New year begins with flurry of Fresh Expressions!

God is moving big time in the Indiana Conference as we begin 2024. One particular area is churches creating new faith communities. Besides several new churches being started around the Conference, there is a flurry of Fresh Expressions of church being launched. Fresh Expressions are smaller gatherings of people that meet regularly, typically outside the church building, with the intention of engaging persons who don’t regularly participate in church. Common forms are dinner church, Messy Church, and affinity groups.

This week at least three United Methodist Churches in Indiana launched their very first Fresh Expressions–Chandler UMC in the Southwest District, Petersville UMC in the Southeast District, and Lawrence UMC in the Central District. Chandler UMC, led by Rev. Christena Peohlein, launched The Beacon dinner church with 22 in attendance, some from outside the church. Lawrence’s pastor, Rev. Kimberly Tyler, said her church’s new dinner church, called “Winner, Winner, We Gather for Dinner,” is going “Great!!!” More UMCs are launching Fresh Expressions in the coming months, like Stidham UMC in the Northwest District. It is launching a “Vintage” Messy Church February 8th. Please keep these efforts in your prayers!

The Indiana Conference is one of the sponsors of our denomination’s first national gathering on Fresh Expressions. Called “Futuring Forward:  The Reawakening of People Called Methodist,” this event is being held February 7-9, 2024, at Charlotte, North Carolina. Members from Indiana UMCs receive an $80 discount on their registrations. (Contact me for details.) It’s not too late to sign up! Our Conference also is holding information sessions on the Fresh Expressions model and our team would love to talk with folks interested in starting a Fresh Expression. These free sessions are being held the third Thursday of January, February, and March via Zoom, from 7pm-8pm (Eastern). (Contact me for the Zoom link.)

So, in 2024, is God calling your church to reach and disciple people unlikely to enter its building? Is God prompting you to launch a Fresh Expression of church? Pray about it!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

Church leaves the building

Rev. Carolyn Kern, pastor of Pierceton United Methodist Church, literally has helped her church leave its building. In fact, the church recently auctioned off its building, selling it for $130,000. The proceeds will now help fund the church as it ministers within the Pierceton community. In a recent national UM podcast, Rev. Kern says, “We don’t need a building, to build community.” In fact, with 6-8 people showing up on Sundays, the building was actually a drain on the church’s ministry.

Instead the church is focused on connecting with the people of Pierceton where they live and do life. For example, Pierceton UMC has “adopted” a local downtown bar, called the Taproot Brewhouse. The church not only holds its weekly Sunday worship service there, its pastor and members also help clean, cook, and more than one even got their bartending license to help serve drinks. All this to connect with the local members of the community, to get to know them and build relationships with them, and to share with them the love of Christ.

Early on, Rev. Kern realized that the church needed to connect with people in new ways. Although it was attracting fewer than ten people to its building on Sunday mornings, the church started cardio drumming groups that each averaged 20-30 people. All together they have 125 on the cardio-drumming rolls!

The church also saw a need and filled it. The local Catholic church serves a free community meal once every-other month. Pierceton UMC folk, who have assisted the past eight years, decided to begin offering an additional free meal on the intervening months. Typically twenty or so volunteers serve around 225 people, with more than a dozen additional volunteers supporting them with their prayers and help with logistics and food preparation. Oh yes, and they do this out of the Taproot’s kitchen!

To find out more about this unique church and its community-focused ministries, visit its Facebook page.

How is your church leaving its building?

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

We don’t need a building, to build community.

TaprootBar tending license—cooks, cleans tables, t

Friday-Monday spend time with people attending 

Cardio drumming, Monday’s and Wednesday’s Pleasant Grove, 20-30 per night, 125 on rolls, 6-8 people worshiped on Sunday mornings.

Pierceton, 3^rd Thursday a month, had a community meal.  Had 

Served 225, 20 volunteers at Taproot, another 15 prayed, prepared food ahead of time

Indiana Conference’s newest UMC launches

We celebrate the start of Noel United Methodist Church located in Santa Claus, Indiana Conference’s newest congregation! How fitting that a new United Methodist Church launched on Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023.

The congregation formed after Santa Claus UMC voted to leave the denomination. Retired Pastor Jill Kaetzel has been meeting with interested United Methodists along with Rev. Randy Anderson from the Church Development staff.

