Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: United Methodist Church

  • John Meunier Wants to be a Methodist

    Stripped image of John Wesley
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    No, not just a member of a United Methodist congregation, but a Methodist. He has been reading Scott Kisker, and after his discussion he notes:

    I don’t want something more than they do. “More” is not the right word. I want something real. I want to be part of the movement that started in a fishing village in Galilee and was rekindled in a coal field in England. I want the assurance of the Holy Spirit. I want the power of grace working in me to restore the image of God and the mind that was in Christ. I want to be one of the people called Methodist.

    Read the whole thing.

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  • Organizing Small Groups

    Will Rice, Discipleship Pastor at University United Methodist Church in San Antonio, is suggesting retiring the term “small group” because he thinks it is not well enough defined (HT: Dave Black Online). It is hard to know precisely what one is talking about when one says “small group.” He’s right–it is hard.

    He also has some suggestions, such as defining the mission of the small group, making sure you have leaders gifted and trained to accomplish that mission, and evaluating the results according to the mission. I intentionally repeated the term “mission” multiple times there for emphasis. His suggestion is good. I’ve said many times, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said it within the last several posts, that I can tell how a church is doing on its mission by asking a member if they can state that mission.

    I’m also completely in agreement with the idea of finding the right people with the right gifts to put into the right position as facilitator. I’ve even written a book about it, and the title includes the phrase “small group!”

    But there’s another side to this that I’d like to underline briefly, and that’s the church (in my experience Methodist, though I have no reason to believe this is exclusively our problem) that tries to over-organize and over-control small group developments (see my earlier post Putting Up Barriers to Ministry). If a group of people meet and they don’t fit the favored definition of “small group” they are actively discouraged. I even encountered a pastor who objected to prayer groups meeting off-campus without church sanction. It’s quite possible to define, organize, and train our way out of existence. I say this as someone who loves defining, organizing, and especially training.

    I think there are small groups that develop naturally in a church that are detrimental to mission. I would suggest, however, that the solution is not to force all groups under a regimen of control, but rather the preaching of the gospel and teaching discipleship, along with appropriate, Christ-like, church discipline. I don’t mean that Rice’s good suggestions amount to forcing groups under a regimen. I’m referring to what I’ve observed in certain churches. I think one can tell the difference by observing the fruit–if groups of Christians are gathering and doing mission, it’s working.

    Somewhere between (or away from) control and chaos (with apologies to Get Smart) there’s a place where we function as the body of Christ under One Spirit.

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  • It’s Broken!

    Soviet electric locomotive VL60pk (ВЛ60пк), c....
    A little bigger than the one we were playing with!
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    “I know what’s wrong with it,” said six year old Steven.

    From the eminence of 12 years old, I was showing Steven my electric trains, most of which I had salvaged from other sets and lovingly repaired. Suddenly one of the engines we’d been playing with just quit.

    That’s when Steven said: “I know what’s wrong with it.”

    I turned to Steven, wondering how he had figured it out. “What?” I asked.

    “It’s broken!” he announced solemnly. The look on his face told me he clearly believed he had solved the problem.

    I got quite a good laugh about that little incident, telling my parents and friends, and we all enjoyed the humor. Clearly the 6 year old’s lack of understanding was on display and very amusing. Knowing something is broken doesn’t mean you know what’s wrong, and certainly doesn’t mean you know how to fix it.

    But over the years since, I’ve begun to wonder. Nobody would really claim that just pointing out that something is broken means you’ve accomplished anything. Yet many, many people, who exceed age 6 by many, many years, behave as though this were the case.

    “My community is broken. People don’t talk to one another or know one another any more. Problems turn into lawsuits for no good reason.”

    So what is causing this? Where is the problem? How can it be fixed? Many of the same people have no idea and clearly have no intention of trying to fix it. They want to identify the problem and complain. Let me ask you this? When was the last time you did more than wave to a neighbor?

    “My church is going the wrong way. It’s broken! Things are falling apart! We’re losing members.”

    But what’s the problem, and what are you doing about it?

    I had an interesting experience with this once. I was leading a Bible study group, and somehow a text led to a series of complaints about our church.  Now there was a visitor there. I knew that she was the chair of our staff-parish relations committee. Those in the Methodist church know this is the group that theoretically deals with complaints about how the pastor and staff are accomplishing their mission. If you have a complaint in a United Methodist congregation, the SPR chair is one person to talk to.

