New Beginnings: An Interview with Anne Bosarge

Recently, Ted Goshorn, Senior Pastor at Mulberry Street United Methodist Church, sat down with Anne Bosarge to discuss her work across the South Georgia Annual Conference. Anne has been tasked with helping form new communities of faith. In a time of division and discord, Anne sees hope among our conference, a way forward in the desert, as God’s Spirit moves among us. Below is a transcript of that conversation, held at Oh Honey! Bakery in Macon, Georgia, on the afternoon of February 16, 2023.

For more information on Anne’s work and on opportunities for new faith communities, visit: https://www.sgaumc.org/moving-forward-in-mission

Ted: Where do you see hope in the annual conference?

Anne: So I see hope in the annual conference in our laity. I am just seeing kind of a resurgence of grassroots efforts in order to reconnect to our roots of discipleship of Methodism, of reaching people with the gospel and digging deep into the word and, and community and discipleship. And I'm beginning to see people that may not have thought of themselves in that role before, step up and begin to think about how they might be called, and how there might be a new place for them to kind of plug into leadership and plug into something new. So I see people that maybe were sitting in a pew or a Sunday school class or a small group for thinking that that was their role to now beginning to think and imagine what might God be saying to me and is he calling me to something more? Is he calling me to something new? So that definitely gives me hope.

Ted: That's a great. Is there a particular story that comes to mind that exemplifies that for you?

Anne: Yeah, I think a couple of the things that we are doing in South Georgia now we are starting home churches, and we have two home churches that are already running and I had an hour long conversation with one of our home church leaders this morning and she was just talking about how amazing their home church experiences and one of the things that she mentioned was that for Christmas Eve, they were kind of feeling like I don't know that this will ever be the same, you know, we're gonna miss the bigness of Christmas Eve and the candle lights and all this kind of thing. And then she began realizing, you know what, let's just try it. She said, Well, let's just do this hard thing and let's just have Christmas Eve at the house. And she said it was the most amazing experience that they have had at Christmas Eve. They did have candlelight. They did have kind of quiet liturgical stuff. But it was so intimate and so meaningful and those kinds of things, you know, kind of began to bring something out in her to say, this really can work. This is something that we're actually capable of doing, and it is a meaningful expression of church. The other thing is that I've been talking to some other laity in different parts. And some people are saying, hey, I want to start a missional community and somebody else is saying, Hey, I think I want to start another home church or we want to be a church or there are all these kinds of things that that are just sprouting up with new ideas and new ways of doing things. And so just a lot of springing forth right now, which is really fun.

Ted: Yeah, that's exciting. And I think, you know, it speaks to the idea of God always doing a new thing, like that hymn, “This is a Day of New Beginnings.” I hear you speaking to that new beginning coming out of not only the old but also perhaps out of difficult circumstances, times of challenge and division; that in the midst of that God's Spirit is still moving and creating and shaping. 

For somebody who may not know, you said the word missional, or phrase missional community. So for somebody who may not know what that is, how would you define missional community?

Anne: So missional community is like a home church or a small group as a small group of people. And they are meeting together for the purpose of then scattering out into the world and serving their community. So the people that I was talking to, they really feel called to the local community in their previous churches. They were the people that would rally all of the church community around you know, specific food pantry ministries and meeting practical needs in the community, backpack ministries, those kinds of things. And so they're saying, hey, we want to be more active in the community and we want to come together. Yes, we want to come together to learn and grow together so that we can go out and serve. So the gathering is for the purpose of scattering; that’s kind of how a missional community works. And, it is very much focused on service. And the beautiful thing is that a missional community when it's like that then attracts other like-minded people that also care about the community. As people see these, others begin to say, “Oh, well, why are you here and why do you care so much, and let me join what you are all about.” So it really is a very attractive way for people to join “the church” in a way that meets that desire that they may have to serve in there in their community. 

Ted: So if I'm hearing you talk about missional communities and finding that exciting and I'm a member of a local church and our annual conference, how might I be part of something like that? Or how might I go about encouraging my church to be a part of something like that?

