Project Proposal: Project JW

Project John Wesley

An auxiliary ministry designed to integrate with IGRC churches and districts

1. INTRODUCTION

A Ministry of the Heart

The project begins in the heart, growing out of various desires:

For stronger faith communities, and more of them
For more people to commit (and recommit) to Jesus as Lord and Savior
For new micro-ministries that increase the number of people in service to others
For 1-1 friendships—formed within faith communities and with “outside” neighbors
For expansion of UMC presence in places where we have vacated or never explored
For synergy and high spirits among clergy and lay leaders

A Ministry of the Head

PJW has a strategy for dealing with two common obstacles found in 2023:

Infrastructure that is in disrepair, outdated, fragile, or absent
Leaders who are exhausted, angry—sometimes tempted to disaffiliate

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to systems, PJW utilizes the following theories:

Economic theories about marketing, supply and demand, increase and division of labor
Political theories about self-interest, allies and opponents, power sharing, coalitions
Intelligence emphasis on origin stories, non-anxious interviews, anger, local
Research on local capitals: Natural, Cultural, Human, Social, Political, Financial, Built
Pastoral care, preaching, pilgrimage, community, fellowship, music, humor, festival, food
Micro-ministries designed to be self-sustaining and include “outsiders” in service
Systems theory that differentiates between static reform and dynamic reform
Statistical changes that allow for “partners” in addition to formal UMC membership
Expanded use of teams and intensive training of teams before and during deployment
Utilizing economy of scale for fruitfulness
Focus on fomenting friendships—rather than simply being friendly
Administrative audit leading to bureaucratic reforms
Use of social science research on rural life, racial segregation, immigrant communities

A Ministry of the Hands and Feet

The practical work of PJW is boots on the ground and hands on:

Two-hour workshops for groups: Friendship, Wise as Serpents boardgame, Supply and Demand in programming, Administrative Audit, the Non-Anxious Interview, Gathering intelligence and keeping data bases, Training Teams, Moving from Mission Statements back to the New Testament
Three-month consultation: includes all the workshops, boots on the ground interviews with those inside and outside the church, preaching missions, administrative audit follow-through, intelligence gathering in churches and region, pastoral care, initiate marketing
Managed larger parish experiment: training and leading appointed clergy and lay leadership teams in five larger parish experiences, totality of pastoral ministry done by teams—allowing each team member to spend 80% of their time working out of their strengths, arranging pulpit supply for all existing congregations, planting micro-ministries and securing outposts close to where people live, caring for churches and members, including 10% of population in partnerships, providing pastoral care for team, weekly newsletter, utilizing all the theories and workshops mentioned above, partnering with community colleges and other local organizations. Economy of scale

2. Table of Contents:

Introduction
Table of Contents
The impetus behind the project
The big picture
The holes in people’s lives
One church’s conversation about holes in the lives of people they know
Racism in the Illinois Area
Immigration, Limited English, Poverty
Struggling congregations
Broken Social Contract
Restoring the Social Contract with conference products
A Pastor Surplus and a Pulpit Surplus: Two different problems requiring different approaches
The dream
Looking for handles and toeholds
Crafting Strategies
Objectives of the Five Larger Parishes
The Larger Parish Experiment—For economy of scale—five projects—details
Training for teams—modules
Signature UMC products
Circuits (larger parishes) and service posts
The Book of Discipline and the project
Community colleges in the Illinois Area
The urgency of now and the benefits of the project
Wise as Serpents board game
Changing our stor
Beginning Assumptions in working with lay leaders and pastors
PJW Board
Experimenting Churches
Cost Estimate

3. The Impetus behind the Project

We start with what makes us afraid and angry. It’s not that we like starting on such a downer note. But that’s where lots of energy flow exists these days. And so we go with the flow—at first. People are more apt to join in if we honor their grief, regard what feels heavy to them, respect their worry, allow a little grievance. And even the most optimistic among us must admit that United Methodism is in kind of a mess here in Illinois. In the last two decades, IGRC lost over 300 churches (out of 1100.) Another 300 are likely to close their doors or disaffiliate within the next five years, if we don’t do something new. Furthermore, the 400-500 congregations that remain in IGRC will continue to face uphill struggles with attendance, finances, program viability, leadership uncertainties, building upkeep, and cultural standoffs. We can barely take care of ourselves, much less our neighbors.

But our neighbors are messed up too: Covid, post-covid trauma, crime, making ends meet, population loss, loneliness, struggling schools, mental illnesses, relationship strains, bureaucratic red tape, political tribalism, environmental dangers, cultural erosion… It’s like the UMC jumped into the river to rescue our neighbors– but started drowning ourselves, floundering in our own internal issues.

United Methodists are becoming un-united, unplugged from our neighbors, our conference, and each other. Our platitudes, hashtags, structural downsizing, and saying ‘please’ aren’t working.

Project JW is a strategy designed to change the trajectory of our story, to bring us through this mess by means of order, resourcefulness, and new friendships. A good strategy always maps a path between reality (in our case– the mess we’re in) and intent (in our case– to develop fellowship marked by a humble love of God and a fruitful love of neighbor.) No strategy is viable that ignores current realities. Nor can a strategy work if the intent isn’t specific and sensual. PJW risks getting sensual, while trying to avoid being prescriptive.

The Project starts with realities: the holes in our neighbors’ lives, the rural and conservative tilt of our 84 counties, the growing gap between the rich and the poor in our cities, population losses in 78 counties, 209 communities in our conference listed as economically distressed, dozens to hundreds of congregations toying with disaffiliation, and congregations struggling to find the energy and resources for mission and evangelism. Project JW is also specific and sensual in intent by identifying seven signature, UMC product lines: worship and art, fellowship and friendship, volunteer work, faith journeys and access to biblical wisdom, sanctuary and pastoral attention, healing and holistic strength-building, and civic enhancement. The aim is to engage 10% of each local population with providing at least one of our signature products.

4. The Big Picture

Illinois has 104 rivers and creeks flowing through its 102 counties. Each Illinoisan lives in one of those counties, between God’s rivers and creeks. Scattered within the southernmost 84 counties are 100,000 United Methodists, congregated into 700 churches, held together in the Illinois Great Rivers Conference. United Methodist numbers are falling, but the number of rivers and counties remains the same. And while the population of those 84 counties is declining, there are still 3 ½ million people here, no mean number.

Those 3 ½ million aren’t getting enough of Jesus’ good news, not even the ones who are already connected with a church. We who live among the rivers are afflicted with Gospel-shaped holes that keep appearing in our lives. Those personal holes are gouged out by pessimism, disease, aging, loneliness, stress, anxiety, rage, apathy, loss of faith, addiction, mental illness, bigotry, political tribalism, population loss, economic distress…. Project JW is designed for the people between the rivers–those whom God so loves.

Project JW is also for the stewards who shepherd the Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church. If you are a Methodist, the world is your parish, meaning, your mission field consists of every single person who lives within in the boundary of your annual conference. It is the responsibility of the annual conference and its leaders to secure a strategy that will get us as close to people as possible so we can share the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that the holes in their lives might be filled with God’s grace. Project JW is an innovative and pragmatic strategy for fulfilling the mission of the annual conference.

Project JW is designed to start small and then go big. It begins with Jesus’ simple command, “Love your neighbor as you do yourself.” It picks up the spirit of that command, as Jesus challenges his disciples to expand the concept of “neighbor.” Project JW is empathy in action, empathy to scale, evangelistic empathy, for all the people who live between the rivers. It is an experiment: curious, adaptable, hazarding a ride on the learning curve, tenaciously discovering why previous efforts didn’t work, persistently perfecting our approaches until they do, determined to include unlikely partners in our work, and trusting that God still makes rivers flow through the spiritual wilderness.

Project JW tackles three problems that are not being adequately addressed: 1) the breaking of the social contract that formerly existed between the annual conference and its churches, 2) the growing number of our neighbors whose lives seem to have no room for the programs we currently offer, and 3) the staggering and chronic internal issues our congregations are facing in trying to keep their doors open. Project JW offers practical alternatives so the church can get the gospel flowing past the bottlenecks in the system and into people’s lives, full force.

5. The Holes in People’s Lives

The Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church consists of 84 counties, home to 3 ½ million people, each one living out a story full of drama, opportunity, and need—each one our neighbor, according to the teachings of Jesus.

