Church Clusters: Wisdom in a Time of Crisis
Since Katrina hit, the Louisiana Conference of The United Methodist Church has had to be creative to keep all of its congregations alive. Now, sixth months later, some of the churches have functional facilitites and are well on their way to recovery; others have essentially closed—without a building and with few members currently living in the New Orleans area. Obviously, New Orleans UMs aren't putting as much cash into the offering plate as they were before last year's hurricane season. Still, Louisiana Bishop William W. Hutchinson in today's Times-Picayune boldly says, "We are not declaring any church abandoned, nor are we declaring any church closed."
In response to the recent crisis, the Louisiana Conference has divided 38 area congregations into seven clusters, "typically representing a racially diverse set of institutions, that will work together to decide how their missions can be achieved, with more emphasis given to creative service ideas and less to simply preserving buildings." Further:
"Apart from the designated clusters, a few churches will play special roles during the recovery period and therefore will receive extra attention and support from the Methodist conference."
"Several churches that were relatively spared by the storm will serve as 'station' institutions that provide general support to recovering churches."
I think this combination of clustering and allowing certain congregations to take leadership roles could benefit The United Methodist Church as a whole. Clusters should include six or seven churches, should be formed primarily on the basis of geography, and should be as ethnically and theologically diverse as possible. Congregations in a given cluster would be charged with ministering to their shared community and to one another. Churches with particular gifts (music, education, outreach, and so forth) would be lifted up and would assist their cluster-mates in developing these ministries. (Ideally, every church in a given cluster would have gifts that every other congregation could benefit from.)
Existing groupings in The United Methodist Church are either too small (charges), too large (districts, annual conferences, and jurisdictions), or too divisive (unofficial networks and caucuses) to effectively assist individual congregations and the communities they serve. Clusters would remind United Methodist congregations that they are part of a connectional church even when they aren't writing apportionment checks or sending delegates to annual conference. Many clusters would include congregations with very different views on issues such as war, homosexuality, and church-state relations. As cluster-mates, these churches would have to focus on their common Christian mission rather than their political differences.
What do you think? Can we get clusters into the 2008 Book of Discipline?
In response to the recent crisis, the Louisiana Conference has divided 38 area congregations into seven clusters, "typically representing a racially diverse set of institutions, that will work together to decide how their missions can be achieved, with more emphasis given to creative service ideas and less to simply preserving buildings." Further:
I think this combination of clustering and allowing certain congregations to take leadership roles could benefit The United Methodist Church as a whole. Clusters should include six or seven churches, should be formed primarily on the basis of geography, and should be as ethnically and theologically diverse as possible. Congregations in a given cluster would be charged with ministering to their shared community and to one another. Churches with particular gifts (music, education, outreach, and so forth) would be lifted up and would assist their cluster-mates in developing these ministries. (Ideally, every church in a given cluster would have gifts that every other congregation could benefit from.)
Existing groupings in The United Methodist Church are either too small (charges), too large (districts, annual conferences, and jurisdictions), or too divisive (unofficial networks and caucuses) to effectively assist individual congregations and the communities they serve. Clusters would remind United Methodist congregations that they are part of a connectional church even when they aren't writing apportionment checks or sending delegates to annual conference. Many clusters would include congregations with very different views on issues such as war, homosexuality, and church-state relations. As cluster-mates, these churches would have to focus on their common Christian mission rather than their political differences.
What do you think? Can we get clusters into the 2008 Book of Discipline?
posted by Tinley | 7:25 PM
2 Comments:
We have clusters in the Virginia Conference. These are geographic groupings of a handful of churches......
As a lay member who pays pretty close attention to things, I've never seen anything of substance come out of this bureaucratic device. They give preachers another meeting to attend, but that's about the only evidence of their existence I've seen.
My guess is 95+% of the laity are unaware of their existence, just as they are also unaware of districts and conferences and jurisdictions, along with their bloated staffs and primary function of turning apportionments into bureaucratic fat.
Mike B
I am a pastor in the Virginia Conference, and yes the geographic groupings I've been a part of both here and N. Ga. Annual Conference were a joke.
However, I did serve as a US-2 Missionary in Northern New Mexico where a group of seven churches were partnered in a group ministry setting. It worked reasonably well.
The best example of geographic clusters, though, was in the British Methodist Church. It was nice to meet with the four other ordained clergy once every three-four weeks, and have an opportunity to preach in thirteen different churches over the course of a year. The slogan they adopted before I left was "one church, thirteen locations."
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