William H. Willimon - Sermon Untitled (April 29, 1996)
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| Man | We're rolling whenever you're ready. | 0:04 |
| - | Okay. | 0:06 |
| What are three critical issues | 0:09 | |
| that face our church in the future? | 0:12 | |
| I think the first issue that would | 0:16 | |
| come to my mind is appointments. | 0:18 | |
| Surely one of the most important things our bishops do | 0:22 | |
| is to appoint clergy leaders to congregations. | 0:24 | |
| A bishop has the responsibility to ensure that there is | 0:29 | |
| a good fit between the mission of a particular congregation | 0:33 | |
| and the gifts and the graces of a particular clergy person. | 0:37 | |
| When I travel about our connection, I find | 0:43 | |
| that many believe we have a crisis of leadership today. | 0:45 | |
| And so I would work for a fair, | 0:49 | |
| rational, responsive system of appointments, | 0:54 | |
| a system based not on factors | 1:00 | |
| of gender or seniority | 1:04 | |
| or many of the other factors that have alas been used | 1:07 | |
| to make appointments in recent years, but rather mission. | 1:11 | |
| I want each church to be led to a statement | 1:15 | |
| of their particular mission and then to fit | 1:18 | |
| that mission statement with the gifts | 1:21 | |
| and graces of particular clergy. | 1:23 | |
| I think we are in a crisis of leadership | 1:26 | |
| where many of our laity and clergy are wondering | 1:31 | |
| about the rationality of our present system. | 1:35 | |
| That is the first critical issue I think | 1:38 | |
| that must be addressed by every bishop in our church. | 1:41 | |
| Man | Stop there, and let me just kind of. | 1:45 |
| And we're rolling. | 1:48 | |
| - | What are three critical issues facing our bishops today? | 1:53 |
| The first issue that would come to my mind is | 1:58 | |
| the appointment of our clergy. | 2:00 | |
| Surely one of the most important things a bishop does | 2:02 | |
| is to appoint pastoral leaders for our churches. | 2:04 | |
| As I travel about the connection, | 2:08 | |
| I feel there is a crisis of trust | 2:10 | |
| in our ability to appoint | 2:14 | |
| to the right people in the right places. | 2:17 | |
| A bishop has to ensure that there is a good fit | 2:20 | |
| between a congregation's mission | 2:23 | |
| and the gifts and graces of the clergy | 2:26 | |
| appointed to help lead that mission. | 2:29 | |
| We need an appointment system which is obviously rational | 2:31 | |
| and understood, fair and, above all, based on mission. | 2:36 | |
| The mission of the local church should be primary | 2:41 | |
| in appointment-making, not seniority | 2:44 | |
| or primarily questions of salary, et cetera, but mission. | 2:47 | |
| We clergy exist to help | 2:51 | |
| the local congregation fulfill its mission. | 2:53 | |
| Second, I would think that a major concern of our bishops | 2:57 | |
| ought to be empowering the local church. | 3:01 | |
| My great long-term interest in the restructuring | 3:05 | |
| of our church is motivated in great part on my concern | 3:09 | |
| that our structure has disempowered the local congregation. | 3:14 | |
| Too often we've come to think that the good ideas | 3:18 | |
| flow from the top down, whereas I keep saying | 3:21 | |
| the really good ideas flow from the bottom up, | 3:26 | |
| that is the church, in its annual conference | 3:31 | |
| and general conference manifestations, | 3:34 | |
| exists to empower the local congregation | 3:37 | |
| in the fulfillment of their mission. | 3:41 | |
| The structure, our leadership shouldn't be that which is | 3:43 | |
| an impediment to mission but which is | 3:46 | |
| an encouragement, facilitator of mission. | 3:48 | |
| And then the third area I would have to say would be | 3:51 | |
| that our bishops need to work at evangelism. | 3:54 | |
| I'm in campus ministry here at Duke | 3:58 | |
| and work with young adults, and our church has lost | 4:00 | |
| an entire generation of young people | 4:03 | |
| to our church, and we could do better. | 4:08 | |
| Too often we have given our energies and creativity | 4:12 | |
| toward internal maintenance issues | 4:17 | |