69 of the 84 counties are rural. The other 15 counties have significant rural areas within them.
78 of the 84 counties voted “conservative” in the last presidential election
The perennial challenges for most rural people are remoteness and marginalization
The biggest enemy to rural life is consolidation: it exacerbates remoteness and has gutted rural communities
Only six counties in our conference gained population between 2010 and 2020: Monroe 7.3%, Johnson 6.9%, Champaign 2.9%, Effingham 1.5%, Williamson 1.4%, and McLean 1.0%
78 of our 84 counties lost population. One county (Alexander) had a 36.4% loss, the largest loss of any county in the United States. 21 of our counties lost between 10 and 20 percent of their population in the last ten years. Another 37 counties lost between 5 and 10 percent of their people since 2010. That makes 59 counties with life-altering losses.
29 of the rural counties in our conference are either “distressed” or “at-risk” according to the Economic Innovation Group, based on seven factors: poverty, education, housing vacancy, employment, income, job growth, and business openings.^[1]
Our distressed counties are: Greene, Fayette, Perry, Franklin, Saline, Gallatin, Hardin, Pulaski, and Alexander.
Our at-risk counties are: Stark, Knox, McDonough, Fulton, Cass, Mason, Pike, Christian, Montgomery, Calhoun, Crawford, Iroquois, Richland, Wayne, Jefferson, Marion, White, Randolph, Massac, and Union.
Only six rural counties in our district are considered “prosperous” by the EIG: Washington, Effingham, Cumberland, Piatt, Menard, and Putnam.
In addition to rural counties, our conference also serves 15 urban counties, as defined by the Census Bureau: Jackson, Williamson, Monroe, St. Clair, Madison, Champaign, Vermillion, Rock Island, Peoria, Tazewell, Sangamon, Mclean, Macon, Woodford, and Kankakee.
The urban areas in our annual conference have their own problems with poverty, crime, racism, environmental health, jobs, quality of schools, affordable housing, and healthcare.
According to FBI 2022 crime statistics, 13 of the 15 most dangerous cities in Illinois, are within the boundaries of IGRC: 1) Mt. Vernon, 2) Danville, 3) Centralia, 4) Wood River, 5) Springfield, 6) Cahokia, 7) Metropolis, 9) Peoria, 10) Kankakee, 12) Quincy, 13) Champaign, 14) East St. Louis, and 15) Bloomington. Only Chicago (11) and Rockford (8) are not in our conference.
The state of Illinois^[2] lists 237 communities as being economically distressed. Of those, 209 are in the care of IGRC.
The communities in IGRC listed as economically distressed: Abingdon, Alma, Alorton, Armington, Arrowsmith, Astoria, Atwood, Augusta, Bardolph, Bay View Gardens, Beecher City, Belknap, Bellmont, Bluffs, Bradford, Broadwell, Brookport, Broughton, Brownstown, Bryant, Buckner, Buncombe, Bureau Junction, Burnt Prairie, Cabery, Cahokia, Cairo, Cambria, Camden, Campus, Carbon Cliff, Carrier Mills, Caseyville, Cave-in-Rock, Centralia, Centreville, Chatsworth, Christopher, Clayton, Cleveland, Coalton, Cobden, Colp, Columbus, Concord, Cowden, Crossville, Cuba, Cullom, Cypress, Dawson, De Pue, Donnellson, Dover, Dowell, Du Quoin, Dunfermline, Dupo, East Alton, East Carondelet, East St. Louis, Eddyville, Eldorado, Elizabethtown, Ellsworth, Elvaston, Equality, Exeter, Fairfield, Flat Rock, Flora, Freeman Spur, Galatia, Galesburg, Galva, Gillespie, Glasford, Grandview, Granite City, Greenup, Harrisburg, Hettick, Hillsboro, Hillsdale, Hillview, Hoopeston, Hooppole, Hume, Hutsonville, Ina, Ipava, Irving, Iuka, Jewett, Johnsonville, Joppa, Junction City, Kane, Kansas, Kewanee, Keyesport, Kincaid, Kingston Mines, Kinmundy, La Fayette, La Rose, Lake Ka-Ho, Lawrenceville, Lewistown, Livingston, Loami, Lomax, Long Point, Longview, Louisville, Ludlow, Lynnville, Magnolia, Malden, Maquon, Martinton, Mason City, Maunie, McClure, Medora, Melvin, Mill Creek, Milton, Modesto, Mt. Clare, Mt. Erie, Mulberry Grove, Murrayville, Nason, Nebo, Neoga, New Bedford, New Burnside, New Windsor, Nilwood, Norris, Norris City, Oak Grove, Oblong, Odell, Odin, Ohio, Olmsted, Orient, Otterville, Percy, Plainville, Pleasant Hill, Plymouth, Pontiac, Pontoon Beach, Ramsey, Richview, Ripley, Riverton, Roberts, Rockbridge, Roodhouse, Royal Lakes, Royalton, Sailor Springs, Saunemin, Sawyerville, Silvis, Smithboro, Smithfield, Sorento, South Roxana, St. David, St. Francisville, St. Johns, St. Peter, Standard City, Stanford, Stonefort, Strawn, Streator, Summerfield, Sumner, Sun River Terrace, Thompsonville, Time, Tiskilwa, Toledo, Toulon, Tovey, Tower Hill, Vandalia, Vermilion, Waggoner, Walnut Hill, Wamac, Washington Park, Wataga, Watson, West Frankfort, West Peoria, Wheeler, Willisville, Wilsonville, Wood River, Wyanet, Wyoming.
When it comes to alcohol related accidents and deaths, according to the latest reports from Illinois’s county public health departments,^[3] the five deadliest counties in Illinois are all in IGRC: Effingham, Monroe, Randolph, Washington, and Livingston. Clinton County also made the top 10 list.
When it comes to drug abuse, the state of Illinois saw a 35.8% increase in opioid related fatalities and hospitalizations between 2019 and 2021.^[4] The counties in IGRC that were above the state average were: Livingston, Kankakee, Iroquois, Vermillion, Macon, Sangamon, Calhoun, Green, Madison, St. Clair, Wayne, Saline, and Union.

In short, people who live within the IGRC boundaries have ready access to drugs and demagogues, divisions and disaffiliations. But the United Methodist Church, due to church closures, district consolidation, and lack of imagination is evaporating from vast regions of downstate Illinois. IGRC is retreating and shrinking. Meanwhile, these 3½ million souls who live between the rivers remain our people and our mission, as much as they ever were. The holes in their lives are still our calling.

6. One Church’s Conversation about Holes in the Lives of People They Know

By age:

0-9: need for play spaces, libraries, safety, many adults working in concert to provide them love, attention, nurture, care, etc. Need for learning, how to interact with each other, social skills

10-19: need for more balanced life beyond social media, TV, and sports. Need for adults (parents, teachers, government leaders) to be on the same page in caring for them. Need for social skills. Too exhausted. Over-programmed. Under parented. Need for adult teamwork as parents are sometimes working too hard, exhausted themselves. Nobody, including parents, seem to have control of adolescent’s worst tendencies. Sexual and gender issues.

20-29: High stress. Relationships, money, jobs, friends moving around. Trying to get a footing in everything. Ambitious. Some lack ambition. Some flying the coop. Some still living at home, and will be for a long time. Peer pressures to achieve and marry. Parental conflicts. Some already slogging with parenthood or heavy job responsibilities.

30-39: Too much work. Kids a handful, very demanding. Marital discord. Mid-life crisis. Career frustration. Money burdens. Little margin. Chaos in accumulating things.

40-49: Pressure of the whole world on their shoulders. Caring for both young and old, generations before and after—sometimes two generations before and two after. As they feel more responsible, more frustration with the systems that stymie their productivity. People pressure them with expectation.

50-59: Starting to deal with elderly parents. The decade when their own aging starts to hit home. Retirement looms and feelings range from desperate for it to fear of it. Empty nest. Physical and health problems accelerate. First inkling at “second half of life” when we start to divest rather than accumulate. Sometimes overwhelmed at all the accumulations and begin to wonder what to do with them.

60-69: Retirement. Needs for escape. Denial of death. Friends and family are moving on. Institutions and social environment changes and losses are felt. Growing awareness of physical, social decline. Crisis of play vs. usefulness.

70-79: Health issues, need for social life, loneliness, awareness of physical and financial limitations, marginalized in lives of children and grandchildren, sense of place (home) becomes more central, need to conserve money and energy, grief at losses and changes all around, torn between old ways and mores and new

80+: like all decades, great variation. Same issues as 60-79 for many. Death and legacy. Loss of place in a society without a place for “elders.” Fear of memory loss. Housing issues. Dependency on family increasing and conflicts around that. Loneliness. Depression. Slowing down that is hard to accept.

7. Racism in the Illinois Area

Racism and IGRC

Of the 20 worst cities in the United States for Black Americans to live, SIX are in IGRC: Danville, Peoria, Springfield, Kankakee, Quad Cities, Champaign.

