wfn.org | Large churches must change mindset, speakers say

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 30, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.     10-71B{194}

By Jackie Campbell*

PITTSBURGH (UMNS) - Leaders attending a conference of large membership
churches were challenged to make a difference and learn to do ministry in
today's world.

"If you try to do church today the same way you did five years ago, you're
not going to make it," said the Rev. John Ed Mathison, pastor of Frazer
Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Ala.  

"Make a distinction between the things that are changeless - like the
message of the Gospel - and leave them alone, (and) change the things that
must change," he said. A change in mindset is needed in a lot of areas, such
as church staffing, worship and how evangelism is viewed, he added. 

Mathison was one of several nationally recognized speakers providing insight
to nearly 350 leaders of large congregations who gathered at Christ United
Methodist Church in Bethel Park, south of Pittsburgh, April 22-25. The
conference provided a setting for receiving information and new ideas.
Participants also visited other large churches in Western Pennsylvania,
including a Presbyterian and a Christian Community church.

It's not coincidental that the growing churches are those that have pastors
and staff with long-term tenure, Mathison said. "I'm tired of hearing about
how we are going to lose members. To make disciples doesn't mean you've got
to just take in Methodists who move.  If you are not receiving a lot of
people on profession of faith, you're in trouble."

To make new disciples, both Mathison and the Rev. Leonard Sweet agreed that
churches must call off the "worship wars." 

"We ought to be open to all different ways to worship," Mathison said. "The
larger the church, the more options we ought to offer."  He pointed to his
own congregation, which started a contemporary service at the same time as a
traditional service. The contemporary service drew enough people that the
church had to add another, and the traditional service continued to attract
worshippers. During Mathison's 30 years of leadership, Frazer Memorial has
grown from 400 to 7,400 members and has an average weekly worship attendance
of more than 4,500. 

The Large Membership Church Conference is held annually, sponsored by the
United Methodist Large Church Initiative Committee and the denomination's
Board of Discipleship. A large church is defined as one with 350 people or
more in average weekly worship attendance. In the United Methodist Church,
more than 1,400 churches fit the designation. The initiative encourages
large churches to support one another and share information.  

Several speakers at the April 22-25 event stressed that worship styles are a
matter of preference, and that there's not one right way to hold a service.

Sweet, an author and consultant on cultural change, used shoes to illustrate
his point that too many church leaders are wrapped up in "categorical
imperialism" - imposing their preferences on others.

"I'm a boomer, and I wear a quality shoe," he said, waving his leather
slip-on loafer in the air.  Pulling a younger man from the audience, Sweet
took his shoe - a thick-soled, hiking shoe - and questioned its look and
practicality. Shoe preference, perhaps like worship preference, is a
generational, cultural thing, he said.

"I can either insist that they have a quality shoe like mine," he said, "or
insist that their sole has protection and is covered, and I let them chose
the kind of shoe that will cover and protect them."  It's like that in
worship wars, Sweet noted. "We are so wrapped up in categorical imperialism
that we don't know there's a whole world out there in need of the Gospel."

Reading a biblical passage, Sweet noted that Jesus called Lazarus to come
out of the tomb, then told the disciples to unwrap him. Like Lazarus, God
has given us the freedom, but "we have failed to unwrap each other for
ministry in this new world."  The ministry is up to us, he said. 

"We are not some divine employment agency that dispatches the deity to do
our work for us," he pointed out.  "What," he asked, "are you wrapped up
in?"

Many people, he said, are wrapped up in their learnedness - still trapped in
the culture that existed when they studied for ministry.

"I was a learned professor until about 1987," Sweet said. "I am now a
learner." He used the analogy of pet alligators to illustrate his point.

"If you keep an alligator in the box, it will never grow any bigger than the
box," he said. "It's only when you take it outside the box that it grows
until the day it dies."

Sweet challenged church leaders to be like Jesus and "come down and take the
form of a servant" to do ministry.

Churches' methods and ministries must also change, Mathison said. He
suggested that church leaders equip "lay folks to do ministry and them turn
them loose to do it."

Lay members at Mathison's church proposed launching what proved to be a
popular 6 a.m. weekday Bible study, as well as a successful Christian
television network and several other ministries. Ninety percent of Frazer's
7,000-member congregation is involved in some ministry.

"It doesn't always have to come down from (denominational agencies in)
Nashville or the senior pastor or the staff to work," Mathison said. "Lay
people are some of the most creative people around. If you are willing to
give them the opportunity to just turn them loose to do ministry,
unbelievable things can happen."
# # #
*Campbell is a staff writer for the Interlink, the newspaper of the United
Methodist Church's Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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