The Council of Bishops hopes to give every United Methodist a voice in the future-shaping work of this year’s Leadership Gathering.
The bishops plan for 300 participants from four continents to attend the gathering, set for Oct. 20-24 at Knox United Church in Calgary, Canada. The event — with the theme “Emboldened by the Spirit: Imagining a Church Yet to Be” — aims to help United Methodists prayerfully discern their next chapter together after a painful season of disaffiliations.
Bishop Hopes Vision will Give People Hope
The vision, unveiled last year, states: “The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.”
Ultimately, the bishops and design team members hope the gathering will help The United Methodist Church build on that vision to follow where the Holy Spirit is leading.
Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. told United Methodist News that he wants United Methodists to “take a page out of Moses’ playbook.”
“Talk about the land filled with milk and honey, and that will get people above the context of Egypt and help them lift their sights above the desert,” said Saenz, who is also the incoming Council of Bishops president.
“Because if there’s a compelling vision that transcends the day-to-day struggles, then people have hope. And so, part of this is to cast a vision so compelling that it raises us above the infighting and focuses us on what really matters.”
Gathering Input Through Surveys and Webinars
The 15-question survey — available in English, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Tagalog — asks United Methodists what they hope the denomination will prioritize, what they envision for the church 50 years into the future, and what message they want leadership gathering participants to carry forward.
The webinars are another way United Methodists around the globe can get involved. They will be recorded with interpretation in American Sign Language, French, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
Stephanie Henry, the design team’s co-convener, said the gathering’s organizers are not asking for input just to do what they planned anyway. She expects the team to fully integrate the survey’s findings and webinar conversations into the Leadership Gathering’s agenda — with session descriptions explicitly referencing which community voices they address.
Ashley Boggan, a design team member and the top executive of the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History, took the lead in organizing the webinars.
The design team has scheduled a virtual pre-gathering on April 25 for the 300 participants that will help them prepare for meeting in person in October.
Ashley Boggan said one of the goals for the webinars and the Leadership Gathering itself is to highlight “new voices and younger voices.”
Saenz said he ultimately expects the webinars and Leadership Gathering to help with evangelism.
Over recent decades, Saenz said, church members have learned to do infighting very well. Now, he said is the time to focus on carrying out the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
“I’m hoping that the support for the vision statement of the church — to love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously — has some muscle and ligaments,” he said, “so that we can say, ‘Yeah, this is who we are. This is what we do. This is why we do it.’”
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excerpt from a story by Heather Hahn, assistant news editor for UM News.
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