Discipleship Council Report 2024

Greetings on behalf of the Baltimore-Washington Conference’s Discipleship Council! This has been a very busy year: we have welcomed many new team members (including a new chair and vice chair), and celebrate the skilled servant leaders who have given their time to the work of the council. We have participated and endorsed the Restructuring plan, recast and revised the Discipleship Ministries Report in a Church Mission and Vitality Progress Report, and talked about the need for healing in our churches and the conference resources available for that.

We continue to focus our work on alignment around the mission, vision, and goal of the Annual Conference: The Baltimore-Washington Conference inspires and equips local faith communities to develop disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world so that more transformed lives transform lives. Bishop Easterling’s goal for us is that 100% of churches become 100% vital. This vitality is marked by deepening discipleship, seeing and valuing all people, living and loving like Jesus, and multiplying impact.

Multiplying world-transforming disciples is the main thing. A large part of our work to date this year focused on assessing and dreaming about how to ensure the main thing is the main thing for local churches through participation in conversations about restructuring and the Discipleship Ministries Report, along with conversations with conference discipleship boards about how they are seeking to ignite and support this.

Since 2021, we have presented results from the Discipleship Ministries Report that are essential indicators of whether holistic discipleship is happening and how the input from local churches is being used to align the work of the Discipleship boards and Annual Conference resources to support the vitality of local churches. At its inception we had hoped local churches would view the report as a way to reflect on their ministry through the lens of multiplying world-transforming disciples and use it also to set goals for the coming year. We have come to understand that the Discipleship Ministries Report has gotten lost in the church conference paperwork and is not being used to reflect on ministry as it was intended. We have spent time streamlining it and recasting it as a local church development and planning tool that also informs conference level resources and ministry.

This year – as we share the results from the 2023 church conference form – we will give you time to reflect on what this might mean for your church and whether your church wants to be a part of a pilot for the new process.

Deepen Discipleship

Question number one is designed to measure the degree to which churches are “Witnessing to Jesus Christ through acts of justice, compassion, devotion, and worship under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” This year, we celebrate gains reported in witnessing which is a public act of word and/or deed that tells others what you have personally experienced of Jesus.

On this slide, you see the more frequent behaviors in blue and the less frequent behaviors in green and gray. Consistent behaviors of witnessing and acts of justice are lagging behind the other dimensions of discipleship. Acts of justice are communal spiritual disciplines practiced by congregations united with the other institutions working for the common good; for example, addressing poverty, ending oppression and discrimination in all forms.

We also noticed some strong interactivity among the data:

The 137 churches who reported “Most People Witness” also report higher acts of Justice, Compassion, and Worship than the overall population.
Likewise, the 28% or 140 churches who reported that they “Often Engage in Acts of Justice” as a community also report increases in all other aspects of discipleship.

This wouldn’t be surprising to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Given this dynamic and our desire to reawaken our DNA, we would strongly encourage churches to focus on equipping disciples to witness and engage in acts of justice.

Question #2 asks What is the current state of the congregation’s intentional discipleship process? We ask this because the expectation is that all churches have a clear process for inviting, maturing and sending out world transforming disciples that supports deepening discipleship in all aspects of the above definition.

This chart illustrates the status of local congregations in the development of an intentional discipleship process. The conference Leadership Development board uses this information to align Annual Conference resources to support local congregations to increase their capacity for making and maturing disciples. We celebrate that a few more churches believe they could be a teaching church and are actively implementing an intentional discipleship process in their congregation than last year.

This past year, the board offered opportunities to work on their discipleship plans, and only a few churches engaged with those resources. Starting in the fall of 2024, coaching will be made available to congregations who would like support in developing a Congregational Discipleship Plan.

Question #3 of the report asks congregations to select all statements which best describe the congregation’s level of vitality. This area of measurement needs to be radically reimagined as we aren’t sure how it is possible for the majority of the churches who reported no professions of faith also reported growing in discipleship. Additionally, these questions also aren’t connected to our understanding of vitality markers of seeing all the people, deepening discipleship, living and loving like Jesus and multiplying impact.

In the future, we imagine asking churches questions that help them explore and set goals around the other three aspects of vitality including

Live and Love Like Jesus

Living and Loving Like Jesus causes servant leaders to put themselves on the line as they proclaim good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, set the oppressed free and comfort all who mourn. Living and loving like Jesus moves us from the seats to the streets as we take the gospel beyond the walls of our buildings. A local church might evaluate how well its members:

Intentionally seek to build relationships in and beyond our culture and faith tradition.
Join God in mission among the most vulnerable, using our God-given gifts, talents and passions.
Support others in discovering where they may be called to serve.
Join with God and others to repair broken systems and structures that oppress, marginalize and devalue God’s creation, and engage in this sacred work as a means of grace.
Honor God in the ways we work, plan and engage others in relationships.
Tithe and consciously reorder our lives to honor God and bless others.
Take responsibility for their own growth through the daily practice of spiritual disciplines and partnering with God to help others grow in openness and obedience to Christ.