On Easter Sunday, people gathered at the Santa Clause Campground chapel to celebrate the church’s first Sunday morning worship service. Ninety-eight people filled the entire space. Praise God!

The church plans to begin meeting in a local community building. Already some of its leaders are talking about starting a Fresh Expression focused on senior adults, so the church is clearly focused on mission and ministry. Conference Superintendent Mitch Gieselman is working with the Bishop and Cabinet on the appointment of the church’s first pastor.

The even better news is this is not the only project that is launching. There are other new and renewing congregations being planned and launched across the state. These include Haitian, Hispanic, urban and rural, Fresh Expressions, digital congregations, a real mix! All this is to say that God is certainly not done with the Indiana Conference and God’s Spirit is moving in amazing ways throughout the state. We are Easter people and so we praise God for our hope-filled future!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

The incarnation: An antidote for growing loneliness

An ongoing Harvard University study that began in 1938, has concluded that “People who are more socially connected to family, friends, or their community are happier, physically healthier and live longer, with fewer mental health problems than people who are less well connected.” In other words, humans are wired for community.

Yet, a growing number of articles are indicating that Americans are increasing lonely and the pandemic has accelerated this trend. In a book written back in 2014, entitled The Vanishing Neighbor, by Marc Dunkelman, the author points out that people typically have relationships in three basic spheres–their families and close friends, their neighborhoods and communities, and more broadly with people who share their common interests. He says that it is in the middle group that the most significant drop in relationships has occurred. People aren’t interacting at the local level like they once were. They tend to relate more distantly, using social media, with like-minded folks. As a result, there are weakening bonds within neighborhoods and a growing level of loneliness.

This growing sense of loneliness, lack of meaningful relationships, and vanishing sense of neighbor all play right into the mission of the church, into the meaning of Christmas. The Message paraphrase of John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” That is what happened at Christmas. Immanuel. “God with us.” Today Jesus becomes incarnate through us being in the world, in our neighborhoods, relating to others. And what better vehicle for this to happen than through the church and fresh expressions of church?

In a recent article Thom Reiner, church researcher and writer, predicts that neighborhood churches will become a movement in 2022. He says defines a neighborhood church as “a congregation that is laser-focused on ministering to a specific geographical area typically described as a neighborhood.”

So, this Christmas and in 2022, let’s take our churches into their communities. Let’s be laser-focused on ministering with our neighbors. Let us build relationships that develop into life-giving friendships. Let us share the love of Christ, the love Christ showed us when he came in the flesh as the baby Jesus.

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

Worshiping in a Covid World…What’s a church to do?

What if the pandemic has no end? What if living with Covid is our new normal? How do churches live in such a world? What have we learned so far that we can apply going forward? Well, when it comes to weekly worship services, one learning is that taking a “both-and” approach is by far the best approach–both in-person and online worship.

A recent study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research indicates that those churches that have offered this both-and option have seen their weekly participation increase by 4.5% since the beginning of the pandemic. On average these churches have actually grown! On the other hand, churches offering only one option–either in-person or online–have experienced a decrease in average weekly worship of between 7 and 16%.

This past March the Indiana Conference hosted a workshop led by Jason Moore entitled, “Both/And,” emphasizing the importance of churches offering both in-person and online worship opportunities. This coming February 2, 2022, from 10am-11:30am (Eastern), Jason will be back with a follow-up webinar “Both/And To Be Continued.”

In the meantime the Conference has also enlisted Cathy Townley, worship training expert, to work with churches that are launching in-person and/or online worship in order to reach new people for Christ. The next training for in-person worship is scheduled for January 15, 2022, 9:00am-3:30pm (Eastern), and will be offered virtually via ZOOM. This training is free but is limited to the first six churches to register. It is required for churches seeking to apply for $5,000 worship matching grants. Grants to launch online faith communities are also offered. The required training for these grants is also led by Cathy on an as-needed basis. For information about the Jason Moore or Cathy Townley trainings, contact me at ed.fenstermacher@inumc.org.

The reality is that 84% of Indiana Conference churches experienced no increase in their average weekly worship attendance the nine years prior to the start of the pandemic. The pandemic appears to have accelerated this decline. Cathy Townley believes that if a church’s worship services are five to seven years old, then it’s time to start a new service. And she believes that all such efforts must consider both in-person and online options.

