| By
Michael Wacht
LAKELAND — Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker
challenged delegates to the 2002 Florida Annual Conference Event May
28-31 here to think about the larger issue of congregational
transformation. “Do congregations need to be transformed?”
Whitaker said. “How do we accomplish the mission of Jesus Christ?”
To help delegates begin dealing with that issue,
the Rev. Dr. Howard Snyder, professor of the history and theology of
mission at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., led a
Convocation on Congregational Transformation. The two-and-a-half hour
program the second day of the conference event also included a panel
discussion led by four of the conference’s church revitalization
leaders.
Snyder told delegates that God has already given
every church what it needs to be a vital, witnessing congregation. “Renewal
is not a matter of bringing to the church what it needs, but removing
the barriers to vitality,” Snyder said. “God wants every church to
be a faithful embodiment of Jesus Christ.”
Snyder said Ephesians 4:1-6 presents a model of
the church as the Body of Christ for today’s churches to follow. He
also said the four traditional marks of the church listed in the
Apostles’ Creed need to be qualified.
The church is one, but it is also many, Snyder
said. “There is diversity within our unity.” The church is holy,
but it is also charismatic and gifted by the Holy Spirit. It is also
catholic, meaning universal, but it is local and contextual, rooted
and grounded in a particular community. The church is apostolic, but
it is also prophetic.
“We should have the audacity to talk about the
Kingdom of God and…justice,” he said.
Snyder said renewal in the church requires
finding a way to “break through that distinction” between
Christians who are ministers and those who are not. “That’s just
not the way the church was in the Bible,” he said. “The theology
of ministry does not begin with ordained ministry, it begins with, ‘What
is ministry?’ It’s the ministry of all believers. Vital churches
figure out actual ways to do that.”
Pastors must take on the role of equippers in
the church, Snyder said. “The role of the pastor becomes not so much
to feed the flock, but to encourage ministry…from ‘How can I
minister to these people?’ to ‘How can I equip these people for
ministry in the world?’ ”
Snyder said transformed congregations have vital
and authentic worship that is a combination of predictable and
unexpected elements. They must also practice face-to-face discipleship
and find “some way for Christians to get together for more intimate
conversation.”
Most of the five panel members involved in
discussion following Snyder’s comments said they were most
challenged by Snyder’s statement that churches already have what
they need to be vital. The Rev. Teri Hill, co-pastor of Jacksonville’s
Isle of Faith United Methodist Church, said she first thought about
churches that would challenge that statement, including those with
small congregations made up “of a few elderly people.”
“I believe it’s true about far more
congregations than we think,” Hill said.
In response to a question about the barriers to
renewal that exist and how to remove them, the Rev. Linda Mobley, a
deacon and director of Orlando Outreach and Revitalization, said
churches put up barriers “one decision at a time.” She said she
has seen churches that lack spiritual depth and have no plan to help
their people “move into a deeper level of faith or out into the
community in service.”
The Rev. James Jennings, pastor of Asbury United
Methodist Church in Orange Park, said people lack vulnerability. “If
we lose our vulnerability, we lose our prophetic ministry,” he said.
“We start to say things like, ‘It’s too hard,’ ‘We’ve
never done it before,’ and ‘Don’t rock the boat.’
Vulnerability makes us more human.”
The Rev. John Myers, pastor of First United
Methodist Church, Ft. Lauderdale, said a major barrier is “the
decision to keep the club intact.”
“A church makes a decision to become a nice
family, pay dues, pay the staff to take care of them and raise the bar
to make it tough to get in,” Myers said.
The Rev. Jorge Acevedo, pastor of Grace United
Methodist Church in Cape Coral, responded to a question about signs of
hope by saying there is a “growing sense of desperation.”
“Desperation leads to change,” he said. “If
it takes pain for us to be a better, more apostolic church, I say, ‘Bring
it on.’” |
