Western Plains District

Category: Leadership Team

  • Reflections from the Leadership Team

    Reflections from the Leadership Team

    Looking Back, Looking Forward . . .

    Ah, yes. Early December. We’re in that annual in-between time. Thanksgiving is behind us, a time when we’ve paused with gratitude for what we have been given, and now we are entering Advent when we look ahead to things new.

    Transitional times are both challenging and an opportunity for discovery and growth. We are thankful for extraordinary commitment from our leadership team, our ministry teams, and of course our staff during the last year of work with Western Plains Brethren. Some of their effort has been very visible. Other effort equally important has been behind the scenes and less noticeable to casual observers. Thank you to all who have expended energy, thoughtful analysis, sometimes including frustrations, to both maintain our ongoing ministries as well as to explore options for what is on the horizon in the next chapter of the Western Plains story.

    The year 2023 will be an extension of our transitional work. In particular, our assessment and planning process through the DnA team will move toward a more concrete mission statement and action plans. Other teams will continue work on a special response process, on developing methodologies for engaging one another in matters of difference, on developing a profile for what our staff leadership configuration in the district should be, and on a search process for calling permanent district executive minister staffing.

    The roads we travel through transitions are sometimes bumpy, as has this one at times. It is with both gratitude and anticipation that we acknowledge and encourage those who have given their time and their personal gifts to the furtherance of Western Plains ministries. Repeating my remarks to District Conference in July (paraphrasing an Annual Conference speaker), I may not believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, but I still believe in breakthroughs. I anticipate that breakthroughs are still out there along the road ahead of us.

    Just as we live in a state of expectancy in this Advent season of our liturgical calendar, we live with the expectation that coming months will yield concrete steps in planning phases for district mission, new understandings in, and strategies for, how to be reconciling and a reconciled community of faith, a corporate example of how we model another way of living, and new initiatives for witnessing Jesus in the neighborhood.

    Among my favorite resources on leadership is one that speaks to the value of being on a constant search for opportunities and seizing initiative to make things happen, exercising insight that is guided by clear purpose. With Western Plains’ articulated purpose of . . .  supporting our congregations in our life together to reflect, proclaim, and practice God’s love and good news in Christ to all Creation . . . we have opportunities to take risks to generate small wins that may initially feel counter-cultural in our neighborhoods but demonstrate how we give voice to our purpose and core values. In a world that seems paralyzed by people’s need to divide into camps and find self-assurance by distancing themselves from others whose beliefs don’t align with theirs, maybe we can be an example of how “peculiar people” believe and behave. May the inspiration of this Advent season create breakthroughs in which we see our congregations as centers of hope, see challenges through the eyes of others, and go a second mile to extend a reconciling hand.

    Lowell Flory
    District Leadership Team Chair

  • Jesus In The Neighborhood

    Jesus In The Neighborhood

    We are a New Testament people. That means that Jesus is the center.
  • Peace Corner

    Peace Corner

    This ‘Way,’ the mission of what it means to be a group of people following Jesus, our mission, is what the church must consider as we reimagine what it means to be church in our world today.

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  • What’s the point of a focus group?

    What’s the point of a focus group?

    You may have been hearing about focus group meetings being held around the district.
    Three have been completed, three are yet to go. If your congregation has already been
    represented at one of these meetings, thank you for participating. If you’ve not yet been
    involved, look for an opportunity at Holmesville (May 21) Olathe (May 22) or Prairie View (June 4). Some of these sessions will be available on Zoom.

     

    These meetings are a product of nearly 6 months of planning by something we’ve come to call the DnA Team “Discovery ‘n Action.” It is a planning process that is focused on the future of the Brethren in the Western Plains, where we can be reframing and re-energizing who we are and how we can transform that energy into action plans that give voice to Jesus in the neighborhood.

     

    Some have expressed reticence with the fact that these sessions begin with asking participants’ reactions to a proposed purpose statement. The question, some will ask, is what we’re doing here if the answer is largely a done deal already? The reason it’s not a done deal is that the proposed purpose statement is
    (a) still subject to input from district members and (b) is only step one of what is projected to be at least a 5 step process. We’re hoping to gather information related to multiple pieces of the process, not just to the first step. There may be more feedback sessions like these as we move toward later stages.

     

    What does the bigger picture look like?

