Gathering begins to imagine church yet to be

Key points:

• Lay and clergy leaders from four continents gathered in Canada and online for the first-of-its-kind Leadership Gathering. 
• They began the work of praying, listening and striving for The United Methodist Church of the future.
• But first they had to grapple with the denomination’s realities of the present.

More than 280 lay and clergy leaders from four continents are now gathered in person and online to begin the work of trying to shape The United Methodist Church of tomorrow. 

But first, they wrestled with the realities of today — including the need to rethink what forming Christian disciples might look like in a significantly smaller but also more cohesive international denomination.

The first-of-its-kind Council of Bishops Leadership Gathering has brought together bishops and the fellow United Methodists they selected to pray, listen and imagine what’s next for the denomination after a season of massive change.

“Each of you has been invited into this space because of your experience, your expertise, your love, your frustration, your fighting with — and your fighting for — The United Methodist Church,” Stephanie Henry told the participants in opening the event on the night of Oct. 20. 

She was speaking to 235 United Methodists gathered in the 114-year-old sanctuary of Knox United Church in downtown Calgary and 46 church leaders, including bishops, who because of various travel restrictions had to join online. More than a third of those attending are under the age of 35, marking a generational shift in leadership. 

Henry, a lay United Methodist from the Pacific Northwest Conference, served as co-convener of the 21-member design team that for the past two years has been working to organize the event. 

For many United Methodists, it’s been hard to get a handle on a denomination-wide meeting without battle lines already drawn around church legislation, especially regarding the denomination’s stance on LGBTQ people.

Both Henry and Council of Bishops President Rubén Saenz Jr., her fellow co-convener, made clear that this gathering was not about fighting about legislation or anything else. The Leadership Gathering is not a legislative assembly they and other design team members repeatedly stressed. 

“We are not going to settle The United Methodist Church’s future this week. Just take that off the list,” said Saenz, who also leads the Horizon Texas Conference. “But we can discern a vision worth pursuing: a United Methodist Church that is vibrant in its witness, adapted in its ministry, inclusive of all people, deeply formed in the faith and responsive to the communities it serves.”

Over the next three days, the participants will gather for worship and open plenaries and then meet in small covenant groups to discuss what they heard and eventually develop recommendations that will be shared when the event concludes Oct. 24. 

The gathering takes place after a tumultuous seven years. Since the rancorous 2019 special General Conference that widened church divides, the denomination has undergone the withdrawal of thousands of U.S. churches and whole conferences in eastern Europe and western Africa. 

The United Methodist Church has also recently seen other big changes. These include eliminating longtime and long-debated denomination-wide bans on gay clergy and same-sex weddings while adopting a new structure that leaves questions of ordination, marriage and other matters up to individual regional conferences. The denomination also is starting to embrace a new vison statement that calls the church to form “disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully,and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.” 

“Friends, through it all, we have stayed,” Saenz said in his opening sermon. “But staying is not the fullness of our calling.”

The atmosphere inside Knox United Methodist buzzed with excitement as gathering participants and speakers talked about what they could bring to The United Methodist Church’s next chapter. Those attending include United Methodists from different countries, ethnicities and cultures. They also include a number of LGBTQ members long committed to The United Methodist Church. What they share is a common faith in Jesus and a fervent hope in how that faith can transform lives. 

“I’m looking forward to strengthening relationships and forming new relationships,” Karen Prudente, a New York Conference member now serving in the Philippines, told UM News.

“And I’m looking for something that’ll be prophetic, like during John Wesley’s time. He spoke out about slavery. He had children’s rights. He had women’s rights. What is it in our time today that we will be known for as The United Methodist Church, not only in each region but around the world. Who are we as Wesleyans today and tomorrow?”

Throughout the morning, both lay and clergy plenary speakers challenged those gathered to rethink how the church defines itself and offers ministry. 

Derrick Scott III, a Florida Conference lay member and longtime leader in campus ministry, invited those gathered to consider that when Jesus said, “On this rock, I will build my church,” he was not just speaking to Peter but all disciples.  