    The rest of the group should have know who our visitor was too, but they didn’t (problem #1). The visitor pulled out a notebook as the complaints flowed, and started to ask questions. When did these things happen? What might be done? “I’m the SPR chair,” she said. She wanted to go do something about the complaints.

    What happened? The complaints dried up. Like six year old Steven, folks wanted to say, “It’s broken,” but they didn’t know where to go from there, or perhaps the desire to pursue the issue was missing.

    “Washington is broken. The politicians don’t listen to the people. We need to fix things!”

    One of my favorite questions at this point is to ask the person whether they voted in the last election. You might be amazed at how many complaints come from the non-participants. But if you want to get even closer to the problem, ask the person if they know how their representative or senator voted on the problem. If you want to get into even darker territory, mention state representatives, county commissioners, or city councilmen.

    Realizing that something is broken is important, but it’s the easy part. It’s where the work starts, not where it ends. At least if you’re not six years old, and thus don’t have someone else to make it better for you!

    (I’m submitting this to the one word at a time blog carnival, on the word broken)

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  • UMC Rather than SDA – Again

    This was brought to my attention when I read the text of Ted Wilson’s address to the SDA General Conference. (I listened to he first 10 minutes as well, but preferred reading.) Why am I interested in the sermon presented by the new president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists? I am, after all, a member of a United Methodist congregation.

    There are three reasons. First, I was raised SDA, and one’s upbringing tends to stay with one. In this case I’m not at all sorry about my background. I received an excellent education in SDA schools and being homeschooled using SDA materials. I had many wonderful experiences as a member of the SDA church. Second, I still have friends and colleagues who are SDA, and I appreciate their friendship and their ministry. Finally, I still hear the question pretty regularly: “Why are you no longer a Seventh-day Adventist?”

    I should note that there is another common question that arises in connection with the first, which is to ask just why I’m not an angry ex-SDA. It seems that there are so many of those. I’d simply like to point out that one can disagree with the positions an organization takes and can determine that one should not be a member of that organization without also hating that organization, or even thinking that organization is negative on balance.

    From the other side I get the question of why I will not more forcefully distance myself from “that cult.” The reason for that is that while I disagree vigorously with certain positions of the SDA church, I do not believe it is any more or less likely that a member might be a true Christian or not. I could hardly give statistics since I don’t believe it is up to me to judge. What I am concerned with is mission and ministry.

    Before I give a brief response to the question of why I am now a member of a United Methodist congregation, rather than still being SDA, I want to look at some quotes from Ted Wilson’s sermon. (You can find the complete text here, so you can put these into context. I provide page numbers.)

    As I read this text I felt a concern for my many friends who are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At the same time I feel a concern for what I see as the potential blessing that the SDA church could be to the broader Christian community.

    Let’s look at some quotes:

    This church is not just another denomination; it is a unique, heaven-initiated movement with a mission of salvation to the world that must continually go forward in the humility of Jesus. pp. 3-4

    In my view, the “unique, heaven-initiated movement with a mission of salvation to the world” is not the SDA church but the universal Christian church. This is a critical point for me. If Seventh-day Adventists believe they have a message for the rest of Christianity, I think that is a positive thing, and they should be heard, not relegated to the status of a “cult.” But that line puts a single denomination in the position in which the church universal should be placed. I think it would be difficult to find a scriptural warrant for such a thing. This quote figures in the most critical reason I’m not SDA.

    Go forward, not backward…….Do not succumb to the mistaken idea, gaining support even in the
    Seventh-day Adventist Church, of accepting worship or evangelistic outreach methods merely because
    they are new and “trendy.” We must be vigilant to test all things according to the supreme authority of
    God’s Word and the council with which we have been blessed in the writings of Ellen G. White. Don’t
    reach out to movements or megachurch centers outside the Seventh-day Adventist Church which promise
    you spiritual success based on faulty theology. Stay away from non-biblical spiritual disciplines or
    methods of spiritual formation that are rooted in mysticism such as contemplative prayer, centering
    prayer, and the emerging church movement in which they are promoted. Look WITHIN the Seventh-day
    Adventist Church to humble pastors, evangelists, Biblical scholars, leaders, and departmental directors
    who can provide evangelistic methods and programs that are based on solid Biblical principles and “The
    Great Controversy Theme.” p. 7

    That’s a longer quote, even though it carries a great deal of baggage. It is, I believe, a call to look inward. I would point out that this impulse is not exclusive to Seventh-day Adventists. My wife was in a curriculum meeting in a United Methodist church in which a piece of curriculum was criticized for being “too Baptist” and having “too much Jesus.”

