Bishops Day on the District April 4

With God all things are ... possible!
The Bishop's Day on the District on Saturday, April 4 began with lively singing followed by some encouraging preaching that with God, all things are possible. The first part of the day was attended by clergy, and laity from many churches attended the afternoon session.

There is great hope for the United Methodist Church. In many areas of the world, the church is growing by leaps and bounds, such as in Africa. In South Korea, the United Methodist Church continues to flourish as with the Kumnan Church with 120,000 members in Seoul, Korea. What do they owe their continued growth and fruitful ministry? Prayer and small groups.

However, in New England the statistics for United Methodists are not so great. Statistically, a church needs 120 in average attendance to maintain the budget required for a full time pastor. However, the average attendance for Methodists in New England is 57. That is why more and more Methodist Churches in New England are moving from full time pastors to 1/2 or even 1/4 time pastors because they cannot afford the salary and health insurance for a full time pastor and still maintain their building.

Our Bishop Pete Weaver and our District Superintendents Mike and Jan Davis, outlined our current course. We currently have 528 churches in New England. 256 of these are currently less than full time. There are currently 150 more churches that will likely need to go to less than full time in the next several years. This will mean about 100 churches with full time pastors, and currently there are 212 full time Elders (not to mention many full time Local Pastors).

The Bishop shared the bottom line ... the United Methodist Church needs to change, or die. The Church will never die - God will find another movement to make disciples of Jesus Christ if we are not doing this work as Methodists. But we are being invited to embrace this time, to change so as to become part of what could be a very exciting movement of the Holy Spirit in New England.

We may for instance be looking at a completely new way of pastoring churches, with two or three pastors serving a large circuit of churches in an area. This is already being done in several other Conferences.

One church in our District is in the process of selling their building, and liquidating that money to be used for missions in the community, renting space to worship on Sundays, and meeting in small groups throughout the week in members homes. That kind of change requires a lot of faith.

Yes, the United Methodist Church in New England is in a great deal of trouble. But with God ... all things are possible!

Would you join us in prayer and discernment for our future as United Methodists?