At our leadership training this year, I have again invited our Conference Lay Leader – this time Kim Brannon – to be our keynote speaker. Our church’s Lay Leader, Tim Hopson, will start us off with a devotion. Both of them represent the best in our Wesleyan tradition.

As I teach in Methodism 101, when Methodism was taking Christianity across America in the 19th century, it was the circuit riding preachers who brought the spark, but it was the laity who flamed the fire. American church historians credit the people called Methodist with being largely the impetus for the spread of Christianity across the frontier during that formative time of our country’s history. 

When we “settled” in the 20th century, we began to look less like a movement and more like an institution. And we ceded much power and influence to pastors, church professionals and agencies. That movement did not serve the cause of Christianity well which at its base/best is “one thirsty person telling another thirsty person where they can find living water” in Jesus. 

For a post-pandemic church to be effective, she will have to look again more like a movement rather than an institution. But what will that look like? Church professionals will have a difficult time foreseeing that and doing it because we are so tied to what we have always known. Laypeople, on the other hand, will have ideas – good ideas – that need to be taken seriously and developed with the support of their pastors, church professionals and agencies in order to get the church moving again in fresh directions and more in line with where people are living their lives today. 

I would love to say that I know what all of this will look like, but I don’t, to be honest. It’s why we work hard on the Committee of Nominations and Leadership Development to bring forward the best leadership gifts in people who feel called to exercise those gifts for the sake of our church’s mission. Tim and Kim and our slate of leaders for 2023 represent that calling well. For all of our United Methodist Churches to really get moving at our best again, it will be about the laity, thanks be to God.

Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,