Every Place — Engaging Community and World

Group leader: Matt Whitehead

Keynote speaker (Wed 1:30-2:30): Richard Stearns

Exemplars (Wed 2:30-3:30): Dale Woods

Impacting “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth”
The gospel recognizes no boundaries. The gospel solves the puzzles as well as the tragedies of life everywhere. We assert that the followers of Jesus, and the church corporately, are sent beyond their boundaries. Christ-followers abandon a life focused on self and comfort for a life identifying with those to whom they are sent.

These realities push the church from its own place to every place, sometimes following the natural networks of contacts, sometimes hurdling the difficult barriers of culture, language, ethnicity, and geography. The church is sent not only to those just like us, but also to the communities of immigrants that are coming to the U.S., to the ignored and despised, to the strangers and exiles among us, as well as to other countries.

Ministry Group Assignment: To develop proposals, including action plans for presentation to the plenary, regarding the following affirmations:

Our Responsibilities and Opportunities to Those Most Different from Us (Team 4a): Christ loved the whole world and came for the whole world. Free Methodist history provides ample precedence of that love compelling us to a global reach. In addition to these theological and historical motives, we note that the church is expanding today, but not primarily in the West. The church overseas rapidly expands with hardly anything we have come to regard as essential for church life and ministry, yet with essentials that we tend to undervalue. These truths push us to engage with those most unlike us, both to give and to receive.

4a Prompting Questions:

1. How may the international Free Methodist Church speak into the life of the U.S. church, sharing wisdom and passion, with a maturity that recognizes contextual complexities?
2. What models of partnerships with the international church have been fruitful and are reproducible?
3. How does technology open doors to learning and ministry that we haven’t yet envisioned or implemented?
4. How can each church be trained and networked to recognize and respond to available local, national, and global opportunities? How can inexpert churches be guided toward a sophisticated involvement in such ministries, maximizing their fruitfulness and minimizing unhealthy experiences?
5. How may Free Methodist World Missions (FMWM) more fruitfully engage with U.S. local churches, maximizing the potential?
6. How may International Child Care Ministries (ICCM) and other auxiliary international ministries more fruitfully engage with local churches?
7. How can the U.S. best use and share what we do well in an international context?

Our Responsibilities and Opportunities to Those in the Urban United States (Team 4b):
Most of the urban areas of the U.S. present significant challenges to the Free Methodist Church. We are hampered by many factors: the lack of indigenous relationships, our building-centric model, and perhaps the rural tone of our traditions and systems.

4b Prompting Questions:

1. How can we participate in what God wants to do in the urban centers of the U.S. (the Northeast corridor, the San Diego-San Francisco corridor, major cities, etc.)?
2. How can the church’s human resources be leveraged for this challenge?
3. How can existing FM affinity groups — Free Methodist Urban Fellowship (FMUF),  African Heritage Network, Latin Network, Central African Network, etc. — better connect in a unified effort?
4. How can ethnicity, languages, and race be valued among us, and leaders among these groups be encouraged to exercise their gifts in culturally appropriate ways?

Our Responsibilities and Opportunities to Those in Our Own Place (Team 4c,): We have identified the U.S. as a “mission field.” We must respond to the peoples of the world who have come to our place as well as to those from the U.S. who are different enough from us that they have so far been unreachable.

4c Prompting Questions:

1. How can every church identify and respond to those who live near but are not like us?
2. Most believers will not minister overseas, but each could be better prepared to reach those unlike themselves. How do we address the need for missionary training for those ministering cross-culturally at home?
3. How can key partnership opportunities be identified and alliances forged?
4. How can the Free Methodist Church be less of a stand-alone operation and more cooperative without losing our branding and identity?

Read the entire vision statement published by the Board of Bishops:  Download PDF

Related posts:

1. Group Three
2. Group Two
3. Group One
4. Five Resolutions from GC11