By the mid-1700’s John Wesley (Anglican Priest and son-of-an-Anglican Priest) had launched the “Methodist” movement. That spiritual awakening swept around the world and changed history. By 1968 the United Methodist movement numbered 11,000,000 members. By 1975 membership dropped below 10,000,000. Today there are fewer than 8 million members in the movement. (Can you say, "Shrinking market share?")
What’s happened? Do size, success and age now threaten the future of mature, once great, hierarchical ministries? I don't know if every mature mainline ministry needs renewal, but I do know this. The bigger organizations get, the more layers of management are introduced. The older they get, their routines become entrenched and established as traditions. The more success they enjoy, the more laziness, complacency and arrogance can blind the managers of the ministry.
The managers of most mature organizations may believe they already make the most of their potential. Managers often believe they are doing the right things and they turn a deaf ear when their fundamental beliefs are questioned. Even if they realize they need to change, they struggle to make “change” happen because the desperately needed transformation is different from everything they know. Maybe they could improve the way they do things, but their problem won’t be fixed with new and improved ways of doing what’s always been done. What’s needed is the ability to question whether to do those things at all. What’s needed is visionary leaders who inspire their peers and their people to break the rules of convention, jump an innovation curve, and assume a new orbit of growth.
What do you think?
Are you part of the problem?
Am I?
I’m convinced. Top-down governmental (read "hierarchical") decrees won’t transform stagnating organizations the way well-led, knowledge-based, networked partnerships can invigorate the long untapped potential of mature bureaucratic ministries. (I think that’s true in both public and private sector work.) So, the question every visionary person must ask is quite simple: "Where does that leave me? What am I going to do?"
Luke 16:8-9 - I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live, and not complacently just get by…
Yes, yes, yes. In the mean time we are losing whole generations who won't know the love of Jesus in there lives, because the Church focuses too many decisions to preserve the establishment vs. reaching beyond. I appreciate your words and heart. Lets hit a new orbit.
Posted by: Shane | January 29, 2010 at 10:28 AM
It would seem to me that simple spiritual methods such as your encouraging us to memorize 2 Peter 1:2-12, applied across a wide audience, not only bring individuals closer to God but also congregations and for that matter entire denominations.
It's just my opinion but from reading Wesley's biography and being a member of Granger Community Church for 6 years one of the secrets of success to the initial Methodist movement in the mid 1700's and to GCC alike is the "KISS" method. A method I fight to remember.
I have been studying 2 Peter 1:2-12 now for about 2 weeks and have memorized the first 3 verses. And although I memorized the Navigator series of Bible Verses in the early 80's and repeat them daily in the shower :-), I have not committed a new Bible verse to memory in well over 20 years. Shame on me I know.
But it amazes me how the simple exercise of verse memorization squeezes out unseen spiritual benefits I had long forgotten. More than simply burning words into my subconscious, memorization forces biblical understanding at my own personal level and demands a daily confrontation with God for assistance. The result, at least for these last two weeks, is a richer walk I bring with me throughout the day.
A trap I fall into all too often is to think the answer must be complex. I thank God your simple request to memorize 2 Peter 1:2-12 reminds me again that the simplest answers are many times the best answers.
And if that is the case for individuals why not for entrenched hierarchies?
It may be that the key to starting currents and spiritual trajectory is unity and that the "buy-in" to that spiritual trajectory is easier in the beginning when numbers are small but committed.
Maybe what is needed most now within the Methodist movement is a fresh leavening agent injected at the grass-root level. A leavening agent that forces the dough to rise from the bottom up not the top down.
Maybe like the military, Methodist Ministers could give it a name; like say “Operation Leaven” :-)
I know; it’s never that easy is it?
Posted by: Mark McClean | January 29, 2010 at 10:42 AM