By Dan Hester

When the crepe myrtles start to bloom, I know that the end of summer is approaching. As I start to turn towards fall planning, I thought that an overview of the ministry of St. Andrew's was worthwhile to write.

Almost a year ago our long range planning committee, the Joel Committee, submitted to the Administrative Council its report concerning where God was leading St. Andrew's UMC. The Council has since then been considering, prioritizing, and acting on that report. In short, the Council prioritized 8 items on which to focus its attention. Some of the items are visionary. Some are very practical. Here they are in order of priority as set by the Council with my own commentary.

1. Disciple Development. This emphasis calls each person and each group within the church to consider how they are offering Christ to people, and deepening the Christian walk of existing disciples. I often think of this with the baseball analogy of advancing base runners.

2. Hospitality. This goal asks St. Andrew's to model the welcome of Christ. Hospitality is also welcoming the stranger and recognizing that the stranger brings blessings and gifts. In true biblical hospitality the roles of guest and host often switch.

3. Be a Light to the Neighborhood. This visionary goal is biblically rooted in the call of Israel to be a light to the nations, and the teaching of Jesus to not hide your light under a bushel. This goal is also rooted in St. Andrew's origin and history in this neighborhood.

As a matter of priority, the Council drew a line in pencil here. The top three goals are the most substantial, challenging, and promising avenues for ministry. Rather than try to accomplish everything at once, the Council chose to focus on the top three. The following five goals are still before the council. These get discussed and prayed for. They are not on a back burner, but they do get viewed through the lens of the top three.

4. Emphasize Seniors. Our elders continue to grow in faith and have gifts to offer for the ministry of the Church. Multi-generational ministry, health and wellness, transportation, and the homebound are all areas of interest for St. Andrew's and its seniors.

5. Missions. Our local and international outreach has been and will continue to be a strength and pillar of St. Andrew's. Missions are not only a means to fulfill the will of Christ, but missions are also a way of proving faithful witness to an unbelieving world.

6. Emphasize Youth. Our aim here is not to keep youth ministry in a silo unto itself, but to integrate our future leaders now. Our youth are also in the position to combine several of our overall goals such as mission, neighborhood involvement, and disciple development.

7. Multi-generational Ministry. Discipleship has always involved mentoring relationships. Plus, nothing keeps one young like working with children and youth. This item highlights the mutual benefits available to all age-groups when we plan and conduct ministries together.

8. Emphasizing Family Through Baptism. Baptism joins us in Christ and helps us know the best sense of what it means to be family, both through biology and through faith. In an age of broken, abusive, and atypical family structures, the Church can provide a holy sense of belonging, nurture, and growth for everyone, no matter what the biological family background. 

I invite you and whatever groups you may be a part of in the church to consider how you might direct your efforts with these goals and intentions of St. Andrew's. 

By Dan Hester

Last Sunday I issued the challenge/invitation for members of this congregation to give a testimony. From now on, I will make space in worship for anyone who wants to provide testimony. Call me or email me and we will schedule a Sunday when you can offer your testimony.  Here are some idea starters for putting together a testimony.  

• Where has God been at work in your life? 
• How has God found you? 
• Who has Jesus been for you? What difference has following Jesus made in your life. 
• How have you been surprised by God's love? 
• What is this chapter on your journey meant to you? 
• When and how has God made you whole? 
• Testimony can be about the time when you came to faith, although it doesn't have to be.
  
• Testimony is, simply put by bishop Ken Carter, speaking honestly of ourselves to God, and speaking honestly about God to others.
• Testimony isn't about fixing someone else. 
• Testimony isn't about getting someone else to behave in a certain way. 
• Testimony is about offering how the speaker has been changed. 

The evangelist Luke tells us in Acts 1:8 that some of the last words of Jesus were, "you will be my witnesses." So I challenge you, and open the door for you to offer your testimony so that we might all see the goodness, the grace, and the power of our Lord.

Last Sunday, October 21st, at our State of the Church meeting, the Joel Committee made a report about how they've been spending their time and the learnings that they have made. Below is the written version of what was presented orally. If you have questions, feedback, or ideas, the members of the Joel Committee would be glad to hear from you. 

State of the Church Joel Committee Report

Introduction

In the Spring of this year, the Administrative Council called the Joel Committee into being, asking us to study the future course of St. Andrew’s. The name of the Cmte. comes from Joel 2:28 (NRSV)

28   Then afterward
  I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
  your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
  your old men shall dream dreams,
  and your young men shall see visions.

The Council looked for people who were faithful Christians, who were open to new ideas, who could hold the interests of the church above personal agendas, and who could work well with others. Keith Brown, Sue Bullock, Larry Carella, Gina Collard, David Lewyn, Tom Patton, and Melanie Tita were selected.

Our Beginning

We began meeting and reading a book entitled Stepping In The Stream, by Beth Crissman and published by Plowpoint. Plowpoint is an organization founded by United Methodist ministers from our Annual Conference that seeks to assist local churches in developing fruitful ministry. Stepping In The Stream takes its name from the idea of stepping in the stream of God’s will. The book outlines a biblical approach by which we can seek and follow God’s will, not our own.

Plowpoint’s approach centers around the idea that churches, and most any organization, go through four stages on a never-ending cycle: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Forming is when a group discovers who they are and whose they are. Storming is when we begin to articulate our views, opinions, wishes, needs, and desires. Inevitably these thoughts will rub up against each other in conflict. Conflict is natural, and necessary to the growth of an individual and to a church. Conflict itself is neutral. How a group handles conflict makes the difference between whether stress is experienced as eustress (a positive force for growth) or distress (a negative force that tears down). Norming is the development of mission, vision, and core values. And performing is taking action steps and implementing strategies to live the vision.

