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by Erik Alsgaard
UMConnection Staff

Bishop John R. Schol is on a mission ? a mission to engage every congregation in discipleship and every member in the discipleship journey.

With a sense of urgency underlying his task, the new bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference recently completed a round of listening posts and meetings that saw him meet with clergy and laity in nearly all nine districts, as well as youth, women, men, conference elected leadership, lay leaders, Korean clergy, women clergy, the Latino Caucus, a deaf ministry, and African-American clergy and laity.

Some recent statistics provide fuel for the bishop's passion.

In 1997, the Baltimore-Washington Conference counted 217,759 members and 6,109 professions of faith. In 2003, there were 204,535 members and 5,054 professions of faith.

'We seek to change the culture of the conference,' the bishop said in a recent meeting with elected lay and clergy leaders of the conference. 'A culture shift that is 100 percent committed to a holistic discipleship journey will take time. We're talking no less than seven years.'

The vision the bishop is offering involves moving away from a church that counts members and produces and protects systems designed to keep the institution alive. 'The church's good-enough mentality will be replaced with a God-enough commitment,' he said.

The bishop is inviting the conference and its churches to foster a culture that creates and nurtures disciples of Jesus Christ, creates and designs systems focused on the local church as the place where disciple making is done, and regards 'remarkable' as the opposite of 'very good.'

'Someone told me that this seems like we're changing parts of an airplane while it is still in the air,' Bishop Schol said. 'Actually, we need to land the plane and get on a new one.'

The bishop continues to share his vision with conference members and seek feedback. He will hold a series of planning sessions on Jan. 31, Feb. 1, and 12, inviting people to help craft a new vision and mission for the annual conference based on common beliefs and values. All laity and clergy are invited to participate.

When the culture shifts, the bishop said, several positive results will occur. One is that ministry at the conference level will become more discipleship/local church-focused and organizationally streamlined.

As an example, the bishop cited the conference's nominations report for 2004. It contains about 600 names of people listed on 32 pages.

'We don't have to elect 32 pages of people to make disciples of Jesus Christ,' Bishop Schol said. 'I foresee fewer boards and agencies in the future of the conference, but more resourcing of congregations for discipleship.'

Instead, he said, discipleship will increase as people are freed to simply follow their passions, use their gifts, and go and do.

Another likely benefit: the benevolence factor, which determines church apportionments, will go down. But that, like increases in membership, is not the reason for making these changes. Making disciples of Jesus Christ is.

'When we are focused on discipleship, everything else falls into place,' the bishop said. 'The questions of things like paying apportionments and ?What's in this for me?' diminish, because people get excited and see the positive results of participating in discipleship. The focus becomes engaging disciples in the journey.'

But first, the parameters of the playing field ? the boundaries of where the conference will offer resources and support for ministry ? must be defined. That is the next step in the process and the reason for the meetings later this month.

Bishop Schol is confident that a culture shift to making disciples, based on the early church model found in Acts 2, will produce fruits of biblical proportions.

The fruits and Acts scriptures by which churches will be judged include:

• Acts 2:47 ? Churches will bring in, on profession of faith, one person for every 25 worshipers.
• Acts 2:41 ? Worship attendance will be expected to grow by two percent, or, if the church is in an area that is experiencing development and population growth, two percent over the percentage of growth in the community.
• Acts 2:44-45 ? Every congregation will be expected to:

1. Engage in a Community of Shalom-type local ministry that
   fosters healing or transformation.
2. Activate 90 percent of its worshipers in some ministry within five years.
3. Financially support mission within and beyond the community through second-mile giving and paying 100 percent of apportionments.

• Acts 2:42 ? Reported signs of God's power and wonder will emerge in the community through the church.

Most of the changes to the conference's structure that need to happen will be proposed at annual conference in May. The proposals will be a result of the planning meetings between the bishop, key conference leaders and laity and clergy of the conference.

'Most of these changes will be activated in the next four years, as I see it,' the bishop said. 'Changing the culture takes longer to develop.'