| when I think we need to give more attention | 4:20 | |
| to external issues, reaching others. | 4:22 | |
| The church turned outward to the world, | 4:27 | |
| this is surely part of our historic Wesleyan genius, | 4:29 | |
| and it is a an aspect of our church we must recover. | 4:34 | |
| Appointments, empowering the local church | 4:39 | |
| and evangelism come to mind. | 4:42 | |
| Now, what can a bishop do to lead, | 4:45 | |
| to motivate us in this direction? | 4:48 | |
| Well, I think, first of all, our bishops need to listen. | 4:52 | |
| They need to be in the local churches. | 4:56 | |
| They need to be with the people on the front line, | 4:58 | |
| pastors and laypeople, listening to the frustrations, | 5:01 | |
| to the hopes, the visions of the local congregation. | 5:05 | |
| We don't need absentee bishops during a time like ours. | 5:09 | |
| I think our church is in crisis. | 5:14 | |
| We've got to have bishops willing to stay | 5:16 | |
| in their Episcopal area to work at the needs | 5:18 | |
| that are there in their Episcopal area. | 5:23 | |
| I think that is crucial. | 5:27 | |
| Too often our bishops have concerned themselves | 5:29 | |
| and become entangled in general church committees | 5:31 | |
| and commissions and concerns. | 5:35 | |
| I think they need to know that the center of their ministry | 5:37 | |
| is within that annual conference. | 5:42 | |
| And then, after listening and being present, | 5:45 | |
| bishops preach, and I love to preach. | 5:49 | |
| They can teach. | 5:52 | |
| We in our church, I think, are in a kind of crisis | 5:54 | |
| of doctrine, a crisis of identity. | 5:57 | |
| Who are we? | 6:00 | |
| Wesley used to organize his original annual conferences | 6:02 | |
| along the questions, what to preach, | 6:06 | |
| that is, what is our message, what to teach, | 6:09 | |
| that is, what is our doctrine, | 6:13 | |
| what is the basic form of our faith, | 6:15 | |
| and then finally ask, what to do? | 6:17 | |
| I think those three questions are still | 6:20 | |
| or perhaps even more valuable for us today. | 6:23 | |
| Bishops can write, share their ideas, | 6:27 | |
| and interchange with our people, and I also enjoy writing. | 6:30 | |
| I think, alas, too often the bishops we have been electing, | 6:35 | |
| as I've said, have been managers rather than leaders. | 6:40 | |
| I think a bishop should be a person with ideas, | 6:43 | |
| should be willing for those ideas to be exposed | 6:46 | |
| to the examination of the wider church, | 6:48 | |
| and then be present in the interchange | 6:51 | |
| as we all work on energizing and changing our church. | 6:55 | |
| Finally, what is my vision for our church? | 7:03 | |
| I've been critical of our church, | 7:08 | |
| and I've been criticized for my criticism, | 7:10 | |
| but overall I'm extremely hopeful. | 7:13 | |
| I think we United Methodists have | 7:15 | |
| a wonderful way of structuring ourselves | 7:17 | |
| for mission if we will make that primary. | 7:21 | |
| I think we have a marvelous system of clergy deployment | 7:24 | |
| in that we clergy are important to the church | 7:27 | |
| only on the basis of what needs | 7:31 | |
| to be done in the local congregation. | 7:33 | |
| I feel that we are poised for a great period | 7:36 | |
| of renewal and rethinking. | 7:40 | |
| I believe that we're turning the corner | 7:42 | |
| on our decades of denial. | 7:45 | |
| It's hard to imagine an organization | 7:48 | |
| which has lost 20% of its constituency | 7:50 | |
| in the last two decades that has not made | 7:53 | |
| really one major structural change | 7:58 | |
| in the way we do business. | 8:03 | |
| I get the feeling that that may be behind us, | 8:06 | |
| that we have increasing numbers of us | 8:08 | |
| that are ready to ask the tough questions, | 8:11 | |
| to face the reality, to think, to dream, to re-envision. | 8:13 | |
| And I think it would be a great opportunity to be | 8:19 | |
| part of the church during this period of renewal. | 8:22 | |
| We Wesleyans have always been known to be practical people. | 8:26 | |
| What works is what's good. | 8:31 | |
| The church exists to be impacting the world | 8:34 | |
