2006 New Year's Letter from Sharon Watkins

January 2006

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It has been a joy to serve as your General Minister and President for the past six months. My
call to this special ministry on behalf of the whole church has been rewarding. Several months ago, the question was of me: “When you first arrived in Indianapolis, how did you know what to do?”

In retrospect it seems that I stood for a moment beside this rushing, white water stream of
challenge – then jumped in. Now I wonder if I should have built a boat! But how would I have known, without experiencing it, what kind of boat I needed? So here I am in the middle of the stream, and I have learned a few things.

I have learned that there are some great colleagues navigating these waters with me. The
general ministry presidents and regional ministers are just the right people for this time. Brave, creative, faithful and pragmatic – exactly what you’d hope for from Disciples leaders.

I have learned that congregational leaders are longing for a new day. Some already celebrate lives transformed by God through their congregations’ ministries. Others are ready to begin the journey toward renewed life and vitality for mission. Thanks be to God!

I’ve learned some difficult things – Congregations are under stress. Some now expend 75% of their energy and finances on congregational management. In a time when we are called to be strengthened for mission, this is not the trend we want. I’ve learned that just when regions and general church most want to be of service to congregations, the decline in Disciples Mission Fund (DMF) means none of us can do ministry as before.

And so, I’ve come to some conclusions.

In the short term, we need to address declining Disciples Mission Fund. People need to know that DMF supports a missionary couple in Congo who have started an orphanage in Kinshasa. They need to know that DMF supports our Disciples Volunteering office as it facilitates volunteers in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf region of the U.S. Through Disciples Mission Fund, God changes lives. We need to get that story out.

For the longer term, it’s time to stop talking about a church for the 21st century and start being that church. It’s time to figure out how to move resources more nimbly to the growing edges of mission, how to respond more readily to grass roots initiatives for mission.

In the meantime, we need to nurture a culture of stewardship – a life-style based on gratitude to God who is even now bringing forth among us a harvest of hundreds of new churches, hundreds of renewed churches, hundreds of new leaders and a renewal of our traditional call to Christian unity – this time across the divisions of race and culture and ethnicity.

Just a few months into my term of service, at the dawning of a new year, the water is still swift. But from the middle of the current, I see the outline of a church transformed for mission.

I remember the words of Isaiah 43:

“I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert . . .
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

May it be so.

In Christ,
Sharon E. Watkins