Eastern District
Vision Pathways: Transforming Existing Congregations
By Robert L. Flaherty

The Council of Bishops has identified seven potential pathways for transformation of the church (see side bar). In this month’s newsletter I would like to reflect on the second of these pathways. The pathways are intended to help all of us, at every level of the church from local congregations to general church, focus our attention on the way to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

In some ways transforming an existing congregation is more difficult than developing a new faith community. One factor that makes it more difficult is inertia — that’s a term borrowed from physics that translates the common church phrase “We’ve always done it this way.”

Lovett Weems has suggested that leaders (I’ll write more about leadership in another article) have the ability to ask the questions that help a group take the next step.

I believe pastors and church leaders who are looking to revitalize congregations would do well to look at ¶213 of our Discipline, which suggests areas to assess a church’s potential: a) unique missional opportunities and needs of the community; b) present ministries of the congregation; c) number of leaders and style of leadership; d) growth potential of the surrounding community; e) fiscal and facilities needs; f) distance from other United Methodist churches; g) number and size of churches of other denominations in the community; h) other items that may impact the church's ability to fulfill the mission of the Church. These points suggest a myriad of questions including: 

• What activities are we engaging in? 
• What do we hope the outcome to be?
• Are we engaging in activities that will lead us to the desired outcome?

And, in order to move to fulfill our mission (to make disciples for Jesus Christ):

• What do we need to do?
• What do we need to learn?
• What relationships do we need to build?

My desire is to see churches in our district, even the most successful ones, become even more energized for ministry, more effective, more productive, more efficient in making disciples for Jesus Christ.