Why is this so important? Not simply to keep our churches from declining, but much more importantly to carry out our church’s mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation the world. You see, it is far more likely that a church will reach unreached people through a new worship service than through its existing services, and a growing percentage of the population will only be reached online.

So, what is your church going to do? What’s your church’s next step?

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

Is your church too white?

One of the pillars of Kingian non-violence is the idea of the beloved community. We get a glimpse of that in Chapter 7 of the Book of Revelation, which describes a great multitude of every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and the Lamb, praising God. However, it’s more than just people of different ethnicities coming together to worship. It’s creating a community where all people feel included and have a sense of belonging.

Do you long to see such a community? Does your church reflect that type of community? Unfortunately for many, the answer is no. Churches continue to be one of the most segregated organizations in America. Why is this and how do we change it?

A recent webinar entitled, “Are Multiethnic Churches Succeeding,” by Christianity Today, provides some answers.* First, one of the panelists points out that, for the most part, the church in America was started by white colonizers and slaveowners. This resulted, in large part, in the segregated churches of today.

So, what do we do to change this? Here are some ideas that were discussed…

1. We need to acknowledge the sin that is inherent in our homogeneous churches and repent.
2. We need to acknowledge that the problem is systemic and address the sin found in our very systems.
3. We need to remind ourselves of how diverse the original church was, examine our church’s history, and develop lived experience with multiethnic churches.
4. We need to engage in literature, theology and scholarship that is not rooted in white Western culture. If we’re not taking seriously the perspectives of oppressed  people and their understanding of God, we must ask ourselves why?
5. When a racial incident happens (e.g. the deaths of George Floyd and Daunte Wright), pastors must speak out to their constituents and communities and not be silent. Non-whites are looking for white people to say, “I see the suffering, pain and marginalization,” and to empathize. We need to stop protecting our white constituents from being “troubled” over racism; non-whites live with such trouble all the time.
6. We need give up our desire for efficiency. Multiethnic churches are not efficient, but are slow, confusing and messy.
7. White supremacy is a macro system that everyone is invested in. We live in a culture where white is best, right, and the norm. People are valued by how well they support this and everyone buys in. It affects how a pastor should dress, how long to preach, what kind of music to use in worship, even what kind of food to serve.  Congregants of color are affected by this bias too.  A pastor of color pays a racial tax, they start with a deficit, and it takes more time for them to gain respect. 
8. We must be willing to be uncomfortable. When individuals have a choice, they will pick what they’re most comfortable with–birds of feather flock together! Therefore, change will be difficult. 

So, if you too long for beloved community and the church described in Revelation, what are you and your congregation going to do? What is your next step?

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director for Church Development

*The webinar’s panel consisted of two sociologists (Black and Asian females), a facilitator (Black female pastor) and two pastors of multiethnic churches (Hispanic and White males). I mention their ethnicities and gender simply to convey the diversity of the group.

Think “both-and”worship: Both in-person and online

Bishop Ken Carter

As churches prepare to return to worshiping in their buildings, many church leaders are urging pastors and laity not to abandon the online worship services that they have developed during the pandemic. In talking about his book, Fresh Expressions of People Over Property, written with Audrey Warren, Bishop Ken Carter says, “We can’t see virtual worship as less than worshiping in the sanctuary.” It is necessary for all churches, no matter their size, to seriously consider both-and worship, both in person and online.

The reality is that churches will reach some people only virtually. I have heard many pastors marvel at the numbers of persons viewing their online worship services. Yet, I’ve also heard many pastors longing to return solely to in-person worship, thus eliminating the extra work and complexity of offering online worship too. The Indiana Conference wants to provide churches help not only in continuing their online presence but also in improving both their in-person and online experiences. Jason Moore, worship consultant and author, will be offering a “Both/And” workshop for Indiana United Methodist Church leaders March 16th (6:30pm-9pm Eastern) and an identical workshop March 18th (9:30am-12pm). He will also be meeting with participants one month later for a coaching call.

Jason Moore

Jason Moore says, “Now we face one of the most critical moves in the next iteration of the online worship experience. As we move back into our buildings, we mustn’t return to making people at home observers after talking directly to them for so long. They’ll feel that too.  We also can’t take an approach where we treat the in-person crowd as the studio audience, providing the laugh or clap track, for the people watching at home. Neither of these audiences should feel secondary.  If we fail to think about how to create a BOTH/AND scenario as we go back to in-person worship, we will lose so much of what we’ve gained in these last seven plus months.” To register for Jason Moore’s Both/And workshop, click on March 16th or March 18th.

