Jesus said to his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
Dear Disciples of Jesus in the Kentucky-Tennessee Episcopal Area,
On July 11, the Southeastern Jurisdiction assigned me to the newly formed Kentucky-Tennessee Episcopal Area which consists of three wonderful conferences–the Central Appalachia Missionary Conference, Kentucky Conference, and the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference. I, along with conference leadership, developed a plan to meet as many people as possible and implement priorities for our work together.
Over the last six months, introduction meetings were held and Onboarding sessions took place in each annual conference. Hundreds of people including bishops, pastors, and staff have experienced the Onboarding Process now housed with the Candler Center for Christian Leadership at Candler School of Theology on the campus of Emory University. For those who have used this wonderful resource, it advances you months, if not years, ahead in your knowledge of people and the organization you are a part of or leading.
To date, I have met with approximately 1,500 different people, some twice or multiple times. The overarching theme I heard is that we need leadership to move beyond the distractions of the past four years to get back to our purpose of discipleship. Instead of verbally proclaiming our mission of “making disciples for the transformation of the world,” we need to act upon this statement.
It is evident to me after these meetings that our next step is to claim the priorities that have already begun to guide our ministry work. Clearly, this is not all we do but the focus of our Kingdom work will be spent around these five areas under the umbrella of Discipleship.
Discipleship is not a program but a way of living that offers the world another way. As disciples of Jesus, our lives become oriented to relationships, sacrifice, and transformation. Focusing on these disciplines will deepen our faithfulness and foster our spiritual maturity as disciples of Jesus.
Mental Health & Well-Being:
The last four years have been taxing on many levels with COVID, church disaffiliations, political tensions, and cultural silos, to mention a few. Our congregations and communities desperately need us to model healthy relationships and hope. We will continue to provide resources such as counseling, healthy church models in a new reality, and time away from ministry demands. We have a wonderful opportunity to not only help in the moment but develop disciplines of how we handle the mental stresses of ministry and life. Healthy pastors, church leaders, and staff make healthy congregations that share hope, which is found in Jesus. The priority of mental health is not a program, but it is an action of discipleship.
Professions of Faith:
You shared with me several concerns. First, the number of people that left your congregations during the disaffiliation process or following the recent General Conference. In some instances, we are left with committed people who are discouraged with limited resources of people and money as well as buildings that need costly repairs and attention. In other places, we have few children or youth. How are we going to sustain our present ministry? Do we have a future past a few years?
There are always exceptions to anything, but the entire church in America is facing the same dilemma. Churches of all denominations and independent churches are closing at alarming rates. In 2022, for the first time in recording the statistics of deaths and professions of faith, the number of deaths exceeded the number of professions of faith in the United Methodist Church. Dr. Lovett Weems recently shared with a group of us bishops that the United Methodist Church has been declining over the last 100 years. Due to COVID and church disaffiliations, the rate of decline accelerated 20 years. Where we find ourselves today is where we would have been in 2045.
As I shared in my own personal stories of being a pastor and district superintendent, I have a personal priority of leading people to Jesus Christ and a pathway of discipleship. This is a lifelong process for truly making disciples for the transformation of the world. We have been good at making church members and not disciples. Remember, disciples lead others to know the love of Jesus and disciple others. A disciple is also discipled by other disciples.
What if we focused on people this year? As I have shared in some conversations, one person can change a whole church. What if a church or several churches that have few children collaborated to hire a children’s director or youth leader to minister to the children and youth in your communities? Perhaps there are volunteers to revive this ministry. By focusing on people, it will guide a plan for church buildings. I could give testimony after testimony to thousands of dollars given by the leading of the Holy Spirit. When people’s lives are changed, the money and people follow.
Yet this requires committed and faithful people who lean into God’s call.
Culture of Call:
Like many leadership roles in the United States, there is a shortage of people who want to fill those roles. It crosses the entire workforce from medical doctors, nurses, teachers, restaurant workers, trade workers, and the list goes right on down to those pastoring churches. It is not just United Methodist Churches, but every mainline church.
As I talk with seminary students or those who feel called, many don’t have strong desires to serve in the local church. The church conflicts, the loud voices who seem to control what others do in the church, and difficult and demanding people are a turn off. I get it! There have always been difficult people, but the level of entitlement, racism, power, and control have reached new heights within our culture filtering right on down into the local church.
However, we need to remember the church is God’s church, not ours. What if we leaned into a time of prayer, anointing, and the leading of the Holy Spirit to discover what God is calling each of us to do in being Kingdom Builders and not our own kingdom. Developing a culture of call is not only for those pastoring churches, for we are a priesthood of believers. Both clergy and laity are called to God’s purpose and call on our lives.
First Corinthians 12:7-11 reminds us, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the Spirit gives the gift of healing, another the gift of miracles, to another to prophesy, another a gift of discernment, another to speak in unknown languages, another to interpret what is being said.”
This list could include the gift of listening, hospitality, and organization, to gifts of building or repairing with your hands to an endless list of gifts coming from the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the church at Corinth that the one and only Spirit given to us by God decides what gift each person should have. Therefore, we must be intentional in creating a culture within our conference and local church of what God is calling each of us to do now.
Spiritual Leadership Development:
This was a common theme that I heard over the last four months. Clergy were seeking help on how they lead in these days. Congregation members are begging for resources to assist them with the new realities of our world and needed strategic church decisions.
Many feel that we reach a leadership plateau in our lives, but leadership is a lifelong process that continues to develop as we grow in our personal discipleship.
We have been distracted for far too long. It is time to place all our energies into the ways we are going to practice leadership in these days. There will always be the next distraction. Disciplined discipleship is a key to our taking the next step forward.
Disrupting & Dismantling Racism & Discrimination:
Yes, you said this to me in several ways. I have heard numerous stories from female clergy and lay leaders. People of color have shared heartbreaking stories of how they have been treated. All the while, most people remained silent, especially white males. The work to dismantle racism and discrimination is not a program or having a discussion or two.
We all are racist in some way. It is why racism is a discipleship issue and must be a priority of our work together. I have been guilty over the years of saying, ignoring, or remaining silent in a racist way. It was not because I intended to be, but it was not until the last 15 years of working on myself that I realized my shortcomings. What I have learned is that I need to keep reading, talking, learning, and listening. There are times when I need to disrupt and speak up for those who are being discriminated against.
Furthermore, I must continue to learn, grow, and be held accountable in this work in my life. It is a discipline, and we must be vulnerable to lean into this priority. In addition, I have learned that one must be willing to do this work and not be forced to do it. Yet, when we do this one life at a time, we begin to disrupt and dismantle racism. This work is also discipleship.
As we move into 2025 and beyond, these priorities of discipleship will guide our conference work together. Some of this feedback is hard to hear and will be challenging, but we must collectively acknowledge the hard work needed and take the steps to move forward together.
I look forward to what God is going to do in and through us as the weeks and months unfold.
Bishop David Graves
Resident Bishop
Kentucky-Tennessee Episcopal Area
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