    If you have to look only within your own denomination in order to keep people on the road to truth, I have to question whether it is truth you are protecting. In both Wilson’s paragraph, and the remarks made in that curriculum committee, what is being protected is power, not truth. Truth can withstand examination.

    Go forward, not backward! Stand firm for God’s Word as it is literally read and understood. p. 8

    All I can say is that this statement and its many variants is probably the worst advice on Bible study that is commonly given–and unfortunately believed by many. Even in reading a vision, such as the book of Revelation, people are told to think literally. Bad advice! Very bad advice!

    This unbiblical approach of “higher criticism” is a deadly enemy of our theology and mission. This approach puts a scholar or individual above the plain approach of the scriptures and gives inappropriate license to decide what he or she perceives as truth based on the resources and education of the critic. p. 9

    Yet whenever we read scripture we interpret. This criticism of higher criticism does nothing more than reject it because one disagrees with the results. There are problems with higher criticism, just as there are problems with reading everything literally. These are problems that require thoughtful responses. I would reject a version of higher criticism that stands on purely naturalistic assumptions. But such a foundation is unnecessary to find value in many of the tools provided.

    While the Bible is paramount in our estimation as the ultimate authority and final arbiter of truth, the Spirit of Prophecy provides clear, inspired council to aid our application of Bible truth. It is a heaven-sent guide to instruct the church in how to carry out its mission. It is a reliable theological expositor of the Scriptures. p. 9

    I would simply point out that this issue stands out as one of the milestones on my own departure from the SDA church. If you treat Ellen White as a definitive interpreter of scripture, you are placing her above scripture, whether you like it or not. I recognize that Wilson didn’t use the word “definitive,” but I think the intentions are clear. As a Christian, I do not reject the idea of a modern prophet, but I do reject he idea that any person can be the definitive interpreter, denying me the opportunity of full examination, discussion, and disagreement.

    So having responded to some key points in the sermon, what does this have to do with my own departure from the SDA church?

    I think it highlights it rather well. Let me begin by noting that my key issues with Adventism were not the standards of the seventh day Sabbath, legalism, or the state of the dead, which seem to stir people up so much. Let me be clear: I disagree with SDA positions on the Sabbath and somewhat on the state of the dead. They just are the critical issues for me.

    The state of the dead doctrine is trivial in my view. I really don’t care how much time elapses between death and going to be with Jesus–eternally. There is no time lapse which will matter, in my view. I think there are some scriptural arguments on both sides, but I don’t care that much about the answer.

    I envy Seventh-day Adventists the doctrine of the Sabbath, even though I don’t accept it. What it did for many SDAs of my acquaintance–and still does–is give them a much stronger sense of sacred time than I find in other churches. Time stewardship in Christianity is in poor shape, and this is something the broader community could learn from SDAs.

    But at the same time we see legalism. Those in the SDA church who worship on Saturday for legalistic reasons also often miss the valuable blessings it can have. I don’t think such legalists are in the majority; my experience was of many Adventists truly refreshed by the Sabbath rest.

    The critical element for me was eschatology. I find the SDA approach to Daniel and Revelation almost completely wrong. The interpretation of Daniel 8:14 is completely unjustified by the text. The doctrine of the investigative judgment also runs contrary to any number of other orthodox Christian doctrines. But I’ve written about that before.

    Even that disagreement is not necessarily a deal breaker. I know any number of United Methodists who believe things about eschatology that I find profoundly troubling, yet I can be a Methodist.

    The problem comes in the doctrine of the remnant. Again, I must specify that I do see a doctrine of the remnant in scripture, but it’s specifically the identification of the remnant with an organization that I would call the critical deal breaker.

    When SDAs ask me why I left the church they often respond to my early, brief remarks by noting that the United Methodist Church also has problems. Their assumption seems to be that I left the SDA church because it was imperfect and have found the church in the UMC. But that isn’t the case.

