Something to Pray About

www.ridgecrestumc.com

As you may or may not know, I am teaching a combined adult Sunday School class this summer. Since most of our classrooms are taken for Project Transformation, this allows us to continue to have adult education, without having to do major set up and tear down each week.

My class is studying the book Leadership in the Weslyan Spirit by Lovett Weems. Bishop Hayes has asked each church to have a small group study this book. I decided "Why not have most of our adults involved in the study?" So that is what we are doing. Weems looks at our history as United Methodists (the Methodist part, not the EUB part) and then contrasts that with what we are doing in UM churches today.

Last Sunday, the topic was demographics. Weems pointed out that Methodists followed population changes in America as we expanded westward. Since people lived in small towns and rural settings, that is where the Methodist church settled. Of course, there were city churches, but most of our churches were in the country. In the last 60 years, things have changed. During and shortly after WWII, the people moved to the cities. Then, with the white flight of the 50s and 60s, the shift began towards the suburbs. According to Weems, our nation is now 25% rural, 25% urban and 50% suburb.

The church has been effected by these changes. Rural churches struggle as the towns and areas they serve dwindle and decline. The suburbs have experienced tremendous growth and we can't build enough new churches to meet the demand. The city churches, like their rural counterparts, struggle. The large down town churches are OK, but changes in the community have had a devastating impact on smaller urban church. Yet as I look around in my neighborhood, there are no fewer people living here today as there have ever been. The issue isn't lack of people, it is our failure to properly connect with and minister with the people around us. And Ridgecrest is actually doing better than many other urban churches in our area.

The problem, as I see it, is that we don't really have a comprehensive, conference wide strategy for how to revitalize urban UM churches in Oklahoma. I have been given the task, by our Commission on Congregational Development, to head up a task force to develop just such a strategy/process. I am just in the stage of gathering the members of the task force, but there is one way you can help---pray!!!! Pray for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, that we might always be properly focused and in tune with the will of God in this matter. Pray that we might have the information that we need and that we might have the ability to use that information to craft a plan. But most of all, pray that we produce something that is effective. I don't want our labors to be for nought, nor do I want us to produce something that looks good on paper, but is all words and no action. Pray that God will show us the way to go...that we might more effectively make Disciples for Jesus Christ.