Nebraska-Kansas Episcopal Area Transition Team
- Team begins to hone in on mission field, big questions at third meeting
- South Central Jurisdiction prepares for 10 bishops in 2012; Nebraska-Kansas to become new Episcopal area
- Ask your question, make a comment
- Taking first steps-report on first meeting, Nov. 22, 2009
- Adaptive change focus of Nebraska-Kansas Transition Team's second meeting, Feb. 12-13, 2010, in Lincoln
- Transition Team biographies
- Conference staff brochures
- SCJ Announcement Video Script
- Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the New Nebraska-Kansas Episcopal Area
- SCJ Study
- South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops Web site
- UM-TUBE
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Team begins to hone in on mission field, big questions at third meeting
By Lisa Elliott Diehl, Kansas Area communications director
WICHITA, Kans. – The Nebraska-Kansas Episcopal Area Transition Team held their third meeting in Wichita, Kans., April 6-7.
It was decided that team members will be invite clergy and laity from the three conferences to join the conversation at the Annual Conference sessions this May and June.
The team has formed three subgroups to work on a communication strategy for their work, defining the mission field and identifying the questions a plan for the new episcopal area must address. Some of those questions will be asked at the three conference sessions, and clergy and laity will be asked to respond and take those questions back to their local congregations.
“The fun part about this is actually that we are in a moment where all across our connection and denominations in North America, people are trying to learn what no one can teach them,” said Gil Rendle, the consultant working with the transition team. Rendle, a United Methodist minister, is former senior consultant and seminar leader at the Alban Institute. He is now senior consultant for Clergy and Congregational Excellence for the Texas Methodist Foundation.
“We’re in a time when the old ways don’t work and we have to teach each other along the way,” he said.
To read this story in its entirety, follow the link below.
Editor’s Note: Each conference was given the assignment of creating an orientation/presentation on the "DNA" of their conference to share with the group at this meeting. These presentations are provided below.
South Central Jurisdiction prepares for 10 bishops in 2012; Nebraska-Kansas to become new Episcopal area
United Methodists in Nebraska and Kansas will share a bishop beginning in 2012 under a reorganization plan announced in October by South Central Jurisdiction's College of Bishops.Nebraska and Kansas currently each have a bishop. The South Central Jurisdiction will move from 11 bishops to 10 in 2012. Four of the United Methodist Church's five U.S. jurisdictions will lose a bishop in 2012 due to a 2008 decision by the denomination's top legislative body, the General Conference.
The jurisdiction includes United Methodists in eight states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
A Transition Team has been appointed to determine how the new Episcopal area will be structured and operate. Representatives from Kansas East, Kansas West and Nebraska conferences comprise the team.
On this page you'll find meeting reports and other resources to help you keep aware of major developments.
Read more (Original South Central Jurisdiction news release)
Ask your question, make a comment
If you've been following the work of the Nebraska-Kansas Episcopal Area Transition Team's and would like to ask a question for make a comment, please use this handy contact form. Your submission will be aggregated with other submissions and used by the Transition Team as they continue their work to determine a structure for the new Episcopal area.Ask your question, make a comment
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Taking first steps-report on first meeting, Nov. 22, 2009
QUESTIONS, PRELIMINARY PLANS OUTLINED AT INITIAL MEETINGby Lisa Elliott Diehl and Susan Cooper
Kansas Area communications
WICHITA-Kansas Area Bishop Scott Jones kicked off the first Nebraska-Kansas Transition Team meeting Nov. 22 with a devotion about change.
Jones read scripture from his iPhone, a new practice he's started because he would often leave his Bible behind when preaching at local churches around the two Kansas conferences.
"The task before us is to be a nimble institution," Jones said. "This decision was not high on our lists, but I hope we can see this as an opportunity to be nimble, to carry out the mission, to be flexible."
Jones described the work of the Transition Team as "wide open." Jones and Nebraska Area Bishop Ann Sherer-Simpson made some preliminary plans, including contacting Gil Rendle to consult with the team throughout the process.
Before joining the staff of the Alban Institute, Rendle served as senior pastor of two urban congregations in Pennsylvania for 16 years and as a denominational consultant for the United Methodist Church for nine years. He has an extensive background in organizational development, group and systems theory and leadership development. He has worked with congregations, national and regional denominational bodies, schools and nonprofits. He has authored fours books, contributed to two other books and published numerous articles.
'There are some things that need to be decided,' Jones said. 'Some questions I have are, 'Where is the bishop's office going to be?' 'How will the bishop's office be staffed?' and 'What's the name of the new area going to be?''
Jones called those technical questions. There also are adaptive questions the group considered. "What's the purpose of the annual conference?" and "How should the annual conferences be organized?" The Transition Team alone doesn't have the power to answer these questions. The three annual conferences will most likely answer those questions through votes at upcoming conference sessions, he said.
"Over time, it better not just be the 24 of us trying to figure things out," Jones said. "We ought to have input from a lot of other people. I've told people there would be other opportunities for input."
The team has two years and $10,000 from each of the unaffected episcopal areas in the South Central Jurisdiction.
"What else do we need? That's really for us to decide," he said. "How much adaptive stuff do we want to address? It's really open-ended. We've got lots of possibilities."
Following a time of getting to know each other in smaller groups, team members were given time to share the questions they have about the new area and what it will mean.
"Is this group a group that could be the shock-absorbers for the push-back that's going to happen in the three annual conferences?" asked Bob Cox, a lay person from Hays, Kan.
