By
Michael Wacht
LEESBURG — Florida Conference Bishop Timothy
Whitaker set a tone of honesty and apostolic vision for participants
at the first gathering of the Florida Conference’s Conference Table
Aug. 28-29 at the Life Enrichment Center here.
Whitaker delivered his state of the conference
address to nearly 150 conference clergy and laity at the gathering’s
opening session.
The Conference Table was approved at the 2002
Florida Annual Conference Event as a forum for discussing and
discerning how the Florida Conference can fulfill its vision to make
disciples of Jesus Christ. The bishop is the chairman, and the lay
leader is the vice chairman. An additional 16 leaders from the
conference are expected to participate, but all conference laity and
clergy are invited to attend.
Whitaker’s opening comments challenged
participants to be honest in their assessment of the church today and
free in visioning what the church can become. Whitaker began by saying
his observations about the present state of the conference came from
listening to the “observations…concerns and hopes of United
Methodist people in Florida” during last year’s listening sessions
throughout the conference.
Anyone who listens filters what they hear
through a certain set of beliefs “…more like a screen,” Whitaker
said. His screen includes the belief that “the church of Jesus
Christ is called by the spirit of God to be a missionary church in a
missionary culture.”
“Christendom has fallen apart,” he said. “Much
of the culture has freed itself from collusion with Christianity…and
does not want to be aligned with any one religion.
“The missionary church must witness to the
kingdom of God in a culture of moral confusion, consumerism,
militarism and ethnic hatred. Congregations do not stand alone, but
must understand themselves as part of a larger missionary church.”
Whitaker believes the United Methodist
connection is not effective in helping churches fulfill their
missionary calling. “The connection is an institutional structure,
rather than a web of people in relationship for a common mission,”
he said. “There is not a lot of connecting in the connection.”
People in the connection need to embrace freedom
and “surrender our defensiveness,” Whitaker said. “…This does
not mean everything old must be discarded. Freedom is a gift, a gift
we’re going to have to give one another and a gift we’re going to
have to pray for.”
The church must also be focused on
transformation rather than growth, Whitaker said. “What is important
is not growth, but it is transformation. When a church is a healthy,
living organism, it grows.”
Whitaker also laid out a list of issues facing
the conference as it begins the process of discussion and discernment
about its vision and mission. He said the conference needs new vision
and mission statements, which “must emerge naturally out of our
discerning who God is calling us to be and what God is calling us to
do.”
The conference must begin to articulate
expectations of its congregations and their members, Whitaker said.
“We are not providing Christian direction on how to love God and how
to love our neighbors.”
Congregations should be classified not by size,
but on where they are in their life cycle, Whitaker said.
Congregations should be considered missions, new, transforming,
exploring or parish. Missions and new congregations would be defined
as they currently are. Exploring congregations are those in the
process of assessing their mission and future. Transforming
congregations are those in the process of transforming their mission
and ministry. Parish congregations are those participating in worship,
pastoral care and some mission, but are not transforming themselves or
their members.
Whitaker said the conference must be in the
process of developing clergy and lay leadership and facilitating
better relationships between pastors and congregations.
Calling clergy the “workforce…spiritual
leaders in congregations,” Whitaker said the conference must help
them develop new skills for ministry, provide periodic brief
sabbaticals and relief for spouses and children. He also said the
conference needs to seek new ways to work through conflicts in
churches and provide for long-term ministry.
The laity are “hungry to be confirmed as
ministers and be employed in the adventure of mission in the world,”
he said.
The role of the annual conference in equipping
churches to be in ministry must change, Whitaker said. “There are
many resources available to local congregations…that don’t need to
be repeated by the annual conference.”
Whitaker said he envisioned the conference being
more active on social issues and developing an international institute
that would focus on Florida’s ethnic and immigrant population.
Whitaker said the conference needs to re-examine
the connectional giving system and how it funds its ministries. He
said the annual debate over funding campus ministry “shows we’re
not convinced the current method of delivery is best.”
“The CCOM [Conference Council on Ministries]
does its budgeting expecting it will only get 60 percent of its
budget,” he said. “This is not a healthy development.” |