Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christian Ministry

  • Reaching Those in a Cult Situation

    The best advice I’ve heard on this topic is provided in a short post by Elizabeth Esther.

    Takeway? Be a listening ear.

  • Theologian Pastors

    Mostly, this is a link to Allan Bevere’s post, which builds on Michael Bird’s post.

    I’m one of those parishioners who would like to hear more sermons from well-educated theologians. Even if the circumstances are different (see comments to Allan’s post), I, like John Wesley, have but a lowly MA.

    But there are several things that will need to happen for this to work.

    First, we will need to redefine the role of a pastor in the minds of the people in the pews. For them, preaching is less than an hour of their pastor’s work during the week. Sure, if you pin them down on the subject, they’ll admit there must be preparation time, but it’s still only a minor thing. They want to see the pastor visiting, administering the church, attending all the committees, being around for social occasions, and in some churches doing part of the maintenance work. Face it, to most of the people in the pews, theology just isn’t work.

    Second, we need to learn to have the whole church do pastoral work. A nation of priests sounds alright until we need to put it into action. There are people in every church who are called to do pastoral work, such as visiting the sick and shut-ins, helping with various ministries to those in need, and so forth. There are others gifted for administration. If the work was divided between the gifted, perhaps there would be more time. Then we could have a pastor who was primarily teacher or “resident theologian.”

    Third, if we get the daily non-theological work (or the theology in practice, perhaps) taken care of, we need to convince the people of the church that a theologian is a worthwhile investment. I think it would be. In fact, it is one of the few staff positions I see as necessary. In many cases, a group of churches should band together and hire a resident theologian. Then the leadership of those churches could go study with that individual, and in turn teach their congregations. The theologian, of course, should also spend time with everyone.

    Fourth, if we are to reduce the separation of the academy from the church, perhaps the academy itself needs to be distributed more. Modern technology might be able to help with this, and I don’t mean largely by distance learning in this case. I mean by theologians, resident or not, giving classes in various areas that would be tracked for credit. In other words, one’s academic degree would not be accomplished entirely in the academy, and one’s academic career could not be spent entirely in the ivory tower.

    I’m probably leaving dozens of problems out of this discussion, but since I don’t see us getting past my points 1 & 2, I guess that’s enough!

     

  • Two Things that Lead Toward Christian Unity

    There are two things I’ve noticed in my own life and in the lives of people I know that tend to lead toward less divisiveness and greater Christian unity. These are:

    1) A focus on doing mission

    2) A focus on the study of scripture

    What’s interesting is that people can differ on how to do mission or how to study scripture, but if they’re spending their time doing more than talking, their talking starts to focus less on their differences. Sometimes they do change their point of view on certain theological issues, but more often it’s a matter of focus.

    I wonder what would happen if we simply spent more time going to scripture and then carrying out the mission as we see God calling us to it, and less time correcting one another, that we might find that God will change all of us.

     And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. — 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NRSV)

    (Note: I do believe both of these things must be done prayerfully.)

  • The UMC and Innovation

    Or you might say, denominations (or even just “organizations”) and innovation.

    We don’t have to work within the system if we don’t want to. We can work without it. We can go outside of it. We can leave it if it continues to stifle us.

    I might have preferred “if God calls us to,” but the author gets around to that:

    The simple question should always be, “What does God want me to be doing right now?” We have a responsibility to discern where God is at work in the world, and to participate in it.

    In the end, if you can’t do the innovative work that God wants you to do within the structure of a denomination, then you must leave.

    Oh, yes, the link. Why I Doubt the UMC Can Handle Innovation. Make sure to follow the links back to the article he’s responding to and previous responses.

    I’ve seen plenty of people stifled by the denomination, but not just by the United Methodist Church. Those of us who are older (physically or in the faith) tend to want to keep others from making mistakes. But we can often suppress those who are moving forward with the work of the gospel by preventing what we think are “mistakes.”

  • Spying Churches

    I’m struck by the fear with which churches greet new ideas. No, I think I should make it more direct than that. I’m struck by the fear with which churches greet ideas. Any type of ideas. The type of people who manifest this sort of fear are generally those who are either unable to support what they believe or perhaps simply don’t want to be bothered with the necessity.

    My parents were life-long missionaries for their denomination, but after they retired they were suspected of some form of dissident theological beliefs. The fact is that I have a hard time really defining the difference between their beliefs and those of their denomination. They certainly remained loyal to the denomination, including supporting it financially even through all of this.

    They were visiting one local church for a period of time and considering joining. One of their lifelong practices was hospitality. If you were visiting their church they didn’t just welcome you, they offered you an invitation to come home to lunch. They did so one day, and a couple of the elders showed up as well to make sure they weren’t misleading the visitors. As I said, my parents remained loyal to their denomination, but my mother straightened those folks out in a hurry!

    All of this, and much more, came back to me when I read Shame Is a Prison, And I’m Breaking Out (HT: Rachel Held Evans). The author writes of being called with her husband to meet with her pastor who felt that her views as expressed on Facebook and her blog were inappropriate. She tells of the shame that was involved and that made it hard to break free. I needed to read her post, because my immediate mental response was “why didn’t she tell him where to go, get up, walk out, and never darken the door of his church again?” It’s just not that easy.

    And in spite of my mental reaction, it’s not that easy for me either. I like to get along. I like to be part of the team and work together with a church. But there are points of conscience that I will not surrender to the group. I do understand churches wanting to make sure their official pronouncements are compatible with their statements of faith, though I advocate keeping the list of essential doctrines as short as possible. When protecting the church’s doctrines lead to spying on members, I think it has gone too far.

