The plan that we are working on, as we are doing it, is a new idea to the current United Methodist structure, but it is not a new idea. The idea come from John Wesley’s model of how the circuit rider was to serve the churches in his area. That rider would literally ride from church to church in a very large geographic range and preach, serve communion, baptize, and teach. After the service for the day was done, he would ride to the next church and do it all over again. While the rider was away the church was led by local lay leaders/lay pastors who would do the day to day work of the church. With this original model in mind we have created what we are calling the Front Porch Ministries.
The name Front Porch comes from the time when most houses in a community had large front porches where the family would spend a good deal of time in the heat of the day, or after super. People would talk and share life together as they sat on the porch. Neighbors would come up on your porch and in the conversations, you could solve the ills of the world. This type of sharing life is what we hope to create by joining the forces of the local churches in ministry together. As, up to six, churches all pull in a similar direction they can share resources, ideas, and various ministries with the churches in Front Porch. This allows for ministry to be greatly enhanced and the love of God to be shared with a much wider group.
Below is the current model for Front Porch and I hope that this will help explain a little more of how this whole plan will work. If you have any questions, please come and ask me (Pastor Rob) and I will do all I can to find an answer. Please remember that we are building this plane as we are flying it. There will be mistakes and parts of the plan may not work as we envision but will we will shift and adapt. This model will go a long way in helping rural and small town churches to experience life again, rather than just fighting for mere survival.
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Structure of Front Porch
The structure of Front Porch (FP) is designed to take small town and rural churches and link them together under the guidance of a lead pastor who is called to revitalize churches. This guidance consists of:
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leading a group of local pastors who do the Monday-Saturday work of the church.
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Monday through Saturday means that pastor is the go-to person for decisions, visitation, and ministry participation, and community involvement.
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Monday-Saturday Pastors become the familiar face for the congregation.
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2. Help local churches to
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Evaluate current ministries to help plan for future growth.
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Evaluate the current leadership team structure.
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Discover the gifting of the church and its leaders.
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Energize the congregation.
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Relaunch into the preferred future.
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Become the heartbeat of the community.
3. Creating ways for each local church to share its ministry focus with the Front Porch Churches by training and/or organizing and leading the various ministry.
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Front Porch Pastors
Pastor Rob Seewald - Leesburg UMC & Claypool
Pastor Carolyn Kern - Pleasant Grove & Packerton
Pastor Kenneth Cooke - Bourbon First
What Others are saying about Front Porch:
“Front Porch is bringing together several smaller churches. It gives them the ability to have all the resources of one larger church. Each church will continue to have its own identity and its own pastor. As a member of the Front Porch each church will share its own strength, such as music, missions, and children’s ministry. Each church will get to experience each other’s pastors. Front Porch gives an opportunity to create a family among several churches.”
Peter Foster, Music director
Bourbon First United Methodist Church