E3 a Success (Full Article)

E3: 3 Days Packed with Optimism and Faith In The Future of Methodism
Not many folks from our church seemed to look at the opportunity to get together with other Methodists near home with any excitement. Even with only two weeks to go only a few folks had registered in advance to attend any portion of the E 3 conference that was held at Woodfords Congregational Church from November 1-3. Some may even have thought it was ironic that a Methodist Conference was held at a Congregational Church. Rarely in recent years has it been that a major event in the Methodist Church was even held in the Portland area. While the New England Conference made it possible for local area folks to attend and to learn from some really outstanding speakers it appeared there were more people in attendance from "away" than those from the local area. It was announced that of the three School of Congregational Development conferences that have been held that the number of registrants at this event far surpassed those of the previous two.
As a result of some well-placed telephone calls, Peoples attendance at the event was at least representative. As those who attended would agree, everyone learned something that they felt would be useful back home.
This accounting of the events of E3 has been primarily written with the opinion, eyes and ears of only one person, myself Art Tordoff with assistance from my wife, Marlene. I would encourage others who attended the conference to either add to this accounting or add it as a Comment attached in the proper location at the end of the article. I would say that I had not been to a conference for a long time that had as much meaning as this event, especially in the realm of church worship and activity. You will find thoughts on this conference from Earle Harvey, our lay leader as part of this report.
Thursday night with music, song and a powerful message
The Thursday night activities were held in the sanctuary and began with some rousing revival music played by Mitch Thomas on the piano. He serves as a music leader at the Auburn United Methodist Church. Lyrics for all of the music was displayed on a large screen in the chancel. Those present experienced community singing with gusto! This community singing was followed by music played by a Praise Band from Concord, New Hampshire. Bishop Weaver was scheduled to speak. Unfortunately his mother in law had passed away and he was not able to be present.
Bill Kemp ably filled in for the Bishop. Bill spoke on the subject of Ezekial’s Dry Bones.
The feeling for many is that is where many United Methodist Churches are today. Our organization in many local churches seems to be suffering. The number of members is much reduced from the past, financial need is ever present, and we are slow to respond to the changing needs of the culture that we live in. Many folks who have felt the strains of leadership for years unfortunately experience "burn out". Often the workers of the local church often negatively respond to elements of life in the church as well as the greater community. Pastor. Kemp went on to say that if we can identify the issues we have it gives us many areas that we can focus on. It seemed to me that those items identified can become the focus of a local church in order to put the separated "dry bones" back together again. Change is necessary, but that change needs to be calculated in order to keep everyone, young and old, long term member/no term member nurtured and willing to serve the Lord. The Lord’s Spirit is ever with us and we can call on him to be our ever-present guide. As the title of a Gospel song that was sung by Gospel Choir from Patterson, New Jersey we are "Never Alone".
Friday continues with a lively spirit
Quite satisfied and uplifted by Thursday night’s program, we came back again on Friday afternoon. Marlene and I had signed up to attend a session at 2:30 with Pastor Karen Munson from the Readfield United Methodist Church. When we arrived we found that the session had already started. 40 people were in the room and finding new ways to "Communicate with each other and the Community". Talk about Newsletters, Web sites, Blog Spots and e-mail took up a great deal of the time. Among the words that Pastor Munson had to offer were that God, Christ and Holy Spirit should be present in any messages that a church sends out. She mentioned that should also be the case when you have an answering machine that is used for recording the messages of those who call. Websites are more often the location to which an inquiry will go and should be updated frequently and made user friendly. She recommended that the pastor of a given church try to put out an e-mail message at least once a week to as many folks as possible. She suggested that it doesn’t have to be long, considering that people more often are looking for "reading bytes" rather than long dissertations. Keeping in contact with people who are "away" from the church such as college students is important. Something beyond the newsletter may be part of a continuing program of care. She said that some churches have set up Bible study through a chat room rather than the contact that can be gained from face to face meetings—although that form of study should not be discouraged either. I don’t think that chat rooms can really replace face to face contact although it is an alternative providing your members do have computers.
Pastor Munson did continue to say that the local church does need to nurture the local press as well. Most local papers are today looking for "good news" that could be Good News.
