Large church initiative provides support system to pastors

A UMNS photo courtesy of St. Andrew UMC Saint Andrew United Methodist Church in Denver is one of the hosts for the Large Church Initiative gathering.

The large-membership United Methodist churches have a responsibility to be responsive and helpful to the rest of the denomination, according to a pastor who leads an initiative that supports large congregations.

"We are an organization of churches helping each other," said the Rev. Robert Pierson, chairman of the Large Church Initiative and pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Okla. "People who know best about large church work are those doing it," he said. "We are in partnership with the Board of Discipleship but run by pastors of large churches. All of us have the responsibility to help each other."

The initiative is an association of large congregations working together to strengthen the United Methodist Church and to make disciples of Jesus Christ, Pierson said.

"Our basic method of operation is peer ministry, helping each other," he said. "Our goals are diverse, depending upon what the needs of the church are at the time. Our future emphasis will be to provide means and methods where the larger churches can be more supportive of the many smaller churches in our denomination."

Each year, pastors of large-membership churches from across the United States gather for a conference, sponsored jointly by the Large-Church Initiative Steering Committee and the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. The steering committee comprises a bishop and 14 senior pastors from large churches.

This year’s gathering, set for April 26-29 in Denver, will provide a place for networking, sharing ideas, and giving and receiving encouragement for ministry. The 460 registered participants are being hosted by Trinity United Methodist and Saint Andrew United Methodist churches in Denver and First United Methodist and Sunrise United Methodist churches in Colorado Springs.

The Rev. Vance Ross

Fifteen years ago, the Board of Discipleship helped start the initiative as a support system for churches with 1,000 members or more and for churches with an average attendance of 250 or more in worship. About 3,000 U.S. churches in the denomination have an average attendance of more than 250. And of the 26,367 United Methodist churches in America, about 6,500 have more than 200 members—and nearly 100 have more than 3,000 members.

Conference workshops will focus on the spiritual leadership necessary for pastoral, administrative and programmatic areas of the large church and community.

The initiative and the annual gatherings are places of peer learning, collegiality and inspiration, said the Rev. Vance Ross, a staff member at the Board of Discipleship. Church leaders attend the gathering for "cohesion, connection and divine possibility-thinking," he said.

The initiative and the annual gatherings play a role in the overall context of responding to the United Methodist Church’s mission to make disciples of Christ. The initiative conducts conferences on worship in large-membership churches, children’s ministries, and teaching churches—those that host events to help other churches learn—and a first-time senior pastors’ conference. Future conferences will revolve around multi-site ministries, developing large churches as mentors for other congregations, and helping downtown churches build ministries.

The pastors in the Large Church Initiative are leading growth in their annual conferences and can become "markers for what other churches can do," Ross continued. Although the annual sessions cater to leaders of large-membership churches, the events are open to others. "These churches can be inspired and hope for growth in spiritual maturity and growth in numbers," Ross said.

Conference leadership includes the Rev. James Forbes, Bishop Bruce Ough, coach Fisher DeBerry, Linda Alvarado, Phil Yancey, and the Rev. Janet Forbes. They will help the participants address the issues reflected in the conference’s theme: "A Rendezvous in the Rockies: Meeting the Challenge of Spiritual Leadership in Large Membership Churches."

A UMNS photo courtesy of St. Andrew UMC The Large Church Initiative supports churches with an average attendance of 250 or more in worship.

"Things are not any different except in context," Pierson said. Large churches in the United Methodist denomination are getting larger, while small membership churches are getting smaller, he said.

"The unique challenges have to do with the greater resources that a larger church has, greater complexity of organization, staffing the larger church has, and the greater potential that a larger church has to make disciples and to impact the community," he said.

Both large and small-membership churches face a challenge in the decline of the church’s U.S. membership, Pierson said. "The decline is due in part to the secularism that is pulling people from church," he said. In the past, being in church on Sunday was a part of people’s schedule, he added. "The schedule was clear. There was not a lot of the cultural Christianity like today. A lot of people say they are spiritual but say they are not religious."

The challenge lies in finding ways to help "the consumer-driven American" find what he or she needs spiritually in church, he said.

It is important to know how to balance growth and discipleship, Ross said. "If you grow your people, your people will grow your numbers."

Another challenge is to address the isolation some pastors feel. The isolation is a result of "the competitive nature of our system," Ross said, which can cause jealousies to form.

"The challenge is to maintain a connection that is spiritual rather than only structural," he said. "God calls us toward and for change of the world. We are not called to be part of an organization but part of a movement for change in the world."

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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