When One Really Matters

A “One Matters” Story Series Beginning in April

Every year, Discipleship Ministries’ One Matters Award tells a powerful story. The award recognizes congregations that have moved from zero baptisms and zero professions of faith to at least one, signs of renewed intentional discipleship, and fresh engagement with their communities. Along with a plaque and a financial gift, the award says to congregations, “This work you’re doing to reach new people for Christ matters.”

I’ve been thinking about that word for the last few weeks: matters.

On my morning runs, I’ve been listening to Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s book, Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. Wallace makes a simple but profound claim: human beings need to know they are valued, that they have an opportunity to add value, and that they matter to others and to the world around them. When that sense of mattering disappears, disconnection and despair grow; when it’s restored, people come alive with a renewed sense of purpose and belonging.

When I place the “One Matters” stories alongside Wallace’s insights, I see deep connections with who we are as United Methodists and inheritors of a Wesleyan way of understanding our relationship with God and neighbor. Each baptism, each profession of faith, is not just a number on a report; it’s a person discovering, “My life matters to God. My presence matters in this community. I have gifts that can bless others.” As one description of the One Matters Award notes, each “one” represents a transformed life, a life that matters to God and matters to us.”

Beginning in April, we’ll launch a “One Matters” story series highlighting congregations across our connection that have received this award. These churches once reported zero baptisms and professions of faith, churches that might easily have been written off as “stuck” or “declining.” Instead, through prayerful, intentional shifts, they began to reach new people, nurture new believers, offer a place to belong and grow in grace, and help them know they matter.

Each article in the series will:

• Tell the story of a “One Matters” congregation.
• Name specific strategies the congregation used to move from zero to “one or more.”
• Acknowledge the challenges the congregation faced and how they worked through them.
• Lift up lessons learned and best practices that other congregations can adapt.
• Offer a few practical action steps for leaders who are ready to take the next step in reaching new people.

Each written story will be accompanied by a short video conversation with leaders from a congregation that has won the award. Those videos enable viewers to hear the leaders’ voices, see their context, and gain a sense of the culture that has been slowly and faithfully cultivated—one relationship at a time.

As I’ve begun listening to these stories, I’ve noticed a pattern that connects deeply with this idea of mattering.

In some churches, the turning point came when they stopped focusing only on keeping long-time members comfortable and began asking, “Who in our neighborhood doesn’t yet know they matter to God?”

In others, it was a renewed commitment to intentional discipleship: small groups, mentoring, or relational pathways through which new people could move from visitor to participant to disciple in ways that honored their gifts and stories.

In still others, the shift came when laypeople, teachers, retirees, healthcare workers, parents, and youth caught a fresh vision of the priesthood of all believers and began living their faith in visible, invitational ways in workplaces, schools, and third spaces.

What unites these congregations is not a program or model. It’s a shared conviction that people matter and that all people deserve the chance to know they are loved by God, welcomed into a community of grace, and invited to live a life of purpose.

In a time when many churches feel discouraged by trends, charts, and forecasts, “One Matters” reminds us to pay attention to the small but holy beginnings:

one new relationship, one conversation that leads to prayer,

one baptism,

one profession of faith,

one person who steps into a room and hears, maybe for the first time, “We’re glad you’re here. You matter.”

I hope that this series will do at least three things for you and your congregation:

1. Encourage you by showing that change is possible, even in small or struggling churches.
    
2. Equip you with concrete practices and strategies you can adapt to your context.
    
3. Recenter you on why this work matters: not for the sake of numbers on a report, but for the sake of people discovering that their lives are held, loved, and called by God.

As you read these stories in the coming months, I invite you to hold two questions close:

Who in our community needs to know they matter—to God, to us, and to this world?

What one faithful step might we take to help them experience that?

One matters.
Each person matters.
Those we welcome, baptize, and disciple today who are offered space to share their gifts, live into their purpose, and experience belonging offer a vision of the church that truly sees and lives as if every life matters.

The first “One Matters” story and video will be available in April. May these stories spark conversation, imagination, and, most of all, renewed love for the people right outside your doors, waiting to know that they matter too.