Launch Team #5 Minutes of October 8, 2014
“More congregations will increasingly begin to look like their neighborhoods.
A church’s neighborhood is the heart and soul of its mission field.
A church that looks like its neighborhood has taken time to develop relationships with the people there, reach out in ways that make a real difference in their lives and begin being in ministry with- and not just to-them.”
Present: Jimmie Boyd, Richard Lancaster, Candace Barron, Dede Roberts, Che Dolan
Present via call in: Bruce Vick, Susan Ledbetter, Charles Long & Mike Morey
Meeting began with a roll call, welcome and Prayer by Dede Roberts.
Dede began by asking for suggestions for a new Project Manager to replace Bruce who is stepping down. The group having none were told to think and get back to the group and Che Dolan will serve as Project Manager for today.
The minutes from April were discussed in noting that WebEx worked very well.
Church Lay Leaders were discussed in great detail. Trying to push back to church lay leaders and we need to get them on board as advised by conference requirements - and if they aren’t we need to get a new one. Their role is crucial to this process. Dede suggested that we need to write a job description for lay leaders in the church.
Richard said Lay Leader to be ex-officio – but needs to be empowered to do job for community. Susan said while making a new job description for a lay leader that person in church that fits the description to be the bridge person, plus it forms a solution to be a key model to work toward this new description.
Dede suggested that we add to our list of action items making a new description of lay leader – it’s too late for the nominating process but it needs to go on the list to put together in time to find the best. Susan offered the description training discipleship development – lay leadership team of church if we could set our timeline by
Nov. with input that this would be a draft and a working model to be put forth by January to Conference and
DS’s – for each district.
Comment that as someone was asked to be a lay leader, they didn’t know what to do for the actual service.
Review of Action Items

Export Factor from Technology Center o Exploring Local church emails into our data base o Church lay leaders don’t get mail – they are not in our data base. It’s a problem area that we don’t have a solution to get email, info on members and great resistance on giving that info out by members. So who writes a policy on getting info?

Survey concepts on willingness and readiness to look like neighborhood o Jimmy asked how does each launch team pass along info so that nothing is duplicated.

 Dede said the Project Team managers meet to share info and to link conversations. As far as the Center is concerned – it’s a piece that we are working on. We are doing work, but not a good communication system link to get out info on lay leaders, clergy, and congregation. Coaches and Circuit Elders are on the same page, plus the DS are more involved in selection of who the Center work with since the DS’s are in the first process of the loop now as opposed to them not being a part of the process.
 We need to put our efforts to produce fruit.
 Richard asked where is this happening. What churches are working, what are they doing, their successes, and their failures.
 Bruce said Dan Williams would be good to be on the team.
Do the charge conferences have this as a new listing to mine what is happening, not happening, working or not working during their conference?

Identify action steps inside and outside the church for a congregation to consider looking like its neighborhood. o We need to be mining places it’s working and steps we are taking, guidelines, etc. so that churches know what to do. Churches have no idea of what to do first, what their neighborhood needs. o Jimmie mentioned that Mission Insite should be the first step with each church. Dede said we need to continue to train of what Mission Insite does so that each one can truly benefit.

Explore shared space and hospitality with cultural groups. o Church is the least used building in some cities – can we use it for other things? o Other cultures could use the space – we need to identify which churches are doing this, then monitoring the outcomes and feelings about other uses. This isn’t a new concept, since some churches are already doing this. Such as AA meetings, Weight Watchers, and Hispanic groups using for meeting places. Doesn’t have to be a church service. o Dede said the Koran books that were sent to clergy were an awesome idea – this increases the diversity of our community. It’s an investment tool and a commitment to invest in opening up a dialogue.

We will continue to refine the action Items.
Discussion of “But They Don’t Look Like Us” Questions for Reflection
1.
What do I need to know about the cultural context of the persons I have been called to be in ministry
with the live in my mission field?
Susan asked what are the neighborhood activities, where do they go, what activities do they like to do? Do they go to football games, market? These would certainly be different in each district. Retirement communities would offer a difference to downtown areas. So many might work in a hospital – so could we offer a worship service to administer to doctors on Monday Night. This has been done, started well, and then it didn’t. Jim said we need to be willing to fail.
Dede said it was eye opening for a church to start a Hispanic service. All white, older, etc. began with a prayer, then to go outside at each of the four corners of the block and pray for what we saw. What they observed. Dede went to a local church and asked the people if they had gone out into the community to see what people were doing. See the cars, mowing, activities, who wasn’t in church. That congregation said there wasn’t any point in doing this. They wouldn’t see anyone.

