —with God and one another —so that we can operate fully as one. I have been humbled and honored to work alongside so many excellent and diverse leaders who have spoken the truth in love and who have taken rough ideas and made them better. I have been amazed at the willingness and enthusiasm of both old-timers and new-comers to actively engage in new ways of being in ministry together.”

Just like in every transition and change initiative, Latona said, there is grief over the fact that there is no going back to the way things used to be.

“Thankfully, God is still holding us and calling us forward into new ways of being the church together even as we maintain our rootedness in who we are as United Methodists and Whose we are,” said Latona.

Bishop Easterling applauded the new structure for its intentional alignment with the denomination’s four foci of developing principled Christian leaders, creating new places with new people, ministry with the poor, and abundant health. These four areas came into being in the church in 2006 following a grassroots listening campaign about what we have in common and do better together across the denomination.

“This alignment will simultaneously create common pathways and make us more nimble and intentionally able to respond to the challenges facing the church at this moment in our history,” she said.

The Rev. Rodney Smothers, conference Director of Congregational and Leadership Development has, in his work, been asking leaders to “discover the why” of what they were doing to more effectively focus on what is essential in their ministries.

The five Tables provide a framework for more clearly defining the why of our work together, he said, and a means to pursue that work that doesn’t isolate. Smothers, who places an emphasis on leadership and learning, hopes the Tables will provide a renewed focus on excellence and why we’re at work together.

Along with the new structure, a new understanding of how the Conference can equip and provide financial resources to local churches and faith expressions doing transformative ministries will emerge.

Smothers and Latona are working on securing matching grant money to underwrite some of the Tables’ work — including grants for leaders and faith communities doing ministry in one of the five Tables. A comprehensive grant structure and online application process is being created and will be rolled out this summer.

The proposed 2019 budget, (online at  www.bwcumc.org/events/annual-conference/budget-finance-resolutions/)  has been created using the five Tables as a foundation for funding ministry, according to Phil Potter, the chair of the BWC’s Committee on Finance and Administration. 

Aligning the financial structure this way is intended to provide for greater transparency into how Conference funds are being spent in ministry and gives a clearer picture of our vision, mission and ministry, said Paul Eichelberger, the Conference treasurer

The details of the Table structure are being designed and tested as current stakeholders share their opinions on what matters most. The fall will be spent doing listening sessions across the Annual Conference, building plans and equipping leaders to be able to lead their Tables well. Each interim Table is being constructed in collaboration with current stakeholders in areas that have them and will have nine to 12 members each. Each Table will reflect the BWC’s diversity including at least one youth and one young adult. The Tables will facilitate the convening and work of many taskforces that address specific areas of need and ministry with an eye toward inspiring and equipping local faith communities.

Latona said she is excited about the new nominations process. It allows anyone to indicate an interest in sharing their gifts beyond their local context by completing an online form: www.bwcumc.org/conference-agency-leadership-nominations/. This then enables the nominations committee to really see who best fits where while expanding their understanding of diversity to include age, church size and skill set.

“One of beautiful things about this new approach is that it is built on the understanding that God has already given us everything we need — the gifts, the people, the abilities, the vision and the potential,” Latona said. “Our job is to discover, steward, and align things in a way that uses the Baltimore-Washington Conference to be a meaningful agent of change that more significantly ushers in God’s reign.”

“It’s really all about connecting the dots,” Latona said.

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