Anne: Yeah. I think one of the things that, you can do as a part of an established church is to kind of be an umbrella organization that allows some of those new things to pop up. So right now, I'm reading a book by Michael Beck called “Deep Roots, Wild Branches,” and he talks about how there's this beautiful relationship with the established church, which is a big well-rooted tree with wild wild branches that creates a shade atmosphere for all these new sprouts to pop up underneath. And, he says the new sprouts, if they didn't have the shade of the overall organization, they wouldn't be able to pop up. The sun would scorch them. And so he says that there's this beautiful symbiotic relationship between the two. That one actually allows the other to thrive. And the beautiful thing is, once those little things start shooting up, then they create a richness in the soil around the tree that then feeds the tree. So I think that that's one of the things that I would love to see our established churches do is to really provide that shade environment, that safe environment for people to respond to what God is calling them to do, and say, hey, we want to equip you to do this. So if it means that you need to go have a service in your home and then be dispersed in the community, you are still part of us. We recognize you're not leaving us at all, and beginning to see ourselves as a clippers, instead of gatherers, of the saints. Really focusing on the dispersing and the scattering I think because for so long we have focused on the gathering and, and put all of our all of our seeds in the gathering basket and I would love to see us really focus on that scattering basket and just creating that environment to say, how is God calling you? And having those conversations and helping people understand that God is actually speaking to them individually. Like there is a response that God is looking to, to hear from you. 

Ted: I love the analogy of the shade with the sprouts. One of the things it made me think of is that, and this would be a very passive way, but you know established churches paying apportionments provide some of that shade. The work that you do and the work the conference is doing is funded in part by those apportionments, which helps fertilize the soil for those new sprouts, to extend the metaphor a little bit. Beyond that, what would be some practical ways that local churches might equip or might otherwise provide that shade beyond apportionment dollars?

Anne: Yeah. So one of the things that we have coming up is an “Imagine Day” with Michael Beck who is the author that I just mentioned. He's the director of fresh expressions in Florida. They have a big network of fresh expressions and fresh expressions are simply unique ways to take the gospel and to take Jesus into a place where there is just a group of people that is already gathering. So instead of putting the emphasis on hey, go to the people that you spend time with and tell them to come to church, you take church to them. There's a network in Florida that he oversees that have these fresh expressions where you have, you know, church in a bar or church in a yoga studio, or you know, church on the dock, whatever you want to call it. There are all these fresh expressions. And he's coming to our conference on April the 15th. To do an “Imagine Day” as we imagine what would that look like in South Georgia? And we kind of ignite curiosity around that. And to be able to send some people to that even if you don't think you're called to this kind of work this kind of creative ministry, to be able to learn about it so that as the established church provides that shade, then you can best recognize where God is moving and where he's working in the hearts of his people. And you can better recognize that and kind of put feet to that as people begin to live that out. So that would be one way that churches can get involved with that, you know, send a team of laity, send a team of your leaders, to help them kind of catch that vision. And then another thing that we have coming up and this will be in August, we have a Lay Planters Academy that we are going to begin to launch in August, which is an online course for any laity that feel like they want to plant a new thing. And so this could be for people that are interested in becoming home church leaders. This could be for people interested in doing fresh expressions, or just simply starting a new ministry in the church. And the way that that will work is we will have classes online for that will open up for about two months, and then at the end if any of our participants wants to kind of pitch their project their new thing to Shark Tank kind of team, then they can do that for some little mini-grants and funding to help them get up and running and kind of off the ground. So those are a couple of ways that we can encourage our laity and we can encourage our clergy to begin to embrace this new thing that that God is doing here.

Ted: This sounds really exciting. For somebody who might think to themselves, you know, this is really exciting, and they hear what you say and catch your excitement, but say you know where I am, we're just talking so much about division, or we're talking so much about the difficulties that are currently being experienced in the denomination and, you know, look out at the horizon of the denomination and don't feel that same excitement, what would you say to them to help them? What would you say in response to, to that kind of, you know, outlook on our denomination?

Anne: Yeah. I think that one of the things that helped me get excited about these new things that God is doing is really engaging my understanding of the Universal Church, the global church, and reconnecting to the fact that we are one church. We talk about division, and we talk about disunity, and we talk about disaffiliation but at the end of the day, we are one church, and we can segment ourselves in as many different segments as we want. But we still are one church, we are one body, we are one group of believers. And so when we connect to the unity of the church, and that way, it helps us see ourselves as part of a movement that is even much bigger than our denomination. A Global Movement is what I feel like the church was intended to be and I think sometimes when we when we get caught up in the day to day functioning of a smaller group, like a denomination, that we lose sight of the fact that we actually are united, and that we are one family and that sometimes maybe all have these factions are not really as divided as we would like to think because we really are one body anyway. And so for me, that's what continues to give me hope and enthusiasm, that even in the midst of division, we really are one. We can self-select and divide ourselves out. But the fact of the matter is, we are one and we are one family and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And so that is there is unity. When you look at it that way.

