Burning Questions with Bill Volume 3: Clergy Assistant to Bishop discusses responses to cultural change and the future of pastorates

Bill Dobbs

By Bill Dobbs, Clergy Assistant to the Bishop

Question: Is there any conversation within the UMC regarding the time between sessions of General Conference and the inability of the (United Methodist) church to respond to a rapidly changing culture?

Dobbs: In all honesty, there are more conversations at the moment than any one observer can keep track of. Of particular interest to me: the “Call to Action” by the Council of Bishops of our church and the various responses from boards and agencies across the broad spectrum that is our denomination.
When my daughter was in high school gymnastics, they had a saying that went something like, “where the head goes, the body will follow.” I have found that to be a reasonably accurate metaphor for the church’s leadership.
If we pay attention to the Episcopal leadership of our church, we can get a pretty good idea of where we might be headed in the years ahead. You can find the Call to Action available on-line and I would encourage you to join that denominational conversation.
A second part of my answer is that our Church and, more specifically, our two conferences have been responding to cultural changes. While we may not be a quick about it as people would like, it strikes me as a significant improvement from years past. Things like changes in leadership structure — at every level from Conference Council on Ministries to local church task forces — and on both sides of US27, along with increased use of technology and need-based deployment of ever-more limited human resources have all been put in place without Disciplinary changes at the General Conference level.


Question: What do you envision for future pastorates trying to deal with the high costs of pensions, health insurance, etc. for congregations?

Dobbs: My answer to that question is something that my experience suggests very few people in the pulpit or the pew want to hear —namely “change!” We are going to need to change the way we envision church and, more importantly, the way we implement change. Everyone from the Bishop to the C.E. (Christmas and Easter) Christian will need to take the responsibility to initiate and follow through on change.
We can’t wait for someone else to “fix the problem.” It is our problem and we can all be part of the answer. Everything from bi-vocational pastorates to cooperative parishes must be on the table, and it cannot just be continued downsizing and reductions as the solution. Can you imagine where we would be today if Wesley and Asbury’s only option was to shrink the size of the church to meet the available resources?
I don’t know every step of the way forward, but I do believe that together we can, with the help of God, take the steps necessary to get through this wilderness we find ourselves in at the moment and come out stronger and healthier on the other side.

If you would like to submit a question, please contact me at bdobbs@miareaumc.org. Thanks for letting me share this time with you.

Posted in: Bill Dobbs,general conference,pastorate