A 'Culture of Call'

As I’m sure the readers know, annual conference was two weeks ago, and for the next few weeks, those of us who attended will be writing a brief newsletter article on our experience.

What especially struck me at annual conference was Bishop Hagiya’s “Quadrennial Vision” for our annual conference. He noted that now that we are returning to church after COVID, we must remember that we are not returning to “church as usual”; we are returning to a new church.

In keeping with this, one aspect of Bishop’s vision is that local churches like us develop a “culture of call” within our church. This culture of call emphasizes that every single person in our church, not just the pastor and staff, are called by God as ministers, and as a church, we need to help people discern that call and live it out.

Bishop also added that this culture of call must especially focus on the younger generations.

If things continue as they are now, 3/4ths of the active clergy in our conference will be retired in 10 years. Such few clergy cannot sustain the number of local churches our conference has. Thus, bishop encouraged local churches like ours to give younger people the guidance, mentorship, and opportunities that they need to develop as strong leaders, at both the clergy and lay levels. To illustrate this, Bishop gave the possibility of a church enabling a young person to act as lay leader of the congregation and then offering that young lay leader the support and guidance they need to be effective.

I think as a church we already do a good job of this. You all have offered to me the opportunity to preach and lead bible studies, among other opportunities. The youth group also creates and leads their own worship service and performs the annual youth musical.

With that said, it behooves us as a church to continue working on this. How else we can further equip our young people for their own sake and so that our churches have skilled leadership for generations to come, and how we can make that part of “what we do at Church of the Good Shepherd”?

–Michael Chesnut, Ministerial Intern