| and spreading the Gospel and moving out and reaching others. | 8:36 | |
| I want that vision to be regained, and I'm hopeful, | 8:41 | |
| excited, energetic, feel that it can be regained, | 8:45 | |
| particularly if our leaders hold us accountable | 8:49 | |
| to the best that is within us, | 8:52 | |
| hold us accountable to the strengths of our tradition, | 8:54 | |
| and then help us to move forward. | 8:58 | |
| Thank you. | 9:01 | |
| Man | Okay, whenever you're ready. | 9:13 |
| - | What are three critical issues | 9:18 |
| which face our bishops in our church? | 9:19 | |
| Well, the first issue that would | 9:24 | |
| come to my mind is appointments. | 9:25 | |
| One of the most important things a bishop does | 9:28 | |
| is to appoint clergy to local churches, | 9:30 | |
| and as I travel about our connection, | 9:32 | |
| I feel it can be said there is a crisis | 9:35 | |
| of trust in our appointment system, | 9:38 | |
| on the part of both clergy and laity. | 9:40 | |
| A bishop has got to demonstrate that appointments of clergy | 9:43 | |
| are made in a rational, open, fair and caring way, | 9:47 | |
| and that they are made on the basis of mission, | 9:53 | |
| an assessment of that local congregation's mission | 9:57 | |
| and an assessment of that particular pastor's gifts | 10:01 | |
| and abilities to help that congregation be in mission. | 10:05 | |
| Bishops have got to work at appointment-making. | 10:09 | |
| Then I would say the next critical issue | 10:15 | |
| is to empower the local congregation. | 10:17 | |
| Empowerment of the local congregation | 10:21 | |
| is related to wise appointment-making, | 10:23 | |
| but it's also related into the structure, | 10:27 | |
| the way we do business. | 10:29 | |
| My decade-long concern with the structure of our church | 10:31 | |
| is based upon my deep faith in the local congregation | 10:35 | |
| as the chief locus of our church's ministry. | 10:40 | |
| I believe all good ideas, in a sense, | 10:43 | |
| flow from the bottom up, rather than, as our structure | 10:46 | |
| would make you to believe, from the top down. | 10:50 | |
| I think we've disempowered our congregations | 10:53 | |
| with the way we've appointed clergy, | 10:56 | |
| with the way we have done our business. | 10:59 | |
| I want to return a sense of vision | 11:01 | |
| and empowerment to the local congregation, | 11:04 | |
| so that everything is dependent upon that congregation | 11:07 | |
| coming to a sense of its own mission | 11:12 | |
| in its particular time and place, | 11:15 | |
| and then our larger connection giving that church | 11:17 | |
| what it needs to fulfill its God-given mission. | 11:20 | |
| The third critical area I would mention is | 11:24 | |
| something dear to my heart and that is evangelism. | 11:27 | |
| Our church has been too internally concerned, | 11:31 | |
| expending too much energy and resources | 11:35 | |
| and time on purely internal concerns | 11:37 | |
| and not enough energy and creativity | 11:42 | |
| and innovation expended on external concern, | 11:45 | |
| the world about us, the people who need us. | 11:50 | |
| I work here at Duke, on a university campus, | 11:53 | |
| and so I am deeply concerned | 11:56 | |
| about our young people, our young adults and youth. | 11:58 | |
| And yet our church has had a sad record | 12:03 | |
| in the past two decades with this particular age group. | 12:05 | |
| It is as if we have lost an entire generation. | 12:08 | |
| I would want to work to change that, | 12:13 | |
| to ask our church, what changes do we need to make | 12:15 | |
| among ourselves in our own self-understanding, | 12:19 | |
| our own definitions of the church, | 12:21 | |
| to turn our church more outward, to reach, to teach, | 12:24 | |
| to preach, to integrate new life into our churches? | 12:28 | |
| That would also go for my great concern | 12:32 | |
| about the excluding ethnic population in the United States, | 12:34 | |
| a population which we, alas, as United Methodists, | 12:38 | |
| have not been doing well in reaching. | 12:41 | |
| I think that our failure to evangelize | 12:43 | |
| both our younger generation | 12:46 | |
