News and Views

When The United Methodist Church as a denomination wanted to pilot a new training opportunity on church planting for the laity, the Rev. Bill Brown, director of the New Faith Expressions, immediately volunteered the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

New Faith Expressions “seeks to bring the church God loves closer to the people God loves,” Brown said. He saw – and continues to see – many opportunities for this among the laity.

He reflected on the roots of Methodism in North America. In 1776, he said, 2.5 percent of the population in this new nation was Methodist. By 1850, 34.2 percent of Americans were Methodist. “That’s one in every three people!” he said.

And that growth over those 76 years, Brown said, was because of laity.

In colonial times, when Methodism began, “all of the denomination’s pastors could fit into a small meeting house.” It was the 10,000 lay members, in-class meetings and in profound faith, who built the Church.

Twenty lay people took Brown up on the Lay Planter Training, created by Discipleship Ministries and led by Doug Ruffle and Bener Agtarap. They met online in November.

It was a diverse group. They included:

• a Certified Lay Minister who was “hoping to discover ways to reach the biker world through motorcycle ministry;”
• a woman who was feeling a little like Jonah, who ran from leadership until God caught up with her and called her to lead a prayer ministry at her church;
• someone who had left corporate America after 25 years in finance to work in churches;
• a woman of prayer who envisions herself preaching before thousands;
• an engineer and Navy veteran who has a saint in his family tree;
• and a woman on “a quest for discernment.”

The 10 week-course centered on the why, what, and how of Christianity and then moved into teachings on the seven seasons of planting: discerning, visioning, gathering, discipling, worshipping, maturing, and multiplying.

Brown knew not everyone would leave the training with plans to plant a new faith community. But that wasn’t what was important to him. He wanted the laity to begin to plant and play with new ideas about being church. Holy imagination and experimentation were the goal.

On Jan. 23, the laity gathered again via Zoom to share some of what that imagining, and experimenting, had yielded.

“We’re here to celebrate what God has been doing in, and through, you,” Brown said. There were a variety of visions to celebrate.

Hilda Macaulay of Glen Dale UMC shared how revising one’s vision to meet people’s needs is an essential part of evangelism as she revealed plans to start Upper Room discussion groups here and now, and eventually in her homeland of Sierra Leon.

Rod Fry, of Ijamsville and Flint Hill UMCs, detailed his plans to begin the Not Ashamed Biker Ministry. “We are the red-letter riders,” said Fry. “We’re a mobile ministry that takes church out of its four walls. There’s a harvest field out there, but you can’t reap a harvest by sitting in the barns. You didn’t get saved to be silent about it.”

At Trinity UMC in Frederick and Shiloh UMC in Bryans Road, Curtis Osborne and Faye Johnson were both thinking about the poor and marginalized. Osborne envisions a church within a church for felons, low-income people, youth who feel disconnected and disaffected, and others branded as “misfits.” He imagines creating a community where people can be uplifted and gain a sense of connection and inspiration.

Johnson has a similar vision and has even given it a name — the Light of Life new faith community. “With Christ, we will shine like bright lights in a dark world,” she said. “It will be a place where people can worship in the beauty of holiness.”

Richard Spears, the director of Lay Servant Ministries in the Virginia Annual Conference, is creating a faith community to bring together the directors of lay servant ministries in the 16 districts across his conference.

Linda Flanagan, the director of Lay Serving Ministry in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, is also drawing people together. For the past year, she has been working to build a network and care for teachers in the schools in her community around Good Shepherd UMC in Waldorf.

She sees a great need to provide spiritual support to area teachers. She and others at her church began a prayer group last year for teachers who meet before school. God is leading her to “broaden that concept,” perhaps building on the concept of school-house churches. About 50 educators attend her church and she is very sensitive to the stress teachers are under during the pandemic. But Flanagan is opening her intentions to God and letting the needs and her response “bubble up organically. … I just know there are needs out there and we need to help,” she said.

Kim Walker, a member of Baldwin Memorial UMC in Millersville and an associate/affiliate member of Journey of Faith UMC in southern Maryland, also drew upon a deep need she sees in her community. Walker started working in the field of clinical research 30 years ago. She was only one of five African American women in a group of thousands. Today, those numbers are still small, and Walker believes that faith can play a role in this culture and beyond. Her new faith community will bring people together around wellness and will draw upon existing communities like Heal the Sick and the Abundant Health Network.

Lynne Harrison of Elderslie St. Andrews UMC in Baltimore is still pondering the exact shape of what she will plant. But she is certain it will revolve around her “passions for cooking and the Lord.” She currently serves as the chair of culinary ministry at her church.

She’s calling the new faith community “Here We Are.”

“It’s never about the four walls, she said. “We go out. We’ll come to you. We’ll transform your home, your front porch, wherever you are, to create a worship setting and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and love one another.”

Harrison said that they could go to senior citizen homes, to the homeless under the bridge, the hospital cafeteria, a park bench or pavilion, the bus stop, even a strip club or prison.

“It’s about ordinary people coming together to experience good food and the love of God. Once you’ve tasted something delicious,” she said, “you’ll want more.”

More — doing more, dreaming, offering, giving, and expecting more — is exactly what Brown called for.

“What are you waiting for,” he asked the lay planters. “Begin.”

Most of the planters expect to take small next steps, but the training they say, has opened new ways of thinking about their gifts, the potential of the laity to start faith communities, and the new ways of being church.

“One of the best things for me in being a United Methodist is knowing that the founders of Methodism relied on laity for the work of the ministry of God,” said Annie London of Emory Fellowship in Washington, D.C. “While pastors are equippers, the work of ministry is with laity.”

As the director of Lay Servant Ministries, Flanagan hopes the laity will “get up, get out of the pew, and see what and who is outside the church doors,” she said. “Go, talk with your neighbors, learn who they are, what they need. Bring them Jesus. Do what suits you best, but go. Don't think you can do it in the pew or that they are coming to you there. There's a whole mission field waiting for you. Christ is counting on you. God needs you.” 

Any lay person interested in exploring new faith expressions can contact the Rev. Bill Brown at .

View some postcards home that were written during the Lay Planters Training.