| | Metropolitan Community Churches | | Tearing Down Walls. Building Up Hope. | | The Future of Church Planting in MCC | | Rev. Nancy L. Wilson
Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
As 2009 begins, it begins with a transition in MCC's Church Planting ministry and global strategy. Rev. Arlene Ackerman is stepping down as our global leader in Church Planting, and has challenged me to take it on in this next phase. I have accepted that challenge with gratitude, and have taken the last few months to try to understand what saying yes might mean.
I want to begin by thanking Rev. Elder Arlene Ackerman. Arlene has been a pioneer in church growth, our understanding of church size transitions, and in advocacy for children and youth. She took on a challenge when she became an Elder in 2002: to study church planting literature, encourage and mentor church planters in MCC, and begin to invent church planting models for MCC that we could adapt and grow into. I will let her share that journey and its challenges and achievements in her own words - from a presentation she made earlier this year to the Board of Elders and Leadership Team. A link to this presentation is contained below.
Arlene, I am grateful to God for your enormous investment of time, emotional and spiritual energy. It is not easy to be a pioneer, and sometimes all you get is resistance. There has been plenty of that! But, there has also been success, learning and imagining as well. Arlene for all of the trainings, workshops, sermons, phone calls, site visits and conferences, and the legacy you leave, we thank you.
Please add your thanks to mine at revarleneackerman@mccchurch.net
I also want to thank Rev. Karla Fleshman, who for the last two years has served part-time as MCC staff in Church Planting. With Elder Ackerman's guidance and support, Karla has refined and developed many training resources on our website (click here). Her mentoring of church planters around the globe has been deeply appreciated. Karla leaves her position with some insights and suggestions that I value and I hope you will too. Thank you Karla from all of us!
Please add your thanks to mine at revkarla@imagodeimcc.org
| | | 
| MCC Church Planting Reflections
-- To read the full report, click here. | | | 1111111111
11111
111111
1111111
11111111
111111111
1111111111
11111111111
111111111111
1111111111111
111111111111111
111111111111
1111 | | | | 
| Trusting the Church Planting Process
-- | | | What's next?
MCC is forty years old. We have planted many churches, most have survived, many are thriving and growing, some were not sustainable.
No one has planted more churches touching the LGBT community than we have. We have succeeded amazingly, despite overwhelming odds and sometimes we have failed dramatically.
We have wonderful tools, painstakingly developed over years, training modules. We have more church planters per capita than most denominations. We are fearless and bold, and we have an amazing movement that is going more and more global every day.
How do we plant or nurture new churches and communities in the 21st century? How do we plant them in North America, in cities where we had churches that did not survive? How do we re-invent MCC for smaller cities, rural areas? How do we use the web, the multiple facets of technology and go virtual? How do we nurture churches we did not "plant," but that are emerging all over the globe and wanting to be part of MCC? How do we insure that justice and human rights are at the heart of our new and emerging church efforts?
How do we become strategic in recruiting leadership, clergy and lay, to form new churches and communities? How do we fund such a strategy in this economy? How do we plant churches that are friendly to families with children?
Can we really plant new churches of with congregation of 150? Can we also plant smaller churches that are sustainable, healthy and vibrant from the start?
How do we develop a five year plan to plant churches in LGBT Hispanic North America, now not served by any denomination?
What about people who move to cities or countries that have no MCC church? How do we not lose them? How do we engage and empower them to work with us to extend MCC's ministry globally? | | To being wrestling with these questions and opportunities, I am forming a fourth Moderator's Team, the New and Emerging Churches and Communities Team.
This will be a volunteer team of team leaders. Each person on the team will recruit a team of their own. Each team leader and all team members will be trained in virtual teams, and will be an accountable, good communicator. We will be recruiting lay and clergy people on the teams. These will be global teams, who are constantly learning.
We will work to foster a new era of strategic engagement in church planting, building on the excellent work already done by Arlene, Karla and so many others. We will make clear the connections between church planting and global justice. We will review all the history and lessons learned, and begin to create a methodology and theology of church planting in MCC is that is indigenous, culturally flexible and that will inspire a new generation.
Today, I imagine five or six teams, possibly including: multisite; church sponsored/entrepreneurial plants; affiliations; virtual church and technology for church planting; "emerging churches;" Hispanic North America; and resources - personnel, training, cross-cultural training, funding. These teams would morph and change over time as the needs changed.
For the first year or so I will be forming and training this team with the support of the Board of Elders and our MCC staff. We will take our time, while we continue to offer encouragement and support to those who are in the process of nurturing new MCC churches.
These teams will be learning, experimenting, mentoring, and taking risks together to dynamically energize and revolutionize MCC's expansion into new communities. We will draw on all of the many resources of MCC to accomplish this.
I am eager to have feedback from you about the future of church planting and these next steps. You can contact me at RevNancyWilson@MCCChurch.net. Grace and Peace,
+Nancy
The Rev. Nancy L. Wilson
Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
www.MCCchurch.org This message prepared and distributed byThe MCC Office of Internal Communications. | | | | | |
| MCC | PO Box 1374 | Abilene | TX | 79604 |
The information transmitted is intended only for the person(s) or entity(ies) to which it is addressed and may contain confidential or privileged material. After review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you receive this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.
The information transmitted is intended only for the person(s) or entity(ies) to which it is addressed and may contain confidential or privileged material. After review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you receive this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.
No comments:
Post a Comment