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Organizing Ourselves into Cluster Groups

Note: Bishop Paul Hirschy sends a monthly newsletter to all United Brethren ministers. It is called B-Mail. Here is his April 2005 edition.

Paul Hirschy, bishop

April 2005

Last month I shared with you some of the suggested changes that will be coming before the US National Conference in June. In this issue I want to continue sharing general information, which will give you a good idea of the issues to be presented to the US National Conference. This is not the final wording that will appear in the notebooks we will mail to delegates in May (and which will also be available, once it's ready, on the UB website).

Clusters

United Brethren clusters are an important part of the relational connections of the United Brethren in Christ USA. A cluster typically consists of five to ten (ideally not more than seven) United Brethren ministers representing preaching points for local congregations. Each cluster would present a formal request--including its admissions standards, proposed meeting arrangements, and other procedures--to the Executive Leadership Team, which will approve the formation of each cluster. An approved cluster may include non-United Brethren pastors and congregations as long as they conform to the United Brethren core values (excluding the core value concerning the Confession of Faith). Non-United Brethren participants may provide input in a non-voting capacity on accountability.

All pastors and organized United Brethren in Christ congregations are expected to participate in one cluster. In addition each minister, congregation, or preaching point may choose to join a number of associations with other churches or ministries who share the same vision. One such association would be camping associations for each United Brethren camp. Another possibility would be an association of churches interested in church multiplication that would participate together almost like our regional church planting centers functioned in the past. We could also see associations of churches formed around certain mission emphases, such as the hospital in Sierra Leone. Each local church would determine how many associations it wants to participate in. However, every local church and pastor will be required to be in one cluster. The cluster will be the primary accountability group for the pastor and the local congregation.

The clusters will be asked to maintain the core values of the United Brethren in Christ and abide by the Confession of Faith, Constitution, and Discipline of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA.

Cluster Leader

The cluster leader will be appointed by the US Bishop, and the cluster leader will be accountable to the US Bishop and/or his appointee. The following suggested responsibilities for the cluster leader are being forwarded to the Discipline Revision Committee for consideration at the US National Conference.

1. The cluster leader will coordinate the cluster meetings.

2. The cluster leader will support, coach, and resource the pastors and churches involved in the cluster, or otherwise provide for such service.

3. The cluster leader will assist in nurturing local church licensees.

4. The cluster leader will provide regular reports to the US Bishop regarding the cluster and the churches involved in the cluster.

5. The cluster leader will assist the US Bishop in the annual audit of each church in the cluster.

6. The cluster leader will assist the US Bishop in the assignment of pastors for churches in the cluster.

This is the basic information being passed on to the Discipline Revision Committee regarding the formation and establishment of the clusters.

I want to add my observations concerning how I see this system working and some of the values of the clusters.

Forming Clusters

Local pastors and congregations will be free to choose which cluster they would like to participate in. Churches will want to pay attention to several criteria. We have regularly talked about the importance of affinity. This means that churches of a similar style of ministry may want to form a cluster. It could mean churches wanting to focus on a particular emphasis would join with other churches with a similar emphasis. An example of this could be churches who really want to focus on being a Purpose Driven Church. So the idea is to give local churches and pastors the freedom to identify their area of interest or affinity, so they could be grouped with other churches sharing that interest.

The groupings will obviously be a first-come, first-served kind of situation. Ideally, we would like to limit clusters to seven churches so that we don't overload the cluster leaders (all of whom will be serving as active pastors in a local church).

The assumption has been stated that all expenses with cluster meetings will be covered by the individual churches involved in the cluster.

How long will the cluster group assignment last? That will depend upon the participants in the cluster. If churches decide to leave a cluster group and either form a new one or move to another existing group that they feel would fit their congregation more appropriately, those kind of changes would be processed with the consent of the US Bishop.

Cluster Leaders

Training. This will not be in the Discipline, but I recommend that we have specific training sessions for all cluster leaders. This training will be set up by the office of the US Bishop, and he will be responsible for the content of these training sessions. The cost to train cluster leaders should be included in the US National Conference budget and not be an extra expense to the local church whose pastor has been selected as the cluster leader.

Appointing. People have asked, "How will cluster leaders be appointed?" I see two primary methods. First, the elected bishop could publicize a list of individuals he has contacted to serve as cluster leaders. Churches could choose to participate in a particular cluster based upon the leader. Again, the selection process would be based upon the first churches that indicate an interest in the particular cluster. However, there may need to be some adjustments in the final list of clusters once we see how all of the requests for formation come together. In all of the meetings, the assumption has been that if a church does not care which cluster it is in and does not want to choose, the bishop will then assign the church to a cluster.

Another scenario would be that individual churches decide they want to form a cluster around a certain affinity, and then the bishop appoints one of the pastors from that group as the leader. The way the material is being presented now, I see a combination of these options being used to form the initial cluster groups.

One very positive advantage of the cluster with an appointed leader who has been required to go through specific training will be the potential for helping each local pastor and church with what I call a coaching emphasis. I see a tremendous value in having every one of our pastors identified with a coach who will encourage him in developing the church's ministry. If we do this correctly, it can have a major positive influence on the US National Conference ministries.