    The SDA church is imperfect. So is the UMC. But nobody (that I know of) in the UMC expects me to equate my membership in that organization with my Christianity or my salvation. It doesn’t make me part of a special remnant. That membership means that I choose to find fellowship in my UMC congregation, to find accountability there, and to serve as part of the body of Christ there, i.e. to find my place of ministry there.

    When I said I would uphold the UMC with my prayers, presence, gifts, and service, I did not also affirm that I would regard the UMC as better than all other churches, much less as the one organization representing what Christianity ought to be.

    I believe that my disagreement with the SDA church on a number of doctrinal issues means that I do better not to be a member. But combining those doctrines into a core set of beliefs defining the one true organization out there is the most critical element.

    Love, appreciate, enjoy, yes. Join, no.

  • Finding and Protecting the Essentials

    I’ve written several times before about looking for the essentials of the Christian faith, most recently in my discussion of what a successful United Methodist Church would look like.

    I maintain that it is important to identify what are essentials, and to have a well-selected set that will provide identity for an organization. Of course, when we’re talking about church doctrines we hope to deal with essential doctrines that are also true and central to understanding our faith.

    If we make too many things essential, we tend to become narrow and divisive. If we make nothing, or too few things essential, we tend to have confusion. I think the United Methodist Church is in the latter situation in many ways.

    Of course the difficulty is identifying what is essential. I don’t believe this is necessarily easy, but we need to give it thought. Too often we simply think about what we believe and then sort of drift about in terms of what we believe is really essential.

    Eric Carpenter has taken on this topic in his own way, and titles his post Call Heresy What it is, but Only if it’s Heresy.

    Eric discusses both sides of the equation–too many essentials, and none at all–though he doesn’t use those terms. Regarding calling people with more minor disagreements “heretics” he says:

    We should never be calling others who are in Christ heretics.

    Then he discusses essential doctrines and concludes:

    Refusing to call heresy what it is leads to a lack of perceived boundaries between the gospel and the world. It suggests that everyone is really the same in their relationship to God. It strongly implies that gospel proclamation doesn’t really matter.

    Dave Black, in linking to Eric’s post, puts it this way:

    He is right. To be a Christian today we must have the heart of a child and the rind of a rhinoceros. The danger is that along with standing for the truth we will harden our hearts toward people. There are some teachings in the church today that are not to be accepted but rather challenged and (hopefully) corrected. In all of this, however, the serpent’s wisdom must be balanced by the innocent of the dove. God grant us balance.

    I hope more Christian bloggers will start to talk about this issue. We may find it had to agree on a solid list, but I think it’s very beneficial to ask ourselves regarding each area of disagreement: Is this critical to the gospel? Then we can continue to discuss non-essentials, but we won’t let them become divisive.

  • Can the Bible Be Alone?

    Clayboy asks whether “the Bible alone” is an oxymoron.  Now I sympathize with the question, because I have been dealing in another forum (the issue arises in the last 100 messages or so) with someone who seems to think that a text can have meaning with no context at all, or more precisely that the obvious meaning of English words to a 21st century audience is somehow “the meaning of the text” as opposed to something built on the context in which it was actually uttered.  Using all that ancient language and culture stuff is changing what the text actually says.

    But that is a caricature of sola scriptura, but it is one which many people in the pews of our churches hold.  They believe that by sitting down with the Bible, and perhaps a concordance, they can discover what God actually said, and they don’t need to depend on anyone else–no tradition, no outside sources, no experts.  It’s an interesting view, but I don’t believe it is what the reformers intended by sola scriptura, and I’ve never encountered anyone who could be called “Biblically trained” who held that position.  (I responded on YouTube to someone who made that claim, and yet couldn’t get his English straight, much less his Greek.)

    But there is a more serious issue with the actual sola scriptura position, part of which has been raised in other discussions around the blogosphere.  Without tradition we do not have a Bible.  It is the tradition of the church that produced the canon as we have it, and there is not a 100% agreement even now with respect to just what books should be included in the canon, and whether the canon should be (or is) open or closed.

    But there is also the question of inspiration and just what can demonstrate that a book is inspired by God–God-breathed.  There are numerous ideas, but the question I would raise is just where those standards came from.  For example, why did the early church think there should be apostolic authority behind those books to be included in the New Testament canon?  To a certain extent I can accept the standard, though not completely.  For example, I don’t care whether Hebrews was written by Paul or some other person, whether Revelation by the apostle John or some other John, or whether the pastorals are genuinely Pauline or not.  I regard them as authoritative scripture in any case.

