Life. Leadership. God’s Mission.

Since our announcement a couple weeks ago (i.e., about our upcoming move), we’ve been reflecting on the process of appointment making in the United Methodist Church (e.g., how we got here).

In The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (2004), ¶338 addresses “The Itinerant System” …

The itinerant system is the accepted method of The United Methodist Church by which ordained elders are appointed by the bishop to fields of labor. All ordained elders shall accept and abide by these appointments.

This page at UMC.org offers more detail on pastoral appointments. There could very well be some changes as a result of General Conference 2008 (e.g., guaranteed appointments for ordained elders is no more, which means conference leaders will no longer be forced to find places for ineffective pastors/leaders to serve).

Anyway, the overview states …

The primary goal of the appointment system is to match the gifts and graces of a particular pastor to the ministry needs of a particular congregation at a particular time. This itinerant system, where pastors move from one appointment to another, dates back to American frontier days when circuit riding preachers traveled on horseback from town to town. At that time, bishops matched preachers to circuits four times a year. Now bishops typically fix appointments once a year.

Four times a year? Wow. See also History of the Itinerary.

Finally, umc.org has a commentary on the itinerant system as a strategy for the church’s mission by the Revs. Robert Kohler and Mary Ann Moman (staff with the Division of Ordained Ministry at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry). While it’s a bit dated (2001), it still has some valuable discussion (see also the links at the bottom of the page for more resources).

Hopefully, these resources will provide plenty of background and information about the practice of the UMC’s open itinerant system.

A few months ago, Randy wrote an entry called, Praying the Scriptures for Your Children, which included a few suggested verses of Scripture to pray for children.

Another good resource for parents to incorporate into their prayers is an article from Christian Parenting Today called 40 Ways to Pray for Your Children. The article includes 40 topical prayers parents can use to pray for their children.

Look who’s the newest member of the Manor Hill United Methodist Men (UMMen)!

Wednesday evening, Ethan and I visited the 42nd annual building of picnic tables. They made 93 tables this year. The 6-foot tables were sold out before they were ever made! However, there are 8-foot tables for $110 and 10-foot table for $120.

Call 814-643-0779, 814-667-3484, or 814-667-2485 if you’re interested in purchasing a table. Be sure to bring a truck or trailer and help to load your table.

Also, the UMMen were glad to have Katie home from college to lend a hand.

Thanks to Patty Stever for sending us the photos. Click on the thumbnails below to see the full images.

Last Saturday, Ethan took his first steps. He usually only takes a few steps at a time, but once on Saturday, he walked between the love seat and sofa, which is at least six feet!

On Sunday, we happened to catch him in action in this photo.

A few weeks ago, 12th Street UMC scheduled a gathering for May 4 to welcome Ethan. In the meantime, we learned of our new appointments, so the welcome also became a farewell.

Although Randy will continue to serve 12th Street through the end of June, it was probably the last time that Ethan and I would get to visit with the people of 12th Street. And so this gathering came with mixed emotions as we celebrated Ethan’s arrival, but also had to say farewell.

The afternoon was a time of social interaction. Ethan was a little out of sorts, though, because we had to wake him from his nap to go into the church. He finally was becoming more himself by the end of the gathering.

Ethan was showered with gifts and cards, including the Tonka truck in the photo. The truck was a gift from the 12th Street Church. Ethan has taken to it right away.

Thanks, 12th Street, for embracing Ethan and for your expressions of welcome!

During this transitional time in our lives, it might be a good time to recast the vision for this blog. This blog started out as a place for us to post summaries of our sermons (in late 2004) and it has broadened over the years.

The current tagline of our blog is: Life. Leadership. God’s Mission. The purpose of this blog is to provide a resource in these areas — for the people we serve and lead and for anyone around the world who may happen to land on our site by way of a search engine.

In order to live out this purpose, we’ll sometimes write about what’s going in our lives — as long as our experience can be a helpful resource and influence others for God.

