News and Views

As the BWC clergy winner of the 2024 Harry Denman Award for Evangelism, the Rev. Meredith West enjoys wrestling with good questions. She leaves room in her life for mystery and shades of grey. But she is certain of a few things, and one of them is that the age of “programming” in the church is over. Done. Gone.

Programming will not bring people into the sanctuary. Programming will not deepen discipleship nor change lives, she said. Instead, “relationships come first.” Being relational is the lifeblood of today’s vital churches.

As senior pastor of St. Mark’s UMC in Easton in the Peninsula-Delaware Conference, where she was appointed last July, West sees one of her primary tasks as “creating opportunities for people to be in meaningful relationships with one another, the church, and with God.”

 “Everything is relational,” she said.

 West was awarded the evangelism award at the last annual conference session for her work with an online recovery group at Arnolia UMC and in other settings.

The first group of this type she started was during the COVID pandemic, when a group of people West was acquainted with “wanted to dive deeper into spirituality but, for a variety of reasons, didn’t want to be in church.”

She put together an online group, chose a theme for the month, and hosted a kind of podcast around that theme, posing questions to a guest one week and, in subsequent weeks, providing meditation, watching a movie, and doing creative activities around the theme.

The themes dealt with topics like hope, courage, forgiveness, connection and acceptance. Most of the participants were in 12-step programs; some talked about Jesus, and others spoke about their higher power.

West was moved by how quickly a sense of community formed. In other recovery settings, the participants had grown used to being vulnerable, and so the conversation felt deeply authentic, West said.

Learning unfolded during the conversation, people began to understand God and their lives in new ways, and relationships were created and grew.

“With the end of the COVID pandemic, West’s work with that online recovery ministry ended in a natural order as people felt called to be more in person again.

The Holy Spirit was not done with recovery ministry and online work for West. A group of people asked her to teach them about the Bible and the principles of twelve-step recovery. This ignited her passion to write curriculum and offer weekly online sessions. “It was amazing to witness people struggle with grace and belovedness and then, in a whisper or a nod, claim it for themselves.”

While this class ended, with her appointment change, West is paying attention to her new community in and around St Mark’s. She is acutely aware that people are hungry and she wants to be ready. There is never a shortage of ideas.  But West refuses to limit any potential ministry by dwelling on what has worked in the past.

“One of the things we have to recognize and keep saying in the kindest way possible is that what has worked for the church before is not working now. We are out of the stage of doing programs. I am not interested in trying to develop a program or buy curriculum,” West said.  “In this post-modern world, in post-modern Christianity, everything has to be relational. We should be offering opportunities for people to build deep and abiding relationships in ways that make a difference. 

This idea of creating relationships comes naturally to West. It’s one of the attributes that’s been present wherever she has served.

When she was at Solomons UMC, for example, a group of young restaurant workers visited the church’s praise service on a whim. They told her that their work schedule made church hard to attend, so she asked them when they would like to have church. They told her Tuesday at 1 p.m., and so, with the restaurant owner’s permission, she began showing up at their workplace, when they did their side work and shared a Scripture passage, four-minute meditation, and prayer concerns.

While they never attended worship at the church, they began calling West their pastor and another restaurant in town invited her to meet their workers.

“It broke down walls,” West said, “all because I just happened to ask, ‘When would you want to have church.’” 

West recognizes that forming relationships comes easier to some people than others. To them, West advises, to get curious with and about people. You’ll learn something new, different, and startling, in a good way.”  Also, she advises “be willing to learn about who people are. Be willing to learn what is breaking the hearts of the people in your community.”

West also points to the Parable of Sower and the example of the Sower, who, in an extravagant way, didn’t judge but “threw out seeds, like willy-nilly, reckless and radical grace.”

This grace and the powerful working of the Holy Spirit gives West hope for the church. It’s the same hope that is celebrated in the picture above her desk that lifts up Joshua 1:9: “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  For West, that’s always deeper and more fully into relationship with God and God’s people.