Letter to H.Q.
Letter to H.Q.
Dear Dr. Wilson,
Your plans for the “Gathering ‘07” that our denomination is sponsoring is truly exciting. I just received confirmation of my registration and am already anxious to attend. While going over the plans and purposes of this landmark event I was convinced that our pastors, by the thousands will be inspired, encouraged and refreshed. For all of this, I am truly grateful.
It also caused me to do some real soul searching about the future of our churches and our denomination here in the U.S. The analogy that came to mind, was what I saw happen in the city of San Diego where I lived and pastored for many, many years. The city was degraded at its center and the city fathers saw it and decided to take action. What they did was truly remarkable. They brought in cruise ships for added tourism, added extensive trolley lines for transportation, a world class shopping center within close proximity, built their baseball park downtown, constructed beautiful condos to promote downtown residency, put in a convention center for special events, and cleaned the town up. Now, they could have simply put more police on the streets, and worked overtime on code enforcement, but they didn’t. They took the long look and literally changed the city. I lived there while most of this was happening and watched the transformation. It was 1977 when I first moved to the area, and have seen a remarkable change take place.
What is this story all about? It is about this. Our pastors will be inspired by ’07, and they will be re-invigorated, and then they will return to the same struggling or broken infrastructure of their particular districts, only to become frustrated over again.
We all know that many of our districts are failing to experience any gains in effective ministry, the numbers make it clear. On the districts that I am most familiar with there is either a plateau or actual decline. The district superintendents used to receive a couple of days training at H.Q. (probably a lot more now) . However, when they go to their respective districts, they are hard pressed to find the competent pastors that they need to fill their churches. Every D.S. that I have spoken with about this expresses the same frustration. The pastors that they do find are seldom if ever, able to move their churches forward. This is one of the greatest challenges of the D.S., and the greatest frustration of the pastors. It appears that something about this system is broken that is not getting fixed.
The demands and expectations put upon the local pastor cannot be fixed with any number of inspiring experiences. The local pastor, facing the present society, and its demands, needs to have a leadership team working with him to assist him in such a way that he can be successful. On some of our districts there are perhaps 5 or so churches that are actually growing. There are many that are flat lined or in decline. If this is not acceptable to us, and if the no growth of our Anglo churches in the U.S. is troubling, then, it seems to me that some work needs to be done as soon as possible. When we loose our baby boomer crop of pastors, the list of churches in “the hands of the DBA” I think will grow rapidly.
Just like San Diego did not focus on simply getting more tourists to revitalize the down town, which was never going to happen; I think that it is realistic to recognize that our attempts to inspire our pastors is only one small piece of the puzzle. I have pastored Wesleyan churches on various districts for about 30 years and been on the DBA of those districts for years. It is hard to be optimistic with what I see happening. So many of us pastors are not creative or analytical enough to see or solve the kinds of issues our ministries now demand. Our society was a totally different society when our denominational structure was created. It is questionable if we can expect our present structure to achieve its goals without the necessary changes taking place. It is obvious that we can only turn these trends around with an infrastructure that is truly an aggressive team effort that focuses upon individual churches and what it takes to see them succeed.
In the words of Bill O’Reilly from the “factor” where have I gone wrong here?
I am most appreciative of the conference in ’07, and I know hundreds and perhaps thousands of us pastors will be refreshed. For that I am truly grateful. Then when the inspiration is complete, I will be looking forward to how we can actually go back to our churches and be more effective at getting our ministries to move forward.
Peace,
Richard Lauby
Dear Dr. Wilson,
Your plans for the “Gathering ‘07” that our denomination is sponsoring is truly exciting. I just received confirmation of my registration and am already anxious to attend. While going over the plans and purposes of this landmark event I was convinced that our pastors, by the thousands will be inspired, encouraged and refreshed. For all of this, I am truly grateful.
It also caused me to do some real soul searching about the future of our churches and our denomination here in the U.S. The analogy that came to mind, was what I saw happen in the city of San Diego where I lived and pastored for many, many years. The city was degraded at its center and the city fathers saw it and decided to take action. What they did was truly remarkable. They brought in cruise ships for added tourism, added extensive trolley lines for transportation, a world class shopping center within close proximity, built their baseball park downtown, constructed beautiful condos to promote downtown residency, put in a convention center for special events, and cleaned the town up. Now, they could have simply put more police on the streets, and worked overtime on code enforcement, but they didn’t. They took the long look and literally changed the city. I lived there while most of this was happening and watched the transformation. It was 1977 when I first moved to the area, and have seen a remarkable change take place.
What is this story all about? It is about this. Our pastors will be inspired by ’07, and they will be re-invigorated, and then they will return to the same struggling or broken infrastructure of their particular districts, only to become frustrated over again.
We all know that many of our districts are failing to experience any gains in effective ministry, the numbers make it clear. On the districts that I am most familiar with there is either a plateau or actual decline. The district superintendents used to receive a couple of days training at H.Q. (probably a lot more now) . However, when they go to their respective districts, they are hard pressed to find the competent pastors that they need to fill their churches. Every D.S. that I have spoken with about this expresses the same frustration. The pastors that they do find are seldom if ever, able to move their churches forward. This is one of the greatest challenges of the D.S., and the greatest frustration of the pastors. It appears that something about this system is broken that is not getting fixed.
The demands and expectations put upon the local pastor cannot be fixed with any number of inspiring experiences. The local pastor, facing the present society, and its demands, needs to have a leadership team working with him to assist him in such a way that he can be successful. On some of our districts there are perhaps 5 or so churches that are actually growing. There are many that are flat lined or in decline. If this is not acceptable to us, and if the no growth of our Anglo churches in the U.S. is troubling, then, it seems to me that some work needs to be done as soon as possible. When we loose our baby boomer crop of pastors, the list of churches in “the hands of the DBA” I think will grow rapidly.
Just like San Diego did not focus on simply getting more tourists to revitalize the down town, which was never going to happen; I think that it is realistic to recognize that our attempts to inspire our pastors is only one small piece of the puzzle. I have pastored Wesleyan churches on various districts for about 30 years and been on the DBA of those districts for years. It is hard to be optimistic with what I see happening. So many of us pastors are not creative or analytical enough to see or solve the kinds of issues our ministries now demand. Our society was a totally different society when our denominational structure was created. It is questionable if we can expect our present structure to achieve its goals without the necessary changes taking place. It is obvious that we can only turn these trends around with an infrastructure that is truly an aggressive team effort that focuses upon individual churches and what it takes to see them succeed.
In the words of Bill O’Reilly from the “factor” where have I gone wrong here?
I am most appreciative of the conference in ’07, and I know hundreds and perhaps thousands of us pastors will be refreshed. For that I am truly grateful. Then when the inspiration is complete, I will be looking forward to how we can actually go back to our churches and be more effective at getting our ministries to move forward.
Peace,
Richard Lauby
posted by Richard Lauby at
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