The Rev. Gary Brooks, Wichita East District superintendent in Kansas, said one of the most important questions he thinks the group should answer is what can the three conferences do together to enhance the missional effectiveness of the new area versus what the conferences continue to do separately.
"What new things need to be done in our areas to reach out to more people for Jesus Christ?" asked the Rev. Eduardo Bousson, campus minister at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. "Are there new ministry opportunities that we should be doing?"
The Rev. Wayne Alloway, pastor at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Neb., said he has heard two main questions. "Are we going to become one annual conference? And if so, does that mean we might be appointed somewhere in Kansas or that someone in Kansas might be appointed somewhere in Nebraska?"
Oliver Green, Kansas East Conference lay leader, said the question of combining annual conferences is interesting, but he would like to see the group consider developing a vision for what the new area would be like 20 years from now.
"I think one thing for us to do is get the gospel in and the fear out," said the Rev. Jan Todd, pastor at Pleasant Hill UMC in Topeka. "We need to be a group where we can model that. All of us have fear and anxiety of some sort about what it could look like. Let's get past that, be honest about that, but not let that be what stops us in the visioning process."
The Rev. David Livingston, pastor at Burlington UMC in Kansas, said, "I'm hopeful we can get to some of those big questions. How do we define effectiveness or success? I'm not sure institutionally we're doing a very good job of defining that."
Cox said he heard an economist guest preach at Coffeyville UMC in Kansas on Sunday. The economist said that the words "do not be afraid" appear in the Bible just before great things happen several times.
"Maybe we should embrace it," Cox said.
Alloway said he is concerned about how a large group with 24 members works together effectively in putting together a really good plan.
"My experience is that large groups like this don't do a very good job of that," Alloway said. "Hopefully, Gil will help us. I just hope we don't derail it because we're so big that we work so hard at accommodating everyone's opinions."
The Rev. Debra McKnight, associate pastor at First UMC in Omaha, Neb., said she hopes the team can demonstrate what it means to be a nimble institution and how that would impact the local church.
"How can the connectional system's gifts really outweigh its costs to the local congregation so they feel empowered and not oppressed by it?" she asked.
"I'm hopeful that we can think and structure and imagine ministry more around ministry settings and population groups as opposed to just geography," said the Rev. Pat Ault-Duell, senior pastor at Trinity UMC in Hutchinson, Kan.
Cox said there are good examples of that kind of thinking in the health-care field. "I think as we think about conferences, both how many there are and how they are structured, we need to think about how we best use the gifts and graces of any episcopal leader assigned," said the Rev. Gary Beach, Kansas East Conference director of Connectional Ministries.
The Rev. Brian Kottas, superintendent of the Great West District in Nebraska, said the transition team will need to think about how its work can either enhance the feeling of connection or develop a broader sense of connection given the kind of geography involved in the new area.
Nancy Brown, a lay person from United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., said she has been thinking about technology and the role it will play in the new area to transcend geography and create connections.
"Is it possible for Wildcats, Jayhawks and Huskers to live together in community?" Bishop Sherer-Simpson asked in a series of questions contrasting the extremes found in each of the three annual conferences on technology use, theology, geography and size of community.
"Each of us is struggling in our own annual conferences to figure out a new mission field. Every one of us is talking about how we can make more disciples, younger disciples, more diverse disciples. What instruments are the best way to look at the mission field?" she said.
However, the three conferences are united in a wonderful and rich Christian tradition.
"We are not coming as representatives of the annual conference, but we are coming as a task group called together to think deeply about how to be United Methodists in these two states and how we can take this gift we didn't ask for and turn it into a gift," she said.
The first thing someone from Nebraska said to Sherer-Simpson was that there are twice as many Kansans on the Transition Team as Nebraskans.
"I'm sure that wasn't lost on anybody," she said. "If we think of ourselves as representatives of any one group, we can't do this task. Instead we're called to think deeply about how this group can form community, can understand our task and can, by the guidance of the spirit, find a way to involve others in conversation and move into the future to which God is calling us.
"How do we build trust among us? How do we clarify the results we expect? How do we live in community in a way that deepens that trust and deepens our understanding and moves us forward to think more deeply about the task?" Sherer-Simpson asked.
After spending several minutes listing suggestions for the covenant, a subcommittee was formed to bring a final draft to the February meeting, where the group will adopt it.
The next meeting will be Feb. 12 -13 in Lincoln, Neb. At that meeting, the team plans to finalize the covenant, establish a meeting schedule, agree upon a process and set a timeline. Sherer-Simpson said she'd like to schedule four meetings a year through the transition and cancel them if they aren't needed.
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Adaptive change focus of Nebraska-Kansas Transition Team's second meeting, Feb. 12-13, 2010, in Lincoln
Twenty-two team members representing all three conferences (Kansas East, Kansas West, Nebraska) met in Lincoln Feb. 12-13, to continue the work of planning for a combined Episcopal area beginning in 2012.Consultant Gill Rendle, from the Alban Institute, reminded the group through a 30-minutes teleconference, to not jump to quick technical solutions like naming where the Episcopal office should be located. Rather, ask what the role of the Episcopal office should be in this new configuration, which is an adaptive question.
Rendle encouraged the group to come up with good adaptive questions which will lead to solid technical answers.
SCJ Announcement Video Script
- Transcript PDF
This is a transcript of the South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops webcast held on September 18, 2009, at 12:00 p.m. CDT.