| and the exploding ethnic population | 12:48 | |
| are due in part to the way we have structured ourselves, | 12:51 | |
| to the way we have deployed and utilized | 12:55 | |
| our clergy, to our failure to undergird | 12:58 | |
| the local congregation and reaching out. | 13:02 | |
| Now, what can a bishop do to lead, | 13:07 | |
| to motivate a church to attain these visions? | 13:10 | |
| I think the first thing a bishop can do is to listen, | 13:15 | |
| to get down in the local church, | 13:18 | |
| to listen to those people there, their frustrations | 13:21 | |
| and their dreams, their hopes for our church. | 13:25 | |
| This means that we need bishops to be present. | 13:28 | |
| During a time of crisis, which I think our church is in, | 13:31 | |
| we can't afford absentee bishops. | 13:35 | |
| Our bishops, many of them have spent | 13:38 | |
| far too much time getting entangled | 13:40 | |
| in general church commissions and committees and processes | 13:42 | |
| and not enough time in residence | 13:45 | |
| working within their annual conference. | 13:47 | |
| And I think that is essential, to keep the bishops | 13:50 | |
| close to their Episcopal area. | 13:53 | |
| A lot of internal work needs to go on | 13:56 | |
| so that we can be an external mission. | 13:58 | |
| Bishops can preach, and I love to preach. | 14:01 | |
| Bishops can teach the faith of the church. | 14:04 | |
| A lot of United Methodists say they don't know who they are. | 14:08 | |
| There's a crisis of identity. | 14:10 | |
| Who are we? | 14:12 | |
| What is the basis of the faith? | 14:13 | |
| Teaching the faith is important. | 14:15 | |
| A bishop can write, and I enjoy doing that, | 14:18 | |
| putting one's ideas out before the whole church | 14:21 | |
| for examination and discussion. | 14:23 | |
| Alas, I think for the past couple of decades, | 14:26 | |
| as I have said, at many places, | 14:30 | |
| we have been electing managers rather than leaders, | 14:31 | |
| managers who merely keep the status quo | 14:36 | |
| rather than help the church in dreaming | 14:38 | |
| and envisioning and moving forward. | 14:41 | |
| Well, I think a bishop should be a person of ideas, | 14:44 | |
| a person who is in constant interaction with the church | 14:48 | |
| about how to make our most lively future. | 14:50 | |
| What is my vision for the United Methodist Church? | 14:55 | |
| Well, I'm hopeful. | 14:59 | |
| I've been critical of our church, | 15:00 | |
| and some have criticized me for my criticism, | 15:02 | |
| but I want to assure you that my criticism of our church | 15:04 | |
| arises from my deep love and faith in United Methodism. | 15:08 | |
| We've got a wonderful church | 15:14 | |
| and a wonderful way of going at ministry. | 15:15 | |
| The United Methodist Church, from our Wesleyan roots, | 15:19 | |
| inherits the idea that the church exists | 15:23 | |
| to take part in Christ's service to the world. | 15:26 | |
| Therefore, at our best, everything, | 15:31 | |
| clergy, laity, the structure of the church, | 15:33 | |
| everything is subordinate to mission. | 15:35 | |
| What works is what's good. | 15:38 | |
| We are practical people. | 15:40 | |
| I believe, from my travels about our connection, | 15:43 | |
| that we are turning the corner | 15:45 | |
| on now a couple of decades of denial, | 15:47 | |
| that we are at last ready to confront some tough issues. | 15:51 | |
| We're ready to dream and to revision. | 15:55 | |
| It's hard to imagine an organization like ours | 15:59 | |
| that has lost 20% of its constituency | 16:02 | |
| and much of its giving power in the past two decades, | 16:05 | |
| where we have not made really one fundamental change. | 16:09 | |
| I believe we're turning a corner on that, | 16:15 | |
| and we are ready to move forward. | 16:17 | |
| People are looking for voices of change, | 16:19 | |
| of innovation, of new thinking. | 16:23 | |
| People are looking for ideas. | 16:26 | |
| And I find it exciting to be part of that change, | 16:28 | |
| and would welcome the opportunity to help lead | 16:33 | |
| in what I think may be | 16:37 | |
| one of our greatest decades of United Methodism. | 16:39 | |
| Thank you. | 16:45 |