We also want to be a resource for leaders. So, we’ll sometimes write about movies as long as that movie has a particularly strong life and/or leadership lesson (see Randy’s post, Movies for Leaders; there’s also a Movies category, where you can view all the movies we’ve written about). We’ll also occasionally write about leadership books that we’ve read (see the Books category).

Since the beginning of 2007, we’ve sought to be a resource for people considering adoption, particularly international adoption (see the Adoption category). That’s one of the main reasons we continue to share details about Ethan’s transition (of course, we also know that our friends/readers like to see how Ethan is doing).

It still amazes us that the biggest day in the history of this blog (in terms of visits) was “gotcha day,” the day Ethan joined our family, February 12, 2008, when this blog had 531 visits! (FWIW, some of our biggest days since our time in Korea have been in the days since the announcement of our relocation last Sunday, hitting/surpassing 200 a couple times.)

While our blog will continue to change and evolve in the future, we expect the basic purpose to remain the same: to be a resource for others!

General Conference 2008, the top decision-making body in the United Methodist Church, a gathering of delegates from all across the connection, is nearing an end.

I’ve been reading the daily wrap-ups and other news items at the website devoted to GC 2008, and decided to share some thoughts on a *few* of the many items discussed and decided on.

Of particular interest to United Methodists in our conference, General Conference raised the age limit for bishops from 66 to 68 (age as of July 1 during the year of Jurisdictional Conferences). Of the 14 bishops set to retire this year, 3 are eligible to continue for another term, including Bishop Jane Allen Middleton. Read United Methodists raise bishops’ retirement age.

The Council of Bishops submitted a petition (which was adopted) to revise the mission statement of the UMC, changing it from “The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ” to “The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”

I like the change. To me, it speaks to the purpose or result of discipleship — transformation of the world — not just leading people to a profession of faith. If we’re not careful, we can be good church members without making a difference in the world. I think the statement is a good move in keeping us focused on what we’re about. [EDIT: A day after posting this entry, I read an article about the change: United Methodist mission statement revised.]

As a result of a petition from the Council of Bishops, a couple of paragraphs relating to the duties and/or role of bishops (and superintendents) were reshaped. ¶402 was deleted and/or incorporated into the new ¶404, which was mostly re-written. You can read the submitted text here, but basically, it says …

The bishop leads therefore through the following disciplines:
a) A vital and renewing spirit. [...]
b) An enquiring mind and a commitment to the teaching office. [...]
c) A vision for the Church. [...]
d) A prophetic commitment for the transformation of the Church and the world. [...]
e) A passion for the unity of the church. [...]
f) The ministry of administration. [...]

I simply like the emphasis on spirituality, teaching, and vision.

Every four years, General Conference meets to amend the Book of Discipline. The 10-day gathering adjourns tomorrow (5/2). You can check out all the news stories, plus audio and video segments, here.

Not everyone may be aware of how pastoral appointments are made in the United Methodist Church (UMC), so we thought we’d share briefly a little bit about the process we’ve gone through in the last couple of weeks.

In the UMC, bishops (and district superintendents) have the responsibility of making pastoral appointments. In our conference, there are nine district superintendents who work with the bishop in setting the appointments for more than 800 churches throughout central Pennsylvania. (We’ll say more about the UMC’s itinerant ministry in a future post.)

Around November/December of each year, pastors and Staff Parish Relations Committees (SPRC) are given the opportunity to offer input in the pastoral appointment process. The Bishop and Cabinet then take all of that input into consideration as appointments are made for the next conference year.

A couple weeks ago, we received a surprise phone call from our district superintendent, Rev. David Norris, informing us that we would receive a call from another district superintendent. A few hours later, we received a call from Rev. Dr. Pam Ford, district superintendent of the State College District. We scheduled a meeting for the following day where we discussed the possible moves to West Side and Centre Grove.

As we understand it, because of our family transition we were given the opportunity to accept or decline the move. We took about 48 hours to pray and think about the decision. While it was a fairly difficult decision to make, we ultimately decided to accept the new appointments.

