Berkley First UMC already knew the benefits of teaming with other churches because its youth group consists of a partnership with the Presbyterian and Lutheran churches in town. So it’s no surprise that they are leading the charge for a new cooperative parish with a collection of United Methodist congregations in Lower Michigan.
Rev. George Covintree said the harsh realities of the economy have been affecting nearby neighborhoods and communities the past couple of years, and partnership seemed like a giant leap in the right direction.
Covintree scripted a letter to nine churches whose membership numbers were between 86 and 300 people, and on Jan. 23 pastors and lay leaders from seven churches joined together to begin making a call to action.
While nothing is official at this point, and with Covintree assigned to a new appointment later this year, the group wrote its mission statement on March 19 and has been making headway ever since.
Its mission statement, which can be found at the emerging co-op’s website (http://se-oakland-cooperative.info/), includes “always re-thinking church,” collaborating on development opportunities for the good of all, and ensuring the strength and vitality of the co-op through prayer.
“As I said in the initiating letter, we can link this with the ‘Rethink Church’ campaign, by just seeing what we can do differently, seeing what vision we can create through the strengths of our churches and connectionalism,” Covintree said. “We can work with the individual gifts and graces we have, rather than each one of us being on our own and having to do everything at each place.”
Shared VBS events are in the works and the idea of people attending different types of services at co-op churches once in a while is being floated around.
Covintree said people need to worry less about how a church will be affected when people are absent from a service, and consider how varying worship styles can draw a wider array of churchgoers.
Similarly, local mission work seems to be much easier when there are more than a thousand people to call on instead of just a few hundred.
A recent Habitat For Humanity project spoke to that point.
“You look at that, and there’s just two people from Berkley that signed up to work,” Covintree said.
“But you add those two to the six from another church and four from another church and all of a sudden you have a decent crew. It’s something by ourselves we might say we don’t have enough people to do that, but as a co-op we can.”
Detroit East District Superintendent Duane Miller said he hopes the partnership keeps growing and an official cooperative parish is the end result.
“People bought in real quickly, because they are all facing the same types of financial realities,” he said. “Some are facing the point where they can’t afford a full-time pastor anymore, and if they’re going to continue to offer the same services they have in the past, they’re going to have to do it a different way.”
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