Another Path 1 staff member and I recently spent a week traveling through parts of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference which includes Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Among the hundreds of well established churches there I learned of a couple new and innovative church starts that really captured my attention.
Confucius said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Dr. Leo Marvin (“What About Bob” fame) said, “Baby steps, baby steps…”
On a cold weekend in January eighty-plus people took many steps from around the country braving threats of snow and ice to participate in our inaugural Coaching Forum in Nashville, TN. The evaluations we received from attendees were encouraging and educational. We did many things right and many right things! Overall 99% of participants said the event “exceeded their expectations.” That’s pretty amazing. Baby steps…
By John Michael De Marco | April 30, 2009 {1010}
With permission from e-Review Florida United Methodist News Service
NOTE: See related story, Florida Conference expands support to new churches
Two Florida Conference pastors have joined a nationwide effort to equip 1,000 people to launch 650 new United Methodist congregations by the end of 2012.
The Rev. Gary Shockley, former senior pastor of a new church start called HopeSpring United Methodist Church in Winter Garden, Fla., joined the Nashville-based Path 1 initiative recently as a new church strategist. Shockley is still living in Orlando, but commutes to Nashville once a month.
Path 1 is a response to the new church development goal “New Places for New People” — one of the 2008 General Conference’s four key areas of focus for the next quadrennium. The other three areas are developing principled Christian leaders, engaging in ministry with the poor, and fighting diseases of poverty, such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
All across America, the cabinet meetings have started. I am not talking about the Obama cabinet, but sixty-some-odd gatherings of United Methodist district superintendents with their bishops to begin the annual process of appointing tens of thousands of pastors to places of service in 2009-10. The majority of those cabinets will not appoint a single person to start a new congregation in their territory this year - an odd thing in a land where the population steadily is growing and changing, and an even odder thing in a denomination that came to dominance in the 1800s by starting one new church every day, on average. The low rate of new church development is one of the leading reasons for the unrelenting shrinkage of United Methodism as a movement in the United States.
As various topics were discussed at the School of Congregational Development think tank track, there seemed to be some practices that got the attention of congregational developers and district superintendents alike. Many of these are driven by the bishop, others may be implemented by district level leadership. Each of these discrete actions help build a culture that feeds and grows new churches while strengthening existing ones. (more…)
I’m in beautiful Orlando, Florida at the School of Congregational Development with about 300 United Methodist leaders seeking to start and develop congregations to make world-changing disciples. There are many tracks devoted to new church starts for cabinets and planters and launch teams alike. The Think Tank track was suggested by a congregational developer last year and implemented this year. What a great idea!
Lovett Weems, from the Lewis Center for Church Leaders at Wesleyan Seminary, continues to be involved in research that can inform both new church start strategy and annual conference strategy. In April of 2008 he concluded an overview of recent denominational research in new church development for Path 1 and has produced a succinct 22 page report that includes two pages of Actionable Strategic Insights for The United Methodist Church.
