101 Streamline Structure

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Adopted as Paper 101C

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Comments

[Casey Taylor]

I feel that I would greatly benefit from further explanation as to why - specifically - we need fewer bishops rather than four, or even more. Anytime we decrease the number of ecclesiastical leaders we are concentrating power in fewer people. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I just feel that further explanation would be beneficial to all.

[Curtis Turner]

The number of Bishops should be tictated by the demographics of our denomination. I have often thought that it would be beneficial to have a hispanic bishop to meet the needs of our hispanic constituency.

Sadly, though we have as much moral authority in the area of African-Americans owing to our outreach to Africa and our tradiional stand on slavery and racial discrimination, we should be forging ahead with African-American congregations as well.

The numbers tell what we can do and we can't at this time be "all things to all men." At least we can define how many adult working men and womens it takes to support another bishop. If we aren't moving ahead in these areas, then we need to ask ourselves the question, what is wrong?

[Casey Taylor]

I have reservations about appointing bishops of one race/ethinicity to lead those of his/her own race/ethinicity. This would seem a step backwards in promoting the unity of denomination. I fully support a diverse episcopacy; it would be nice to elect a woman to the role.

This concern about diversity among our episcopacy only intensifies my question: when it seems like we need greater diversity among our ecclesiastical leadership, why are attempting to cut back? I would still like some insight by someone who knows more about this proposal.

[Kristy Andresen]

While I understand the cause for concern behind a reduction in ecclesiastical leadership, the heart of this resolution seeks to organize the structure of the church to effectively move where the Spirit is leading. Free Methodist Church history has shown the value of maintaining a balance between lay and ecclesiastical representation. This resolution appears to maintain the balance through use of the coaching model to develop both lay and ecclesiastical leadership.

The resolution also seeks to structure the denomination to accomplish the primary goal set forth in the One More Soul initiative “to be and make disciples.” Where the organizational structure may be a hindrance, the bishops desire, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, to work with Annual Conferences to reallocate resources to better reach people for Christ. We are called to be good stewards of all our resources. This requires a focused effort of leadership development and an assessment of resources to ensure that they are deployed effectively to accomplish our mission as stated in Matthew 11:5 (NIV) “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

Kristy Andresen
Everett FMC, WA

[Kristy Andresen]

The hot topic for this conference session appears to be how best to modify church structure to help us accomplish the goal of reaching people for Christ. I'd be interested to know what you hear as you pray for our leadership and the upcoming conference.

Kristy Andresen
Everett FMC

[David Bicksler]

This resolution is vague and ambiguous, with the “whereas” and “therefore” not well connected with each other. It’s disappointing that this is the best our Board of Administration can come up with since that board of 26 people has 4 bishops, superintendents, and lay leaders on it. I have no problem with fewer bishops as proposed, and I’m on record with suggesting that we only elect people who have created networks of reproducing churches already. And if none can be found, we should leave the bishop’s offices vacant with just an administrator for headquarters who need not be clergy. My problem with this resolution is that it reflects a clueless attitude as to what we need to be effective – both in what is proposed and what is left out.

It proposes that General Conference delegates support a vague “blank check” to merge conferences together, eliminate conferences, or “otherwise reconfigure themselves” to reduce the number of people involved in decision-making and leadership. Sounds like the 3-4 bishops want to eliminate effective leaders from conferences to install rubber-stamp boards that will blindly follow themselves. And to consolidate their dictatorship of the people, a bishop will chair the national Board of Administration! Since most bishops themselves have poor track records in bringing the denomination to health (see my comments on resolution #404 on http://www.fmnetwork.org ), this sounds like a recipe for total disaster. Further, to have even 1% of this country of 300 million people attending a Free Methodist church we need 30,000 or more churches. Since mega-conferences are proving ineffective in adding churches, members, worship attenders, and converts, we really need far more smaller conferences – perhaps a conference for every 6-15 churches with special cases where a conference may have just 2 churches (before they plant others). So 30,000 churches will need 1500-3000 conferences, and we should try to do this in 20-25 years using the Patterson model from resolution #910. For the approximately 1000 U.S. churches, our 29 U.S. conferences should each multiply into 2-4 smaller conferences with superintendents who also pastor churches and don’t need a full-time salary. Then these 60-120 conferences can work on multiplying churches across the country, which in turn requires another multiplication of conferences. This is what “spontaneously multiplying” churches and conferences look like – not the reduction of conferences and churches widely practiced during 1996-2005. Did you know that after 146 years since Free Methodists started the denomination in Pekin, NY we are in just 509 of 3185 U.S. counties and territories, and have just 1/30th of 1% of the U.S. attending a Free Methodist church each week? This is a terrible problem that will NEVER be solved, only made worse, by this command-and-control model that fails to enlist and empower the pastors and lay people within local churches. If we asked local churches to each plant one church in an adjacent county in the next four years, we would DOUBLE to 2000 churches in 1500 counties. That would be fabulous, and with another doubling we could have 4000 churches to cover every populated county in the country. So in 8 years we could see what has never been done before, with perhaps 150,000-200,000 new Free Methodists including many first-time converts.

