EMC Ministerial Discusses “WHO’S IN?”

Unsplashed photo by Josh Applegate.

“Who’s IN?” was the provocative title of the EMC Ministerial meeting held on November 24, 2023. The 79 ministerial members assembled at Pansy Chapel spent the day discussing four variations of that question.

Dylan Barkman, pastor at Pansy Chapel, set the tone with the verse “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). He pointed out that all people experience gifts of God like creation and children, but there are aspects of the “light” that only people who follow Jesus have. The pasture in this passage, he explained, is the sustenance they experience. We can expect a life lived in ministry to Jesus to be demanding, Barkman said, but also irreplaceably life-giving.

Session 1: Who’s IN? Doors and Barriers

In the first session, Conference Pastor Andy Woodworth related the story of a church he was sent to pastor—a church that was dying. The building was hidden behind boulders and overgrown shrubs on a residential street on the outskirts of town, he said, while the building itself had solid brown entry doors and clouded windows. Buildings reflect the character of the church, he continued, and as an example shared that a year after his family arrived, they were still considered new.

Over time, Woodworth says, another congregation merged with them; they improved the building and landscaping, and they changed the name. But, he said, they did these things only after they had made internal changes. The church chose a theme verse from Zechariah 11:16 about a worthless shepherd and made it their mission to be the opposite. They would make the church a safe space that reached people nobody else was reaching and give them hope. In response, the Lord sent the lost, the young and the injured. This was sometimes challenging but it was their mission.

The appearance of the building communicates something important to guests and newcomers regarding how welcome they are. Woodworth included as examples things like clarity about which door is the main entry, signs for the washrooms, and how complete announcements are.

Woodworth then introduced three common models of church: the fortress—focused on protecting and serving the people already there, the warehouse—focused on bringing people in and caring for them, and the factory model—which is about “producing a final product” or discipling people and helping them apply what they learn. “Is there a hospital model?” was one of the questions he was asked after the presentation. He responded this was where the church he described earlier had started with the broken people who came. He adds that a “staging area” for healing is important, but a church can get stuck there and become the factory model. It’s important that churches get people back on their feet and through recovery.

Barriers to making disciples will always develop unintentionally which means we need to continue to evaluate how well we are doing.

Session 2: Who’s IN? Intentional Discipleship

Discipleship was the topic of the second session. Woodworth introduced a graph showing five stages of maturity using an A-B-C-D-E model (Acceptance, Belonging, Community, Discipleship, Emanating). He explained how, as people mature in faith, they move through the stages from A to E, but when people minister to others, the most effective way is to work backward through those letters. The person best placed to bring another person along in the process, he says, is often the one who is just one stage ahead—so ministry flows from E to A. These are not neat linear stages, though, as stages A and B (acceptance and belonging), for example, could describe people who aren’t saved but could also describe a pastor who isn’t accepted.

Participants then briefly discussed how their churches facilitated these five stages and then moved on to talk about three progressively more challenging case studies featuring a hypothetical person or family becoming part of their congregation. The ministerial considered how they would integrate these people into their church and in what areas of ministry they would likely be invited to serve.

Woodworth shared the most important question of the day:

“What do we as ministerial do to help churches be more intentional in making disciples?”

Session 3: Who’s IN? Church Membership

In session three, Executive Director Emery Plett led a conversation with a panel of leaders from three EMC churches (Abbeydale, Blumenort, and Westpointe) on the topic of membership and baptism.

The churches represented have very similar baptism and membership structures: all have formal membership they value, membership is linked to baptism, and baptism is upon confession of faith. But all three are also encountering situations that require them to think through their practices.

Membership lists in each church included people who were not attending and often hadn’t for years. All the churches represented were addressing this, in part as an administrative matter but also, for Abbeydale and Westpointe as a pastoral opportunity to reconnect with people. It also spurred Westpointe to think through the meaning of membership.

Church practices around baptism are also being challenged. Some are relatively easy to resolve, such as the fear of speaking in public for some candidates. These are handled in a variety of creative ways.

At Westpointe the quick growth of the congregation meant that people often didn’t know baptism candidates; now, elders get to know applicants and they provide a recommendation to the church.

Some baptism candidates grapple with aspects of the EMC Statement of Faith. In response two churches modified the requirement to agree, in one case asking for enough agreement to work along and another asking for agreement with the abridged version of the EMC Statement of Faith, with the caveat that to be in leadership there needs to be full agreement. The church continues to teach the whole statement of faith.

All panellists have encountered questions about rebaptism. In some cases, the question is whether people baptized as infants could become members without rebaptism. Blumenort leadership recognized that their requirements made it harder for people to become members than it was for them to become Christians. They were not comfortable with this and decided to accept as members people who had been baptized as infants provided, they had gone through confirmation. They, however, teach and perform only baptism on confession of faith.

Membership tied to baptism has also created some concerns. Jared Schroeder (Westpointe) shared a story of his son and his co-panellist Richard Krahn’s daughter who had been baptized on a mission trip. This was hurtful for the families and home church, but they found a way to celebrate the baptism as a church. However, his son is now not a member though he has been in the church for his whole life. They have also had people who recognized they weren’t going to be staying at Westpointe and so just wanted to be baptized—the church tries to accommodate these requests.

Blumenort and Westpointe have both encountered people who were reluctant to take up membership because of their coercive religious backgrounds. Westpointe accommodates these concerns and allows baptism without membership. Blumenort and Abbeydale maintain the link between baptism and membership but incorporate people into the church body in one of many ways they can while continuing to encourage people toward membership.  

Another concern was the desire of some candidates to be baptized at a particular site that is meaningful to them, or to be baptized by a family member. The pastors on the panel have sometimes accommodated these requests but do not prefer that approach, believing that it is important to celebrate baptism as the church body.  

Questions and comments included caution about changing our practices too easily, questions about how to proceed when someone accepted Christ and wanted to be baptized but was in a common law relationship and whether baptism and membership might be better separated.

Session 4: Who’s IN? The Ministerial

In the final session led by Cameron McKenzie, Board of Leadership and Outreach chair, the questions revolved around the ministerial. After reviewing the recent changes to the Ministerial definition, McKenzie asked, “Who cares?” inviting those present to consider why they are part of the Conference Ministerial and what they expect of each other. He asked them to list five expectations that the EMC should have of EMC ministers beyond exemplary, ethical and Christ-like character which is assumed. His final request was for the day’s participants to present one good idea for how the Board of Leadership and Outreach can improve and grow the conference ministerial in its work and expectations.

The day closed with those present sharing some of what is happening in their churches and encouraging each other.