Making Disciples Project
North Texas Conference
United Methodist Church
Presented by Christopher Everson
Making disciples for Jesus Christ first and foremost is not a task. We get in trouble when we look at making disciples as something we must do in order to survive. When Jesus Christ gave us the command in Matthew 28 to “Go and make disciples”, it wasn’t a call to build an organization. It was a call to introduce people to Jesus Christ and then to equip them to move out into the world to share the transformation that Christ has done in their lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus gives us examples of disciple making through his calling, teaching, healing and sending. Jesus called his disciples to be in relationship with him and through their relationship with Christ, they went out to bring others into relationship with Christ. We see that in scripture when Jesus found Philip, then Philip went to Nathanael and brought Nathanael to Jesus. It is the experience that Philip had with the living Christ that compelled him to share with one of his friends. When we experience Christ, we then must be like Philip and share our experiences with others so they may experience Christ’s transforming power for themselves. Disciple making calls us to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen. Just as Jesus reminded Martha that she needed to follow Mary’s example by taking time to sit and listen instead of doing busy work, so we can learn and grow through hearing God’s word proclaimed and through intentional study of God’s word. As I continue to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I see that I can be like Martha and fail to take time to be with God, when I should be listening for God’s voice for direction. Helping others to become disciples means I share the importance of taking time to listen and study God’s word.
Disciple making calls us to be a part of healing ministry to the poor and the marginalized. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Being a disciple means that we ask God to, “Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When we are free for such obedience, we can experience joy in giving to others. Finally, making disciples means that we are to be sent into the world. Within Jesus’ ministry he sent his disciples out into the world to proclaim the good news. While his call within the Gospels was to go throughout Israel, Jesus says, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In April 1972 five couples met in Sherman, Texas to discuss the possibility of starting a new United Methodist church in Grayson County. The last United Methodist Church started in the county was started in 1880, more than 90 years earlier. As they sat and talked, they looked at the needs of the surrounding area and saw that “an ‘alternative’ kind of church – a very open, welcoming church, a less formal and more contemporary form of worship, with emphasis on involving children, youth and all the laity in the work and worship services of the church” was needed. From that time, Grace United Methodist Church moved forward to be actively involved in the community providing mission and ministry to the community and also providing a new style of worship that wasn’t currently available in other churches in the area. Now, almost forty years later, Grace has become more of a mission-focused church with a strong focus on works-based ministry, sending missionaries throughout the community, state, country and world; however the focus on worship became stuck in a 1972 context. Contemporary worship meant not having a pipe organ in worship, but replacing the organ primarily with a piano with an occasional guitar or other instrumentation featured as part of the services. While the church celebrates the active mission work that members of the congregation participate in, worship has towed the line and has stayed static over the past 20 years since Don Smith was pastor of the church.
The lay leadership of Grace UMC has become keenly aware that the church, while active in mission, has steadily declined in membership and worship attendance over the past several years. The administrative council, sensing that the early impetus of being a place where those looking for new and refreshing ways to experience Christ has been lost, has decided to recapture the vision of providing worship that will engage people and introduce Jesus Christ in vivid and passionate ways.
When I arrived at Grace over five years ago, the church was trying to provide a worship experience that they called Grace at Night. This was a monthly worship service that took place the second Sunday of each month at 6:00 p.m. The service included singing, led by laity with either taped accompaniment or music videos of contemporary Christian music. The pastor would then present a message or there would be a testimony from laity. The service would conclude with communion as participants circled around the altar as they shared in the breaking of the bread and pouring of the cup together. This was done to capture how communion was celebrated at the founding of Grace.
During my first four months, I saw that this service wasn’t sustainable. Attendance rarely climbed above 25 people, and there was no plan for growth. Before the fall of 2007, we decided to disband the service and then develop plans to provide a passionate worship service to reach out to the community. After disbanding the “Grace at Night” service, we had to ask a few questions: what do we want to accomplish, and who do we want to reach? We knew that the former service was there to satisfy members of Grace who wanted a more contemporary service, but it wasn’t used as an outreach tool to connect those outside of the walls of Grace to Jesus Christ.