Cathy Townley

Cathy Townley, another worship consult and coach, recently posted to her Ready2Launch Facebook group, “Carey Nieuwhof has predicted that churches that do not embrace online will not endure post pandemic. I tend to buy into that prediction. Do you? Or does it cause you to roll your eyes and say, ‘Here we go again’…” The Indiana Conference has invited Cathy to take churches beyond online worship. Later this spring, she will be offering a two-session webinar on how to develop your online worship service into a full blown online faith community. How do you develop relationships with your viewers? How you disciple them? What’s an Acts 2 church look like online? More information will be coming about this exciting opportunity.

Through the pandemic, God has given us a wonderful opportunity to reach people who are unlikely to come into our buildings. Let’s not miss this chance to take the church to them both in person and online!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

What’s our “main thing”?

Start the year right!

As we begin this new year, let’s keep the main thing the main thing! So what is our main thing? Is it our Sunday worship services? Is it our member care? Is it our Sunday school classes, circles, and small groups? Is it our advocacy for justice, or our missions? For a number of churches, it’s taking care of aging buildings, dealing with financial shortfalls, and dwindling attendance.

So what is our main thing? The United Methodist Church says it’s making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. It’s disciple making. As you reflect on your most recent Church Council meeting, your last congregational gathering, as you look at your church’s budget and calendar, would these clearly reflect that making disciples is your church’s number one focus? If not, now is a great time to realign things so that it is. Our years are precious. This year, 2021, is a strategically important year. Get off on the right foot by committing your church to make disciple making its main thing!

So what is disciple making? What did Jesus mean when he said “Therefore go and make disciples…” in the Great Commission? To help others grow into the persons God created them to be? That they might grow in character (i.e., the Fruits of the Spirit) and in God’s love and grace? That they might discover their unique calling, their life purpose, and live it out faithfully? How does your church define disciple making?

The Indiana Conference is offering churches assistance for disciple making. Leadership Development, through the work of R.C. Muhlbaier, is offering an Intentional Discipleship Workshop and a Real Discipleship Survey. Church Development is offering its Multiplication Network Track 2, which helps churches create and launch a discipling process that leads to multiplication–3rd and 4th generation disciple making, and the launch of new faith communities organically.

So if you want to keep the main thing the main thing, make sure your church is focused on making disciples for the transformation of the world. Contact R.C. or me if you need assistance from your conference team. Don’t let 2021 slip away. May it be a strategic year for your church. May it be the year your church intentionally makes disciple making its number one focus!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director for Church Development

Mark Beeson will be greatly missed…

Rev. Mark Beeson, who just passed away after a 15-month battle with pancreatic cancer, was more than your typical church planter. When I first was living in Fort Wayne, my young adult friends said you’ve got to check out this United Methodist Church. They were talking about Epworth UMC where Mark Beeson was the pastor. His charismatic personality drew people to him. He had an energy that was attractive. More importantly, he was able to share the faith in a way that was attractive, even to young adults.

When I talked to Mark about how he became a church planter, he said that he had a vision for a new church on the growing edge of South Bend/Mishawaka called Granger and that he practically begged the former North Indiana Conference leadership to let him have a shot at planting it. Mark’s apostolic drive wasn’t always appreciated or understood, but his District Superintendent, Don LaSuer, and Bishop Leroy Hodapp, gave him the chance to see what he could do. The result is the mega-church called Granger Community Church (GCC).

Mark, with a volunteer team, launched GCC on June 1, 1986, in a Mishawaka movie theater coincidentally also called GCC (General Cinema Corp.). A total of 221 people were in attendance at its first worship service. Its attendance quickly grew to an average of 348 people in the first year. Eventually the church purchased land nearby and began building its present facility in phases. By 2008 it was averaging over 5,000 people in its weekend services. Eventually it launched another campus in Elkhart and one in LaPorte (which later closed).

I remember visiting GCC when it was still meeting in the movie theater. It is the only church I’ve ever attended where there were hundreds of people waiting in the lobby for the worship service in progress to end, so people could get a seat for the next service. People without seats would sit on the floor or stand against the walls. It was a happening, an event and it reached a significant numbers of baby boomers who were young adults at the time.