The resolution also fails to address the key things needed to grow (taken from resolution #910):
1) Local churches must be prioritized and empowered to make disciples and plant churches, rewriting the Discipline as needed. Self-pastored churches must become normal since the appointment system has failed, and cannot provide the pastors needed. Instead of conference and denominational leaders bullying local churches, pastors, and closing even living churches to seize their properties using the Trust Deed Clause, local churches must be able to choose which conference they are in – or form new conferences in free association with other Free Methodist churches. Local church ID’s should be permanent and not change as they shift conferences. This means that each conference should list the full 6-digit church ID and expect some of the churches to have a different 3-digit prefix from the others. A permanent ID is needed to keep from “losing” churches and to easily compare church-by-church results between years.
2) Lay people must be allowed to do the things Jesus commands – make disciples, baptize, serve communion, plant churches where new disciples will in turn repeat what they have been shown and taught. The Discipline right now forbids things Jesus commands, and that should be corrected. Nowhere in the New Testament is ordination and licensing needed to obey Jesus. Just becoming a disciple means we have standing orders to do these things even without permission from church leaders. A Theological Education by Extension (TEE) and discipling program will be a large part of raising up 30,000 or more pastors.
3) A new connection based on discipleship and personal relationships instead of formal, rigid, codified structures has to take place so that churches can start to spontaneously multiply. Instead of expecting top-down command-and-control like the Soviet Union had (which ruined their country), a bottom-up structure must be created that will grow as the Spirit leads each disciple.
4) We need to keep new statistics such as: How many people in a church are actively discipling someone else right now who will pass this on within a year or two? How many people in a local church are church planters, and is there a lay church planter on the church board? What is the local church doing to ensure that the number of adult members, worship attenders, and converts will be greater than the previous year? Ranking churches by percentage change makes it clear which are effective, and which are not. Look at the 2005 conference and church rankings files on the web site. I was amazed to see how the local churches were doing in the Rochester NY area.

So I hope the General Conference delegates do not mistakenly approve this resolution as-is, without a serious rework to shift its entire perspective and focus. That would be tragic indeed.

[Curtis Turner]

The idea of having a hispanic bishop isn't to promote "diversity" but rather to prepare our church for the horde of potential worshippers who, I am told, number in the millions from Latin America. I think the latest number cited was around 32 million illegal aliens or guest workers. That is 10% of our total population. To ignore these people we are are simply keeping our eyes closed to the realities that exist. Maybe we should start by having a hispanic superintendent begin the outreach to these people on an aggressive basis in a hispanic style. As surely as the reality is out there, we should intentionally prepare to have churches that accommodate and welcome them.

[Curtis Turner]

Correction: 12 million hispanic aliens and/or guest workers . . . still a lot.

[Michael Guthrie]

The selection and election of Bishops represent the most critical issue of the 2007 General Conference. Of course, there will be the usual attention to the tweaking of prepositions and adverbs in the Discipline and a few reactionary proposals submitted in response to some isolated local problem. But for the most part, we can thank God that we are not facing some major theological crisis. The real issue and focus for our consideration is the leadership of the church. We see this in resolutions regarding the number and role of Bishops and the Board of Administration.

Some might see the discussion of these particular resolutions (#100's,# 200's #409-411) as a simple prelude to the inevitable election. But in fact, the resolutions will set the stage for the election. Herein, is the potential flaw in our seemingly well ordered plan. How is it possible to put forth nominations for leadership, when we have not settled the issue of our expectations of leadership? Thus we have set forth in motion a search for “who we want” when we have not settled the primary question of “what we want.”

We have already put forth our nominees–good and godly people, everyone. Our minds are already thinking ahead as to “who” would make a good bishop or a BOA member. Regions are already banning together to support their favored candidates. And though politics surely never enter the thoughts of the sanctified-- voting blocks are emerging to promote and preserve their favored candidates. Of course our elected leaders will be good and godly, but is it possible that the real opportunity may be missed--again.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying about the nominees or the current leadership of the church. These men and women are the influencers and joy of the church. This election has the opportunity to bring spiritual and social diversity to the leadership of the church. I applaud those who have enlarged their thinking about leadership. But just perhaps we could risk to enlarge it even further.

I have been struck recently be the account of the Matthias, the replacement Apostle for Judas in Acts 1:23-26. Arguably Matthias was a good, respected, and a close follower of Jesus. He was carefully chosen by the Apostles and then slipped into the silence of history.

Paul, on the other hand, was no one’s first choice for Apostle, he was the one “abnormally born” (1 Corinthians 15:8). Paul challenged the parochial attitudes of the church toward the Gentiles, took on the sinful attitudes of the saints, and generally caused a stir. He was controversial, stubborn, independent, passionate, and never would have made it on any list of nominees. We continue to debate his impact.

We can come together in Spring Arbor and carefully choose a leader and stick to our predetermined agendas. Or we can fling open our hearts and ask God to grant us an abnormal birth. We can entreat him to give us the courage and the wisdom to seek to be led in a way that will make us uncomfortable and productive.

Good people are praying about the leadership of the church, let them continue to do so in earnest.

One final “out of the box” idea to the nominees for bishop and the BOA. What might happen if prior to the vote for Bishop the nominees for bishop got together during General Conference on numerous private occasions. After all, these nominees have the confidence of the church to be chosen to serve in the highest positions, shouldn’t we encourage them to talk and pray about those positions with one another. Would it be possible that during prayer and discussion, they might further sort their own number out? Might some chose to withdraw from nomination or other names be added (even against the current process). The same could occur with the BOA. Yes this would be irregular and abnormal, but after all that is the point.

The adopted resolutions effecting leadership will tailor the position of Bishop and BOA in a unique way and thus have a direct effect on the list of nominees. The resolutions should cause some nominees to change their minds about serving. Thus the withdrawal of any nominee at any time must be viewed as a high expression of spiritual depth and love for the church.

I believe this General Conference provides the best opportunity for the change in direction that we have longed for and prayed about. Now may the Spirit of God grant us each the courage needed to follow through.