LEAWOOD - In his annual address to the conference, Bishop Scott Jones spoke of the times in his ministry when he was frustrated by not having ways to measure the value and the fruitfulness of what he was doing.
“What's our mission and how do we know how well we're doing?” he asked. That question should be on the agenda of every administrative council meeting in every local church, on the agenda of the Leadership Team of the Kansas East Conference, and on the agenda of the whole Annual Conference. “What's our mission, and how are we doing?”
The Kansas Area Extended Cabinet last year set what Jones called “lofty goals” for the conference, and he is encouraged by the progress the conference has made toward those goals.
One goal was to see 10 new church starts in the Kansas Area by 2012. So far we have 4 – Living Water in Piper, LifeBridge in Shawnee, Mision Restauracion in Kansas City, Kansas, and the new Hispanic ministry in Holton.
Another goal was to increase memberships by professions of faith, and to grow the number of children, youth and young adults in the camping and campus ministry programs. Although church membership is not growing conference-wide yet, some churches are showing great growth. The number of active students in campus ministry programs has grown by 100 students, but unfortunately camp attendance has dropped as families struggle to afford the cost.
Improving apportionment payouts to the 95 percent level was the third goal. The faltering economy has kept the conference from making progress on this goal, as payouts dropped from 80 percent to 78.9 percent in 2009. The conference is ready to help local churches inspire their people to be fully supportive.
The last goal was to equip more people for leadership through programs such as Leadership in Faith Transforming Communities, ABIDE and Incubator. Bishop Jones related several stories of the success of these programs in the conference.
“God is good all the time, and all the time God is good,” Jones said. “I'm deeply convinced that the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be shed abroad upon all the churches of our conference and that we're going to continue using these markers . . . using these goals, to figure out how are we going to change people's lives, and how is God going to help us to be more fruitful in the future than we have in the past.”
In his Lay Leader’s address, Oliver Green said he is proud to be a United Methodist in Kansas. He is equally expectant and excited about our future and the opportunities for making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
He commented that in last year’s address he asked for support of the Hope for the Children of Africa choir from the Humble School in Uganda, and the response was overwhelming. They couldn’t meet every request from those wanting to host them. Green thanked everyone who supported, hosted, and transported the choir and said that about $75,000 was raised in our conference for the support of the school.
Last year he also asked for more disaster coordinators in local churches. Last year 57 percent of churches reported a disaster coordinator and this year the percentage is up to 59 percent. There are probably others not reported, but every church should have one.
Green reported that he is excited about several things happening in the conference:
