A Bit About How We Got Here

I have the priviledge of serving as pastor of a congregation that "does church" the way I believe church ought to be done! For the past several years we here at Blakemore United Methodist Church have been in a period of discernment. We have been actively and prayerfully seeking to answer the questions, "Who is God calling us to be?" and "What is God calling us to do?" as individuals and as a community of faith. We have spent the past few annual retreats and time at our Wednesday evening dinners and in our Parish Council meetings attempting to come to a deeper understanding of God's specific call to this particular community. One of the fruits of this process was what is called a "Rule of Life." This rule is essentially a set of guidelines for how we are to live out God's call. We call it "This We Believe."

The people of Blakemore

UMC

believe that:

• we are called to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.
• Jesus intended for the commandments to be woven together in the life of each individual disciple and in the collective life of our community of faith.

1. our love of God is to be lived out through the practices of baptism, communion, corporate and individual prayer, scripture reading and study, and conversation with others both inside and outside our denomination and faith community.
2. our love of neighbor is to be lived out through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, and visiting the sick and imprisoned.
3. our love of self is lived out in placing out trust in God, asking for help from God, claiming and employing our God-given gifts (spiritual, intellectual, emotional and material), taking Sabbath time, and setting appropriate personal boundaries.

• disciples at Blakemore have a particular calling to offer hospitality to the “spiritually homeless” among us.
• we are to welcome all people as beloved children of God.
  

Another fruit of our discernment is that we have reconfigured our ministry around Christian Practices rather than around a committee structure. So our Ministry Teams organize their work around such practices as

Invite Others
Welcome Others
Worship God
Make Music
Communicate with Others
Care for Others
Learn from Others
Reach Out to Others

Of course, we still have Trustees, Staff-Parish, Finance, and Lay Leadership Committees as required by the Book of Discipline, and we have age-level coordinators. This is an exciting time and place to be in ministry. I can't wait to see what God is going to do with this--and with us!
Michael Williams