Defining Your Church As Missional WILDLY IMPORTANT GOAL

Defining Your Church As Missional WILDLY IMPORTANT GOAL 2017 Southwest District

Agenda 1. Our Purpose and the Wildly Important Goals 2. “Life Giving Changes” 3. The United Methodist Church’s Mission 4. Annual Conference Theme: “See All the People” 5. Following Jesus 6. Being a Disciple 7. How We See Ourselves

Leadership Training Event: Our Focus We want to focus on our Annual Conference’s call for each church to define what it means to live out the United Methodist mission in their local communities. We are not asking for a mission statement. We asking you to define what it means for your church to be engaged in its mission.

Leadership Training Event: Our Overall Purpose The Southwest District wants to encourage churches to identify and use their Spiritual Gifts to discover their purpose. Members of your church may have many gifts that will equip them for being missional.

Leadership Training Event: Our Purpose for Today The purpose of today’s event is to motivate and educate our clergy and lay leadership on our WIG goal for this year and the discovery process we will be using for each church to accomplish this goal.

W. I. G. = Wildly Important Goal

“Wildly Important Goal” The INUMC has set a goal for each church to understand what it means to be missional in the context of its unique community of neighbors.

“Wildly Important Goal”. . . “missional, ” as God calls you to be faithful among your neighbors—a place where we can begin the conversation

WIG and the Sub-WIGs. : Phases 1 -4 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 (2020)

Hoped for Progress for This Year’s WIG goal: Each pastor will put together a team of three to five members who will work on the WIG for the next two phases of the goal process. This team should be representative of the church laity.

Hoped for Progress for our Current WIG goal: Each church team will draft a paragraph, defining what it means for their church, in the context of its local community, to be missional.

Hoped for Progress for our Current WIG goal: The church’s paragraph, defining its missional character, will be presented at its charge conference.

Discernment and Discovery Meeting our goal is a Pastor/Local Church Lay Leadership driven discernment and discovery process that will define for each church, in its unique context, what it means to be engaged in Life Giving Changes for Jesus Christ.

“Life Giving Changes” Current WIG Goal: Clergy and Laity will understand what it means to be missional. In order to understand what it means to be missional, each church should clarify what it means to be engaged in “Life Giving Changes for Jesus Christ. ”

How do changes give life? How do we make life giving changes for Christ? Who’s giving life to whom? Think about It. What does “life giving change” mean to you? Share your ideas with the group. (8 minutes )

What do You Think? Is this different from some of our other work? Many churches are already engaged in identifying or developing missions in their church. How is WIG similar? How is it different? What is your church currently working on that seems related to achieving WIG’s 2020 goal for missional churches? (10 minutes )

What is our mission as United Methodists? ¶ 120 UMC Book of Discipline: “the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. ”

Annual conference leaders and clergy across the United Methodist connection are embracing the “See All The People” initiative to be in relationship with the communities surrounding their churches as a way to fully embody the spirit of the Wesleyan tradition.

An Open Letter from Bishop Julius C. Trimble What is expected from the laity as we seek to become more missional? “The 2018 Annual Conference session’s theme will be “See All the People. ” This theme is from United Methodist Discipleship Ministries and, I believe, is essential for us to reach our two primary mission fields. Mission field number one is the lay people who come to our churches. Mission field number two are the estimated 1. 4 million Indiana residents who don’t go to any church. ”

An Open Letter from Bishop Julius C. Trimble “To become more missional we must turn over our fear of survival to God and surrender our lives to Jesus with the prayer, “Lord, make me an instrument of your will. . . ” “Our image of missionaries must expand to neighborhood, rural town, foster parent, short-term, see all the children, justice, mercy, Bible-sharing missionaries. We are baptized and called not to be served but as Jesus leads us ‘to serve’. ”

Follow Me

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his footsteps. 1 Peter 20: 21

Think about It. What might a life based on following Jesus look like? What does the example of Jesus’ life tell you about how you should live? Be prepared to share your ideas with the whole group when everybody comes back together. (12 minutes )

What about you? Are you shaped by God’s heart? Do you have a passion to follow Christ?

Being shaped by God’s heart means always seeking to be more Christlike – finding ways to strengthen your relationship with God and neighbor

--knowing God’s purpose and pursuing it with deep passion

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5: 16).

Let’s Talk: Small Group (three – four, or table) Is your heart shaped by God’s heart? What do you understand his purpose for us to be? Do you have a passion to pursue a Christ-like life? Decide who will share your ideas with the group when all the groups come back together. (15 minutes )

What is a missional church? “A missional church. . . is a reproducing community of authentic disciples being equipped as missionaries sent by God to live and proclaim His Kingdom in the world. ” Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches (Minatrea, 2010)

Being a missional church is about relationships: “how we are in relationship to God, who is able to transform us into new beings; how we are in relationship to our neighbor, whom we must love like ourselves. ” Transforming Evangelism (p. 75)

Let’s Talk: Face to Face (groups of two) Is your church missional? In what ways? Decide who will share your ideas with the whole group when everybody comes back together. (10 minutes )

What does a missional church do? § Builds relationships that strengthen, challenge, and encourage each other on the Christian journey § Relates to and invites others to hear and experience the gospel.

Mission as Salvation A Mission of Salvation “means to set aside our self-interest so that others may have a more abundant life. It means we are saved in order to participate in the salvation of others. It means our hearts will break for the very situations that break the heart of God. ” Bishop Bruce Ough, president of the United Methodist Church Council of Bishops

Mission as Social Justice Mission, as Social Justice, makes transformation a reality, by equipping and clarifying your church’s missionary life. God transforms the world through all of us. Human thriving and transformation is made real when we lean into relationships in the broken places of the world. (INUMC Mission and Justice Ministries)

A missional church creates an inviting community, reaching out to others to understand the power of God’s love to transform others and itself--to be renewed in the image of God. ”

Let’s Talk: Small Group (three – four, or table) • How does your church reach out to its local community? Are other/more missions needed? • Do these missions fit the needs of the church’s local community? • How accountable are our churches to seek others to “disciple” with Christian acts of love and mercy? (15 minutes )

Our Current “Wildly Important Goal” For each church to understand what it means to be missional (Focus on each local Church defining mission in terms of “life giving changes for Christ)

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. ” Matthew 28: 19

Are you ready to draft a response to 2017’s Wildly Important Goal? What does it mean for your church to be missional? Let’s do it!!! Indiana Conference UMC, Southwest District

Write 2 - 5 sentences in response to the question: What does it mean for your church to be a missional church? (15 – 20 minutes )

“Join the Conversation: What does being ‘fully missional’ look like in a local context? ” View at: inumc. org/facebooklivehome (April 11, 2018) A panel of INUMC leadership discussed how we can be the hands and feet of Christ across our communities as we focus on becoming fully missional.

“Knowing God’s purpose and pursuing it with deep passion is the first step in becoming missional. ” Milfred Minatrea

The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Let’s Pray Too often, O Lord, people have not encountered the church as a place of reconciliation, forgiveness, humility and love. Our prayer today is that where we need to be corrected, rebuked, or chastised help us to hear from you and to be so transformed by your grace that others would experience the beauty of your church through us. From: Training Manual for Bishop’s Lenten Study, “Is It Time? ”

Southwest District of the Indiana Conference of The United Methodist Church Mitch Gieselman, Conference Superintendent Tim Ahlemeyer, WIG Focus Chair