CSP and The Winds of Change
Change is hard and challenging.
I’ve been told that to start a revolution you need revolutionaries. To start a rebellion you need rebels. To blaze a trail for fresh vision and empowerment for the 21st century you need trailblazers.
Every local church pastor love the trailblazers who form a team with their pastor for a fresh work of the Spirit and introduce a Missional ministry that impacts the local church community. But local churches and pastors have experienced the revolutionary who wants to throw everything of the past out including chancel furnishings and symbols. What about the ‘rebels’ who oppose every new idea and ministry of the Board of Stewards and their pastor? They create a rebellion in a congregational meeting or a ‘fifth column’ working undercover in opposition? Who is the Lord most pleased with? My answer is the trailblazer (Read 2 Chronicles 16:9). The Lord searches the earth for them.
Who does the EMC need as we pray over the Comprehensive Strategic Plan (CSP)? The answer is “Trailblazers”. The CSP is a fresh strategic plan that is neither revolutionary nor rebellious. It blazes a fresh streamlined organizational model and fresh ministry strategy for our century.
Simply stated the CSP is ‘the application of paragraphs 101 & 102 in the Discipline assigning areas (regions) to elected general superintendents for greater connectively between churches and pastors resulting in a strategic plan of church health and evangelism.” The CSP is already in the Discipline. The CSP substitutes the district conference model with the ‘one conference model’.
Indispensable to the CSP is call for a two year commitment to prayer, ‘A Fresh Wind’. I am asking every pastor and church to pray once they receive the draft from the General Council. A local church and denomination moves forward on their knees. Prayer is the lifeblood of a ‘Trailblazer’ who follows the Lord’s leading. The General Council in a unanimous vote believes we are moving under the guidance of the Lord for the EMC. Wouldn’t want your local church to earnestly pray over a unified vision and ministry plan from the Board of Stewards? I urge you to pray.
I share with you an edited and personalized copy called the ‘Winds of Change’ from the Wesleyan Department of Evangelism and Church Growth.
USA Today ran a series of articles entitled “10 Things to Absolutely, Positively Change Right Now”.
The series dealt with changes readers felt were needed in the world of sports. The articles came to several conclusions:
•Change is never easy.
•Change is best when it is meant for someone else.
•There are always people who like it better the way it was.
•Those who change tend to be more effective.
•Change that can be linked to tradition is more readily embraced.
•Change will happen.
Change whether it is in sports or the change experience the similiar journeys. Churches and church leaders tend to resist the idea of change. It is as Mason Cooley says, “I resist change even as I call for it”
(USA Today, August 27, 2004).
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Many church leaders want guarantees before they enter the change process. And, as we all know, there are no guarantees — except change. Or as the Greek philosopher Heraclites said it, “Nothing is permanent except change.”
Our hesitancy about change must not override the necessity of change. The denomination cannot remain as we are, but move toward a fostering of a Missional multiplication movement. There needs to be a rebellion against the status quo of a 30+ year organizational model of a previous century. The rebellion is not one of
adolescent agitation toward the “establishment”, but a rebellion of desperation…a desperation that understands that if we do not change we will be rendered ineffective in our century.
Yogi Berra has said, “I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat. And if it keeps up, I change bats” (USA Today, August 27, 2004). It is time for the church to change bats. We call it the CSP for the Evangelical Methodist Church.
The CSP if adopted will allow consideration of the following changes.
1. Change the definition of success. Success has too long been defined as “how many at one place at one time.” The result is ministry that revolves around getting people to come to us. This is not a Missional approach. A Missional approach dictates that we go to them.
2. Change the view of church growth. A growing church is a multiplying church. Church growth should be framed in the context of ministry influence and church health, not ministry influx.
3. Change the role of tradition. Tradition should not be that which confines, but catalyzes. Our traditions provide a foundation on which to build. If possible, link what we are doing today to what happened yesterday.
4. Change the purpose of programs organization structure. Programs and organization are vehicles to achieve mission. The moment they cease to facilitate such movement, let them go. Necessity, read the SWOT analysis, must override hesitancy and fear. Faith for fresh ministry is the compass.
5. Change the perspective of change. We have to shed the attitude that to change is to compromise. Many in the church see it in this light – as if change compromises the gospel or is the beginning of denominational demise. Change keeps us sharp and in tune to the culture.
6. Change the emphasis on who needs to change. Leaders will say the church needs to change; churches will say the denomination needs to change. It is leaders who must change. What Gandhi said is very true: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” (USA Today, August 27, 2004). In the New Testament we
find no one must change in order to hear the gospel. It is the church that must change!
Will there be Spirit led trailblazers that blaze a fresh Missional path for the Evangelical Methodist Church? Let me know if you are willing to be a praying trailblazer.
-Ed Williamson, General Superintendent
