• By Bill Dobbs, Clergy Assistant to the Bishop •
Question: This month’s question came from a younger pastor at Annual Conference who came up to me right after the ordination service, face still full of the emotion we all were feeling, and said, “What now? What do I do with all this passion and enthusiasm for ministry with the poor in my local church?”
Dobbs: I recognize the question. It’s the same question I’ve heard from youth over the years when I was counseling at one of our summer camps. (Shameless plug: Christian camp counseling is an outstanding opportunity to share with, and learn from, children and youth, and I highly recommend it, pastors!)
More than one teenager, full of a week of faith-changing time, has been disillusioned when they arrive home only to find that people at home don’t share their newfound enthusiasm for the faith. Even worse: they find a kind of patronizing tolerance which knows, from experience, that if you just wait a while, the “camp fires of enthusiasm” will pass and things will go back to normal!
Will that be our experience of annual conference this year? Will we go home, full of enthusiasm for what we have heard and experienced, and find a congregation that does not share our passion for ministry with the poor? Will we find a congregation that has come to expect these annual surges of enthusiasm on our part, but which knows, from experience, that they only have to be patient for a time and the enthusiasm will pass. “How can this year be different?” the pastor asked. Please let me share, briefly, something of what I’ve learned over the years:
First, do everything you can to help those who were not at annual conference share your experience. It is much easier today that it used to be, but the principle still holds true. Get together with your lay or clergy partner at annual conference and develop a strategy for reporting back on annual conference. Don’t let that report just be about the ‘business’ of conference, even if that was part of what excited you.
Share the messages you heard and the things you saw. If your people were following the ‘live-stream’ of the conference, that will be even better, but there are recordings and videos of the conference which are available for you to use as a way to tell the story of annual conference. Just don’t wait too long. Your excitement will be contagious.
Second, don’t get discouraged. Your people were not there. They didn’t have your experience, so they don’t share your excitement. But that doesn’t mean they can’t get excited or don’t care about the poor.
They have been called by Christ, just like you. The Holy Spirit will change them just like you have been changed, if you keep the door open to God. Share the stories you heard and how they impacted you.
Your personal witness is powerful testimony that God can use to reach others, so keep sharing.
Finally, don’t try to do this alone. Partner with the other person or persons from your congregation who attended annual conference with you. Form a small group. Invite people with like minds and passions to join you. Become an “Acts Two” church within a church. Devote yourselves “to the apostles teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper) and to prayer” (Acts 2:42, NLT).
And then hang on! God did “signs and wonders” in that first century church. People were changed – transformed by the Holy Spirit – so that they shared their money and meals, joyfully and generously, with those in need. And I’m here to tell you that God will do “signs and wonders” in your church as well! Thanks be to God!
It all begins with you. You must be willing to share what God has given you in these few days of annual conference! Don’t go back to business as usual or that is, most assuredly, what you will find.
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