Ted: We all bear part responsibility for working with the Holy Spirit to build the Kingdom of God. 

Anne: Yes, yeah. 

Ted: That's what I'm hearing you say; to talk about, yes, we're all part of the kingdom and we're all helping to build that kingdom in different ways. 

Anne: Yeah.

Ted: I think about the scripture of you know, God gave different gifts to different people or, you know, Paul talking about how Apollos watered and others planted, and so we have different roles to play, and maybe we reach different people in that way. But we're all part of that same unifying vision. So if you were to distill that unifying vision, which is another way of saying, the purpose of the church, and you were going to put that very succinctly, how would you frame that? 

Anne: Make disciples.

Ted: Okay! So define what discipleship looks like for you.

Anne: I think that for a lot of time, for a long time, we have thought that that looks like people coming to church and engaging in Sunday school and Christian education and those kinds of things, which is definitely an aspect of that. But holistic discipleship is each and every one of us individually, following Jesus and becoming more like him, and then leading others to follow Jesus and become more like him. So it really is disciples who are discipling, it is followers who are helping others follow. And that doesn't just happen in one church building at a certain time at a certain day. It's a 24/7 kind of assignment. And I think it's so beautiful when we see ourselves in that role of disciples. Because then we began digging into Scripture and prayer and study and meditation and Sabbath and solitude and all these spiritual disciplines that bring us closer to God. But then, when we see ourselves as disciplers, then we begin to dig into that community. And find that one or two other people that God has put in our lives to begin to bring them along to and I think that's the multiplication strategy that Jesus gave us: to go and make disciples. Discipling happens in relationship. Programs don't disciple people; people, disciple people. And so I think a lot of times we in the church have relied upon programs to disciple people, instead of seeing it as our responsibility while working within these programs to disciple people, because it really is all about relationships. Yeah.

Ted: I really appreciated the answer there to what discipleship looks like to talk about it not from a programmatic standpoint, but from a relational standpoint. And so I wonder, like, how does that inform the work that you're doing for the conference because you have that relational motif?  How does that look differently than it would if you had a programmatic mindset, if that makes sense?

Anne: Yeah. So I think we'll, I'll just tell you from my experience, so I also lead a home church right now. And in the past, I've been on staff at a church and what my role was at the church was to get people to come to the programs, and I spent all my time and energy getting people to come to programs. And now I spend my time and my energy meeting people where they are and meeting them in the middle of their need in the middle of their celebration and rejoicing in the middle of their sorrow, whatever it is. I'm meeting people where they are, and I think that for a long time, I made that mistake of saying just come to this program, and then let the program do it for you, you know, and instead of saying, Hey, I'm gonna meet you where you are, and we're gonna walk through this together It takes a lot more time to do discipleship relationally. You can fit a whole bunch of people into a Sunday school class or into an event. And I can only fit a certain number of people into my home church, but yet what I'm seeing is exponential spiritual growth in those people because we're investing in each other relationally throughout the week. Yeah, we're able to check in with each other, we're able to stay in each other's lives more intentionally, than we would if we had, you know, a church of 100 or 200 or 300, that we're all in different programs. And so I think it takes more time, it takes more intentionality and it also takes less control. And you can't really control it like you can control the narrative in a programmatic setting, you know, in a programmatic setting, everybody who's sitting in rows, or sometimes in circles, and then there's one person that's doing the talking, but when you focus on relational discipleship, it's a give and take and it is a listening and a telling, and, and sometimes things come up that you're like I wasn't prepared for that. And that's okay. That's the beauty of a relationship is just that you are able to navigate some of those uncertain times together and say, wow, I've never thought about it that way, or I'm not so sure about that. Let's work this out together. 

Ted: It's the movement of the Holy Spirit. 

Anne: Yes. 

Ted: And kind of a back to basics to the early church, which was very relational in that way, and left that space for the Holy Spirit to operate because it does seem like the more control we try to exercise the less room we leave for the Holy Spirit to do what God is calling us to do, wanting us to do. 

One of the things we're working on here with his website is to pivot our focus and talk about what's next for the annual conference for Methodism, that kind of thing. So, you know, of all the things you've already said and discussed that kind of fit that idea, if you were to say, you know, this is what I see that is next for us, how would you answer that question?