    When I was single, I didn’t realize how much more this sort of thing impacts women. After I got married, I was approached by people who wanted me to explain things my wife said or to “correct” her in some way. I made an early rule and shared it with my wife. I would not even defend her in these types of conversations. Whenever someone was talking to me about something my wife said I would immediately suggest that they talk directly to her. “She’s perfectly capable of explaining this herself,” I would say. The interesting thing is that while this statement would cut off the discussion with me, I am not aware of anyone who actually went to talk to her. That suggests to me that I was 100% right about whether they were trying to criticize her, or actually interested in learning more about the subject. They hoped I would be the sensible one and straighten her out without their having to display the courage and courtesy of actually talking to her.

    The motivation here is fear, I believe, and the result is weaker church members. I would suggest instead openly encouraging both questioning and suggesting answers by every member of the church. This will create stronger Christian communities.

    (I’m currently editing a book to be released early next year, So Much Older Then … by Bob LaRochelle. In it he describes a process of offering time for a congregational response to the sermon. I think it’s a wonderful idea. When I’ve experienced such a time as a speaker it has always been positive.)

  • 10 Stupid Things Ministers Should Never Do

    J. Lee Grady steps on some toes again. In general, these apply to any leader, especially the point about accountability. A lack of accountability undermines any other efforts.

  • Starting with the Local Congregation – or with Me

    Dave Black responded to my previous post on the United Methodist Church by referring to some thoughts he has had on his own denomination. I want to quote them here, since Dave’s blog doesn’t make linking to a particular entry possible.

    7:55 AM Noted Methodist blogger Henry Neufeld ponders the question, How to cure the UMC? He asks:

    How much time needs to go into preserving the organization? Is such time well spent? Those are questions that concern me these days.

    For what it’s worth, Henry, I once pondered a similar question regarding my own denomination. The bottom of the bottom line for me?

    I came away from the convention with a new realization that a Great Commission resurgence will not begin at the denominational level. It will end there. A Great Commission commitment must begin in our homes and marriages, and then in our local churches, each one of them. This is clearly the pattern of the book of Acts. The church at Antioch, the world’s first missional church, is proof of that.

    I hope that all of this gets sorted out at the denomination level (and I predict that it will, eventually). But even if it doesn’t, there is nothing to keep me and my local church from doing all we can to help advance God’s kingdom on earth. (From Dave Black Online)

    I have found that the concerns of people who are seeking to be servants and missionaries in different denominations are remarkably similar. We have some doctrinal differences, but we struggle with issues of getting the church active. I believe that if we get people studying the Bible, praying, and seeking the unity of the Spirit, doctrinal differences will tend to fade to the background. They’ll either be found to be non-essential or we’ll discover where we each need to change. I think we can be very patient with “erring brethren.” After all, we are ourselves erring brethren, almost by definition!

    What I must keep in focus is simply this: God hasn’t called me to solve all the problems of the church. He hasn’t called me to make sure everyone else is fulfilling the great commission. He has called me to be transformed by looking to Him, and to fulfil my call to service.

    I don’t mean that I can “be the church” alone. Rather, I can do a much better job of being part of the body if I’m spending more time correcting my own manifold flaws than I spend trying to correct those of others. Much more time, in fact!

  • Sky McCracken on Change in the UMC

    A great quote:

    We Americans aren’t very good at absolute authority, but we presently have the opposite of it in the UMC – we have an episcopacy shackled to lead, but convenient to blame. It’s a great system to play armchair quarterback in, but it doesn’t make disciples.

    Go read the rest. It’s thought provoking.

  • Is the Church Dead?

    This blogger thinks so. I think he has a point.

  • Rachel Held Evans, Owen Strachan, and Adrian Warnock Went on a Radio Show

    It wasn’t as funny as if they’d gone into a bar, but it was considerably more enlightening. It might appear that having two complementarians against one egalitarian was unfair, but Rachel clearly had no problem with the format, and the host pointed out that, though he was playing neutral moderator, he was more inclined to Rachel’s position.

    I very rarely listen to something that long. I much prefer the written to the spoken word. If you want to get my attention, write. But the participants were enough to get me started and the quality of their discussion was enough to keep me listening.

    It will surprise nobody who reads this blog that I agree with Evans down the line, though I might be a bit more liberal than she is on hermeneutics. The important points on hermeneutics came out more toward the end, though you’ll miss some references if you skip to that point, where Owen Strachan talks about having to obey all of scripture and not pick and choose and warns of a slippery slope. Evans quickly points out that there are other things we don’t follow, yet somehow we don’t feel we’re on a slippery slope.

    The fact is that nobody obeys “all of scripture” in the sense of keeping every command. Everyone has some way to distinguish between commands that apply and those that don’t. It’s just that they generally tend to ignore the ones that they have, in their own view, really excellent reasons to ignore. In ignoring them, they hardly notice the fact that they are ignoring commands.

    So the question is whether one’s application of a scripture to a situation (or failure to do so) is justified or not. I commented some on this on my Participatory Bible Study blog.

    I would add to this discussion this note: When Owen Strachan refers to using the simple or plain portions of scripture to explain those that are more obscure, I find it interesting that he sees commands and theological statements as simple, while stories and history are apparently more obscure. I would see it as precisely the reverse. When Paul says in one place that he doesn’t allow a woman to speak, and in another we have a very clear indication of a woman in authority, I think it would be best to find an interpretation of the command (or theological statement) that doesn’t suggest that Paul was violating his own command, rather than trying to explain away the action and make it appear that it didn’t violate our view of the command.

    Thus if Junia stands out among the apostles in Rome, while women submit (and don’t speak) in Ephesus, I’m going to guess that the command has something to do with Ephesus.