See All the People

Seeing all the people which drives us to build authentic relationships that create belonging as everyone feels known and valued as Children of God.

Question #4 is a part of our vitality work and starts with an excerpt from the United Methodist Constitution on Racial Justice in the Book of Discipline.

“The United Methodist Church proclaims the value of each person as a unique child of God and commits itself to the healing and wholeness of all persons. The United Methodist Church recognizes that the sin of racism has been destructive to its unity throughout its history. Racism continues to cause painful division and marginalization. The United Methodist Church shall confront and seek to eliminate racism, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large. The United Methodist Church shall work collaboratively with others to address concerns that threaten the cause of racial justice at all times and in all places.”

Then invites congregations to describe where they are on their journey toward embodying antiracism.

While we celebrate that 3% more congregations have actually joined the journey since last year and we are seeing progress in all areas except one, we still have much work to do. For one thing it is clear that we have different understandings of what a “long time is.” Based on conversations that Brave Conversation resourcers, the racial justice team, and others have had, a different approach to measuring progress and supporting congregations in their growth in this area is needed and is ready for testing.

Question #5 asks congregations to share the ways that they are creating spaces of belonging and Beloved Community through inclusion, diversity, and equity. We celebrate those individual churches who recorded increases in the areas where they have grown in their practices that make all feel welcomed and valued.

Interactive Data Tool

We realize that many of you who provide information to the conference or denomination wonder if anyone reads or uses the information you provide. The answer is a resounding yes! And we want to share an interactive data tool that is made possible through all congregation’s submitting their Discipleship Ministries Report.

When the Discipleship Council first saw this tool, we thought it would not only help churches see that the data they provide is being used, but they could also use it to better collaborate and map assets in the communities in which they serve. We also see it as a helpful tool to inform the formation of collaborative hubs of congregations.

Interactive Data Tool Slide Deck

Multiplying Impact

Multiplying impact is the fourth aspect of vitality and aligns our mission to God’s call by listening and discerning with the broader community how we might reshape ministry and repurpose resources for the greatest good.

It involves how well we leverage our time, talents, treasure and energy for joining with Jesus and others in creating abundant life for all those in our church and community. This includes partnering well, multiplying disciple-making leaders, being a blessing to the community because we are meeting a tangible need and using all our God-given assets for the furtherance of the gospel. From a local church perspective, we might evaluate how well:

We are serving as a life changing resource for people by using the time, talents and treasure within the congregation and the community in which it resides to join with Jesus in creating abundant life.
Our current leaders are inviting and cultivating new people into disciple-making leaders.
If the congregation ceased to exist, what would the external community miss? Why does it matter to the community and how do you know?
How has this congregation used its resources (e.g., vehicle(s), property, networks, etc.) this year for the benefit of the community in mission (or for the furtherance of the gospel)?

If you are interested in helping to pilot the next version of the Discipleship Ministries Report, please let us know by completing a three-question form which will be sent to all churches in the e-Connection following Annual Conference.

We are designing the Church Mission and Vitality Progress Report to:

Keep us focused on developing disciples for the transformation of the world.
Record progress and set intentions around measures of vitality beyond participation measurements (e.g., number of people in worship, at events, etc.).
Support local church annual goal setting and connect churches with district and conference resources to improve vitality.

We imagine this progress report being completed by the church leadership decision making body that is focused on vision, mission and ministry. And that gets submitted as an annual congregational evaluation and intention setting tool in support of churches becoming 100% vital.

This coming ministry year we will be working on three items:

Learning from a pilot of the Church Mission and Vitality Progress Report and launching the new process before Annual Conference 2025.
Providing input on the implementation of the new restructuring as needed.
Supporting the various constitutional items from General Conference (e.g., Regionalization legislation) coming to Annual Conference 2025 for a vote.

We’d like to thank Bishop Easterling for her vision and for calling us deeper into our life- and world-transforming discipleship and all the many leaders in this conference who are doing their part to make it so – including our incredible Discipleship Ministries staff and servant leaders.

Submitted by:
Kris Neale, Discipleship Council Chair
Rev. Andre Briscoe, Discipleship Council Vice-Chair