24/7 Wall St. ranked the nation’s metropolitan areas based on racial disparities in income, education, health, incarceration, and white-black achievement gaps in other socioeconomic outcomes using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In each situation, the problem is related to segregation.

Methodology:

To determine the 15 worst cities for black Americans, 24/7 Wall St. created an index consisting of eight measures to assess race-based gaps in socioeconomic outcomes in each of the nation’s metropolitan areas. Creating the index in this way ensured that cities were ranked on the differences between black and white residents and not on absolute levels of socioeconomic development.

For each measure, they constructed an index of the gaps between black and white Americans. The index was standardized using interdecile normalization so outliers in the data did not skew results. We excluded metro areas where black residents comprised less than 5% of the population or where data limitations made comparisons between racial groups impossible.

Within the index, we considered 2017 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey on median household income, poverty, adult high school and bachelor’s degree attainment, homeownership, and unemployment rates for each racial group. All ACS data are five-year estimates.

Data on incarceration by race are for 2017 and came from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. These statistics were adjusted for population using one-year ACS data. Because states, rather than metro areas, are responsible for the prison population, incarceration rates are for the state where the metro area is located.

If a metro area spans more than one state, we used the state in which the metro area’s principal city is located. Using data on age-adjusted mortality rates by race for each U.S. county from 2013-2017 from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and boundary definitions from the Census Bureau, we calculated mortality rates at the metro level. Incarceration and mortality rates are per 100,000 residents.

8. Immigration, Limited English, Poverty

Information comes from Illinois Department of Human Services, Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services https://www.dhs.state.il.us/OneNetLibrary/27894/documents/Report_On_Illinois_Foreign-Born_Population.pdf

By County:

Champaign—3896

2313 Chinese

734 Spanish

535 Hindi

148 Hebrew

105 German

61 Japanese

McLean—1609

1139 French

88 Albanian

42 Spanish

Madison East—1311

934 Dravidian

211 Russian

166 Spanish

Kankakee—863

863 Spanish

Douglas, Edgar, Coles, Cumberland—616

616 Spanish

Montgomery, Bond, Clinton, Fayette, Effingham—539

197 Chinese

174 Spanish

168 Greek

Madison (west)—395

395 Spanish

South and Southeast Counties–320

277 Chinese

61 Spanish

28 Dravidian

4 Japanese

Adams, Brown, Pike, Schuyler, Mason—192

136 Spanish

56 Arabic

Knox, Stark, Bureau, Marshall, Woodford—292

131 Spanish

59 Chinese

55 Vietnamese

39 German

8 Russian

Henry, Mercer, Henderson, Warren, Hancock, McDonough, Fulton—270

270 Spanish

LaSalle—233

123 Polish

110 Spanish

Menard, Logan, DeWitt, Piatt, Moultrie, Shelby, Christian—214

157 Arabic

57 Spanish

Monroe, Randolph, Washington, Jefferson, Marion—171

171 Spanish

Tazewell—168

132 Spanish

36 Russian

Clark, Jasper, Crawford, Lawrence, Richland, Clay, Wayne—156

156 Spanish

Sangamon—145

84 Turkish

61 Davidian

Peoria—109

109 Spanish

Jackson, Williamson, Franklin, Perry—61

61 Spanish

Livingston, Ford, Iroquois, Vermillion—31 Spanish

9. Struggling Congregations

We had 778 congregations in the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference on January 1, 2021.^[5]

Tough realities are hitting all of them. For example, the costs of maintenance often drain a church of the time and resources needed for mission and evangelism. A conventional congregation needs to pay a pastor, keep up a building, contribute apportionments to the conference, provide programming that satisfies its members, come up with additional programming that attracts new members, thread the needle with worship styles and music selections, provide life-support for declining Sunday School programs, keep culture wars from turning people against each other, raise funds for the budget, keep a lid on old wounds, settle leadership spats, and keep political tribalism from seeping inside the church.

Church activities which once produced synergy now produce stress. We see “fortress churches,” cut off from their neighborhoods and irrelevant to their neighbors. Far too many churches hint at impotence by reporting zero Professions of Faith, year after year. Furthermore, as church members age and their communities lose population, people have more problems to juggle in their lives than just their local church. Our existing congregations need outside help—something like a cavalry racing over the horizon with fresh personnel, tools, and supplies.

Our annual conference has long depended on congregations to be at the vanguard of evangelism and mission. Congregations have been the annual conference’s primary means for getting close to people and understanding their lives. We have counted on congregations to be first in line to share the deeds and words of the gospel. And while there continue to be abundant stories of people in congregations doing good, those anecdotes can be lethal if they lull us into ignoring our systemic dysfunctions. From a systemic perspective, the annual conference needs to replace its broken social contract with its congregations, and it needs to solve the bottleneck caused by congregations that are ill-equipped to fill the holes in their neighbors’ lives. From a systems perspective, new conference operations and operatives are critical and urgent.

Congregations need a sabbath, a time for convalesce, reflection, inspiration, and playful experimentation. That’s why an auxiliary network of operations and operators is needed.

But the biggest detriment to accepting auxiliary actors and agencies is that congregations have become the sacred cow of United Methodism, using up nearly all the oxygen in the system. This is ironic, since we are one of the few denominations in the world, historically, that is not built around congregationalism. Yet, beginning in the 1980s, United Methodists began uttering the mantra, “Congregations are where it’s at.” Cabinets and conference staff became preoccupied with congregations: keeping them happy, stabilizing them, appeasing them, finding them the best pastors available, nudging them to pay apportionments, mitigating their conflicts, pushing them to bring in new members, stroking them with praise in the conference media, setting up workshops so each pastor and church could imitate a megachurch. Huge sums of money got funneled into church starts. By the early 2000s, even larger sums were devoted to “Congregational Development,” taking up the bulk of the annual conference’s programming budget. None of these benefits to congregations were necessarily wrong. Many congregations enjoyed some temporary relief. But the medicine that helped in the past may kill us in the future.

The more we turned our congregations into sacred cows, the sicker they became. Some sort of sacred cow disease was thinning out the herd. In the Illinois Area, we went from over 1100 congregations in 1996 to less than 800 by the start of 2021. The symptoms of the disease include broken social contracts with the annual conference, church closures, the illusion that grass is greener on the other side of disaffiliation, massive loss of participants in many local churches, tighter control by authorities at all levels, anger, and preoccupation with simply keeping the doors open. The worst is just ahead: when the 2024 General Conference will decide whether or not to eliminate the prohibitive language in the Book of Discipline regarding same-sex marriage.

An unintended side effect of “putting all our eggs in one basket,” (the local church,) was the slow decline of church camps, campus ministries, lay speaker deployment, district and cluster programs, ecumenical ministries, pastoral care and counseling for pastors and their families, social justice advocacy, and other conference-based ministries. By the 2010s, local churches became stand-alone ministries, silos, with fewer and fewer conference-wide partner ministries to supplement their work.

Yet, with all the exaltation the annual conference has showered upon congregations, the churches themselves increasingly see the annual conference as a danger to them: a drain on their finances, an enemy to their own moral codes, a threat to the walls they have put up to keep the culture out, and every two or three years– the distant giant who poaches the pastors they have just gotten used to.

The biggest losers in all this are the 3 ½ million folks who live between our rivers. Since 1968, the annual conference itself has become increasingly distant from much of the population. Our membership has been halved. Conference and district consolidations have moved power centers further away from our mission fields. Church closings and disaffiliations are evaporating United Methodist presence throughout the state. A growing number of people in Illinois are not on the radar of any UMC congregation or institution. Huge swaths of our conference have no viable UMC presence whatsoever.

And our existing congregations are simply incapable of reversing the trend. The energy and resources necessary to keep a modern congregation functioning, even a small one, are a distraction to evangelism and mission. Our annual conference simply cannot plant and revitalize enough congregations so that everyone in our sprawling rural conference will be close to one. The “traditional” congregation is not flexible enough, light enough, economical enough, or efficient enough to be the lynchpin of this decade’s missional strategy. There’s a hole in the current system: we need new components that are lighter, more flexible, closer to the people, and more economical than the traditional congregation. This is why Project JW introduces two new components: Signature Products and Circuits of Service Posts.

Granted, congregations are still the greatest source of our money and volunteers, virtually the only source of our annual conference’s current resources. So, they cannot be untended. Our care for them must continue. Congregations are indeed an essential means for making disciples and transforming the world. In the sections below, you will see how Project JW helps the annual conference approach congregations more realistically, assisting them not only in staying open, but getting stronger. Project JW is an indirect way of supporting local churches, more respectful, giving congregations more local control, and taking pressure off of them rather than piling on.

