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Summary of Input Received at the
2005 Annual Conference

The first three headings describe the overall tone Annual Conference members feel should guide our actions. The remaining phrases were chosen because they reflect ideas we saw recurring very frequently in the materials.

Bold
There is significant energy and desire for the Conference (leadership, churches, and individuals) to faithfully act with boldness. The feeling exists that administrative concerns have molded choices rather than allowing courage and compassion to drive administrative decisions. There is a common desire for leaders to prayerfully decide what matters, set priorities, and then focus on accomplishing those priorities, even if it means changing the systems in place. Phrases that arise quite often include prophetic, on fire for God, creative, and think outside the box.

Passionate
Joining the cry for boldness is the desire that passion for God and faithful living drive ministry at all levels. A strong desire exists for the Conference to establish a unity of purpose around things that matter deeply. A significant number of people believe too many local churches are unfocused and "going through the motions of ministry." The fear expressed is that complacency is killing the spirit of passionate people in local churches. The call for passion is seen in calls to connect Conference priorities to local church actions, spend money where passion lies, and a desire that ministries be held accountable.

Joyful
There was certainly a generalized hunger for people and churches to express more joy in their faith, but two areas were frequently directly tied to joy: finances and clergy/lay relationships. There is a desire that all levels of the Conference focus on stewardship as joyful gratitude. Too often money is perceived as an administrative issue rather than a stewardship issue. This was often linked to the need for teaching on tithing and a small but strong prophetic call for the Conference to move toward local church tithing rather than apportionments. Likewise, joy was desired in relationships between lay and clergy and between clergypersons. The hope was that by leadership dealing more strongly with "clergy killing" churches and dysfunctional pastors, lay and clergy could become less adversarial. Similarly, many expressed a desire for less competition between clergy.

Worship
Obviously these categories blend into one another. One case in point: many people frame their particular longing for the Conference by discussing the need for more transformational worship experiences. Good worship is defined as Holy Spirit led, theologically strong, sharing the love of Christ, calling people to commitment in Jesus, and leading them to grow in concern and action for others. Worship is perceived as an essential foundation for all other ministries. This is often voiced as "too much bad preaching," "poor theology," and "without depth." A common call was to demand excellence in clergy, remove ineffective preachers, and appoint capable clergy.

Hunger to Serve Christ
A significant number of those responding place personal commitments to Jesus Christ as the key issue for the Conference. They desire Holston people to share a deeper level of dedication and spirituality. This longing is voiced as part of almost all other urgent calls, particularly concern for poor and marginalized, evangelism, mission, inclusivity, less bureaucracy/more action, and justice.

Risk-Taking Love for All God's Children
The number one area where people believe we need to respond "with urgency and risk-taking faith" was in concern for others, poverty, care for poor and marginalized, feeding the hungry, etc. This is also clearly seen in the numerous calls for a "more action, less talk" attitude. The general feeling was that the local church was the primary place for this connection. There was a desire for each local church to be able to see and name where they were engaging with the community. A general theological idea often expressed was that relationship is more important than efficiency.

There was a considerable hunger for the church to seek more diversity and inclusivity. Open itinerancy and working harder to facilitate the acceptance of women in ministry were enunciated often. Agreement and energy were expressed around the idea of bringing more young adults into the church. There was an obvious and notable disagreement as to how the Conference should respond to the issue of homosexuality. However, voices consistently wanted the Church to move out of its comfort zones. The call for risk-taking was expressed as a desire to try new things, risk failure, and be open to creativity rather than squelch it.

Saving Grace
Along with "hunger to serve Christ," there were an overwhelming number of responses that assumed the church exists to bring people to profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, evangelism as a priority was seen in comments ranging from the importance of training people how to share their faith to the need for new congregational development. "Sharing the love of Christ" was overwhelmingly expressed throughout.

Redeeming Justice
Although a number were frightened of the divisiveness of homosexuality or simply tired of that particular issue, the majority desired the church to openly address and discuss cultural issues. The issues consistently named were poverty, oppression, war, sexuality, injustice. The hope expressed by many was that our core beliefs would be so foundational that we could risk real Christ-centered dialogue on difficult justice topics in a loving way, even when we disagree.

Compiled responses to the Biblical Benchmarks exercise (pdf)


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