Meaning of Church Membership

There are a number of posts up on several blogs I read having to do with the meaning of membership in the church. I'm not sure if this is all coincidental, or whether there is rather some story or event I have missed. At any rate, I have also just finished a column on the meaning of church membership for the United Methodist Reporter. I'll link to that when it comes out.

In the mean time, here is a summary of several posts that are worth checking out:

On his Accountable Discipleship blog, Steve Manskar posts about the way we often treat church membership as membership in a civic club (and how at odds that is with an understanding of the church as the body of Christ).

Amy Forbus posted on the Methoblog on the way that an 'open door' membership attitude allows for easy exiting as well as easy joining.

Also on the Methoblog, Jay Voorhees has posted on membership as it relates to the deep longing for family, as well as the vows of membership as similar to marriage vows (I agree with him strongly on this count).

(Both Amy's and Jay's posts are drawn from still other blogs, to which they link, and those are worth a look as well.)

Matthew Johnson has an excellent post on pastoral responsibility in helping determine readiness for church membership, something that most pastors are probably to intimidated (and too eager for new members) to do.

And Gavin Richardson quotes himself on the nature of the church: "At its best the church is a family, at its worst the church is a family."

My own column, which I'm tentatively calling, "Cheating on your church," focuses on the implied seriousness of our vows of church membership as well as the poverty of contemporary church life today. It is that deep poverty that keeps people from understanding the meaning of membership in Christ's body. The church's failure to truly be the community of Jesus' friends leads to a situation where people treat church as any other consumer choice. And that causes them to make terrible choices both for the church and for their own discipleship. As I argue in the article, leaving your church for reasons of personal preference is nothing more than a form of ecclesial adultery.

American Civil Religion

Every culture has a form of civil religion, where certain cultural values are treated as quasi-religious beliefs, important figures are treated as prophets or priests, and ideas or symbols are treated as gods. It is just that in the United States of America, our civil religion has a certain level of potency that most other cultures do not reach. I'm not sure why this is the case, except that our culture has a messianic quality to it deriving from our history (settling a new "Promised Land" through a belief in manifest destiny) and our founding beliefs (a form of political liberty unseen in the world up to that time).

If you don't believe this to be the case, witness the debate that goes on anytime the use or abuse of the American flag is brought up. It is one of the most potent of our religious symbols. On this and other blogs, and in the United Methodist Reporter, a seemingly minor recent debate over whether the flag is appropriate to use in the sanctuary ignited visceral reactions on the part of some. Wrapped up in this is the key to understanding the flag (or other pagan icons) as sacred symbols of civil religion: the mere suggestion of circumscribing its use in certain contexts is regarded by many as blasphemy.

As one Methodist wrote in this letter to the editor, "As for our flag, the symbol of freedom -- when it leaves the sanctuary, I leave with it." (Munch on that sentence awhile. Conjure up an image in your mind of what it would look like to leave a sanctuary following the flag. Think about all that it suggests: what you are turning your back on, where you are placing your loyalties, what you are implicitly claiming to be the true "symbol of freedom," etc.).

I bring all this up because of this post written by John at Locusts and Honey. You need to read the Billy Abraham article to which he refers (you can get it from John's post or access it here). It is a penetrating analysis on the religious orientation of President Bush, but what is much more important is the wider context of American civil religion that Prof. Abraham sketches. And underlying it - because Bush is a Methodist and this plays into Prof. Abraham's essay - is an absolutely devastating critique of United Methodist practice.

For instance, Abraham writes, "The operational (if not canonical) theological ideology of United Methodism over the last generation is constituted by a vapid pluralism that makes room for any and all the options that make the rounds. In fact one way to read the ruling orthodoxy of United Methodism as developed in the sixties is to see it as the adoption and then freezing of crucial aspects of American civil religion as it was practiced in the mid-twentieth century. It is surely no accident that the code-words of the functional theology of United Methodism are more or less the code-words of recent American culture. Both are saturated with the language of diversity, multi-culturalism, pluralism, and inclusivism. Both are exceptionally nervous of any kind of robust confessionalism; both want to be formally open to evangelicalism but are paranoiac about its volatility and independence. United Methodism in the United States is an echo-chamber of contemporary American debate and political polemic" (p.13).

To refer back to another recent post on this blog, that explains a heck of a lot about the Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors campaign in the UMC. It is essentially a business-model marketing scheme that aims toward good American citizenship. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.

If reformations didn't destroy so many good things in the inertia that gets built up through the process of destroying idols, I would say that we were in dire need of a reformation ourselves. As it stands, there is little to distinguish American Protestantism from American Civil Religion. And that means Jesus is probably going to spew us out of his mouth.

Where is blogging headed?

Christianity Today has an article out right now on the "death of blogs."

It's a bit of an overstatement. As CT itself admits, there are still 3 million new blogs started every month. But the real issue is the number of blogs active now versus what there have been in the past. According to CT, 200 million blogs fomerly active have now been abandoned - more than twice as many as are now in existence.

The question CT takes up is the role of blogs in the larger Christian conversation. Is the blogosphere an effective (and enduring) place to engage in questions of Christian faith and practice?

I think that it is. A couple of quotes in the CT article by bloggers indicate that bloggers feel the need to post daily - or even several times per day. I personally think that pace is unrealistic. The number of people who can write effective daily posts is low. And if you are not making your living by blogging (and who does that??), then the incentive to keep up a regularly active blog can suffer under the pressure to keep current.