10. Broken Social Contract

The United Methodist Church (and its predecessor denominations) have functioned under a “social contract” since the first conferences were formed in the United States. The contract works like this: congregations (and pastors) agree to forego certain rights and choices in order to benefit from the security and opportunity that the larger conference provides.

Congregations give up:

The right to select their own pastors
The right to establish their own polity
The right to withhold apportionment payments
The right to determine their own social principles
The right to transfer property held “in trust” according to their own pleasure

In exchange for:

Guarantee of a pastor who is competent and Christ-like
Neutral adjudication of conflicts
Venues for pooling money with like-minded Christians (to get things accomplished)
Opportunities for service beyond the local church
Expertise in church related matters: finances, communication, youth ministry, etc.
Enchantment with bishops and superintendents
Benefit of the brand: UMC
A sense of being part of something much larger: worldwide, historic
A chance to punt the most difficult decisions to conference officers

Pastors give up their rights to self-location. And in exchange, they get guaranteed appointments, outside arbitration when conflict arises with the congregation, removal to a safer parish when they are mistreated or in trouble, increased salaries with moves, and clergy benefit packages.

But the social contract has been fraying for decades, and is now coming fully undone in the light of Covid and disaffiliations. What we are seeing is no mere disagreement over human sexuality, for friends can tolerate diverse opinions among themselves. What’s currently being exposed is the outright repudiation of the long-standing social contract between the conference and its congregations/pastors. Too many United Methodists see the conference (and denomination) as the enemy of the local congregation: a drain on financial resources, a disgrace to local moral codes, and a threat to pastoral tenure. With the loss of our social contract, we’re struggling to survive in a new climate that is plagued by grievance and hostility.

The future of the UMC lies in understanding and addressing this broken social contract. How can we develop and invite people to a new, revolutionary contract, one that meets their needs and desires, soothes their anxieties, fills the holes in their lives, and is infused with the spirit of covenant.^[6]

Any contract must begin with the realities confronting us, identify what products the conference can offer, show how those products intersect with people’s needs, and spell out the means of getting those products to people throughout the Illinois area of the United Methodist Church.

11. Restoring the Social Contract with Conference Products

The following is a list of products that churches have typically demanded from the conference. Changing culture and market competition require constant adjustment to the products the conference offers.

Traditional Conference Products

Pastors: recruiting, training, filtering, deploying, care of, advocacy for
Moral Codes: Social Principles, moral and ethical guidance on sexuality, racism, etc.
Network Infrastructure: for varieties of ministry, such as justice work, charity, advocacy
Conflict Resolution: guiding congregations through toxic conflict or trauma
Affirmation: recognizing churches and individuals for their accomplishments
Training: lay speakers, finances, youth and children’s work, worship, etc.
Beyond the Local Church Opportunities: mission trips, church camps, lay witness, etc.
Rules: Book of Discipline, organizational instruction
Literature: for Sunday School, confirmation, youth activities
Hymnals, song books, Worship manuals
Community: clergy gatherings, sub-district events, annual conferences, fellowships
New Church Starts
Church Revitalization Programs
Expertise: websites, etc., legal matters
Stories: of characters and events, “situations”
Places: conference center, church camps, retreat centers
Participation in the Big Picture: part of a world-wide denomination

12. A Pastor Surplus and a Pulpit Surplus: Two different problems requiring different approaches

In-House Hours

The 150 Rule: 40 pastor hours needed each week per 150 in attendance for in-house work
29,000 in attendance in IGRC churches
The conference has 246 full time pastors
284 part time
Our pastors work 15,520 hours a week. Only 7,333 hours are needed for in-house ministry
$30 million paid out annually for pastors and their benefits
According to 150 rule, after subtracting “in house needs,” we have 8,187 hours left over each week in IL Area for making new disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Due to inefficient deployment, we’re over-spending by 48% for duplicate pastoral work or unnecessary in-house work. That comes to a waste of $14,804,565.

	South	East	Central	West	North
Members	13945	21018	25253	20469	26339
Attendance	4614	6000	7142	5418	6032
Pastoral compensation	$4,305,000	$5,772,000	$6,753,000	$5,515,000	$8,219,000
Local Church Liquid Assets	$27,349,000	$37,990,000	$50,991,000	$47,602,000	$43,470,000
Full time pastors	33	32	61	60	60
Part time pastors	33	31	16	17	19
Other	32	24	1	7	17
Retired	14	17	36	8	8
FT + .5 PT	72	69	85	77	82
Excess Pastors	41	19	43	42	42

13. The Dream

A year of joy

A time for the music of our faith to spill from our buildings into the streets
A time to set up more chairs and tables at our potluck dinners
A time when passersby will hear laughter coming from our gatherings and feel the magnet of our humor
A time when the wisdom of our Bible studies will become the standard for a new street-smart
A time when our UMC presence will expand rather than contract
A time when a thousand people will learn about Jesus and know they are beloved
A time when the empathy found among us will crystalize into venues of sanctuary and healing
A time when God’s spirit bursts all our good intentions into micro-ministries throughout the Illinois Area
A time when our affection for one another will overflow into the marketplace—becoming justice for the left behind
A time when our story inspires new partnerships and our coffers overflow

14. Looking for Handles and Toeholds

Seeing a problem and being able to do something about it are two different things. Breaking problems into issues requires finding the handles and toeholds in a situation. Otherwise we get nowhere. After all, how does one get a handle on poverty, violence, or drug abuse? Where is the toehold to help us surmount racism? Where are the little advantages that cannot be seen until we are in the midst of the climb? When congregations wobble, where are the necessary pillars? In the desert, where is the manna falling? Where do we start in all the chaos?

We start with the holes in people’s lives—their needs and self-interests. With groups, we start with the glitches hidden in their systems. Each group is a system, containing hidden rules insuring self-preservation. Those rules are often part of the problem, but when spotted and tweaked, can become part of an effective solution. With communities and neighborhoods, we start with the multiple economic, political, and cultural undercurrents that can be influenced for good. We start with that divine spark and passion found in each of us, inclining us to love our neighbors, even the challenging ones. In every patch of our conference, we start with the human, financial, political, social, cultural, built, and natural capital that exists untapped.

An intelligence network is required to find the handles and toeholds needed to do ministry: teams composed of people who have learned the skills of doing research, conducting interviews, identifying relevant information, and selecting “products” that will create and nurture relationships for ministry. Faulty intelligence leads to wasted efforts, funds, and goodwill.

The intelligence network looks for handles, toeholds, and manna in the following places:

Holes in people’s lives: financial, social, physical, spiritual, mental
Self-interests of individuals—utilizing the “Non-Anxious Interview”
Origin stories of organizations
Preservation instincts of organizations
Anger in a neighborhood or community
Attachment to a neighborhood or community
Individuals with excess passion and empathy, of all ages
Human capital—the talents, skills, knowledge, and potential of every person
Financial capital—accumulation of wealth, community assets
Political capital—people of influence and power, rules and regulations, shifts of power
Social capital—the bonds and bridges, social habits that create responsiveness and reciprocation, social networks and infrastructure
Built capital—infrastructure, roads, internet, utilities, buildings,
Cultural capital—the times, places, activities, habits, entertainments, possessions, institutions, social life, work, play, and organizations defining a community
Natural capital—plants and animals, land and water, beauty, outdoors available to those in ministry

Part of getting a handle on effective change comes from differentiating between static reforms and dynamic reforms. Static reforms rearrange and modify parts of the system without changing its narrative trajectory. Dynamic reforms, on the other hand, result in the organization’s story going in a new direction. Static reforms include restructuring, downsizing, budget cuts, mergers, expansions, new technologies, new mission statements, and revisions of policy. Dynamic reforms, on the other hand, change rules, particularly rules pertaining to economic models, political practices, intelligence gathering, and spiritual objectives.

15. Crafting Strategy

If we want different results, we must craft a different strategy. This includes a redefined mission field, sharp objectives, instituting goal by objective, adopting a new economic model, playing the political game with new rules, establishing and training an intelligence team, establishing new social contracts between the conference and its congregations, fomenting deeper friendships throughout the system, giving the “defense” a rest, realigning the bureaucracy, securing new outposts in the mission field, utilizing teams, and pro-actively countering system inertia. New strategy involves implementing new formulas and rules throughout the system.

The strategic elements of Project JW include:

Larger Parish by Geography—organizing a larger parish according to county or townships, based on common cultural, political, and social capital. It’s mission field would include all the people of that territory and involve all its UMC congregations.

