Category Archives: Uncategorized
Wesley Report on “Branding”
Shane Raynor has an interesting article on United Methodist “branding.” Go check it out, and “Go Granger!”
Does Complexity Facilitate Vision?
Andy Stanley had an interesting quote at the Catalyst Conference (h/t Mark Beeson),
The more complex your church government, the more that complexity will war against your vision.
That’s a pretty simple statement, and we could qualify and debate it all day long. However, I just want to pose a question. Does the complexity of the United Methodist Church facilitate its vision or compete with it? What about in local churches? What do you think?
Are you Incompetent?
I’m reading a book by Seth Godin, who I just found out is a really creative and interesting thinker. It’s called, small is the new big: and 183 other riffs, rants, and remarkable business ideas. It’s really just a collection of essays from Godin in hardback edition, but it’s really thought-provoking.
One of my favorite so far is a riff/rant on competence.
Competent people have a predictable, reliable porocess for solving a particular set of problems. They solve a problem the same way, every time. That’s what makes the reliable. That’s what makes them competent.
There is a side effect to all this competence however,
…competence is the enemy of change! Competent people resist change. Why? Because change threatens to make them less competent. And competent people like being competent. That’s who they are, and sometimes that’s all they’ve got.
Godin seems to argue that there is a “new competence” in the world, which he calls zooming,
In the face of change, some of us are becoming competent at zooming: Our skill set includes the ability to move from opportunity to opportunity doing the same thing, only differently. It’s this new breed of competents, of people who in another age might be labeled incompetent, who are going to lead us through the changes we encounter.
He doesn’t define these zoomers as people who can’t become competent, but people, “who have the option to become competent but choose to try something new.”
Managers, in Godin’s line of thinking, are the most dangerous competents of all. They are, “the ones who will do everything in their power to fight the next round of necessary changes because they’re in love with their competence.”
The most successful organizations have a skill Godin calls velocity.
Velocity is a company’s ability to zig and zag and zoom – to make significant changes when significant changes are necessary.
Any organization that needs to change must be willing to take risks and have the resolve to become incompetent for a time, in order to develop new forms of competence to meet challenges and changing dynamics in the world.
Let me toss a few questions into the air and see what happens? Would you characterize your church as an organization that is competent? Would you characterize the UMC as competent? Are we able to make significant changes when necessary? Are we willing to become incompetent for a time in order to meet challenges with new approaches?
Local Pastors to Vote for Delegates
An interesting constitutional amendment will be sent for approval by annual conferences. You’ll find some of of the details in an article on umc.org.
If annual conferences approve the constitutional amendment, deacons, associate members and provisional members may join ordained ministerial members in full connection in voting for delegates to General and jurisdictional conferences. To be eligible to vote, local pastors must have completed the Course of Study or master of divinity degree and have served under appointment for served two consecutive years immediately preceding an election. Only ordained members in full connection with an annual conference may serve as delegates.
Stephen Taylor, over at NitroRev also has a few thoughts on this since he spent time on the committee that worked on this legislation.
I’m happy to see this pass, even though I’m sure many local pastors would like the opportunity to serve as delegates as well. In any case, I wonder what this means for the more politically minded among us. Will local pastors get more attention in election years than they have in the past? Will this mean we’ll have increased representation from clergy in rural areas? What do you think?
Guaranteed Appointments Anyone?
In all of the conversation about other important issues, I haven’t heard much about guaranteed appointments. It was a hot topic before General Conference, and I figure we’ll eventually hear about it again.
In any case, apparently this is what came out of the legislative committee for Ministry and Higher Education and was adopted by General Conference on one of the consent calendars (these tended to fly under the radar a bit more than some of the more high-profile marathon-debate type stuff):
There are professional responsibilities (¶340) that elders are expected to fulfill and that represent a fundamental part of their accountability and a primary basis of their continued eligibility for annual appointment. These shall include:
a) Continuing availability for appointment;
b) Growth in vocational competence and effectiveness through continuing formation is expected of conference members. The board of ordained ministry (¶ 634.2n) shall set minimal standards and specific guidelines for continuing formation for members of their conference and ensure their availability. Further specificity of priorities for current appointments shall be arranged in consultations with appropriate bodies in that setting.
c b) Annual participation in a process of evaluation with committees on pastor-parish relations or a comparable body comparable authority as well as annual participation in a process of evaluation with the district superintendent or comparable authority;
c) Evidence of continuing effectiveness reflected in annual evaluations by the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee and by the District Superintendent or comparable authorities;
d) Annual participation in evaluation with his or her district superintendent Growth in professional competence and effectiveness through continuing education and formation. The Board of Ordained Ministry shall may set the minimum standards and specific guidelines for continuing education and formation for conference members;
e) Willingness to assume supervisory and mentoring responsibilities within the connection.
3. If an elder fails to meet these professional responsibilities, the provisions of ¶ 362.4c may be invoked the bishop may request suspension, recommend an involuntary leave of absence, suggest the voluntary surrender of credentials, seek the administrative location of the elder, or file a complaint. Any elder who does not demonstrate growth in vocational competence and effectiveness as defined by the annual conference and any elder who will not accept the appointment determined by the bishop forfeits the right to an appointment.3. When an elder’s effectiveness is in question, the bishop shall complete the following procedure:
a. Identify the concerns. These can include an elder’s failed professional responsibilities, vocational ineffectiveness, or refusal of Episcopal appointment.
b. Hold supervisory conversations with the elder that identifies the concerns, and designs collaboratively with the elder, a corrective plan of action.
c. Upon evaluation, determine that the plan of action has not been carried out or produced fruit that gives a realistic expectation of future effectiveness.
4. If an elder fails to meet professional responsibilities (¶340), does not demonstrate vocational competence or effectiveness as defined by the annual conference through the board of ordained ministry and cabinet, and/or does not accept the appointment determined by the bishop, then an appointment may be forfeited and the provisions of ¶362 may be invoked.
Anyway, just thought you might want to know about this.
Liquid and Journey
Just finished up the in-class portion of my latest D.Min. class, The Next Church: Ministry in the New World. It was a pretty interesting class, as we talked about our “notion of Church” and some of the creative new models of Church that are being expressed in response to the cultural shifts we see in our world.
As part of the class, we spoke via speaker-phone with two “practitioners” who are doing some neat things with their congregations: Tim Lucas of Liquid Church in Morristown, NJ and Rick Diamond of Journey IFC in Austin, TX. Both of these guys are leading really interesting and dynamic faith communities, and I would encourage you to check them out. You can be assured I’ll be borrowing ideas from both of these places in the near future!
Thinking About Changing the Blog…
The blog has been taking off far more than I realized when I fist began, and I’m at the point I need to make a few decisions. Even though I blogged semi-anonymously at first, now I can’t even force myself to pretend that is the case. I’m beginning to think about switching to WordPress.org (the more advanced version of WordPress) or Typepad, but I’m concerned about the costs of using a webhost service. We’ll see what happens. Advice from you more experienced bloggers would be welcome!
For now, I’ve decided I’m just going to play with the template and see if that satisfies my need for change! haha Let me know what you think!
Thinking About Changing the Blog…
The blog has been taking off far more than I realized when I fist began, and I’m at the point I need to make a few decisions. Even though I blogged semi-anonymously at first, now I can’t even force myself to pretend that is the case. I’m beginning to think about switching to WordPress.org (the more advanced version of WordPress) or Typepad, but I’m concerned about the costs of using a webhost service. We’ll see what happens. Advice from you more experienced bloggers would be welcome!
For now, I’ve decided I’m just going to play with the template and see if that satisfies my need for change! haha Let me know what you think!
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