District charge conferences enlightening

Our enough
is never enough

I have almost completed my first year as a district superintendent. That means by the time you read this column, I will have completed my first round of charge conferences. Those who have attended charge conferences in my district have heard me say that I am actually glad I came into this job in January and not at the usual time.
It has been much more fun to attend these meetings after having other opportunities to meet members of those churches before I arrived for charge conferences. It has also been much more helpful to us all that I have had time to listen in the district for many months before conducting these annual meetings.
Having spent more time here, I could bring a word to you born out of my other experiences listening and learning in the district. I hope the following will be helpful to us all:
1. In most places I have visited, I see strong partnership between clergy and laity. Gone are the days, I hope, when pastors are expected to be the designated followers of Christ as well as the days when laity are treated by clergy as dumb sheep to be led around for their own good. In every way possible, we need to strengthen these partnerships, with the emphasis on partnership, pardner.
2. In most places I have visited, there exists a spiritual arrogance or complacency that we are doing all we can to offer Christ to all. Wrong! For the most part that spiritual arrogance or complacency is rooted in the claim commonly made by members when I visit that “our church is one big happy family.” That desire to remain one big (or small) happy family keeps us from being serious about seeking the lost and lonely in our communities. Would some of the truly strange folks in our communities really be welcome to become members of the family?
3. In most places I have visited there is a strong misperception that our churches are known in the community and easily found by newcomers. Ha! Years ago, Jerry Jay Smith pointed out to me that the situation of the church we served together (totally invisible in spite of its large plant because it was two blocks from one main street and four blocks from another) was the most common situation churches in our annual conference are found in. “We cheap out and buy the property off the main thoroughfare,” he’d say. His theory has held up through the years, long after it used to gall us to have to guide people looking for our church by telling them to turn at the much smaller Baptist church right on the main road. Pay attention to what it is like to come to town and find your church. We can’t have too much signage, too much visibility just to tell others we actually exist.
4. In most places I have visited, there is not much real knowledge about who lives in the neighborhoods nearby. One church is in a prime location for reaching young families but has mostly older adults in attendance. Another church walked its neighborhood to find out that its neighbors thought that the church had closed long ago.
Another church was challenged by its senior pastor at charge conference to engage this coming year in servant evangelism. That form of evangelism puts us out on the streets serving not for our own sakes but for the sake of our neighbors. Just acting like neighbors—that’s its methodology. What a concept! Sounds scriptural and like something of which Jesus Christ would approve.
In summary, I would say that, though I am very impressed with the quality of faithfulness in the churches of my district, I want us to never be too spiritually arrogant or complacent. Our enough is never enough for the sake of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in every way possible with this troubled world.