By Bob Molsberry, Ohio Conference Minister

January, 2008

The Ohio Conference, like other conferences across the UCC and like all the other mainline Protestant denominations, is struggling to find effective and sustainable models for its traditional programs such as Outdoor Ministries. This is a period in which most of what the church has done in the past will have to be rethought and repackaged in order to make it relevant to postmodern Christians.

The situation has come to a head in Ohio because of personnel transitions and significant debt. Since last year at this time, both the Nature’s Classroom Director and the Minister for Outdoor Ministries have resigned, the Conference office has reduced staff, and there’s a new Conference Minister on the scene. We still have over five hundred thousand dollars to pay on a six hundred thousand dollar loan that’s due in two years.

When I showed up in September, I knew two things. I knew that decisions about camp management and outdoor ministries would have to be made very soon. Responsibilities of the two missing staff had been distributed among existing staff, and, although they were doing a great job, they were working too hard. The temporary staffing arrangement was expected to run for just a few months at most.

The second thing I knew was that I didn’t know enough to make any long-term decisions. I knew that a sustainable business plan for the effective administration of our program and facilities was going to be essential, but I’m not a business manager and couldn’t produce such a plan out of thin air.

So I proposed that the Division for Outdoor Ministries secure the services of a professional consultant with experience in Conference outdoor ministries. The Division has assembled a team to select a consultant. Following suggestions made by other Conference Ministers, we opened conversation with three reliable and respected firms, and we are in the process of selecting one of them based on their proposals and face-to-face interviews. By February the process should be under way with the selected firm.

There’s a great deal of excitement among the participants for the potential outcome of this process. We will be incorporating the findings and recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel. We will be taking into account the changing habits, desires, demographics, and loyalties of our church members and looking at programming, facilities, marketing and management.

I’d like to propose a new paradigm for thinking about outdoor ministry. Rather than regarding outdoor ministry as a program of the Conference, I suggest that we look at it as a ministry of local congregations in partnership with each other.

The role of the Conference (including its camping facilities, staff, and programming) is to extend and enhance local congregational ministries in ways that would be impossible for local churches to do on their own.

The local congregation provides rich social, environmental, and spiritual experiences for its members by partnering with other congregations and with Outdoor Ministries through the camping program of the Conference. The local congregation is the driving engine for outdoor ministry. The Conference provides the setting and structure for it to happen.