Dreams and Realities in the UMC

Blue Oceans and Red Oceans

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." - Eames (Inception)

When I had just started seminary in 2002, I met a student who was in his last year of seminary. He worked on campus in the library and being a book worm myself I was a little bit jealous. I remember we were instantly connected through our love of Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, and all things nerdy. He had this huge dream of a ministry in a comic book shop over role playing games and the latest issue of Batman. Then we talked about something even more radical! He wanted to start an online community of nerds and faith! Now you have to remember this was right at the beginning of Facebook (you still had to have an .edu address to even sign up for it!) Myspace was the only real active online community. Blogging was in its infancy. There was no iPhone yet. Apple stock was trading at $13 on a good day. Being a nerd, I was instantly hooked and a tad bit jealous! I thought this guy is brilliant and has an untapped ministry for the future. I remembered him letting me read through his papers for the Board of Ordained Ministry about his calling.

Halfway through the spring semester in 2003, I came into the library and saw him sitting down. His face was looking down, dejected. All the life and excitement that he had for months previous was drained out of him. At the time I didn’t have a clue to what happened and quickly approached him hoping to help. He said he had just been before the Board of Ordained Ministry. They had discontinued him as a candidate for ordained ministry. He could try to reapply, but they were not interested in a “comic book church.” His entire dream was crushed even before he had a shot to pursue it. Four years of seminary for nothing. We talked about other possibilities, but I could tell it wasn’t what he wanted. He felt rejected. Little did I know that this encounter would not be my last of such encounters in The United Methodist Church.

For the past 10 years of my ministry I have sat on a District Committee on Ordained Ministry Board in my district. Just about every year we have someone who comes before us with a radical dream like a comic book church and just about every year we discontinue someone. This is not because the ideas are great ideas. They are entrepreneurial ideas, radical ideas, and new ideas! I have heard dreams of opening a restaurant where people heard about Jesus every night over good food. I have heard dreams of a church of oil field/platform workers where the minister worked along side them in the field.

However, what the system requires right now are pastors who are appointable for generic local churches. I remember one year having a conversation around the table and the question was asked would this candidate for ministry be able to serve a church anywhere in our conference? This is system question! This is what I mean when I say our system is broken. Because if the answer is no then we have to move onto the next candidate.

The truth of the matter is every single clergy cannot serve every single church.

This is not to disparage clergy or churches. I have served enough to know at some churches my ministry worked and at some churches my ministry failed. The pattern that I have only just begun to notice is that in places where my ministry and the church’s context aligned we flourished, and in places where my ministry and the church’s context did not we floundered.

I confess both as a chair of DCOM and member of DCOM I have voted to discontinue candidates who might have very fruitful ministries in very specific settings. Every single one I have felt awful about afterwards because every single one reminded me of my friend in seminary. They have a beautiful calling to ministry, but it is not the ministries we currently have places for in our system. I repent of my own participation in a system where people with real callings, big dreams, and specific ministry opportunities are crushed.

We try to operate a plug and play system where everyone functions exactly the same in different contexts and in different places across the conference. We continue to try to force square pegs into round holes. And itineracy and guaranteed appointments make it worse! Because we buy into the belief that if someone has success here then they will do great there. Know what I have seen happen time and time again? A pastor who does great in one appointment move to another one and struggle to even be in ministry!

I have had phone conversations with dear friends who are struggling year after year in a place where they don’t fit. People aren’t interchangeable and yet we keep treating them like they are. Just like we treat our churches like they are all the same. They aren’t! Every single one is unique and requires different approaches to ministry. Approaches that pastors only begin to discover in year five right before they are moved to the next context.

Want a reality check? The United Methodist Church has treated their local churches as the equivalent of a McDonald’s franchise for the past 50 years. Simply continue to pay your franchise fees (apportionments) and you get a new manager every 2-3 years or so. These managers have been trained in the McDonald’s way and will guarantee the same service experience at every church. It is my belief that this mode of operating has led us down the current path we are on now. Frustrated churches and burned out pastors! This isn’t healthy to anyone, and it doesn’t create new disciples.

Want another reality check? Nobody wants to go to McDonald’s. Every town has one and they serve the same menu that they have served for the past 50 years, but outside of an iced coffee, an occasional fry, or a kids Happy Meal the era of people purposely choosing to visit a McDonald’s for their amazing food is not something you will hear. Think about when you travel to a new place. Do you ask yourself where is the nearest McDonald’s or do you ask yourself where is the place that the locals eat? People want churches that are intentionally incarnational in their specific cultural and contextual settings. We recently met colleagues from Oklahoma and Missouri in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Know what food they wanted every meal? Authentic Louisiana Seafood! Not one person said they wanted a Filet-O-Fish Sandwich.

I find it ironic that I am in a program right now helping my church and myself locate our specific purpose and calling within our contextual settings when for so long I was part of a committee that dismissed people whose specific contextual calling didn’t fit our molds. Or perhaps you might find it ironic that 20 years after my friend was dismissed from ministry in The United Methodist Church there is finally someone offering a Church for Nerds.

An article from the Harvard Business Review we are currently reading is called Blue Ocean Strategy. In it Kim and Mauborgne detail how Blue Oceans are different from Red Oceans. Blue Oceans are all the industries not in existence today. The unknown marketplace. Whereas Red Oceans represent all the industries already in existence. The current marketplace. They detail how sometimes a blue ocean is created from a red ocean and thereby costs the red ocean something. The example the authors use is Cirque Du Soleil. They are a circus troupe that created a new marketplace for circus acts with acrobatics, costumes, and immersive stories, but it came at the cost of traditional circuses (Red Oceans).

Right after I was approved as a provisional member, they put me on the Board of Discipleship. I had no clue what we were supposed to do, so I mainly listened to their reporting. After all I was only a provisional member. We gave money to various groups: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, UMM, UMW, a couple of retreat camps, and paid for some event on evangelism, discipleship, etc… about once a year. At the end of the meeting, a younger, bolder me spoke up. I asked one question: “Do any of these things we spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on every year move the needle of discipleship?” I don’t remember much after that except the stares like daggers.

What I did do while I was on the Conference Board of Discipleship was to get all their money moved into a new program called Fresh Expressions of Church. I was closely following the Anglican Church’s own program in the UK and thought this is the future. So we started giving away micro grants to communities starting new ministries unique to their cultural and contextual backgrounds. It was begun with a shaky start and two of us on the Board as the initial proponents of it. Now Fresh Expressions has its own group and promoters, but when we started it was like pulling teeth to get churches to move and try something new. The cost of trying something new might be doing away with something old.

The United Methodist Church is doing business today like a red ocean and wondering why we continue to shrink every year. More and more of the church red ocean marketplace is going to nondenominational churches instead of mainline denominations. This is because they are doing red ocean church ministry better than we are. They have much leaner systems, a more focused strategy, intentionally local programing, and are usually extremely culturally integrated.

It is my belief that the entire denomination needs a Fresh Expression. Not just a grant program here, a tattoo parlor there, or a food truck over there. From our ministry orders to our calling to our churches. We need to rework and revamp our system to dream a little bigger. Maybe more of our dreams might become realities for the future. However, I do not think that this is possible in a denomination that is still arguing over property or people or money or whatever else we use as an excuse. It is possible in a denomination that is unencumbered by a system of maintenance, deeply rooted in the local church context for flourishing ministry, and healthy pastors who feel like they are living out their true calling.