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Bishop’s Days on the Districts Spotlight Vision, Vitality, and New Conference Structure

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By Alison Burdett

Six gatherings across the Baltimore-Washington Conference this fall drew clergy and laity together for the 2025 Bishop’s Days on the Districts. Each two-hour event blended worship, testimony, teaching, and resourcing around vitality meeting community needs.

Through prayer, preaching, humor and urgency, Bishop LaTrelle Easterling and conference leaders invited congregations to step boldly into a new season of ministry shaped by the denomination’s vision statement, the revised Social Principles, and a new Baltimore-Washington Conference structure designed to enhance vitality.

Worship and Welcome

Each evening opened in joy. Conference superintendents, lay leaders, and host pastors welcomed participants with a call to “dwell in joy,” grounding the gatherings in Philippians 4:4-9 (NRSVUE). Congregations lifted their voices in the hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, joined in prayer, and watched Chris Blue’s stirring video performance of The Center of My Joy.

A Vision for the Future

Bishop Easterling anchored her remarks in the new UMC vision statement: “The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.”

She unpacked each phrase:

  • Love Boldly: We passionately love God and, like Jesus, embrace and include people of every age, nation, race, gender, and walk of life. (Matthew 22:37-39 | John 13:34-35)

    “That sounds like everybody to me.” Bishop Easterling said. “Not just people who are of the same language or lineage of us, or same cultural background, or socioeconomic status. Everyone has a place within this United Methodist Church. To come and have their voice heard and know they are equal and beloved in the sight of God.”

    As someone in the Harbor District shouted out, “we call that, all y’all.”

    Bishop Easterling pointed to Jesus’ scandalous conversation with the woman at the well as the model: crossing barriers of culture and status to let her know, “you too are loved.”
  • Serve Joyfully: With the heart of Christ, we journey alongside the most vulnerable among us, offering care and compassion with joy. (Psalm 100:1 | Nehemiah 8:10 | John 13:14-15 | 1 Peter 4:10)

    Bishop Easterling pressed congregations to ask, “Who is truly vulnerable today? Who is hungry, unhoused, without access to healthcare, or fearing for their lives?”
  • Lead Courageously: Following Jesus’ example, we seek to resist and dismantle all systems of evil, injustice, and oppression, striving for peace, justice, and reconciliation. (Joshua 1:9 | Ephesians 6:10)

    In each district, she asked, “Who here considers themselves a leader?” She followed that with, “Every hand should be raised. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. Leadership is not reserved for the ordained, or those who have stepped into some office or position. Every member of the United Methodist Church is a leader.”

As she spoke about reconciliation, Easterling consistently lifted up Helen Ride, a lifelong United Methodist lay leader and member of the LGBTQIA community, who died the week before the Bishop’s Days on the Districts began. Helen returned again and again to General Conference, even when told they were “less than” or an “abomination.” Despite decades of exclusion, Helen continued to show up in love. When the church finally removed restrictive language, and the question was asked, what if there were some who disaffiliated who want to come back? Helen was among the first at the microphone to insist, we must. Not only open the doors, but open our arms and our hearts to those who had left and now wished to return. “That is reconciliation,” Easterling said, “and that is what it means to lead courageously.”

Testimonies of how local churches are living into this vision statement came one after another: a Two Rivers District church transforming its fellowship hall into a weekly game night for young adults, leading one participant to leave this Google review, “This church opened its doors to our local board game group when we lost the place at which we normally play. I am not religious, but in my humble opinion, this church exemplifies a spirit of Christian generosity.”

A Lakes District congregation has opened its doors for career retraining. A Reservoir District hosts a soup kitchen that is set up with a wait staff so the hungry can come in, sit down and be served. With one participant noting, “I don’t need to be here, I just come to make friends.” And there were dozens more examples.

Grounded in Social Principles

Easterling highlighted the newly revised Social Principles, describing them as a compass for faithful living in the real world.

“There’s almost nothing that exists in the real world that we struggle with that is not in the Social Principles,” she said. They address hunger, addiction, reproductive health, creation care, war, and more.

She challenged pastors to preach from them, lay leaders to teach them, and congregations to use them in honest conversation. “This is why so many young people say we are irrelevant,” Easterling said. “They hear sermons that ignore the real world. But our Social Principles root us in Scripture and Wesleyan tradition while engaging the realities of today.”

A New Conference Structure

Easterling also outlined the new structure of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, effective July 1: six districts (Canal, Harbor, Lakes, Reservoir, Tidal Basin, and Two Rivers), Hubs for collaboration, a centralized administration, and an expanded Office of Congregational Vitality.

The bishop emphasized that the Hubs have four primary objectives:

  • To deepen discipleship through covenant groups and Wesleyan accountability.
  • To create or strengthen relationships among neighboring congregations, enhancing vitality.
  • To leverage resources strategically, to meet the needs of the community.
  • To effect transformation so that churches are indispensable to their communities.

“If word got out that your church was closing, there should be a line at the door saying, ‘We won’t allow it. You are too important to us,’” Bishop Easterling said.