History

As an early step in our process, the Joel cmte. researched the church’s history. We interviewed former staff and long-time members as well as looked at statistical reports and remembered our own stories. We found much in our 50 year heritage to celebrate.

From our very founding St. Andrew’s has remarkable stories of God’s work. Our collective belly button rests in the 1957 land purchase by the District Mission Society. In 1959 we worshipped for the first time as St. Andrew’s UMC on Easter Sunday. By the late 60’s we were 700 strong and sponsoring a church in India. The neighborhoods of Starmount and Montclaire were the Ballantyne of their day and St. Andrew’s served these new neighborhoods.

The early neighborhood was fluid. George Robinson remembers needing to bring in 100 new members a year just to break even with the number of members who were moving away.  Several long-standing ministries started in the 1970’s including our annual trip to Camp Tekoa, and the Harvesters. During this time and into the 80’s the church was strong in family ministries, lay driven, and with a strong arts department. In the late 1990’s and early 2K, the FLC was built, blended and contemporary music began to be played in worship. By the time Dan arrived our preschool was thriving, and we began to include a changing neighborhood into our ministry and outreach.

Demographics

The Joel Cmte looked deeply into the neighborhood. We looked at how the 1969 membership of the church was tightly packed around the church, and how by 2011 the membership had become spread out throughout south Charlotte and parts of South Carolina. We looked at demographics at several different levels and how the composition of the neighborhood has changed. The demographics available to us show that our neighborhood, measured at various levels, and with various geographies, is projected to be fairly stable for the next 5 years with no large movement in cultural or socio-economic levels. Currently our neighbors tend to be 20% African American, 20% Latino, 58% Anglo, and 2% other. 

Intangible Discoveries

We began to hear some stories more than others. We also began to detect some patterns from our history.

a) We have always been a family oriented church and many of the successful ministries we recount from our past serve people of all ages.

b) We have long valued quality music and arts as part of meaningful worship.

c) As we tell the stories of our history, a pastor’s name is almost always attached to the story. This aspect of our storytelling can tend to over-identify the responsibility for success and the blame for shortcomings onto the pastor, leaving the congregation’s role out of the story.

d) Using the language of Plowpoint’s cycle, we don’t tend to storm skillfully. Situations can get unnecessarily heated, and specific people can end up bearing blame instead of everyone accepting their own share of a particular conflict.

e) Fellowship has usually been highly valued.

f) The Joel Cmte.’s inquiry into demographics appears to have given old and unresolved conversations new life. Are we to be internally or externally focused? Are we to be a neighborhood church? If we focus on the natural network of people geographically close to us, are we forgetting the people who live further away? Are we to win new people to Christ with words or deeds? Who is our neighbor? Anxiety about being a potentially multi-cultural congregation has surfaced. Worries have been expressed about getting new members who don’t or can’t contribute to the budget. Worries have been expressed about having too many minority members.

Next Steps

The Joel Cmte. has rediscovered much of the strength of St. Andrew’s UMC. We have a proud 50-year history with much to celebrate and in which to take pride. Our study of Stepping Into the Stream, our prayers for the church and for our own guidance, our look at our history and the trends that have brought us to where we are lead us to a suggestion for next steps.

We will recommend to the Administrative Council two basic steps. Step one is that an open and large scale discussion take place so that some light, air, and understanding might come to the concerns and anxieties that have recently been expressed. Even though the Joel Cmte is still early in our work, our preliminary inquiries to basic questions such as “Who Is Our Neighbor” seems to have tapped into some chronic anxiety and questions that need to be digested before we can move forward with our work.  But before this step can take place, we recommend the preliminary step to be taken that as many people as possible receive training in “Skills for Healthy Storming.” By learning some better skills in how to conflict well with each other, and take some of the electric charge out of the conversation, we think St. Andrew’s can come to a closer understanding of God’s will for our congregation, and be better equipped to step into the stream of God’s will.

By Dan Hester
Leadership is a big buzzword in church circles these days. Seminaries have degree programs in leadership. Annual Conferences sponsor leadership training. Consultant gurus say that leadership is critical to church growth. This is a good discussion. I've received some good leadership training provided for me since graduating seminary. But the increase of the study of leadership has revealed several different camps of what good leadership looks like, and questions of what makes Christian leadership distinct from leading a bank, a public school, or a small business. 

I was excited to come across a succinct statement of Christian leadership that resonates with my own views as they have developed over the years. I offer it here to reveal my own thoughts, as a discussion starter, and as a devotional as I came across this passage in the book I'm currently reading devotionally. The book is called The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century. Written by Joan Chittister, the book provides modern reflection on a 1,500 year-old guide to Christian community in monasteries. She writes:

"Benedict's leaders are to birth souls of steel and light; they are to lead the group but not drive it; they are to live the life they lead; they are to love indiscriminately; they are to favor the good, not to favor the favorites; they are to call the community to the height and depth and breadth of the spiritual life; they are to remember and rejoice in their own weaknesses in order to deal tenderly with the weaknesses of others; they are to attend more to the spiritual than to the physical aspects of community life; and, finally, they are to save their own souls in the process, to be human beings themselves, to grow in life themselves." (p. 50-51)

That paragraph sums up much of what I try to do as a pastor. Any thoughts?