    • A purpose statement tries to articulate what the paramount point of our faith
      community is.
    • Next comes a statement of core values that drive our belief system toward vision
      and mission.
    • Out of values comes a broad process of visioning toward our preferred future
    • Rooted in the vision is a mission, requiring the articulation of more specifics in a
      mission statement reflecting what we discern God wants us to do.
    • So far the above has no action planning in it. That’s the last step – plans for action.
      That’s what the “A” is in the DnA acronym. In these sessions we are attempting to
      discover our purpose, values, vision, and mission in order to put wheels on them, an
      action plan.

     

    Planning for intentional community is work, takes time and requires involvement in order to be sustainable. If you’ve not yet been involved, please check focus group information on the district website and click the link at the bottom of the article to see where remaining meetings are to be held. If you want to join by Zoom, please e-mail the session leader or floryl@sbcglobal.net since we’ll need to e-mail back a specific Zoom link for the meeting you want to join. There is also the possibility that we will schedule additional meetings after district conference if there are more people who have not had a chance for input. Your voice and your congregation’s voice are very important to our district family’s life and

    work together.

     

     

  • District Focus Groups

    District Focus Groups

    Western Plains District Church of the Brethren

    Opportunities to participate . . . to be part of our planning

    Focus group conversations about the future of our district

    Through May and early June, we are holding conversations in churches around the district led by members of a team we’ve called the “DnA Team.” That somewhat mysterious name stands for Discovery ‘n Action, signaling an effort to gather information from members of our district, feedback which will be transformed into —

    • A renewed purpose statement
    • A statement of core values that are at the foundation of our life together as the Body of Christ
    • Exploration of a vision for the district
    • Reformulation of a mission statement for the district
    • Action plans for carrying out a mission of reflecting/modeling Jesus in the neighborhood.

    The DnA Team consists of six members – three women and three men — plus the Interim District Executive and the Leadership Team chair, members residing from Colorado to the Missouri border. These members were carefully called to give as broad a representation as possible of the demographic, generational, theological, and geographic variations in our district. The Team has been meeting regularly since November, and has developed the planning process that is now being introduced on a wider basis through these congregational/member meetings.

    What can I do to get involved? Attend and contribute in a focus group discussion!

    Distributed with this description is a schedule of congregational meetings being held from April 30 to June 4. We have tried to create clusters of congregations that are close enough to allow relatively convenient driving distance for a majority of our members. For members of congregations that are at greater distances that didn’t cluster so well, several of the groups will be streamed on Zoom for people who cannot attend in person. We will also create additional and reconfigured groups later in the summer for congregations not expressly included in a cluster at this time or persons who can’t participate now.

    Look over the list and identify the session that includes your congregation, or if we couldn’t create a convenient grouping for your location, check out a Zoom option. To attend by Zoom, please e-mail your intent to floryl@sbcglobal.net so a Zoom link can be sent to you.

    What will the format be at these meetings?

    The DnA Team has formulated six key questions that will be asked at all meetings, intended to solicit your feedback on significant aspects of our faith, community, and witness life together as a district. A recorder will log participants’ observations and suggestions which will then be the basis of a series of reports and plans, the first of which will be shared at District Conference this summer, July 29-31.

    Come and be part of the future of Brethren in the Plains!

     

    Click here for Focus Group Schedule

     

     

     

  • Reflections from the Leadership Team

    Reflections from the Leadership Team

    Whose View . . . Toward What Horizon?
    The last three weeks I’ve been trying what I hope will become a periodic pattern for the year – traveling to churches other than my own for a Sunday gathering and worship experience. Whenever I do that, I almost always learn something, and it’s usually good.

    Moderator Sarah Hoffman Mason’s district conference theme for 2022 is
    “Through the Eyes of a Child.” As I make visits, I try to expand that idea to the eyes of all God’s children, whether age 2, age 102, or somewhere between.

    It is news to no one that as a faith community we experience differences in what we see and hear and believe to be truth. I hope one belief we all hold, however, is that as Brethren we examine scripture and beliefs as a shared search in community, with the purpose of discerning their meaning for us. Proverbs 20 reminds us that we have “a hearing ear and a seeing eye, the Lord has made them both.”  If we sincerely use both, it can help us better understand another. But if we risk the act of seeing through the eyes of another, stepping into the hearing ear and the seeing eye of the other person, we may also see ourselves with new eyes and make new discoveries about our relationship with others. It’s admittedly a disruptive thing to have to do, seeing through another’s eyes, but I’m sometimes interested in the light bulbs that flicker on when I force myself to do that!