Use of Pastoral Teams—in each larger parish, the heart of all ministry—preaching, administration, pastoral care, programming, intelligence gathering, strategic leadership—will originate and be organized by teams, consisting of appointed and local leadership.

Adopting Street-Smart Programming—project decisions will apply economic and marketing principles to the mission work of the church: supply and demand, product development and sustainability, efficient division of labor, etc.

Revival of Traditional United Methodist Ministries—directing our resources and energies into developing products-in-demand for worship and the arts, fellowship and friendship, volunteer work, faith journeys and access to biblical wisdom, sanctuary and pastoral attention, healing and holistic strength-building, and civic enhancement.

Revised Goals—shifting the goalposts away from “joining the church” to “partnering in our traditional ministries.” The new goal would be to engage 10% of a region’s population as “partners” in at least one traditional United Methodist ministry each year.

Political Tactics—developing thoughtfulness and skills for navigating the inevitable political currents present in every group. Ethically influencing power dynamics in an organization, engaging allies, negotiating with opponents, recontextualizing conflict.

Securing New Outposts—to reverse the pattern of geographical regression, the physical withdrawal of the UMC from towns and townships within the conference, a pattern broken only infrequently with new church starts. The strategy calls for reentering geographies through securing low-cost service posts capable of hosting UMC ministries.

Establishment of a Project Steering Team—under the authority of the cabinet, to explore and research potential areas for larger parish appointments, recruit teams and congregations, train leadership, provide ongoing assistance and consultation to parishes, and be the repository for what is learned through experience.

16. Objectives of the Five Larger Parishes

Defining Objectives:

Expand UMC presence and relevance in 5 geographical areas where our church is contracting
Well trained and managed leadership teams for 5 larger parishes
Newly built relationship-infrastructure in each geography
Resource programs that are in demand and well marketed
Find unconventional partners to provide new micro-ministries
Relevant Intelligence gathering—research and interviews

Standard Operating Objectives:

Care of existing congregations and members
Balanced budget: sufficient income and managed expenses
Pastoral Care of leaders
Expand number of trained ministry partners
Internal and external communication
Maintenance of Data base
Offering a full range of UMC signature products

17. The Larger Parish Experiment—For economy of scale—five projects–details

Lead Organizer (Director) Responsibilities

Teaching, training, coaching—research, intensive training of teams, secure adjunct faculty for training, ongoing coaching and management of teams
Pastoral care of team members—monthly in person one on one, arrange in person and online worship and preaching to minister to team members
Administrative oversight of finances, correspondence, data management
Arrange and oversee efficient communication—website, weekly e-newsletter, monthly hardcopy handouts, information to the public
Organize and track team meetings for each larger parish
Monthly reports (accountability) to PJW board and IGRC cabinet

Board Responsibilities

Set limitation policies: restrict director choices, arrange fiduciary controls, and establish prudence and ethics in organizational practices
Set policies governing the board’s job and board responsibilities to its stockholder equivalents—cabinet, pastors, contributors, participating churches, etc.
Set policies listing responsibilities of director
Set ends policies—determine the bottom line for success

Cabinet Responsibilities

In consultation with PJW board and director, designate 5 geographic areas as “larger parishes” for experimentation
Appoint a team to each larger parish—not to individual congregations within the parish
Encourage participation from local church leaders—listening, modifying the PJW covenant according to local needs, advocating local benefits from participation
Review and respond to the monthly reports provided by the project director
Receive regular annual charge conference report from each larger parish
Continue a direct relationship with each pastor appointed to a team, the same as when more than one pastor is appointed to a church or charge
Arrange salaries of clergy and arrange clergy housing as applicable, without having a pastor over-identify with any single church in the charge

Larger Parish Team Responsibilities

Design three covenants in each larger parish: 1) among team members, 2) with local churches, and 3) with the cabinet—as allowed by the Book of Discipline
Arrange for each church in the larger parish to continue its regular worship services, including arranging good pulpit supply
Arrange for pastoral care of all the church members connected with congregations of the parish
Arrange to fulfill administrative responsibilities for the churches in the parish, improving administration in each church through use of the “administrative audit”
Supervise and support all programming of the churches in the parish, encouraging alignment and coordination with marketing findings
Nominate and election a larger parish council and other committees, establish the responsibilities of committees according to the Book of Discipline
Organize pastors, other paid staff, and parish volunteers so that no more than 50% of each person’s work is in-house—(serving the institutional needs of the church and caring for members)
Arrange pastoral responsibilities so that 75% of a pastor’s time is spent in activities related to that pastor’s personal strengths
Participate in regular and fruitful meetings to organize the work of the team, build team strength, hold each other accountable, share information, and receive continuing training

Timeline

Fall 2023:

Cabinet: decision to try the experiment
Cabinet: find funding
Cabinet: appoint lead organizer and conversations about potential larger parishes
Lead Organizer: conversations with cabinet members about potential larger parishes
PJW Board: organize, set policies, review reports from lead organizer

Winter 2023/24:

Cabinet: determine larger parishes
Cabinet: prepare local leaders for experiment
Lead Organizer: meet with local leaders
Lead Organizer: research geographical areas of larger parishes, lining up contacts
Lead Organizer: consult with cabinet on leadership qualities needed in each location]
Lead Organizer: begin recruiting local leadership-team members

Spring 2024:

Cabinet: appoint clergy members to teams
Cabinet: arrange for salaries and parsonages for clergy members
Lead Organizer: team training (month after Easter)
Lead Organizer: continue researching each geographical area and recruiting local team
Lead Organizer: organize covenants

Summer 2024:

July 1, 2024, launch experiments

18. Training for Teams—modules

Good teams/bad teams—studies, research, personal experiences
Personal strength surveys—3 or four relevant to team relationships
Non-anxious interview introduction with lab—based on faith-based community training
Proclamation—ongoing reminder of the good news and our place in it
Economics—integrating key economic concepts into programming, understanding the church system in relationship to other systems in a local environment
Politics—creating allies and navigating opponents, power dynamics within an organization, understanding the system we are in
Intelligence gathering—gathering intelligence germane for ministry, storing and using data, connecting reality and risk
Revisioning the work week—how does a team player spend time differently than a solo pastor, sacrifices team players make, less in-house time, what to do “outside”
Illinois local government structures—what to note about a township or a county, a school district or a community college district
Preaching—ways teams can improve everyone’s preaching
Organizing and conducting worthwhile meetings
Project orientation—introduction to Project JW and how it will work, issues that will need to be handled by individual teams, product lines, care of existing congregations and their members
Friendships—centrality of friendship in the project, various types of friends, making friends and repairing friendships
Board game, Wise as Serpents—playing the board game as a team building exercise and also to learn the difference between “static reforms” and “dynamic reforms”
Covenant—developing a team covenant and entering it
First decisions—during the training, the team will make its first decisions, assign roles to team members, make plans for the first six months of working together as an appointed team.

The mandatory training would take place the month after Easter 2024. Participating pastors would be provided pulpit supply during that time and not have vacation counted against them.

19. UMC Signature Products

Back in England, at the start of our denomination’s story, even before there were Methodist congregations, there were annual conferences. The conferences coordinated distinct products that Methodists offered their neighbors: street preaching, classes and bands, literature, rules for everyday living, biblical commentaries, acts of mercy, justice work, new hymns, liturgies, and invitations to conversion. Coming to America, conferences produced camp meetings, revivals, colleges, Sunday schools, networking with other reformers, health care facilities… In time, congregations also appeared. Methodists were known for their products, and Methodism grew because those products filled the holes people had in their lives.

As congregations came into being, they too offered products to their members and public: organ music, chancel choirs, praise bands, Christmas Eve services, hospital visits, Sunday School classes, Vacation Bible School, revivals, potluck dinners, Bible Studies, confirmation classes, quilting circles, donuts and coffee, mission trips, pastoral counseling, funerals, weddings, membership status, bazaars, Easter sunrise services, youth fellowship groups, outings for retired folks, women’s circles, men’s breakfasts, food pantries, nursery rooms, support groups, sanctuaries, chapels, prayer gardens, stained glass windows, healing services… A product is an environment, activity, or service that the church offers people. Successful products fill the holes in people’s lives.

We develop holes in our lives whenever our basic human needs go unfilled. Those needs may be physical, economic, social, emotional, or mental. The more we love each other, the more we notice and understand the holes that are present in each other’s lives. Jesus offered tangible products to fill the holes he found in the people he encountered. Those holes were the motive behind his exorcisms, healings, feedings, forgiveness, parables, wisdom, insight, table fellowship, pilgrimages, prayers, proclamations, resurrections… To be the church is to continue the work of Jesus, through the products we offer.^[7]

To be human is to be blessed with creativity, agency, intelligence, and strength. But our humanity also holds a lifetime of need: for achievement, comfort, significance, intimacy, sexuality, respect, shelter, food, clothing, hospitality, understanding, healing, grace, work, attention… To be human is to come with holes that need filled, and to discover new holes day by day, all through our lives.