Anne: I think one of the things that I see that's next for us is an expansion of mindsets. One of the things that I do in my work, in terms of revitalization is really helping churches and helping people reimagine and remember who they are, whose they are, and why they are. Because one of the things that I think is so important is when we know who we are and whose we are, and why we exist, which is to make disciples, then we're going to know what to do. So many times people ask me, what do we need to do, and I'm like, I think if you really understand who you are, who you are, you're gonna have the answer. And so and a lot of that is being willing to question assumptions, and release old mindsets that are no longer useful. In the context where we find ourselves, there have been some significant shifts in culture. And in many cases, the church hasn't shifted with it. The church has stood against it, and I'm not talking about in terms of theological positions, I'm just talking about culture. When you look at the way that we are much more mobile, when you look at the way that people's homes have taken on a different meaning because so many people work from home and and their home is not just for family stuff and eating meals, but it's you know, become everything, you look at how you don't have to go to the store anymore because things are delivered to you. You look at the fact that you don't have to go to quote experts in a lecture. You just Google it, and you just ask Google right and you're gonna get 50 different answers and opinions. And so I think a lot of the methods that we have used and relied on in the past for success we're now realizing that maybe those were successful in their time, but maybe we've held on to them a little bit too long. And so to be able to question some assumptions that we have about what is working and what success looks like, to be able to question some mindsets about measurement. I mean, what should we be measuring? Should we be measuring the number of people in a worship service or should we be measuring the number of people who are taking next steps in their discipleship? And what does that look like? And let's reimagine what God might have for us in our current geographic location. Why are you still there geographically? You know, all of these kinds of things that we've developed a set of mindsets and assumptions over time. I think it's time for just to question those and to and to say, what new thing might God be doing today? And I love how you how you reference that passage earlier because it's my it's been my life verse forever. And the thing that I love about that verse is that it talks about, at the end, that God is making pathways through the wilderness and rivers in the wasteland. And so often what we do is we look to the past and the ways that he has worked. And now God is out there on the fringes, and he's doing these new things and in areas that we would have dismissed before, you know, there is no path in the wilderness. So I'm not going to go to the wilderness and God’s like, look again, because it's little, but I'm going to do this work with you. You know, I wouldn't go to the desert places. Well, now he's like, oh, I think there might be some rivers in there, if you come along with me and follow me. Let's do this work together. And so I think we've got to stop. We've got to start looking in new places that we think, oh, God wouldn't be working there. And then watch and just pay attention. And be sure that we are discerning well the possibility that God may indeed be working there, and we just haven't yet seen it.

Ted: Yeah. And that makes me think about how much of Jesus's ministry was on the margins. One of the things I think of sometimes is by some of the standards we utilize, especially around, say, worship attendance, Jesus was a failed pastor because the number of people around him got smaller the longer he did ministry. But the people who stayed around him were growing in their faith and the depth of that growth and people, as you said, taking next steps in their ministry, was was increasing, you know, the depth of a disciple of spirituality was growing.

Anne: I'm very much a question person. I actually have a question collection on my computer! Like anytime I hear a good question, I'm putting it in my file. But one of the questions that for the last couple of years since COVID, that I feel like God has put on my heart is not the question, what would Jesus do, but where would Jesus be? And I think it's in those desert places. I think it's in that wild wilderness. It's where would Jesus be in this moment? And I think we often make assumptions of where Jesus would be, but that if we're honest, and we really look at where Jesus was, and we look at that today, it's worth asking ourselves that question, where would Jesus be? And I don't know about you, but I want to be where Jesus is. And so how can we go where we prayerfully think Jesus would be today. Be a part of that work? 

Ted: I appreciate your time to be able to do this and put some words to paper and just be able to to talk with hope about what's coming up next in time where it might seem like division and discord are the themes of the day. Things are still happening; God is still moving. And so as a way of closing, I'd say that I think often these days about the last two verses of the hymn, “This is the day of new beginnings.” And it says, Then let us, with the Spirit’s daring, step from our past and leave behind our disappointment, guilt, and grieving, seeking new paths and sure to find Christ is alive and goes before us, to show and share what love can do. This is a day of new beginnings. Our God makes all things new.” So thank you for sharing those new beginnings as you see them here. 

Anne: Yeah, thank you.