Call to Action - Recommendations & Mandates

Recommentations & Mandates
Item #1                      
It is imperative that clearly defined measurements, standards, and expectations be established and applied, thus providing a standard for accountability across the connection. It will be as local churches and annual conferences are held accountable for outcomes of faithful and fruitful ministry that our mission will be accomplished.

Item #2          
Our Steering Committee surfaced the need to “redesign the leadership development system” and quickly saw this in the context of and in relation to one of the Four Areas of Focus (“developing principled Christian leaders”). We urge the Vision Pathway Team of the Council of Bishops, and others working on this Area of Focus, to approach this task with urgency.

We urge the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table to lead the church in prioritizing the leadership and participation of youth and young adults in all areas and at all levels of the church’s ministry, inviting youth and young adults to join in shaping the mission, worship, education, fellowship and outreach of the church. 

Item #3          
Closely linked to redesigning our leadership development system is the recognition of a need to reconsider our system of deploying clergy across the church. The phrase, “eliminating the guaranteed appointment,” was a way to capture our sense that deployment and fruitfulness are linked. We know that the Ministry Study Committee is addressing the same concern and therefore refer this item to them, along with our encouragement to diligently address the many angles of this question.

Item #4                      
We affirm the invitation in the original Call to Action “to collaborate with the General Commission on the General Conference and the General Council on Finance and Administration to redesign the plan and operation of the 2012 General Conference.” We call upon the Council of Bishops, the General Commission on the General Conference, and the Rules Committee to pursue this task immediately. After our deliberations over these last months, we believe that conversation must be expanded to include a total revamping of General Conference, including frequency and format.

Items #5, #6, and #7
Above all we believe that any reordering or reshaping of the general church absolutely must be done as a means of achieving the mission of “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” and as a vehicle for more effectively integrating the Four Areas of Focus into the connection and the fabric of the denomination, starting at the local church level. The reordering at the general church must be accomplished not as a top-down initiative, but as a way of repositioning, modeling, equipping, and resourcing the whole church for the twenty-first century.

The Steering Committee believes that this reordering includes some scenario involving a reduced number of general agencies, coupled with the creation of an executive, coordinating office for the denomination in order that our mission and ministries around the world will be strengthened. We explored several scenarios and identified principles to guide the development of a plan that will provide flexibility, rapid response, collaboration, and energy for accomplishing the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Those principles include at least:

• Starting with no preconceived ideas of what will continue, be changed, or be ended
• Becoming nimble, lean, minimal and aligned and effective
• Aligning all facets of the church with the mission, lived out through the Four Areas of Focus
• Becoming more financially sustainable in order to assure the future
• Analyzing all Disciplinary mandates to glean only what is essential to achieve the mission

We know that alignment is essential! However, before designing the specifics of any future scenario or system-wide reordering of the denomination, we must evaluate the whole system. In order to achieve the best alignment we are convinced of the necessity of performing an operational assessment of the structures and relationships with the current system, including general agencies, the Council of Bishops, and the Annual Conferences. To achieve this complex task, we will recommend that we contract with an outside, independent group that can lead us through this process.

We know that data regarding our current and future financial obligations at all levels of the connection must be gathered before drafting a means of assuring a viable financial future for the UMC and as part of our operational assessment. We call on the Connectional Table to work with urgency to assemble the data and give direction for the church. (¶904, The Book of Discipline, 2008)

Next Steps Going Forward

We must receive feedback and insights from a large number and a wide range of United Methodist voices, identified leaders of the denomination as well as those faithful ones who sit in our pews and who serve Jesus daily in the world. We recommend working with an organization that can design an internet-based survey instrument and can receive, analyze, and summarize the results. 

We call upon the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table to create and fund a team that will lead the next phase of this journey. This team will receive and review the data gathered and generate a response based on the results of the assessments. The scenarios the current Steering Committee has developed may be incorporated as starting points for the work of this new team.

In order to move the process forward and design the reordering the life of the church, the Steering Committee recommends the following steps as the next phase of this critical work.

1. The creation of a new Steering Team composed of twelve (12) persons, including no more than five (5) of the current committee members.
2. The creation of a four-person Project Team to function as the day-to-day work team, interfacing with the various constituencies and with the operational assessment group to be selected. The Steering Team will give direction and will receive updated reports from the on-going work of the Project Team.
3. Every bishop will host a series of conversations in her or his area. These conversations will focus on responses and suggestions for reordering the life of the church, and for establishing metrics for use in evaluation and accountability. (See Item #1 above)
4. In order to adequately fund the next steps in this undertaking, we request funding support through the Connectional Table.
5. Finally, that a progress report and an accounting will be given at the spring 2010 meetings of the Council of Bishops and Connectional Table, with final recommendations made to the COB and CT in the fall of 2010.