A task force was established in April of 2008 by the worship committee to discuss starting a new service in a new place. One other possibility that was explored was if we could reinvent the worship services at Grace to reach out to young adults in the community. During our first meeting, we held a post-it note session where we developed a series of questions that we wanted this new task force to prayerfully consider as we started on this journey. We were able to divide the questions down to five separate categories: spiritual, outreach, logistics, cost and service questions. These questions were discussed by the task force over the next couple of months in order to keep moving toward the goal of planning a new worship service. Through this taskforce, a weekly jam session was established to start practicing music and to prepare for a worship service to start that next September 2008. This was a step of faith that six members of the church took to be prepared when they were called upon to sing and play during worship. This group had an opportunity to lead worship during the 10:30 p.m. Christmas Eve service in 2008, letting members hear how a Grace United Methodist Church flavored praise team would lead worship. As we started the endeavor, two key moments in the life of the church took place.
First was a sermon preached by Bishop Scott Jones from the Kansas Area during the 2008 Annual Conference. In this sermon, Bishop Jones challenged the church to envision themselves as either a church of pioneers or a church of settlers. In his sermon, Bishop Jones explained that pioneers reach out and share Christ with the community around them and look for new ways to share the story of Jesus Christ with others and not staying put to what is settled now. However, he also shared that the settlers were important too, because they continued to support those pioneers who wanted to reach out to new people in new places, each working in concert with one another, not competing with each other, but understanding that we have a shared goal in reaching people for Christ and encouraging them to grow in their faith.
Second was General Conference 2008. During the conference, young people from the worldwide United Methodist connection had the opportunity to address the entire conference. We shared a clip from General Conference where Rev. Annie Arnoldy said, “Think about your church building and your young adult program. Open up your thoughts about the identity of young people. And offer a place to belong.” This quote helped the church discern who our target audience would be. After assessing the needs of some of our own young adults and the needs of young adults in Sherman, including students at Austin College and Grayson County Community College, we started to consider offering a worship opportunity for young adults either off-campus or at Grace UMC. While all of this discussion was taking place, we started to place feelers out to find the proper place to establish this ministry. Cost prohibited us from renting space near downtown or at the Midway Mall, and the possibility to purchase the soon-to-be vacated home of Sherman Bible Church fell through when Sherman Bible turned down our offer to purchase their property across the street from Grace’s property. After determining that the new service would take place in our current worship space, plans soon were underway to renovate the Celebration Center worship space with a new sound system and video capabilities. These updates were purchased with the help of a “Leap of Faith” capital campaign, and the discussion changed to what kind of worship we would offer at Grace. To answer this question, the task force sent out two different surveys.
One survey was written for church members to get their feelings about worship at Grace, with the questions asked revolving around what music they preferred, what did they love about worship at Grace, what additional experiences would they like offered in our worship services and what day and time they thought a new service would be best offered. Forty surveys were return which represents approximately 25% of the worship attendees on an average Sunday. Almost all of the surveys were positive about the new or changed service, with people saying they were looking forward to supporting the service with at least their prayers. The second survey was sent out to first time guests who attended worship between January 2008 and June 2008. These surveys included stamped envelopes addressed to the church for easy return. Twenty surveys were mailed out and only five were returned. Three were members of other churches and the other two were interested in more information when we started the service. We thought about setting up a booth at a local store, going door-to-door, or even setting up a booth at a local festival to have more people fill out the survey, but leadership in the church didn’t want to seem too pushy to non-church members, so those plans were tabled. When August 2008 rolled around, we were not ready to start the worship service. Members of the taskforce continued to lift up the new initiative in prayer and also visited different congregations that held the type of worship experiences we were looking to incorporate. With the “Leap of Faith” campaign wrapping up, plans were underway to add the needed technology for a new service. With the work from the taskforce along with the worship committee, plans revolved around establishing a third worship service between the existing services at Grace starting in February 2009. Plans for this service were put on hold again because of the fear of Sunday School classes being torn apart because of the new service. A compromise was established to hold a “Taste of Grace” practice service during the season of Lent in 2009. This “Taste of Grace” service would introduce elements of what a contemporary