 I'm Mike McKee, the Bishop of the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. This is the time of the year when churches in the North Texas Conference have their annual charge conference. And your church along with over 300 other congregations in our conference will be having a meeting similar to this one. At this meeting you do the traditional things and that is reflect upon what has happened this past year, elect leadership for the next year and do other necessary business that guides your ministry during the coming year. But I want us to begin to think about what it means for each one of our United Methodist Churches to be connected with each other about our common mission. Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And each one of our congregations then lives out that mission in its own unique way. If we begin to think about what makes a congregation vital and what makes a congregation effective, it is not only the quality of its ministry to its members, but it's a way in which each congregation begins to see itself as the steward of that witness of the United Methodist Church. A way to think about it is, is your ministry actually transforming the community in which your church is located? Is your community better because of your ministry and mission? I know that each one of our congregations seeks to find ways in which to reach the mission field. But in order to do that well, I think it's important, not only for our present, but for our future, to think about the culture of what it means to be a faithful Christian and what it means to be an effective congregation. I begin to think about this in a way of describing a culture. And there are actually three characteristics of this culture. The first one is, is to develop a culture of call. In our annual conference, for example, what would it mean for our congregations to begin to identify persons who had the gifts and graces needed to be an ordained clergy person in the United Methodist Church? One of the things that will be happening over the next several years is a shortage of clergy. As a number of clergy retire, then we have to begin to look for ways in which we're going to identify persons who could be effective clergy persons in the North Texas Conference. I especially want you to begin to look at young adults, students in high school, even students in junior high, and begin to look at them and begin to help them develop and not only to be faithful Christians, but identify someone who could actually be an effective clergy person in a local church. No one has ever said to them like someone said to me. Have you ever thought about becoming a United Methodist minister? What would it be like for a congregation to annually think about what it means to call persons within that congregation to positions of leadership and identifying persons for ministry? It is the way in which we begin to tie our congregations together, in which in the coming years we will create a new group of effective leaders to replace those who will soon retire in the next 10 to 15 years. And people who begin to remind us about what is truly happening in our culture, in our world, and look at new ways in which God is calling us to serve and be in ministry mission. The second piece is a culture of invitation. What would it be like for each congregation full of laypersons that congregation to begin to describe for people in the community who have no faith at home? Come and see what God is doing in our church. There are people who live within shouting distance of your church, perhaps, who are dealing with difficult issues in their own lives. It may be with a child or an aging parent. It may be with a loss of meaning in one's life. It may be with a sense of grief, but what would it be like as someone who said to me, I want you to come and see how God can help you deal with your grief or the loss of meaning in your life. Come and see what God is doing here. Let me recommend our church to you because people don't just drop in on us. People really come to be a part of a congregation when someone invites them. But it's not that we necessarily want them to be seen only as someone who will be one other person in a pew, but that we have a story to tell. We have the story of Jesus to tell. We have the story of Jesus to live that can actually transform a human life as well as a community. Lastly this, I want to talk about a culture of servanthood. What would it be like for each of us to develop a culture of servanthood? When we see ourselves, when we follow Jesus as persons who live as servants in the communities where we are. As I said earlier, there are people within your church and outside your church who are deeply hurting. And what they need most is for someone to come along beside them and relate to them as a human being one on one where one person begins to share what it means to be alive in Christ. It also becomes a place in which each congregation then begins to see its community as its parish. Not just the members of the congregation, but the whole community. And they began to look at the community and began to see, how can we serve the Christ by serving this community? Would it be by adopting an elementary school or a junior high school or a high school, one that is struggling and bringing resources to that high school or other local public school that would really help those students and those teachers? Would it be developing a ministry with people of lower income to help them move out of the cycle of poverty? Would it be a ministry with latchkey kids who have no place to go other than a home by themselves after school at the end of the day? But what would it mean for each congregation to begin to see themselves as servants to the community on behalf of the Christ? I think then would become known as a congregation and a people of Christ who truly, deeply love people as God loves them. So in order for us to live out that mission statement about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, I want to remind us all that we need to develop a sense of call, of calling people not only in ordained ministry but into other ministries in the local church. Secondly, a culture of invitation. How do we help people outside the church know that God is doing great things and can do great things in their life? And to invite them to come and see what it is that God is doing. And lastly, that calling to truly be a servant, a servant of the Christ in the community in which we live. I want to thank you for your ministry and your mission and your congregation. I want to thank you for the ways in which you choose to live and tell the story of Jesus so that his story can become another's story. I want to thank you for being you and for your continued faithfulness. And I hope and continue to pray for your congregation and your ministry through the year. God bless you for who you are and what you do. Thank you.