| Agency to aid in citys ministry By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff Members of a churchwide United Methodist agency recently visited Baltimore on a fact-finding mission to help the conference and area pastors improve their ministries in the city. A six-member team from the Nashville-based General Board of Discipleship, at the invitation of Bishop Felton Edwin May, toured Baltimore April 16 and 17, heard presentations from Baltimore-Washington Conference staff and local church pastors and listened to more than 40 pastors who met at a daylong information-sharing session at Lovely Lane UMC in Baltimore. The board, whose mandate is to provide evangelism and spiritual growth resources for local churches, will use the information collected to suggest strategies of intervention that will assist the conference in its renewed missional focus on Baltimore, said the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt, general secretary of the board. Marilyn Magee, a member of the boards team said she was struck by the immensity of the ills facing Baltimore, but was also moved at how local churches were serving as an oasis in the midst of the citys wastelands. Several members of the team also commented on the devotion of the pastors. Even in the midst of what could be hopelessness, they still have a passion for ministry, said Magee after touring John Wesley, Sharp Street and Christ UMCs. In a discussion on the state of the city at the conference center, Associate Council Director Timothy Warner told the Board of Discipleship staff that Baltimore is a city in crisis. We are irrelevant to the people of Baltimore, he said. The church has abandoned the city or we just throw the city our leftovers. In a birds-eye view of Baltimore, Warner explained that only 5,886 people, in a city with a population of more than 600,000, worship in United Methodist churches on Sunday mornings. These people end up spending 400 percent more of their churches budgets on overhead costs of keeping their buildings open than on doing ministry, he said. If this were a business, we would have to close the doors, Warner said. We have ancient, decaying buildings; graying, dwindling congregations and communities in chaos. Baltimore is the heroin capital of the United States, not to mention all the violent crime and poverty and an educational system that is hopelessly broken. The conference has already begun to address some of these problems with several ministries of presence. They include saving stations; the New Visions Summer Camp, in which college students work and live in community while leading vacation Bible schools and community outreach; drug deliverance ministries; the Baltimore Regional Holy Boldness Center; and church initiatives, which include Hispanic ministries and a mobile ministry van. Bishop May invited the board to push, shove, cajole, raise questions and think outside of the box in their efforts to assist Baltimore churches to be more fruitful. Theres an ingredient thats sorely missing, Bishop May said. Its the boldness to say I can do this in the name of Christ. In their discussion session at Lovely Lane, pastors were asked to consider how things were with their souls and how they were attending to their faith. This line of questioning was an intentional part of the boards approach, Greenwaldt said. These are critical questions. We can not do this alone, she said. But with the power of God the world can be transformed. Greenwaldt also stressed the need for churches to connect with the neighborhoods in which they are located. A congregation that is isolated from its community is a congregation thats dying, she said. The board is expected to report back to conference leaders with its findings and suggestions for interventions within 60 days. | 
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