"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create." - Len Sweet
LAST WEEKVersion 1.0 of The Future of Children, Youth and Family Ministry in the UMC
We gathered in the glorious Colorado sunshine as the Aspen leaves were glowing across the valley. We asked a dozen front-line movers-and-shakers-and-systems breakers from across the UMC a handful of questions.
We wondered and wandered and plundered and pondered the future of children/youth/family ministry and the future of the UMC the church in a world where rebooting denominations is not going to be an option.
We worked for a day on these leaders' views about the needs of the UMC if it is to thrive - not just survive - in the post-Christendom world. Key words that jumped out: Reawakening, renewal, reclaiming the Wesleyan heritage for a new day, passion, a paradigm shift from print and paper to people and process, pruning, parents at the core of faith incubation, and an understanding - in the pulpits and the pews and the kitchens - that Christianity is not a religion of prescribed methods but a grace-filled and joyous series of relationships.
"There are basically three kinds of people: Those who make things happen. Those who let things happen. And those who don't know anything has happened." - Winston Churchill
Day 2
We enjoyed a white-knuckle drive across Independence Pass for a discussion on "Best Practices" in a newly built yurt on a wilderness mountain. We walked to the foot of a hole in the mountain we're calling "Grandma's Eye." We followed a stream on a trail that wasn't a trail... yet. We returned to dream out loud about how we, as a church, might embrace the Christ who is already in the future, beckoning us to join him rather than worshipping the past. We asked what the UMC needed in Children, Confirmation, Youth, Family and Cross-Generational ministry.
Word that jumped out: A plan, parents at the core, nightly faith practices, discipleship - not membership, in-depth curriculum, a stress on whole life faith formation/incubation instead of just information, community learning with parents at the core - not in separate rooms, faith themes at church that go home seven nights a week, and nightly home huddles NOT an option but THE CORE of faith formation.
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - X-Files, The Blessing Way
Day 3
We enjoyed the challenges of a mystery guest (Len Sweet) who dropped in for 24 hours to challenge us to move from the Gutenberg to the Google World. (Hey, the world has moved. Maybe the church should, too?) Len listened to all the work we'd done as a group, asked some clarifying questions, then walked us toward a vision of the church in a Google World where images, stories, and relationships hold more power and move more hearts than words alone could ever hope to move.
We digested some challenging thoughts about "followership" vs. "leadership", "left-brain (objective) vs. right-brain (subjective)" and the difference between dissecting things down into tiny pieces vs. seeing everything as a whole. (Pericopes vs and the importance of seeing the Biblical narrative as a whole. Len walked us into a fresh, wholistic Bibilcal perspective by taking us from God the Genesis Gardner to the resurrected Jesus who is also mistaken for a Gardner on Easter Morning. From the God who "splits the Adam" to create us in community, to the second Adam, whose side is also split to birth the new relationship, the new covenant, the new church.
We ate some wonderful food and drank some marvelous wine along with drinking in some spectacular colors at the peak of Aspen's colors. (Yeah, a Lutheran is hosting this. Lutheran's follow Paul's "a little wine is good for the digestion" whenever they meet.)
"Seems to me there's no reason to be a student of the future. Unless, of course, you plan to spend the bulk of the rest of your time there." - Rich Melheim
Day 4
In the end, we created a 1.0 version of a vision-to-action plan.Want to see it? Email rich@faithink.com.
TODAY: UMC Future, Version 1.1
The second dozen UMC leaders - all recommended by their Bishops and/or regional leadership folks - show up to do this all over again. They're landing in Aspen as we speak. We'll walk these folks through the same process before we show them last week's work. Then we'll combine the two-week's work to create a version 1.1 of the action plan for those pioneer UMC churches who wish to birth an "incubation" model for faith education with the parents at the core - not the sidelines - of Christian education.
NEXT WEEK: Version 1.2
When these folks leave, I'll teach at FIRST UMC in West Chicago on Saturday, and Zion Lutheran in Ann Arbor on Sunday. Then it's back to host 17 "old Lutheran FINKS" as we look at where the faith incubation movement has been in the last 15 years, look at the moment in Lutheran settings, look at the UMC plans and commit to blessings and helping our UMC friends as they work to shift the "parent-less drop off Sunday School program into a "parent involved "process over the next three years in our UMC test churches.
A Version 1.2 plan will be suggested, based on the "Old FINKs" experience of testing faith inkubations in their parishes. (An "Old FINK" is leader who has been with us for a decade or more with a heart for family ministry calls parents to the CORE of the "every night in every home" faith incubation process.)
With three weeks of vision-to-action work under our belts, we'll publish a white paper on "Faith Incubation and the Future of the UMC" and invite folks to fly it around the church for comments, clarification, critique, and, if need be, criticism. (Your critics aren't your enemies. They make you think. They make you tweak. They make you better.)
When the dust settles after Christmas, we'll invite folks to host discussions in 50 states before Easter, then set up two additional Aspen get-aways, and figure out what the summer and fall need to look like.
*PS: Our Faith Inkubators Foundation is footing the bill to facilitate this process. We've been 85% Lutheran all these years, but in this rebooting world of Protestantism, it's probably time to stop being so pariochial and siloed.
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