Are we reaching people for Jesus Christ?

Two events significantly impacted me over the past month.  The first brought great joy and celebration. 

We were completing a Conference Council on Finance and Administration meeting when Rev. Dan Boyd shared the joy of seeing a large number of youth and adults participate in a Confirmation Preparation event, receive the sacrament of baptism (for many of these persons had never been part of a congregation before), and joining a United Methodist Church in Carlsbad.  He was rejoicing at the large number of professions of faith that occurred.  My recall is that over forty persons joined a United Methodist Church that weekend.  I thought to myself, “They get it.  The business of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  The task is certainly not complete.  These persons need to be nurtured, equipped, and deployed to transform their community and the world, but they are moving in the right direction. 

The second event occurred when I asked Cathy Anderson to provide me with statistics for my report to the Jurisdictional Episcopal Committee.  I report the growth in the number of professions of faith this quadrennium compared to the previous quadrennium.  I feared the results would not be positive.  The rate of decline startled me.  The New Mexico congregations received 200 less persons each year on Profession of Faith than in previous years.  We failed to reach the people in our communities who do not know Jesus Christ.  Over 40% of our congregations did not reach a single person in the past year.  This means that most congregations failed to reach three or four persons they had been reaching in previous years.  My heart cried out in pain.  If we are not reaching people for Jesus Christ, have we lost our reason for existing? 

Some congregations in the Conference are reaching people.  They are telling the stories of Jesus in such powerful ways that people are following Jesus.  We simply do not have enough of them. 

We learned at the Council of Bishops meeting that 16% of United Methodist Churches are vital—meaning they are growing in membership over time, growing in missional giving and outreach, and growing in the number of people involved in small groups.  We Council members overwhelmingly committed ourselves to focus attention, energy and resources to increase the number of vital congregations that are effective in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  This is not a onetime effort, but will be the focus for the next ten years.

Part of that effort will be the recording of statistics on a weekly basis to see how we are doing in each congregation compared to previous years and goals each congregation has established.  Each church will be encouraged to include stories of what is happening in their community of faith that more fully expresses their faithfulness in making disciples of Jesus Christ.  It is an effort, at both the conference level and national level, to hold one another accountable to the commission that Jesus has given to us.

Five different areas will be recorded each week based on a belief of what disciples do:

• Worship regularly - worship attendance
• Help to make new disciples - professions of faith
• Engage in growing in their faith - small groups
• Engage in missions - persons involved in community and world missions
• Share by giving in mission - money given to mission

We will see on a weekly basis whether we are reaching our goals or need to adopt better strategies and tactics to accomplish what we believe God is calling us to do as disciples of Jesus Christ.

I recognize that other individuals might choose other aspects of the corporate life of disciples.  However, I expect that most people would affirm these above measures are important elements in expressing Christian discipleship.  I look forward to looking back and seeing positive rather than negative results as an expression of our love of Jesus.