Richard said it all came down to a fear issue. And we have to get beyond this out of our comfort zone and reach out into making fruitfulness. Getting our faith into a stronger place because there is more diversity than we know. We have to start with ones that are willing then move on and go further because Jesus calls us to do this.
2.
If there is a large population of persons that I am not familiar working with (language, socio-
economics, gender, etc.), what strategies do I need to employ to be able to be more effective?
We need to be quiet and listen. We need to quit modeling fear. Richard mentioned that in his building we jump to security issues instead of thinking what the church has to offer if its doors were open. Interesting to note that we will go off to do missionary work but not in our own neighborhoods.
3.
What is the one struggle/issue I have that I would like more clarity about as a result of our time
together?
Bruce asked how do you define our mission field.
Charles said we have to create a fire in the belly – if we can do that with one person, then they will reach out. If one or two who are willing to step out and confront the church over what it needs to do. It’s also not the “conference office” job to do it – it’s a matter that we need to include everyone.
Action Items for Next Steps
Dede said it appears that one of our first action items is a job description for a church lay leader that reflects the Bishop’s plan and have a draft ready by the next meeting. We are looking for people who are already working in this way. Enhance the lay leaders who are already in this place doing the work. Each committee heading has a job description – specifying what God is calling us in Arkansas to do. We need to be more specific in our job description of what a lay leader does.
Susan Ledbetter and Charles Long agreed to write this draft of a job description of a lay leader and more specific description for Nominating Committee.
Candace, John and Dede will work on identifying churches where mission field is working and as a Center will make a mission field ministry - a directory.
Lay Leaders and Clergy - we will need to send out a survey (and include DS’s) when you get a story to send it to the Center.
Susan said the Circuit Elders have conversations and assessment forms needed on the charge conferences. In this way, maybe this will help getting the stories to us.
Dede and Richard will work on getting out to District Administrators to get them to tell their stories too.
We need to add several to our launch team that will fit in very well. They are: Dan Williams and Jeff Jones
Plus, any other names that the team thinks would benefit our launch team in being successful needs to be given to team members and passed on to get the names to us.
Susan and Charles are going to write a job description and a process for nominations Center – identifying churches to make it easier to tell their stories, etc. Creating more communication of our success and failures to keep us growing.

Dede will invite Dan and Jeff to our next meeting.
Some of the successes are reaching out to our Hispanic people in the chicken plant in Caraway with Jeanne
Williams. There are many more – we need to tell them!
November 6th, 10AM meet again via Web X for discussions.
Team Members:
Central DS: Richard Lancaster, 2 Country Club Cir Ste 101, Maumelle 72113, (501)851-1433, richard.lancaster@arumc.org
Northeast DS: Susan Ledbetter, PO Box 2415, Batesville, 72503, (870)793-5247, sledbetter@arumc.org
Northwest DS: Bud Reeves, 4010 Grand Ave., Ft. Smith, 72903, (479)783-0385, breeves@arumc.org
Southeast DS: Mark Norman, 200 West 6th Ave Pine Bluff, 71601, (870)367-3365, mark.norman@arumc.org
Southwest DS: Mike Morey, 904 Caddo St Arkadelphia, 71923, (870)230-1118, mmorey@arumc.org
NW UMW: Laurete Wright, 3710 Bradley Dr, Fort Smith, 72904, (479)783-3078, alwright1@cox.net
Dede Roberts CCLL, 800 W Daisy Bates Dr Little Rock, 72202-3724, (501)324-8016, droberts@arumc.org
Candace Barron, 800 W Daisy Bates Dr Little Rock, 72202, (501)324-8017, candace.barron@arumc.org
John Crawford, 800 W Daisy Bates Dr Little Rock, 72202-3724, (501)324-8011, jcrawford@arumc.org
Martha Taylor, 1007 Gamble Rd, Little Rock 72211, (501)324-8035 , mtaylor@arumc.org
Central: John Crawford, 800 W Daisy Bates Dr Little Rock, 72202, (501)324-8011, jcrawford@arumc.org
Northeast: Charles Long, 503 Brandon Dr., Beebe 72012, (501) 882-7146, cagmlong@yahoo.com
Northwest: Bruce Vick, (PM) , 3709 Pebble Ct, Fort Smith 72903, (479) 484-5397, bvick1@juno.com
Southeast: Darrell Mills, 133 County Road 372 Wynne, AR 72396-8555, (870) 238-8046 bonnieanddarrell@gmail.com
Southwest: Jim Kimzey, 23756 Highway 51, Malvern, AR 72104, 501-337-4603, jim@kimzeyinc.com
Lawrence Bearden, 1203 Pine Cir. Smackover, 71762, 870-725-2142, labearden@sbcglobal.net
Jimmie Boyd, 1110 Wooley Rd. Rison, 71665, (870) 357-2688, jb1110@tds.net
Soniyyah Key,5400 Chenonceau Blvd Apt 924, Little Rock, AR 72223-4754, (479) 561-4701, sblue33@gmail.com