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General Conference Article #3
Leadership successes
By Tom Lambrecht

The church rises or falls on the basis of its leadership. That truism points to the importance of leadership in helping the United Methodist Church turn around a four-decade decline and become once again a vital force for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the 21st century.

Good News is encouraged by the leadership provided by the Council of Bishops, Connectional Table, and General Agencies of the church in identifying the four focus areas to guide our church during the next quadrennium. These four focus areas are: 1) Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world; 2) Creating new places for new people by starting new congregations and renewing existing ones; 3) Engaging in ministry with the poor; and 4) Stamping out killer diseases by improving health globally.

It is vital to the health of the church to focus our efforts on significant emphases in order to channel our energies. We need to avoid the ineffectiveness that comes through trying to do everything and ending up doing nothing well. The General Agencies of our church have already devoted major attention to organizing and prioritizing their work in support of the four focus areas. This concentration of energies, along with the cooperation envisioned across agency lines, should yield more visible and lasting results.

It is essential to focus on the right areas that will lead our church to restored effective ministry, mediating Christ’s transforming impact on individuals and on our world. These particular four focus areas reflect an authentic Wesleyan balance between spiritual ministry and concern for physical needs.

The first focus area reminds us that we cannot accomplish Christ’s mission in the world without godly, principled, called, and equipped leaders. One of Jesus’ early acts of ministry was to call the twelve apostles in order to equip them to lead the ministry he would be entrusting to them.

The second focus area confronts the unpleasant reality of our declining membership in the United States and commits us, as a denomination, to the priority of planting new churches and revitalizing existing ones. Only when we recover a passion for creating new communities of faith in the power of the Holy Spirit will we begin to grow again.

The third and fourth areas reinforce one of the signs of authentic ministry, that “the Good News is being preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:5). As we engage in ministry with the poor and help overcome the life-threatening diseases and conditions of poverty, we will earn the opportunity to point beyond physical well-being to the source of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

We hope that our church, from the largest General Agency to the smallest congregation, will focus its efforts on forming new and revitalized congregations, developing leaders, serving the poor, and improving global physical and spiritual health.

 

Leadership shortcomings
We applaud the leadership shown by the Council of Bishops in initiating these four focus areas, and we rejoice in news of increased internal accountability within the Council that allows bishops to “watch over one another in love.” At the same time, we remain concerned about shortcomings in episcopal leadership that could contribute to declining morale among clergy and decreased effectiveness in local church ministry. There are too many examples of failure to follow the procedures established in the Book of Discipline or uphold the teachings and positions of the church. There are times when proper processes are ignored in order to ensure an outcome predetermined by the bishop involved.

In the face of these leadership failures, it is disturbing that there seems to be no practical way of holding bishops accountable for mishandling procedures, with the result that lives and ministries are damaged—sometimes almost beyond repair. We therefore support proposals that would give the responsibility for handling complaints against bishops to the jurisdictional or central conference committee on episcopacy, rather than to another bishop (which is currently the case). Despite dozens of legitimate complaints against various bishops over the past 20 years, there has never in that time been a complaint against a bishop that was sent to a Committee on Investigation. Often, there has not even been the required supervisory response session. It is time to restore the church’s trust in the accountability process for bishops.

One of the proposals getting a lot of attention at this General Conference is the attempt to end the “guaranteed appointment” for ordained elders. Licensed local pastors already function without a guaranteed appointment. Unfortunately, they are also subject at times to arbitrary and sometimes damaging treatment at the hands of district superintendents and bishops. Seeing how licensed local pastors are sometimes treated should make us think twice about removing the protection of a guaranteed appointment for ordained elders. We see this proposal as an attempt to take a short-cut around the more demanding but rewarding process of identifying ineffective pastors and helping them toward effectiveness or redirection out of ordained ministry in a fair, open, and compassionate process.

If, however, the General Conference believes it is time to remove the guaranteed appointment for ordained elders, we believe it would only be fair to remove the guaranteed appointment for bishops. This could be done through proposals that have been submitted to initiate term episcopacy in the United States. Some of the central conferences and affiliated autonomous Methodist Churches currently function very well with term limits on their bishops. Bishops could be limited to an eight-year term, with the possibility of being reelected to additional terms. That would allow the jurisdictional conferences to evaluate the effectiveness of each bishop and match the needs of the church with the qualities present in bishops up for reelection, side-by-side with new nominees for the episcopacy. This process would allow us to identify the best leaders for the future of the church. It would also keep bishops accountable to the people they serve, rather than living with the episcopacy as a lifetime “entitlement.”

 

Social Issues
A myriad of resolutions on social issues will face delegates to the upcoming General Conference. A recent study found that 78 percent of the 368 resolutions in the Book of Resolutions originated with a General Agency of the church. Two-thirds of the resolutions (67 percent) come from just three agencies: the General Board of Church and Society, the General Board of Global Ministries, and the Women’s Division. The first question we believe delegates should ask is: do we really need 954 pages of church resolutions on every conceivable social problem facing the world today? Why do we believe that the church needs to address every issue? What gives us, as the church, the necessary expertise and qualifications to speak to political issues? Perhaps it is time to “just say no” to resolutions that wander outside our areas of expertise and add little to the resources that are already available on a subject, or reflect perspectives that do not evidence a solid foundation in Scripture and the tradition of the church.

Perhaps the longest-standing “social issue” with which the church has concerned itself is the sanctity of human life. Early Christians were known for adopting infants who were abandoned by their parents as a means of “birth control.” Protection for unborn children dates in Christian writings back to the second century. In line with that long tradition and the teachings of Scripture, we support efforts to end the membership of General Agencies in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and to end our explicit endorsement of that organization. While the UM Church rightly opposes abortion for birth control or gender selection (over 80 percent of all abortions), RCRC supports abortion rights in any and all circumstances. The UM Church is on record as against “partial-birth abortion,” while the RCRC lobbied strenuously to preserve that practice. RCRC positions on abortion are fundamentally at odds with the United Methodist position. Our membership in that coalition undermines the very moral positions that we advocate. Therefore, we should end our participation with and support of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Another issue for our attention is “no-fault divorce.” Over the years, it has opened the floodgate for the destruction of marriage by making divorce appear to be an easy option. Though not every marriage can or should be saved, by introducing the “no-fault” concept to divorce, our society has encouraged couples to back out of a difficult marriage, instead of devoting the time, hard work, and personal transformation necessary to build a strong marriage. We are now seeing the impact of widespread divorce on families, women, and children in the United States and other countries. The painful consequences of divorce have made many young people hesitant or fearful of entering into marriage themselves, resulting in more young adults unable to commit to marriage or living together outside of marriage.

First-generation marital instability has contributed to second-generation marital instability, which will only increase the cycle of instability for future young adults and foster the breakdown of the family, along with all the accompanying social consequences currently being documented. Our church needs to take a strong stand in favor of strengthening marriages and families, advocating for those hurt by divorce, and providing compassionate healing for the wounded victims.

The multitude of complex issues facing delegates to the 2008 General Conference demonstrates the need for us to pray for our delegates and support them in their vital work. By the grace of God, this General Conference will lead us closer to reflecting the mind of Christ in our decisions and to a vital, effective, and growing ministry through the power of the Holy Spirit around the world.



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