Easterling spoke strongly against the idea that the Conference only values large congregations. “Remove from your conversation the notion that all we are interested in is large congregations. It is not true.” She reminded participants that size is not the measure of vitality. “A vital church is not necessarily a large church. A large church is not necessarily a vital church. If all they are doing is attending. Vitality is a congregation that knows its community and the community knows you.”

Vitality: “Change or Die”

Following Bishop Easterling sharing the new vision and structure, Rev. Bill Brown, Director of Congregational Vitality, didn’t mince words: “We are at a moment when the church must either change or die.”

Brown illustrated his point by sharing words from Alan Deutschman’s book, “Change or Die” where the author researched heart bypass patients who were told, “This bypass was a temporary fix. To live a longer life, you must change your diet, exercise, or habits…” Of 6,000 patients studied, 90% refused to change even when told their lives depended on it. “Given the choice between life and death, 90% chose death,” Brown said. “Too many of our churches are making the same choice. But the Gospel tells us that Jesus came so that we might have life, and life abundantly.”

He introduced the four pillars of vitality, each tied to one of the Conference’s Vitality Specialists:

  • See All the People - Lauren Jones: Vital churches embrace and value everyone.
  • Deepen Discipleship - Joe Archie: Discipleship is a lifelong journey toward becoming like Jesus.
  • Live and Love Like Jesus - Rev. Bessie Hamilton: “What are you taking in during worship, and how are you serving it out when you leave?”
  • Multiply Impact - TJ Mount: Healthy things grow, but so do unhealthy things. Vital churches grow mission, not just numbers.

Brown urged churches to take advantage of the tools available:

  • Readiness 360 measures spiritual intensity, relational capacity, missional alignment, and cultural openness. The score is a reliable predictor of vitality. “It can help us help you figure out your next faithful step,” Brown said.
  • MissionInsite provides demographic snapshots, comparing congregational makeup with community data. It identifies gaps and opportunities for ministry: “These aren’t just statistics,” Brown said. “They show us how to love our neighbors.”

Finally, he promised that specialists will walk with congregations for about three months, co-creating a plan and offering accountability. Brown explained, “If you know your next faithful step, we’ll help you take it. If you don’t know what to do, we have a process. Please take advantage of what we offer.”

“More is not better,” he continued, “more is just more. Busy does not mean faithful. We want 100% of our churches to be 100% vital.”

Missional Action Planning

Following Rev. Bill Brown’s presentation, Christie Latona, Director of Connectional Ministries, invited congregations to embrace Missional Action Planning (MAP) as a way of discerning their next steps. MAP, she explained, is not a one-size-fits-all program but a framework for listening deeply to God, one another, and the needs of the community.

Latona emphasized that MAP requires a shift in heartset and mindset. “MAP is about listening to God, listening to one another, and listening to your community,” she said. “MAP is an invitation to pay attention to where God is already at work and align ministry there.”

Key MAP resources were lifted up:

  • dMAP teams - made up of district lay leaders, hub representatives, and other leaders who help shape local strategy
  • Catalyst - a process for innovation and experimentation, encouraging congregations to test bold ideas without fear of failure
  • Property with a Purpose - a 25-step roadmap helping churches discern new uses for underutilized facilities, so buildings become centers of community life

Latona urged churches to dream boldly: “What might be possible if we surrender our buildings and our plans to God’s mission?” She noted that some congregations are already becoming health hubs, job training centers, or spaces of hospitality because they dared to ask, “What is our community crying out for?”

MAP, she concluded, is ultimately about connection: congregations, districts, and hubs working together. “We are in this together,” Latona said. “Change happens at the speed of trust. The real work is slowing down long enough to build relationships.”

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Bishop Easterling spoke frankly about shifting cultural and church realities. Judicial Council Decision 1516 clarified that pastors, not trustees, determine what services may be held in sanctuaries. But she pressed for collaboration: “Which group was right? Neither. This is too important for unilateral decision-making. We need collaborative, generative conversation.” She reminded leaders that people are far more likely to stand inside the circle if they have been heard and invited into the process.

On the July 7 IRS ruling permitting political endorsements by churches, she was unequivocal: “Because someone said you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Easterling aligned herself with the General Board of Church and Society, of which she is a board member, which released a statement opposing the use of churches for partisan affiliations and endorsements. “Your Bishop stands in solidarity with that statement,” she said. She did, however, encourage members to be a part of the political process and urged leaders to encourage their congregations to vote. She reminded that Jesus himself engaged the powers of his day, which made him political, but not partisan.

A Call to Prayer and Action

Before closing, Easterling invited congregations to join the 28 Days of Prayer, which will be held October 1–28, lifting up the book Dynamite Prayer as the guiding resource.

“Prayer changes things. Prayer may not change everything, but it will change us,” the bishop said.

Her closing words were urgent and hopeful: “We have the opportunity to step up as never before to form disciples, spread the love of God, and effect transformation in our communities. The time is now! Let’s go!” 

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