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BY MELISSA LAUBER

The Baltimore-Washington Conference has begun to shake off the decline that has marked The United Methodist Church for the past 40 years as it builds a new season of Pentecost that is Spirit-filled and mission-focused, said Bishop John R. Schol in his episcopal address on the state of the church yesterday. (read the full 2009 State of the Church)

The Bishop characterized the conference’s new adventuresome, risk-taking and fruitful Pentecost mission as unbound and outbound, creating a world that reflects the Kingdom of God.

“The adventurewe are on is both exhilarating and challenging,” he said. “It has left us breathless and filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit. We have sung and danced and we have struggled and persevered. We laughed and we engaged in forthright conversation. Through it all God has made us stronger, wiser, and more ready to be the church.”

In the past year, the conference:

· Made 4,626 new disciples of Jesus;

· Held its largest annual ROCK retreat which drew 6,500 youth and their leaders;

· Hosted 12,995 people in camping and retreat ministries;

· Reduced local church apportionments by 11 percent in 2009 and by 21percent over the last three years;

· Organized “Be the Change,”which provided radical hospitality for several thousand people during the presidential inauguration; and

· Gave more than $100,000 to purchase bed nets to prevent death due to malaria in Africa

The 144 congregations of the Annapolis Southern Region were singled out for special recognition for its increases in professions of faith, worship attendance and apportionment payments.

Approximately 300 of the conference’s 679 churches have met their 2012 goals of one profession of faith per 25 worshippers, growing in worship attendance by 2 percent and paying 100 percent of their apportionments.

Currently, 53 percent of our congregations make one new disciple for every 25 worshipers and another 20 percent had one or more professions of faith in 2008. … This is good news,” the bishop said. “Together we will grow our disciple-making.”

Beyond the numbers, the conference has been revived by its efforts to:

• Grow spiritual leaders through its Discipleship Academy, which trained 1,055 lay people last year; the monthly Discipler groups for clergy; and the coaching and guiding of pastors and congregations;
• Grow congregations with its multi-site parish strategy that links healthy congregations with congregations seeking to become healthier;
• Grow disciples with Disciple Bible Study and other efforts; and
• Grow missions by expanding the successful Hope for the City Initiative in Baltimore and building on the conference’s Volunteers in Mission program, which last year sent out 262 teams with 3,546 individuals to serve as short-term missionaries.

In these challenging economic times, questions are often raised about what will happen to various ministries and churches, said Bishop Schol, warning that churches with fewer than 30 in worship may need to close.

But the Pentecost season we’re living through also allows United Methodists a time to “rethink church, transforming church into a verb as we become more about Monday through Saturday,” Bishop Schol said.

“We have the opportunity to become even more unbound and outbound, to rethink who we are and how God is challenging us to be the powerful, redeeming, healing church of Jesus Christ,” he said.

He called upon all United Methodists, from the Nation’s Capital to the mountains of Alleghany County, from the streets of Baltimore to the shores of the Chesapeake, from the court house in Frederick to the beaches of Bermuda, to join together as a church to capture the imagination, the hearts and souls of a world trying to find hope, daily bread, meaning and salvation. “Come,” the bishop said, “let us adventure together.”