    Why?  Tradition.  It’s as simple as that.  I don’t even regard the books of the Bible as the only ones that are inspired, nor as the only ones that give me guidance.  They are the books that God guided the church to accept as the general authority for the church, and I submit myself to that general authority.  (The sense in which I do so is another topic!)

    There’s a sort of chicken and egg debate as to whether the church or the Bible comes first.  I don’t really see the answer to that as either possible or important.  The Bible and the community of faith grew together, with one supporting the other.  People lived as followers of God for many centuries without the complete canon, and yet somehow they managed.  Abraham believed God, as our lectionary passage for the coming week says, and it was counted as righteousness (Gen 15:6, loosely).

    Somehow Abraham managed to recognize God and believe him without a canon and also with precious little tradition.

    I do believe that the Bible is foundational, but one of the reasons I believe that is that it is the most tested source of tradition and experience–the experience of the community of faith with God passed down from generation to generation.

    It should be no surprise to anyone that one of the things that attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  When I came to that in reading the United Methodist Discipline (and yes, I read the first hundred pages or so before I joined) I was hooked.  I do emphasize, however, that the quadrilateral should be more of a four layer filter than a four lane highway.

    In any case, my answer would be that the Bible cannot be alone, but more importantly is not, and has never been, alone.  We should not be afraid either to drive people back to the Bible as the source or to to admit that the history of our faith, God-guided I firmly believe, was the instrument God used to produce it.

  • Experimenting Methodists

    OK, as this is an experiment, and it involves the United Methodist Church and Wesleyan theology, I’m going to play along. I have serious doubts about the validity of the results. The question is this: If some agency of the UM church put out a video and it wasn’t an experiment, would I be on board to publicize it? The answer would be “maybe.” It would depend on whether I thought the message deserved sharing, and origin in a Methodist agency is no guarantee of value.

    Kevin Watson at deeplycommitted has started an experiment to see how much social capital Methodist bloggers have. This experiment was prompted by the feeling among some Methodist bloggers that United Methodism does not always do as good of a job as it could at getting the Wesleyan message out there, particularly on-line. So, he wants to see how many views a YouTube video can get if Methodist bloggers work together to promote it. The experiment is to see how many hits the video will receive in two weeks.

    If you want to participate you can: First, watch the video below. Second, copy and paste this entire post into a new post on your blog and post it. Third, remind people about this experiment in one week.

    Based on the results of the experiment, Kevin will get in touch with the folks at Discipleship Resources and let them know the ways in which Methodist bloggers are often an underused resource.

    Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISKTrScpzQ

    HT: Adventures in Revland

  • Israel and United Methodist Whoredom

    I’ve always regarded myself as substantially pro-Israel, and often resolutions by the United Methodist Church on this issue trouble me a bit. (For those who don’t know, I am a member of a United Methodist congregation–quite a fine congregation too!) But apparently some people are troubled a great deal more than “a bit,” and can get quite enraged on the issue. The United Methodist Portal responds to this commentary on WorldNetDaily by Joseph Farah.

    Now Joseph Farah gets to what I think is his major point–and if it’s not, it’s my major point about him–when he says:

    This is no longer a church; it is an organization of misguided political activism. This is no longer a house of God; it is a mad house. This is no longer part of the bride of Christ; it is a whore to the world. [Emphasis mine]

    I have to note here, of course, that I might say similar things about an organization like WorldNetDaily, which seems to have made overreaction a way of life. But I haven’t, and I’m not planning to. They can overreact all they like, and I’ll criticize them article by article as I see fit. I have not yet seen fit to read them out of the body of Christ, but perhaps the problem is that I have “lost [my] moral bearings” and am far too tolerant of arrogant windbags.

    (more…)

  • MBWR #136 Posted

    At Allan R. Bevere. Thanks again to Allan for this contribution to the Methodist blogosphere.

  • Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup #135

    . . . has been posted. My post received mention as best of the Methodist blogosphere.

    I’ve been coordinating a small conference over the weekend, and I hope to write a few words about it here. I also hope to make some comment on other posts from the MBWR. It was, as Allan mentioned, a very good crop.