Kansas Area Bishop Scott Jones and Kansas West Conference Lay Leader Jill Foss present the State of the Conference Address May 26 in Hutchinson. (photo by Britt Bradley)
By Lisa Elliott Diehl, Communications director
Congregations in the Kansas West Conference have been on a journey, Bishop Scott Jones said in his State of the Conference message May 26 at the 2011 session of the Kansas West Annual Conference.
“We could go back decades and recount where we have been,” Jones said.
Jones lifted up the four questions he asked the conference in 2005:
Jones said conference members responded by writing strategic plans to address the questions, refocusing budget money toward priority ministries and adopting a new mission statement: “As we make disciples of Jesus Christ, the Kansas West Conference calls God’s people to invite through radical hospitality, excite in intentional faith-sharing and unite in risk-taking mission for the transformation of the world.”
The Bridges to the Future capital campaign raised more than $5.2 million in pledges, and, even in a tight economy, individuals and churches have continued faithfully giving. More than $2.9 million has already been received. Bridges funds have saved Camp Horizon, provided much-needed improvements at Camp Lakeside, purchased buildings and made improvements at campus ministries across the state and helped open new doors to ministry with Hispanics.
“Thank you for your faithfulness in supporting Bridges to the Future,” Jones said. “But more than that, thank you for the hard work being done in so many places by so many people to change so many lives. This journey we have been on is one that our whole United Methodist Church in the United States has been on. We are ahead of the group. We are making progress faster than others.”
Because the Council of Bishops is concerned about the future of the church, the council issued a Call to Action.
“We are facing an adaptive challenge,” Jones said. “The adjective ‘adaptive’ means it is not a quick fix. It will require us to make changes in our attitudes, values and sense of priorities.”
The adaptive challenge is to redirect the flow of attention, energy and resources to an intense concentration on fostering and sustaining an increase in the number of vital congregations effective in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
“This adaptive challenge is not anything new to the Kansas West Conference,” Jones said.
Already, the conference is starting new congregations and offering many programs to strengthen existing congregations. This summer, another effort will be implemented to dramatically reform the clergy leadership development, deployment, evaluation and accountability systems in the Kansas Area through the appointment of Rev. Linda Louderback to area director of clergy and congregational excellence, Rev. Micki McCorkle to Nebraska-Kansas Area registrar for the boards of ordained ministry, and Rev Cynthia Wilson as program director for the Transition Into Ministry program funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment.
“Some of our churches are more vital than others, and so our goal is to increase the number of vital congregations in Kansas,” Jones said.
A vital congregation has:
“In short, a vital congregation is composed of vital disciples who are making more disciples,” Jones said. “A vital disciple is a changed follower of Jesus. Disciples worship. Disciples make new disciples. Disciples engage in growing in faith. Disciples engage in mission. Disciples give to mission.”
During the address, Jill Foss, conference lay leader, introduced Vital Signs, a method for collecting key indicators of vitality on a weekly basis.
“We know we are unable to can the power of the Holy Spirit or control how it moves in our lives and our churches,” Foss said. “There are, however, some measures we can look at that will help us a church, as a conference, look at how well we are approaching our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”
Most of the indicators are already found on the statistical tables churches complete at the end of the year, Foss said.
“We are calling on each church to report these measures weekly but in a slightly different format,” Foss said. “We all know that what gets measured gets done.”
Churches will be asked to name a person from their congregation to receive a weekly e-mail reminder and follow a link to enter six key statistics and offer a testimony telling the story behind the statistics.
The six weekly measures are:
“We know when we measure something, we pay more attention to it, and more attention allows us to improve,” Jones said.
Lately, Jones said he has not been paying attention to his golf score. Instead, he has been playing “happy golf,” where he and his wife place the ball in a spot they like if they don’t like where it landed after they hit it.
“To get better, I need to keep score,” he said. “Then I can figure out what I am doing wrong and change it. I can figure out what I’m doing right and strengthen it. I can mark my progress. I think measuring our spiritual progress weekly is a way of focusing our attention on building vital congregations. Now is the time to get serious about making spiritual progress.”