After a brief break and we were off to another session titled, "Holy Places, Small Places". Thinking that this session led by Bill Kemp would speak perhaps to new worship ideas we soon found that the session focused on the small church especially in the Methodist system. A chart that he passed out showed that 78% of the churches in the Methodist system nationwide are smaller than 125 in membership. The chart also showed that only 20% were midsize with membership between 126-499. The remaining 2% of Methodist churches nationally might be listed as Mega-churches. This session focused on the strength of the system being in small churches. He went on to say that the number 52 is actually normal. He also said, however, that many of these "normal" churches are without a full-time ordained pastor, without a choir that sings four parts and most normal churches then would benefit from sharing program resources with adjacent churches ie. the four South Portland United Methodist Churches. He also said that today’s culture does not really value membership, distrusts organizational hierarchy and thinks that relationships are more important than truth. It is not unusual for people to go to different churches today for different purposes while still maintaining a degree of membership perhaps in the church they originally joined. Some folks when asked about maintaining their membership at Peoples have said, "I need a church to be buried from." Sounds rather trite, but that is an attitude of many. Pastor Kemp went on to say that the ladder that many pastors, in a human sense, expected to climb is no longer available for most although being itinerant is still a part of the Methodist pastorate. He also said that every church has a bottleneck that must be overcome. Among those difficulties in a given church he suggested were the following: 1. Inappropriate leadership 2. Failure to appreciate giftedness 3. Low spiritual passion 4. Poor structures 5. Non-indigenous worship 6. Dead meetings 7. Lack of missional clarity 8. Failure to deal with conflict
Bill Kemp is an author of several books, one of which gave its title to this particular session theme. Pastor Kemp has been on the staff of Bangor Theological Seminary and is presently serving as an interim pastor in the Pittsburgh, Pa. area.
The principal speaker on Friday night was Vance Ross who presently serves as the Associate General Secretary of the Discipleship Ministries Division of the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church. All, I can say about his presentation was WOW! Dynamic, dramatic and powerful are all words that describe his presentation and message. The center of his presentation was the Love of Christ for us and the need we have to share that love with our neighbors in the way that we are loved by the Lord. Neighbors can be as close as next door and as far away as the other side of the planet. We need to practice what we believe as Christians and as United Methodists. Dr. Ross could make his point in a whisper as well as at the top of his lungs. Over 300 people were in attendance at this session.
The evening was topped off with a musical concert that featured Marty Magehee, former member of the 4Him Christian Rock Band. Most if not all of the music he played was of his own design. Marty displayed a singing range of several octaves. Periodically he would pause while changing his music and give brief sermonettes about where the Lord Christ was in his life and how he came to love the Lord. Some folks left after a few songs yet the message he came to give was not finished until the concert was over.
This had been a long day, but a rewarding day, a day that we were grateful to the Lord for providing us.
The following are some impressions that Earle Harvey passed on for inclusion in this report from his perspective. Earle attended a workshop titled, "The Agile Church: Creating a Congregation geared for change". From this workshop Earle said the normal church will remain passive until some action is taken to change thinking. To accomplish this there must be an influx if ideas accompanied usually by new people.
In a second workshop, "Passionate Spirituality for a Cold Climate, Resurrecting the Lifeless Congregation", Earle found that spiritual passion is the fuel that keeps a congregation active and excited about the faith that it has to share with the world. Without spiritual passion a church, no matter what its size will either crash and burn or become a hollow shell of its former glory.
Earle’s third workshop, titled " Holy Places, Small Spaces," has been referred to previously in this report, but serves as a good review from his perspective. Seventy eight percent of United Methodist churches have under 125 that regularly attend worship. Many small churches are small because they will not take steps to reach out to their community in order to grow.
Earle concludes his remarks with the following words. The revival at Beech Ridge Speedway and the E3 Conference have given us tools to go forth into our neighborhoods to share Christ’s message of love and redemption. Our church can accommodate about three times the number of people currently attending on a Sunday morning service without the need to expand the facility. The immediate area has over two thousand families that offer an opportunity to visit them to invite them to come and share in worship.
We need to pray for God’s guidance as we prepare to visit these families. Next we have to have faith that God already has a plan for us to follow. From the past we have trusted that his plan will glorify his kingdom. Most importantly, we need to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit and obey the call to serve. Jesus calls us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We should pray that we have the courage of our convictions so that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we may build in 2008 on the foundation started in 2007.