Project JW identifies seven signature UMC product lines as the gist of its work: 1) worship and the arts, 2) community and friendship, 3) volunteer work, 4) faith journeys and access to biblical wisdom, 5) healing and holistic strength-building, 6) sanctuary and pastoral attention, and 7) civic enhancement. It provides a mechanism for adapting and offering signature products locally, utilizing a network of geographic circuits and ever-present service posts. It also provides extra resources for those local congregations that choose to participate. It even offers a compact to help keep a church’s doors open.

The particularities of individual products need to be designed and adapted locally, and continually adjusted over time, for there is no need to offer a product if it doesn’t fit the holes in people’s lives. Square pegs don’t fit into round holes: the reason so many church programs flatten and fail. It’s not that people don’t have holes in their lives, it’s that too many of our programs are prescription-driven, not dynamically shaped and adapted to fit the fluid needs of our neighbors. The circuit leadership team is responsible for designing, monitoring, and updating the products offered in their own circuit. If a product doesn’t resonate with people, the team adjusts it. People will meet you halfway if they learn you have a product likely to fill a hole in their lives. If you hit the right spot, folks will stir, ask questions, slide closer, take risks, and invest.

Every United Methodist conference is called to deliver products throughout its territory. The conference knows its local groups and cultures and can figure out how to fashion its products in its various regions, making sure that everything we do is beneficial and accessible to the folks in our mission field.

The seven product lines are listed here, with definitions, examples, and comments about how each one aims to benefit people and fill the holes in their lives. There is some generality here in describing these product lines, as it is important we don’t over-prescribe what our products should look like. In order that they remain relevant and in demand, our products must be continually customized to meet local needs and changing times.

One: Worship and the Arts

Worship is a key product line in every church and denomination. It can include music, preaching, praying, praising, offerings, sacraments… Worship can be held anywhere, at any time. It can be elaborate or sparse. It might spring up among two or three persons or swell to a thousand. Worship is a relationship ritual, an artistic drama exalting God and humbling ourselves. It gives us an opportunity to express what is in our souls. Worship can teach us. It might include a process to become centered, rested, reset, or reoriented. It can be a time to experience fellowship and community. Through worship we can give our resources to the work of God and dedicate our own selves. Worship is often a place to find joy and inspiration. It creates time and space and guidance so we can pray for our loved ones, ourselves, and our world.

Local adaptations of worship are essential if it is to fill a hole in people’s lives. Music might include classical music, hymns, evangelical songs, contemporary music with a melody or a beat, children’s songs, ethnic or cultural favorites, secular choices, voice performances, instrumental numbers…

Worship often includes prayer, which comes in many forms: Psalmody, pastoral prayers, written litanies, voluntary prayers, extempore prayers, simultaneous praying, centering prayer… The sharing of joys and concerns can be prayerful, along with healing rituals, sacraments, and charismatic expression.

Sermons are often central to worship and come in various forms: biblical expositions, thematic sermons, exhortations, sermon series, informative lectures, proclamations, children’s sermons, testimonies, sermons in song, sermons using various art forms…

And worship contains sacraments, ceremonies, and rituals that are relevant to people’s lives: communion, baptisms, weddings, funerals, special commissioning, confessions and absolutions. People give themselves up to God in worship through altar calls, offerings, vows, sign-up sheets…

As circuit leaders decide how to offer worship opportunities within a region, they will figure out what resources and places are available and work to make a variety of locally appreciated worship opportunities attractive and available to everyone.

The arts (painting, theater, dance, music, literature, sculpture…) speak to the soul and give us a chance to express what is in our souls. They usher us into the mysteries of God. A circuit can promote the arts, particularly local folk art.

Two: Community and Friendship

Community is defined as: a collective bound by a sense of belonging, which finds its cohesiveness through shared rules and symbols, and is quickened through its customs and activities. Community fulfills our need for security, order, mercy, growth, and a sense of belonging. It is also an environment for fomenting and sustaining friendships.

Examples of community include: shared meals, pilgrimages, small groups, and activist networks (such as Marriage Encounter, Nomads, the Lay Witness program).

“Friendship” should be an essential product in any Christian organization. This is distinct from “friendliness,” which is a style, not a product. One of the biggest holes in the lives of modern people is the “friendship hole.” Most people simply don’t have enough friends. And as life rolls on, both the quantity and quality of our friendships tend to get thinner. How can we meet this critical hole in people’s lives? The UMC should be known as a friendship-greenhouse.

The primary mark of friendship is conversation. We can help people become better at conversation.

The benefits of having friends include joy, peace, comfort, excitement, humor, inspiration, empathy, adventure, better physical and mental health, strength, influence…

Examples of how we can offer friendship as a product include: social events where we can meet new people and engage them in conversation, conversation workshops,^[8] workshops and classes on friendship, pen pal projects, establishing networks for readily finding friends who have things in common…

Three: Volunteer Work

Christian work mostly consists of what we do and say in order to love our neighbors. Sometimes that work is direct. Sometimes it is indirect, focusing more on improving the physical or social environment for everyone. Through work we meet our fundamental human needs for significance, achievement, and productivity. Work is the way we make the world a little better.

The public welcomes opportunities and invitations to volunteer, particularly when work coincides with passions various individuals have. Every invitation to meaningful volunteer work is a product: programs that share love and faith with children, programs that help youth, programs that expand relationship opportunities for single folks, programs that enrich family life or marriage, programs that help people age in more healthy ways, opportunities to advocate for justice or peace, chances to distribute charity, fund raising for good causes, mission trips, programs that give neighbors a helping hand, venues to teach and train others, volunteering to drive others someplace important to them, building and maintaining communication structures like websites and newsletters, caring for communal property, administrative work, faith-based community organizing… People need and appreciate well organized work opportunities.

Much of our work is carried out through networking. Networks are beneficial because they bring isolated people into community with one another, get things done, create synergy, and increase people’s knowledge and skills for ministry. Networks allow us to connect people with other United Methodists anywhere in the world. They link us with ecumenical and secular organizations that share our concerns for justice and charity. The annual conference is well positioned to develop new networks that we may need.

A network is formed when 1) an organizer 2) creates a data base of people with a similar interest, 3) updates it regularly, and 4) uses the data base to put people with intersecting self-interests in touch with each another. 5) A network may also include a regular newsletter, gatherings, or online seminars.

Four: Faith Journeys and Access to Biblical Wisdom

Faith is what gives us the direction, moxie, and firmness we need in order to move forward through doubts and uncertainties. It is the path we take in hopes of connecting with a mysterious God. It is the imitating of others who lived loyally for God. It is a conceptual framework for thinking rationally about life, death, the world, and God. A journey of faith is anything that builds and nurtures these various definitions of faith within us.

The benefits of a faith journey include the ability to keep moving and living through life’s uncertainties and trials. It matters that we can find a deeper knowledge and communion with God. Stronger connections with other people of faith blesses us, including communication and fellowship with those whose faith is different from ours. Faith journeys infuse our lives with courage, imagination, and truth.

Examples of faith journey in a product line include: organized conversations about faith and religion; times and places to safely express our doubts and talk them over; classes introducing us to Christianity—including its history and theology; circles for prayer and praise; a library of devotional writings and musings on faith; counseling and group conversations about those things in life that attack and diminish our faith, faith application groups—gathering with people in similar situations to talk about how faith applies in those situations…

People expect churches to help them understand the Bible and apply its wisdom to their lives. Sometimes they need help finding a readable version of the Bible for themselves. A valued product might help them dig into the Greek and Hebrew origins of a text, explain historical and cultural backgrounds, and draw connections between one biblical passage and another. Discovering the relevance of a text for life today is enhanced when people can talk among themselves.

When we spend time with scripture we discover new ways of connecting with God. Scripture inspires and guides us in our daily living. It gives comfort. The more we know about the Bible, the more we learn how to ask the most fruitful questions about God, life, and faith.

Examples of biblical wisdom in a product line are: providing physical and digital Bibles for people, making study material available to individuals (through purchase, gift, or library-style loan,) offering Disciple Bible Studies, offering classes (in person or online) for introductions to the Bible, setting up Bible-exploration groups to take on a book or theme in the Bible…

Five: Healing and Holistic Strength-building

Strength is a necessity of life. It helps us survive and even flourish during times of illness, betrayal, failure, rejection, abuse, injustice, unfairness, death, loss, disaster, change… It takes strength to cope, adjust, and transcend life’s difficulties.