worship service would look like. It was held immediately following the 8:30 a.m. worship service before the 9:55 Sunday School hour. During this service, the praise team would play and I presented different elements that could be incorporated with the new service including videos, interviews, congregational discussion and brief messages. Our Lenten theme was Micah 6:8 and we used different ideas and media for the worship “experiment.” Overall it was greatly accepted, but at the end of the day, worship committee and administrative council voted to retain the early service as our traditional service and make the second service a blended worship service, basically keeping the order of worship, but substituting the piano-led music with music led by the praise team. The results of the service have been positive for the most part. We have seen an increase in young adult attendees and members since we started the blended service in September 2009. Our marketing has been simple due to the lack of budget to support a strong advertising effort. One of the ways we have promoted the service is by updating our church website. And that alone being connected to the denomination website has brought in several guests who are looking for a worship service that has a praise band. We know of people of all ages who live as far away as Gainesville that have attended worship at Grace because they are looking for a United Methodist Church that provides band led worship. We are also using social media to provide an opportunity for congregation members to “like” GraceSherman and share updates with other friends. Over the past three years, as we have worked to build the new worship service, we tried engage young adults in ministry at the church as well as in the community. Young adults are actively participating, planning and leading worship on Sunday morning during the blended worship service. We have young adults that are leading mission events including our annual Thanksgiving lunch for the Women’s Crisis Center, supporting the Imagine No Malaria campaign and preparing to head to Africa for a two-week mission trip. Young adults are wanting to be a part of the youth ministry of the church, and they want to help support the youth as they grow in their faith in Jesus Christ by being sponsors for events including or annual Weekend of Grace spiritual life retreat or just driving around for a youth scavenger hunt. Young adults are promoting Grace UMC by participating in local 5k/15k events in Sherman as a part of our Running with Grace team, and one of our young adults is now on the Grayson County Relay for Life planning team; he is in charge of online donations. Each step is a small step, but the membership of Grace UMC is living out the challenge given by Rev. Annie Arnoldy by offering a place for young people to belong.
One of the young adults recently shared with me that he was asking God to help him complete a sale at the car lot he works at that would give him a $1,500 commission. He promised that if he made the sale, he would immediately go to church and tithe on his commission. He made the sale and made sure he was at church the next Sunday so he could give God his tithe. This young adult did this because he believed in the church that has so recently made him feel welcomed and he wanted to thank God for providing a place that he could feel at home, and a place that he could continue to grow in his faith, so he can transform the world around him.
Looking over my notes and the work the church has done to get to this point, I know that our task is not over, but have instead just begun. If we could do this all over again, I would try to move toward a third worship service rather than using the second worship service as a blended service. I think we lost some of the creativity that could have come with the third service because we tried to fit the style of music into the mold of the traditional worship service of Grace UMC. Having a separate worship would have allowed us to try different approaches to worship and really would have set that service apart as the pioneer service looking for new and creative ways to reach out to the non-churched in our community.
Through this process, I have been able to take care of myself because of the strong support I have from my wife. She has stood beside me through all of the meetings and all of the planning. Her support and encouragement gave me a different viewpoint through the creation of the service, giving me words of encouragement when I felt like things weren’t going as well as they really were. I have been blessed with a strong group of laity that would let me know if I was getting over-extended through the process, and they would and still will take care of details of the service and planning so I can focus on other areas of ministry.
Because of this service and because of the support I have received in this process, I am most definitely a different disciple today than when we started working on the new service. It started out as just a project to provide a platform for non-hymnal music to be used in a worship experience, but it evolved into a place where people’s lives are being transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. I see that in my own life I have been able to place my ministry in God’s hands.
There is a quote that I can’t recall who to attribute to, but it says “You cannot expect your people to go where you are not willing to go.” Through this process, I have grown in the understanding that if I truly want to make disciples of Jesus Christ, I need to be a disciple. I need to be firmly rooted in scripture and prayer even more so when times become difficult. It has been an honor to work with the laity and with my lead pastor to create this new service. I’m looking forward to see where God will lead me as I seek to remain faithful to my call in ministry.
