Two Interesting Thoughts

This weekend I am participating in some regular meetings of leadership in our Annual Conference. The assigned reading was "God's Renewed Creation: a Call of the Council of Bishops of the UMC to Hope and Action for God's Good Creation."

Two thoughts not specifically applied to the local church have me thinking about the church. One is from the aforementioned document: "We cannot help the world until we change our own way of being in it." The second is what a District Superintendent said paraphrased here: "We cannot just change the structures and then keep doing the same things as we have always done them."

Neither of these things are especially earth shattering in their wisdom, but they strike me today. Does having a discipleship plan matter at the local church if all meetings and minisrty activity is done the same way? Does change really occur in the actual practice of being the church if we are not first changed at the core?

And this mention of "the core" reminds me of something the Bishop said, again paraphrased: "We have to do the core work (of worship, study, discipling) in order for any of the other great ministry and mission to happen." I have taken significant liberties with this last quote, but the phrase "core work" was used in the general context of the conversation. It reminds me of when I ran track ages ago. The coach always made us do sit ups. I never quite bought it, bit he was probably right: in order for you to be strong enough to run and compete, you had to have a strong core.

It was also suggested that maybe we should all just focus on one measureable piece of core work, worship participation, and that if we do this well, we might see the fruit of being transformed and empowered for other great ministry. Could the person who suggested this be right?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7