Dear New McKendree Church Family,

Another Annual Conference has come and gone. Beginning July 1, our church, the Missouri Annual Conference, and the Methodist Church at large will launch into a brand-new conference year. During this year’s conference, if it was said once, it was said a million times that our Methodist denomination is now in a new season…the “post-COVID, post-disaffiliation” season.

In my opinion, that’s a pretty accurate way of characterizing the state of things. It seemed to me that the last few conferences were steeped in contention and shrouded in the sadness of disaffiliation. With all that behind us, although we’re now a smaller Conference, the mood of this year’s Annual Conference was markedly brighter and more hopeful. But we are a smaller Annual Conference. We have fewer churches, even fewer pastors, and fewer church members. What hasn’t gotten smaller, though, is our kingdom-building mission. From God’s perspective, business is booming, and with it the demand for kingdom workers.

I’m so thankful that God blessed His New McKendree family with the ability to hang together through the pandemic and not get distracted by the disaffiliation noise. As a result, our church family has and continues to be blessed with growth, both numerically (in membership and worship attendance) and in the breadth and depth of our church’s ministries. And, thanks to your faithfulness and generosity, our church facilities are up-to-date, we’re debt-free, and financially sound. Bottom line: we’re blessed!

But God doesn’t just bless for the sake of blessing. God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others. In other words, with our blessings comes responsibility. In this new “post-COVID, post-disaffiliation” season, I believe God is calling our blessed New McKendree Church family to partner with and become a resource for church families in our area. I don’t mean resourcing other churches financially; that’s the responsibility of the District and Conference. What I’m envisioning has more to do with getting back to and becoming hyper-intentional about living into our Wesleyan Connectionalism heritage.

While I don’t yet know what that means specifically for our church family, I do know that from the Conference and District clergy perspective, there are already hyper-intentional connectionalism initiatives in the works. As of July 1, I’ll begin serving as a Southeast District Hub Leader. Working with their pastors, I’ll be facilitating the collaboration of nine United Methodist Churches in the vicinity of Jackson and Cape Girardeau. Additionally, the Conference has tasked me with serving as a Pastoral Coach. While we’re still working to define what all that entails, at the very least, it means that I’ll have the opportunity to share what we do here with others and vice versa. And I have no doubt that, through the newly formed Hub and my new coaching side gig, our church will have plenty of opportunities to share our blessings with others.

Once again, I left this year’s Annual Conference more energized and hopeful than I have in a long time. But, for me, the best news of all is that you and I get to do it together for another Conference year! In other words, Brenda and I aren’t going anywhere. May God continue to bless our ministry together, and may we continue to be a blessing to others.

Your brother in Christ,

Pastor Bryan Wendling