The primary product Jesus offered people throughout the synoptic gospels was strength: physical, spiritual, social, and mental. The stories of Jesus make clear that divine strength is holistic: he repaired physical bodies, fed minds, fortified souls, and nurtured relationships.

The church can offer a variety of products that will help people gain holistic strength for the living of these days. Examples include: relationship coaching, body strengthening, educational supplements (GED, reading, writing, etc.,) EMLS (English for multilanguage speakers,) conversation workouts, faith related classes, counseling, prayer and praise opportunities, pilgrimages, small groups, faith based community organizing…

The gospels are replete with healings. Jesus called on his disciples to be healers also, the Greek word (therapeuos) meaning to pro-actively give attention and do whatever we are able to assist individuals who are ill or weak. Healing gives us victory against disease, pain, and brokenness, in small ways and large. It is a way to love our neighbors. It saves us from being victims. It initiates miracles of health and restoration.

Examples of how healing can be offered as a product include: a parish nurse, healing services, seminars on wellness and disease prevention, pastoral care, reconciliation events in divided communities, a library with resources for wellness and healing, making facilities available for 12-step groups, making facilities available for support groups dealing with different mental and physical problems, distributing information on behalf of health-related groups fighting such things as Parkinson’s Disease, dementia, cancer…

Six: Sanctuary and Pastoral Attention

As defined in the Bible, a sanctuary is a safe place for those who have been accused. All locations associated with the UMC should welcome all persons, unconditionally. The only constraint is when a person interferes with the safety or hospitality shown others. All of us need respite from the world, from those who diminish us, and from our own guilt and shame. A sanctuary meets our needs for a safe place where we can rest. It gives us time and opportunity for restoration.

Examples of how sanctuary can be offered as a product include: pastoral counseling and confidentiality, non-judging small groups and friendships, focus on ethical biblical principles rather than judgmental moral codes, going out of our way to share hospitality with “judged” people, policies and actions attending to physical safety and accessibility in every UMC location, reconciliation projects to help alienated people experience common ground, house rules that identify and prohibit judgmental speech or unjust treatment…

Pastoral attention is a unique, disciplined, and intentional friendship that is offered to everyone. It may be practiced by clergy or laity. Its approach is always cautious and respectful, aware that every person has needs and holes in their lives. It is not nosey, but does exhibit curiosity. It refrains from advice and demonstrates humility. It conveys strength and loyalty. It is generous in sharing access to the gifts of the faith community, but not pushy. The pastoral friend is gentle, strong, patient, nonjudgmental, humorous, self-controlled, generous, and kind. A pastoral friendship is usually marked by an exchange of stories.

The benefit of pastoral attention is that it gives individuals a friend and mentor when needed. Pastoral attention offers comfort and assurance. It is a small sample of the greater love and affection that God has for us. The pastoral caregiver gives us access to and connects us with the wider community of faith.

Examples of pastoral attention as a product include pastoral counseling, pastoral conversations, home visits, visits in hospitals and nursing homes, drop in visits, and acknowledgement of important life changes and anniversaries.

Seven: Civic Enhancement

One of the primary ways we can love our neighbors is by repairing and enhancing our physical and social environments. Starting with the Garden of Eden, the Bible is filled with examples of God’s care for safe, pleasing, nurturing environments for people. We reflect that part of God’s holiness and grace when we enhance our own villages and communities, giving something back to the places that have blessed our churches and members.

Through civic enhancement, people are blessed with safety, community, moral direction, recognition, pleasing spaces and events, and reminders of the better angels of their own communities.

Examples of civic enhancement as a product include: appreciation events for essential workers, non-partisan election forums, faith-based community organizing, initiating round-table conversations with diverse people from the community, supporting or initiating heritage day celebrations, neighborhood ice cream socials, concerts, dinners, initiating common-garden spaces, working with an area agency on aging to help neighborhoods promote aging-in-place, making facilities available to civic minded groups, social events to help neighbors get to know one another…

Summary of Product lines

“Carrying on the ministries of Jesus” is the essence of Christian discipleship. And we do that by offering people the products they need and desire in their lives. When we offer people programs that are too much for their lives to handle, or irrelevant, or manipulative, then we aren’t channeling Christ. But when we pay attention to people, become aware of the holes in their lives, and find what we can do to be a blessing, then we are indeed fulfilling our call to discipleship.

The United Methodist Church has a long heritage of offering these seven signature products, even though they have not always gone by those names. If we want our denomination to thrive in the days ahead, as a system, we must focus relentlessly on our product output.

20. Circuits (Larger Parishes) and Service Posts

In Project JW, a circuit is a geographic area, usually coterminous with an individual county. By forming our circuits according to counties or townships, we adjust our focus to the people who live there. A large body of county information already exists to help us understand the lives of local folks. Focus on county and township data also helps us adjust our products to the rural or urban character of a particular region, as well as the unique cultures found there.

A circuit would be organized and administered by a team of clergy (appointed to the circuit by the bishop) and recruited local and nearby laity.

Circuits and Service Posts would be an auxiliary apparatus, coexisting with congregations, designed to deliver our signature products to people in the area. If, in the years ahead, Project JW were to be spread through the whole annual conference, there would likely be 75-100 circuits in IGRC. But with the concept still in its theoretical stage, only five circuits are proposed for now, experimental laboratories to adjust and perfect the product for replication elsewhere.

Each circuit would identify a hub, a place no more than twenty miles from everyone who lives in that area. But since 20 miles is still too far away for effective product accessibility, circuits would establish numerous service posts throughout their assigned area. The service posts would include property from participating churches plus additional buildings and rooms as needed.

Service Posts

A network of “service posts” can be established that will both include and complement existing UMC church buildings. Existing congregations may choose to become a UMC service post or opt out. Here is what a service post includes:

A service post is a physical place (church building, other facility, storefront, rented room, etc.)…
Staffed at regular, posted hours (at least one half-day a week, if not more)
With clearly posted contact information on the outside of the facility
Providing the public ready access to UMC’s 7 signature products with information, on site events, transportation, or delivery.

The purpose of the service post is physical proximity: getting the UMC as close to people as possible, much closer than we can with only church buildings. The service posts will be two-way streets: gathering information about the needs and desires of local people while also making products available from the UMC to them. The two key qualifications of a service post are: 1) be economical and 2) be efficient.

Service posts will be determined and managed by the circuit. They can be the site of offering one or more signature products. But any products not offered at a given service post will still be easily accessible from that post.

Circuits

Each Circuit will have the following components:

A pastoral team of 4 or more pastors appointed by the bishop. The pastoral team will have two responsibilities: 1) care for UMC churches within that specific circuit, even those not participating in Project JW; 2) organize and execute Project JW within the circuit, particularly its products and service posts.
A local governance team made up of the appointed pastors and 4-8 local lay workers The governance team will establish service posts, market products, and organize personnel and money for ministry to happen.
Existing congregations and UMC organization within the circuit that choose to participate in Project Wesley
All Service Posts within that circuit
Volunteer rosters of residents within the circuit who wish to participate in Project JW
Coordination of itinerate nomad volunteers, short-term workers coming in from outside the circuit
A representative from the annual conference to facilitate research, access outside resources, ensure quality control of UMC signature products, provide training and accountability
A phone center with a real person answering the phone, Monday-Friday, 8-5
A bi-weekly newsletter, digital and hard copy, with up-to-date information about the signature UMC products being offered within that circuit.

21. The Book of Discipline and the Project

The 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline encourages the work mentioned in this blueprint

Par. 124: “God’s self-revelation…summons the church to ministry in the world.”

Par. 130: we “must convince the world of the reality of the gospel or leave it unconvinced…”

Par. 202: “The church is a strategic base from which Christians move out to the structures of society…the local church is to minister to persons in the community where the church is located.”

Par. 204: “Each local church shall have a definite evangelistic, nurture, and witness responsibility for its members and the surrounding area and a missional outreach responsibility to the local community…”

Par 205.2: “A pastoral charge of two or more churches may be designated a circuit…”

Par. 205.3: “A pastoral charge may be designated a teaching parish…a teaching parish shall have a demonstratable commitment to a cooperative or team ministry style…”

Par. 206.1: “Local churches…may enhance their witness to one another and the world …through forms of mutual cooperation.”