On Sunday, April 20, we spent the afternoon and evening in Clearfield. We met with the SPRC at West Side in the afternoon. Then, after a tour of the parsonage and dinner with Pam Ford and West Side’s current pastor and friend, Jay Jones, we met with the SPRC at Centre Grove.

SPRC members are asked to not share/discuss the news about the new pastor with anyone before the appointment is publicly announced in the respective churches at the same time. In our case, announcements were made at the churches we are leaving and at the churches we are going to on Sunday, April 27.

The SPRCs at Manor Hill and 12th Street/Hope met shortly after the announcements — Sunday afternoon at Manor Hill and Monday evening at 12th Street — in order to put together their church profiles, which will be used in the selection of their new pastors.

In the next few weeks, the district superintendent will meet again with the SPRCs to introduce them to their next pastor. Once again, SPRC members will need to hold the information in confidence until the official announcement is made the following Sunday.

We are always grateful for God’s leading in our lives (see Randy’s previous post, Prayers for the Journey). In our denomination, part of that leadership is expressed through our conference leaders. We are grateful for the manner in which they seek to spiritually discern God’s will in the setting of pastoral appointments. This sense of knowing and trusting God’s leadership gives us excitement about the next chapter of our journeys!

We’ve experienced a lot of change in recent weeks/months — bringing home a baby from Korea and becoming parents, and finishing our dissertations, and completing our doctor of ministry programs.

If that wasn’t enough transition for one year, we’re throwing in some more. As we announced this morning in our worship services, we are moving to new pastoral appointments.

We will be moving to Clearfield (in the State College District of the Central Pennsylvania Conference) in late June and the new appointments will take effect July 1, 2008. Joleen will serve West Side UMC and Randy will serve Centre Grove UMC.

While living in the village of Mooresville for the past 7 years, Joleen has served the Manor Hill Charge. During most of this time, Randy served the Petersburg Charge. After Alexandria and Barree (part of the Petersburg Charge) merged in 2006 to become Hope UMC, Randy continued to serve them as well as taking on 12th Street UMC as part of a realignment following Hope’s merger.

This transition impacts a lot of people — the congregations we’re leaving, the congregations we’re going to, the pastors we will follow, as well as the ones who will follow us.

In the coming weeks, we will write about the experience — leaving people we’ve come to know and love, moving on to new places of ministry and dreaming new dreams, and doing all of this with a baby we’ve only recently brought home from Korea.

No one can accuse us of doing things the easy way!

You may have seen my post earlier this week about General Conference 2008. The UMC is providing an opportunity to stay tuned in to what’s happening at a website devoted to the quadrennial event: gc2008.org.

An important part of General Conference is the Laity Address. This year, 60 manuscripts were submitted by various Conference Lay Leaders from around the world for consideration to present the Laity Address at General Conference. Lyn Powell, lay leader of the North Georgia Annual Conference was selected to present this year’s Laity Address called, “Disciples Transforming the World.”

I just read an article about the address and would encourage you to read it, too. You can read it here. I’ve included some of my favorite quotes from the article below.

Referring to leaders in the early church …

“These designated pastors did not do ministry themselves; they equipped the laity to go out and do ministry,” Powell said. The training, equipping and use of their spiritual gifts were so effective, that 2,000 years later Christianity is flourishing. “A few pastors could never have accomplished that alone. Only the laity, on fire for Jesus Christ, equipped by the pastors, could do such a thorough job of converting the known world to Christianity,” she said.

In the past 50 years, many lay members have “disengaged from the idea of having a ministry of any kind, much less a transforming one,” she said. She said that it was no coincidence that when the laity disengaged from the ministry, the denomination began its decline. Laity, she said, have become complacent and think it is their calling to receive ministry from clergy rather than be equipped by the clergy, with the clergy’s unique gifts and graces, education and training, to go out into the world, do ministry and offer Christ.

“Imagine the transforming effect on the communities around us” because new and exciting outreach ministries would bring more people into the church, she said.

Good stuff.