Rolling Down the Road of Change - Conference Leaders Gather and Discuss What's New with the Exodus Project

by Vance Morton*

Change (and the excitement/anxiety that comes with it) was the central theme of Bishop Lowry’s opening address. He compared the shifts the church-at-large has undergone since the 1950’s (especially in the U.S.) to the tides. The Bishop said, “In the 1950’s and 60’s [largely as a result of the end of WWII and the Baby Boom] all you had to do to grow the church was just build a building and open the doors.” He then continued by describing how at that time the church was experiencing a “high tide” of Christianity that peaked by his estimation around 1965 and that we have been in a period of the ebb, or low tide since that time…it just took us 20-plus years to realize and accept it. We now find ourselves in a new reality – a reality in which the excellent programs and procedures of a church at high tide are no longer relevant or sufficient to take on our mission and commission of going out and making disciples of Jesus Christ.

• The continued emphasis on and an updated support structure for missions under the Center for Mission Support;
• How to best grow and support evangelism at the local church level via the Center for Evangelism and Church Growth;
• Building up a new generation of leaders – both clergy and lay leadership – and retraining/refocusing the efforts of existing leadership towards initiatives that energize and equip local congregations to actively seek and meet the needs of their communities as well as the world at large through the efforts of the Center for Leadership (This is a topic that the Cabinet and CTC staff leadership team are currently exploring at the Healthy Church Initiative orientation in Plano. Check out Bishop Lowry's blog post from Tuesday's training and look for more on that later this week.);
• Being open to the hear the Holy Spirit’s call so that we can better discern God’s will for our churches – especially when that will is not the one expected or planned for; and
• Changing the mindsets of our churches (and ourselves) from an inward focus to one that is missional and outwardly focused so that we can quickly respond to the opportunities to be the hands and feet of Christ whenever and however they present themselves today.

After his opening statements, Bishop Lowry turned the meeting over to Dr. Georgia Adamson, executive director, Center for Leadership and the Assistant to the Bishop, to give the group a report on the progress made towards our Exodus Project goals so far. In the graphic to the right (click to enlarge) you’ll see that we are right on target with our plans for implementation. Dr. Adamson also took time to remind those gathered of the Guiding Principles for the Exodus Project (see above left) and then reviewed many of the changes currently underway within the conference and the Conference Service Center. After the review, the gathering was broken up into small groups that went through an exercise designed to help build strong and well thought-out covenants between teams and task forces throughout the conference.