The Rev. Beth Ludlum, an ordained elder and a leader of strategic initiatives at United Methodist-related Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, likened the denomination’s experience to that of a forest that has weathered disaster. What helps forests survive fires and other cataclysms, she said, are tiny webs of fungus beneath the soil that spread water and minerals among trees. The United Methodist connection, she said, can help nurture similar resilience. 

“The United Methodist Church is distinctly positioned, in our theology and in the way we are organized, to collaborate — to have big and small, rich and poor, formation- and advocacy- and mercy-driven ministries all working together toward a common vision of God’s kingdom, and together, to flourish in ways never possible apart,” she said. “And everyone — every church, pastor, lay person and ministry — has something to offer and something to receive.”

She also encouraged United Methodists to fund potential, not replication. United Methodists, she said, should invest in new ministries without requiring them to resemble established churches.

The Rev. April Casperson, an ordained deacon and enrollment management director at United Methodist-related Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio, suggested that United Methodists might rethink what discipleship entails.

“Here is the idea I want to leave with you,” she said. “What if discipleship is not primarily about what an individual completes, but about what a whole faith community risks together across difference?”

The Rev. Anne Thompson, a United Methodist elder in Denmark who leads ecumenical courses on children’s spirituality, challenged those gathered to expand their definition of disciples and church leaders to include children. 

She noted that the survey earlier this year asking United Methodists their priorities for the denomination did not even include children’s ministry as an option. However, she said, children should be a priority. They already have faith, spiritual gifts and perspectives that matter.

“If we were to let children guide us and lead us by example, what questions would we have to consider? From them? But maybe even from ourselves?” she asked. “What questions might we need to ask, ponder and talk about?”

The Rev. John Yambasu Jr., an assistant pastor at Ben Hill United Methodist Church in Atlanta, similarly urged the denomination to rethink impact to be more than about how full the pews are. He referenced John’s account of how Jesus fed the 5,000. He pointed out that Jesus was interested in something deeper than the size of the crowd.

“Numbers matter,” he said. “The Gospel writers themselves counted people. But numbers are not the whole story. The deeper question of impact is not simply: How many? It is more: What difference?”

The Rev. Chris McAlilly, an elder in the Mississippi Conference, reminded those gathered that stewardship begins with the generosity of God. That means everything is a gift from God that the church can tend, grow and invest in God’s work. 

McAllily suggested: “Instead of only asking, ‘How do we get people to give more money to the church?,’ we begin asking, ‘How does the church faithfully tend everything God has entrusted to it for participation in God’s purposes?’”

The Rev. Meredith Hoxie Schol, dean of United Methodist-related Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, tackled the topic of accountability. She urged United Methodists to think of accountability less as compliance with a set of rules and adherences to a contract than about living covenant.

“Because if we shift to the language of covenant, which is not exactly the same as contract, the thing we are binding ourselves to is not a transactional function, but rather it is a commitment to a relationship and what we can accomplish together,” she said. 

“In covenant, we can think of accountability not as a disciplinary procedure, but a practice of staying in relationship for the common good.”

As part of a panel discussion that followed the morning’s plenary, Dariia Zhukovska, a young adult lay member in Ukraine, spoke of how important the United Methodist connection is as her country faces attacks by Russian forces.

“For us being connected with the church is not simply about belonging to the same denomination or sharing the same structures,” she said. “It means knowing that we are not alone. The grace, solidarity and practical support of our United Methodist brothers and sisters around the world have real meaning for us and for our communities.”

The morning presentations gave the Rev. Eunice Musa Illiya, assistant to the bishop in Nigeria, much food for thought. She said she was excited to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. She also relished seeing so many young leaders in the room.

“I can breathe a fresh air of the new United Methodist Church evolving after going through lots and lots of issues from 2019 to date,” she said. “This is a gathering that will be refreshing our mind and help us begin to think about other things that will make a difference in the world.”

Saenz, in his opening sermon, reminded those gathered that the Holy Spirit is who empowers their ministry and the work ahead. 

“The church is not the source of that transforming power,” he said. “The transforming power is God’s. We are a people being changed by it and called to bear witness to it. We belong to the very world God is renewing. Before asking how we will change the world, let us ask how God is changing us.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.