ROLE REVERSAL

by Doug Roland

We still get inquiries about what we missionaries are doing here. The common vision is baptizing savages in the jungle. It's not us and it ended nearly 200 years ago in this part of Africa. That said, I think there are still some American evangelists who see it that way. In the modern mission trip context, it's painting old buildings, delivering medicines and materials, feeding the homeless and worshipping with the locals. We've yet to pick up a paint brush (though we have organized a crack painting team of seminarians.) Basically we get up and go to work each morning.

What we are doing is a dynamic determination, based on what's needed at the time. This is one of those times. Of all of the things I would not have expected, this would have been near the top of the list. In a couple of weeks, I will be leading 21 part-time and fully ordained Methodist ministers in two 90 minutes classroom sessions called "Excellence in Ministry" ; subtitled "A View From the Pew". (I'll take credit for the subtitle.) I am taking the 60 or so years I've sat on the other side of the pulpit and converting that into a learning or maybe awakening experience for these people. I have come up with some ideas.

A church is like s swimming pool. If not maintained, it will turn unattractive quickly. If not filled up it will evaporate. So it must be both stirred from time to time and replenished with fresh water. It's like the Queen of Hearts said: "We have to run fast just to keep up. If we want to get anywhere, we have to run twice as fast."

In thinking about how I will approach this, I intend to use my own experience at Hyde Park during the last 25 years. If you want to know more about part of this period of near-death and renewal, pick up Jim Harnish's You Only Have to DIe. Through many of these years, I held a variety of leadership position and read a good deal about church growth.

This approach evokes critical issues such as lay leadership, discipleship, spiritual gifts, missions and visions. If Hyde Park's experience means anything, it is that all these and more must be in play all day, every day. To rest is to stagnate. Or as John Tortorella used to say to the Lightning: "Safe is Death".

I am a little concerned about the very beginning - the idea of a non-minister, lay person without portfolio, telling them how to stimulate a church. Will they turn on me early? It could be an interesting debate. Bottom line is that lay persons are in a unique position to assess excellence in ministry, perhaps even more than ministers themselves who may be more attached to the structure than to the mission. I'm ready to defend that one.

This is part of what I love about this job - the chance to go out on a limb, roll the dice, get Out of the Box.

The powerpoint is virtually done. The breakout group questions are ready. I hope that these questions will challenge if not inspire them to reach a bit higher. All that's in God's hands, not mine.

I think there may be an undercurrent of support for my position of tacking away from the routine to the important. In a MCSA paper I get weekly, the President of some group of Lay Leaders in South Africa was quoted as saying, "My church is busy, and indeed very busy with thinkgs that do not change peoples lives - we are over-churched and under-discipled." That to me is a voice crying out to the ordained ministry for a new direction. If I'm right, this could be a good time indeed for a "View From the Pew."

What we are doing here has no glamour. It's a long-term deal - it will be years before the effects will be known.

A later blog will be coming about another project we are working on that may have significance for Methodists internationally.

*************************

This next bit is not related to the above but is too good not to share. We attend a different church each Sunday. This week, the church's bulletin had a section on the sick and needy, listing their needs. The names have been changed.

Holly - with the Adams', her collar bone is healing nicely, but has a broken bone in her leg after she sneezed recently. Is in a lot of pain.

Janie Felger - Eleanor's niece, is trying to fall pregnant.

Barbara Riggles - Milton and Dianne's sister-in-law, has started having fits.