Few planters had the vision that Mark had. I remember him showing a group of United Methodist church developers around his facility. He took us to an empty basement under the huge sanctuary and painted a picture of a vibrant children’s ministry happening in that space that was so attractive that children would drag their parents to church. Sure enough a year later I was back, and children were climbing into tubes where they slid down from the sanctuary level into their classrooms below, classrooms which looked like Disney had designed them. He was a visionary and dreamed big!

Attending GCC worship was always an experience. Mark and his team did a great job playing off the popular culture. I remember visiting worship once where there was an actual wrecked plane on the stage. It was a prop for their series playing off of the popular television series “Lost.”

But Mark helped create a church that did more than just worship. It has a strong small-group discipling ministry. It built a mission outpost in South Bend called the Monroe Circle Community Center that serves and equips marginalized, at-risk people. The church has also planted churches in India. And for years GCC staff have shared their expertise by providing training events and conferences. Perhaps one of Mark’s most enduring contributions to the Kingdom is being a leader who raised up and developed other leaders, from middle school youth who attended the Conference’s Camp Adventure to staff who have gone on to be amazing nationally-known leaders and influencers, like Rob Wegner, Tony Morgan, and Tim Stevens.

Mark certainly was not perfect; none of us are. But he certainly has left a mark on those of us who knew him, worked with him, and were touched by him. He will be greatly missed. Prayers go out to GCC, his wife Sheila and family. May God hold you all tightly as you mourn his loss and celebrate his life!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development

Note: Rev. Mark Beeson officially retired from GCC last year due to his cancer and GCC is now no longer affiliated with the Indiana Conference and the UMC.

Don’t miss out on a multiplication movement!

Could it be that God is moving in Indiana in ways we haven’t seen in many, many years? Could it be that we’re on the cusp of a multiplication movement? Well, there are leaders in the Indiana Conference of The United Methodist Church that believe so.

Seventy-five leaders gathered last September with Bishop Trimble, Resident Bishop of the Indiana Conference, for a time of intentional prayer. We prayed that the Holy Spirit would spur our churches to pursue our mission “to making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” with renewed vigor and that our efforts would result in multiplication happening naturally, from the grassroots. Some of us have been praying that it would happen to such a degree that we couldn’t actually count how many new disciples and leaders were being developed, and new faith communities–Fresh Expressions, micro-churches, new campuses and churches–were being started.

From that prayer meeting, Church Development had fifty pastors join multiplication cohorts that met during this past school year. The consensus was that this experience, which we’re now calling Multiplication Network Track 1, helped them changing their thinking from attractional and addition-focused to missional and multiplication-focused.

Now those church leaders are being invited into a process called Track 2, which will help them create an intentional disciple-making environment in their churches which will naturally lead to multiplication. And we’re inviting a new group of churches to join a new flight of Track 1 this fall. Pastors from both large and small churches with hearts that desire to more effectively carry out the church’s mission will benefit from participating in this eight-month experience.

In Track 1, each month pastors, along with up to four others from their church, will get together with other church teams for a 90-minute session. The sessions, which will be done virtually using ZOOM, will be led by Rev. Tim Johnson, pastor of Pfrimmer’s Chapel UMC in Corydon, Indiana. During the sessions, each church team will meet in smaller cohorts with other church teams where they will discuss the concepts being shared. They will also learn from and encourage each other, and they’ll have the support of a facilitator/coach.

Learn more about this Track 1 opportunity by joining Tim Johnson and Ed Fenstermacher for a one-hour free ZOOM session on July 28^th at 10am (ET)/9am (CT).  Contact Ed for the web connection address, ed.fenstermacher@inumc.org, and any other questions you may have.  For a “Fact Sheet” with detailed information about Track 1, go to the Track 1 website.  

You’re also invited to attend another time of prayer with Bishop Trimble called “Hope & Grace: A Concert of Prayer.” It will be held virtually on October 28th, so mark your calendars and plan to attend!

Through on-going prayer and peer nurturing in Tracks 1 & 2, we believe that vision of God creating a multiplication movement in Indiana is going to become a reality. Don’t miss out. Don’t find yourself on the sidelines. Join in and be a part of the miracle! Check out Track 1 and plan on participating in the Concert of Prayer!

— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development