    As we listen to discourse in the public square of our day, it indeed seems a tall order to expect that we be of one mind. Yet Paul’s appeal to the Philippians (2:2-5) is exactly that – to “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

    Perhaps it’s not productive or realistic to expect that we’re all going to be of same mind on everything. What I do hope is possible is for us to search together for some key essentials of our faith life that can tie us together — beliefs and practices that have long been at the core of Brethren testimonies and supersede the things on which we may not agree. There are too many things where the “whole” we can build is greater than the sum of us as parts. We need to be on a collective search for those things.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. once said “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” At its August 28 meeting, your district Leadership Team set in motion a structure and a process which we anticipate will focus intentional time this year on our purpose as a district and plans for our way forward. Who are we and who can we become as Brethren with a heritage rooted in discipleship and reconciliation as a body of Christ?

    As we try to focus on the direction we are moving rather than just on where we stand, how will we see Christ in each other and how can we see ourselves through the eyes of others? It promises to be an exciting journey indeed, not without some discomfort perhaps, and not without seeing a horizon that may look different than we initially contemplated. I hope it will, however, be a horizon that is a worthy reflection of the aspirations of Ephesians 4:2&3 – with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

    Lowell Flory
    District Leadership Team Chair

  • Reflections from the Leadership Team

    Reflections from the Leadership Team

    We’re probably all familiar with the Sesame Street game “how are these things alike, how are they different?” What does that have to do with your Western Plains Leadership Team, you ask?

    With the exception of only three members (including ex-officio), the LT is the exact same people as it was last year, many of whom carry over for more than just the last year. What that last sentence portends, however, is that the day will come when certain key leadership positions will encounter term limits. Very seasoned leadership with a good sense of institutional memory will be graduating from the team as it already did this year in smaller numbers. Succession planning is important. Finding people with the right gifts, skill sets and commitments to district vitality is challenging.

    In the near term, the leadership team continues its monthly Zoom gatherings, trying to efficiently address issues of health and growth and challenge for our little body of Christ in the plains. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of matters that have been on our agenda the last several months that includes things new:

    • A productive leadership forum in September that re-focused a number of the teams’ goals for the year and a beginning exploration of our purpose for district.
    • Approval of what we’re calling a DnA process (Discovery ‘n Action) to refresh and energize a sense vision and action for our body of Christ in the Western Plains. In coming months, be watching for a discovery focus group opportunity in your neighborhood.
    • A revision/reorganization of our Area Ministry Team program.
    • Systematic review and refresh of financial management and budgeting processes for the district.
    • Initiatives to make more intentional connections between the district and its various congregations, including in-person visits when possible, but also through creative use of technology.
    • The restoration of Campfires for Tomorrow, a campaign for the revitalization of our district outdoor ministry facilities and programming.
    • Re-envisioning of education and training opportunities that are forecast elsewhere in this issue of Shepherd’s Voice.
    • Updating our pastoral credentialing processes in ways that are complementary with the uniqueness of Western Plains.

    A common thread that runs directly or indirectly through these initiatives is an effort to revive a sense of common cause and accountability between the district and its members and congregations. You, dear reader, are welcomed to make this a two way-street, contributing your needs, your perspectives, your gifts, and your hopes and dreams of what Western Plains Brethren are yet to become.

    We live in a day when ongoing concerns persist about the contagion of a pesky virus and all its variations. Let’s not let go of hope for a different kind of contagion – the infectious enthusiasm that can emerge when a community of believers converges on a shared vision and makes things happen growing out of that vision.

    Lowell Flory
    District Leadership Team Chair
  • Pastor-Leader Training

    Pastor-Leader Training

    SAVE THE DATE: February 10-11, 2023

    Please join us for the Western Plains District’s Leadership Training for pastors AND lay church leaders!
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  • Covid-19 District Response

    Covid-19 District Response

    Due to an unprecedented pandemic with covid-19, our district leadership, in conjunction with other district and ecumenical entities, and along with current CDC recommendations, have made the difficult decision to either cancel or go online for all district events for the remainder of 2020. (more…)

  • Jr. High Youth Rally

    Jr. High Youth Rally

    The District Jr. High Youth Rally will be held once again at Community CoB in Hutchinson (1600 N. Severance St. Hutchinson, Kan.), beginning at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12 and going through noon on Sunday, April 14. (more…)