Par. 206.2: “the Annual Conference shall implement a process of cooperative parish development through which cooperative parish ministries are initiated and developed in both urban and town and country situations…”

Par. 206.2: “the conference shall direct the appropriate conference boards and agencies to develop strategies designed to make use of cooperative ministries as a means of creating greater effectiveness n the nurture, outreach, and witness ministries.”

Par. 206.2: “The Annual Conference shall prepare and adopt a formal written policy concerning cooperative parish ministries, including a plan for financial support…Parish development is an intentional plan of enabling congregations, church related agencies, and pastors in a defined geographic area to develop a relationship of trust and mutuality that results in coordinated church programs and ministries, supported by appropriate organizational structures and policies…”

Par. 206.2: “The DS shall submit recommendations annually…regarding those churches in their districts that would benefit from being included in a cooperative ministry.”

Par. 206.6: “Cabinets shall give priority in the appointment process to appointing directors and clergy staff to cooperative ministries.”

Par. 212: “Since many communities in which the local church is located are experiencing transition, special attention must be given to forms of ministry required in such communities.”

Par. 212.4: that “…commitment of resources in terms of money and personnel to ministries in transitional communities be of sufficient longevity to allow for experimentation, evaluation, and mid-course correction.”

Par. 212.5: “The ministry of the local church in transitional areas may be enhanced by review and possible development of some form of cooperative ministry.”

Par. 461: “The task of superintending…is…to facilitate the initiation of structures and strategies for the equipping of Christian people for service in the church and in the world in the name of Jesus Christ to help extend the service in mission…”

Par. 408.1.c: “The role of the bishop is to lead the whole church…in an even better way of being Christ’s people in the world.”

Par. 416.2: “…to divide or unite a circuit…as judged necessary for missional strategy and then to make appropriate appointments…”

Par. 419.1: The superintendent is to “be the chief missional strategist of the district.”

Par. 419.4: “to develop faithful and effective systems of ministry within the district…”

Par. 419.9: “The superintendent, in consultation with the bishop and cabinet, shall work to develop the best strategic deployment of clergy possible in the district, including realignment of pastoral charges as needed and the exploration of larger parishes, cooperative parishes, multiple staff configurations, new faith communities, and ecumenical shared communities.”

In summary, the Book of Discipline not only allows for the ideas presented in Project JW, but encourages and prioritizes them.

22. Community Colleges within IGRC

Blackhawk (Moline)
Carl Sandburg (Galesburg)
Danville (Danville)
East St. Louis (East St. Louis)
Frontier (Fairfield)
Heartland (Lincoln)
Illinois Central (East Peoria)
Illinois Eastern (Olney)
Illinois Valley (LaSalle-Peru)
John Logan (Carterville)
John Wood (Quincy)
Kankakee (Kankakee)
Kaskaskia (Centralia)
Lake Land (Mattoon) (Pana)
Lewis and Clark (Godfrey)
Lincoln Land (Springfield)
Lincoln Trail (Robinson)
Parkland (Champaign)
Rend Lake (Ina)
Richland (Decatur)
Shawnee (Ullin)
Southeastern (Harrisburg)
Southwestern (Belleville)
Spoon River (Canton)
Wabash (Mt. Carmel)

23. The Urgency of Now and Benefits of the Project

Our conference cannot wait to try this experiment, and others. Day by day churches and people are being lost, not only to the UMC, but to the best chance they will have to enjoy the abundant life promised by Christ.

Essential and Urgent Benefits of Project JW

Retards future disaffiliations and church closures by giving attention to locality, offering improved clergy services through team ministry, increases chances of a congregation’s survivability through strong networking, improves access to enhanced conference resources, and assures increased local control.
Reduces vulnerability of solo pastors, particularly pastors of color, single pastors, pastors struggling with family and relationship issues, ESOL pastors, and pastors with physical or mental health challenges.
A unique proposal that includes intensive training, ongoing supervision, success metrics that pertain to transforming life and community outside the church, pastoral care for pastors, and an understanding of static change vs. dynamic change.
Has a granular vision for children, youth, fellowship, worship, healing, justice, holiness, community, neighborhood revitalization, immigrants, new friendships, pastor satisfaction, better preaching, and financial growth. (see signature products)
Repositions conference to be seen as an organization that offers ministries congregations are wanting and demanding.

24. Wise As Serpents

The project has designed a board game: Wise As Serpents. Players make up a pastoral team responsible for leading a fictional church. They draw cards presenting them with over 100 ideas for improving their congregation. Some of those ideas are great, some are ridiculous, and some just look great. The team makes progress when it invests in strategic ideas, based on the principles developed out of dynamic reform theory as opposed to static reform theory. Along the way, the pastoral team also encounters problem parishioners and will need to navigate those conflicts in order to keep the church on track. The game requires the pastoral team to keep track of pastor hours, volunteers available, money, and political capital.

25. Changing the Story

Joyful Discontent: Strategy for Changing the Trajectory of a Church’s Story

Sometimes we want to change a church’s story. We don’t like where the chapters seem to be going. The sources of our discontent are usually based on one or more of the following:

numerical decline
financial unsustainability
disapproval of its theology or values
leadership incompetence or style
failure to attract younger generations
loss of familiarity
presumptuous overreach
loss of relevance

This is an interdisciplinary approach to changing a church’s story. It especially draws from biblical scholarship, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, and literary analysis to implant pivots that will bring about actual change.

26. Beginning Assumptions in working with lay leaders and pastors

What do I ASSUME local church leaders want?

Good sermons every week
Personal relationship with their “own” pastor, one they like
Pastoral care for frail members
To help the needy, especially locally, charitably, missions
To get more income
To save on expenses
To repair problems in the building
To make their building attractive
To get more young people in the church
To get more volunteers for their existing programs
Failed programs to be resurrected
To not lose members
To keep the church doors open
To keep things orderly and in control
To keep their traditions
To avoid change that leaves them feeling like it’s not their church anymore
To have spirited worship that is comfortable to them.
They want the conference to do something for them, not just take
They want more control over the pastors coming and going
They want good music
They want theology that feels comfortable
They want less denominational rules and more local control

What do I ASSUME pastors want?

To please their members
To please the superintendents and bishop
To please God
For their work to be fruitful
Growth in numbers and money
People’s lives changed and becoming more Christlike
Healing
The community finding joy and synergy
Reasonable work hours
Appreciation for their work from members and supervisors
Good pay for their work
Opportunities beyond the local church for ministry
Collegiality
Fair treatment when being critiqued
Supervisors who see the things that matter (to the pastor)
Time management for everything that is important
Personal growth, physical wellbeing, intellectual stimulation, emotional grounding
Energy
Empathy
Healing for self and others
Family health and mental health
Maturity among church members as they handle their stress

27. The PJW Board

Heju Cha (East), Alberto Rameriz (Central), James Fielder (West), Mark Myers (South), Joan Boesen* (North), Nancy Wilson (Central), Trevor Oetting (East), Larry Lawhead* (Central), Ariel Smith* (Central), Jeff Koch* (Central). * denotes laity

28. Experimenting Churches

Salem Grace (South) Geneseo Grace (West) Mattoon First (East) Urbana Grace (East) Glen Carbon-New Bethel (Central)

29. Cost Estimate

For workshops: $250 plus mileage

For 3-month consultations: $6000 plus mileage

For large parish experiment lead pastor and training: $75,000 annually ($15,000 per parish)

^[1] https://eig.org/redefining-rural-basics-and-well-being/

^[2] https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/grants/Documents/FY22%20OSLAD%20EconDistressedCommunities-Alphabetical.pdf

^[3] https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/illinois/drunkest-counties-il/

^[4] https://dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/opioids/idph-data-dashboard/statewide-semiannual-opioid-report-may-2022.html

^[5] As of January 1, 2022, IGRC had 778 congregations and 106,277 members. This is prior to the bulk of disaffiliations starting in 2022. In 1996, IGRC started with over 1,100 congregations and more than180,000 members.

^[6] A contract is distinct from a covenant. A contract spells out the responsibilities of each party. It is all about responsibility. A covenant, on the other hand, is responsibility + grace. In the church, a new contract must focus on articulating responsibilities. But from the very beginning, everyone also commits themselves to grace: pouring grace upon grace into the renewed relationship. A covenant is a contract infused with patience, compassion, mercy, self-control, kindness, joy… And the more grace we pour into our work, the more able we are to fulfill our own side of the contract.

^[7] In the Old Testament, God offered people land, leaders, liberation, love… And what are the fruits of the Holy Spirit if not products: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

^[8] A conversation workout is a workshop that has been developed by Stories with Strategies to teach conversational rules that are likely to lead to friendship. The workshop gives participants a chance to practice their conversational skills.

Project Proposal: Project JW

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