When I started Gen X Rising, my goal was to post twice weekly. That's a pace that I have been able to maintain. (It is also a pace that matches the most active newspaper columnists.) Posting at that pace may cause a blogger's readership to grow more slowly, but it is also a pace that allows for a blogger to use a blog as a way to explore relevant issues in a way that corresponds with a normal life in school, the workplace, or the church. Establishing a semi-regular routine also encourages readers to check back in on a pretty consistent basis.

Thematically-related blogs also tend to attract a fairly consistent readership, even if less frequent posting may have something of a limiting effect on attracting lots of new readers. Think about many of the regular bloggers and readers in the Methoblogosphere. We may not always post (or read) daily, but we always know where to go to check in on "the conversation." It also has the distinct advantage of connecting many of us who would not know of one another's existence otherwise. And that's important - since we are all brothers and sisters in the same body of Christ!

I am always looking for ways to increase readership, as we all are. But for our generation, I also think blogging has become (and will remain) an important media outlet for sharing views and engaging in conversation - regardless of whether we are hyperbloggers, weekly bloggers, or occasional bloggers.

As always, I appreciate any comments you might have on the pros and cons of this (still) relatively new form of communication we have all become a part of.

Facebook Friends

I have a handful of people in my life (outside my own family) who I could properly call "friends." These are people I could call on at any time of the day or night. People who would jump in front of a bus for me. People who really know me, insofar as anybody can know somebody else.

On Facebook, I have scads and scads of "friends." About 60, at last count. Most of these folks really are friends of mine, in the general, easy sense that we use that word nowadays. Some are people from my past, and some are people that I've never actually met face-to-face.

But they're not friends in the true, deep sense of that word. Not friends the way Jesus calls his disciples friends in the Gospel of John. In that sense of friendship, most of my Facebook friends range from "relatively close acquaintances" to "people I know only by name."

The frustrating contradiction contained in our ever-increasing reliance on technology is that, while we can stay in touch with more people than ever before, we tend to have deep and meaningful relationships with fewer and fewer.

Don't get me wrong. I write this as one who loves technology: I am writing this blog post while logged on Blogger via wireless Internet connection and checking my cell phone for voicemails.

But I also think our technology addiction inhibits the formation of relationships and communities. Think about the amount of time we all spend plugged into our gadgets (and tuned out from the world). Think about the way contemporary worship services often base their "relevance" on their use and mastery of the latest technologies. These things are problems.

Anyway, I write about Facebook friends in my latest UM Reporter column. I'd welcome your throughts.

Palabras de solidaridad

Readers of this blog will note that I have posted several times about the devastating earthquake suffered by Peru back in August. I've done that because of a personal connection I have with the Iglesia Metodista del Peru - the Methodist Church of Peru. In five mission trips to Chincha, Peru, since 2001, I have gained many Peruvian friends as well as a broader perspective on what it means to be a global church.

In my most recent column in the United Methodist Reporter, I share some news about the recovery efforts ongoing in Peru. I've also included some statements that call for us to reach out to our brothers and sisters there who are hurting. I have included information in the article about how it is possible to help out.

One of those friends I've made while in Peru is a fellow brother in ministry, Pastor Pedro Uchuya. In addition to working full-time as an educator, Pedro is also a district superintendent as well as a local church pastor. He is amazing. Soon after power was restored in his hometown of Chincha, Pedro sent an e-mail to many of his friends up here in the U.S. In it, he wrote, "Muchas gracias hermanas y hermanos por sus palabras de solidaridad ... El Espiritu se mueve llevando bienestar y alegria. Grande es Dios!"

Roughly translated, that means, "Thank you very much, sisters and brothers, for your words of solidarity ... The Spirit is moving, bringing us well-being and happiness. God is good!"

I have always looked at Pastor Pedro and his congregation as a real model of faithfulness for my own life. Pedro's response to the devastation in Peru is a further testament to that deep and abiding faith that he possesses. He and his people care for one another, they love Jesus Christ, and they reach out to the poor with hands of compassion and generosity. And what more does the Lord require than this?

What is a Methodist?

That's a good question these days. Is there anything distinctive anymore about claiming the name "Methodist" as a part of your Christian identity? Should there be?

I ask the "what is a Methodist" question in my most recent column in the Covenant Discipleship Quarterly. And let me be clear: I don't think this is just a fun exercise to go through. It is of dire importance.

There are large segments of the United Methodist Church that don't want there to be anything at all distinctive about Methodist identity. In fact, they don't want there to be anything much distinctive about being a Christian at all. The 'inclusivity crowd' takes the open invitation of Jesus and turns it into the defining mark of the church. These are the same folks who howl with protest when anyone dares to question the wisdom of, I don't know, a church marketing slogan that aims at the lowest common denominator in trying to stop the slide in church membership numbers. (Whether the church's membership slide might be a direct result of our pathetically weak sense of discipleship is a question for their open hearts and open minds to consider.) To them, the church is all about open acceptance and not at all about those other things that have always been bedrock parts of our faith: repentance, the new birth, sanctification, and sacrificial discipleship.

It is not clear right now which direction the UMC will ultimately head. It may well continue down the path of lukewarm, milquetoast faith. But we should never mistake such an easygoing, worldly Christianity with the Methodism of John Wesley. For Wesley, Methodists were those who took the commands to love God and love neighbor and actually put them into practice. All day. Everyday.

The point is this: Jesus doesn't just want you in the church. Jesus wants you in the church so he can literally, physically, spiritually, and actually change your life. And if all you are doing is showing up for worship occasionally, and you are not allowing God to transform your life, then church is a bad place for you. Your salvation is in jeopardy. People in that position should leave the church, so they do not get lulled into the false sense of security that they are actually walking the way of salvation.

What is a Methodist? To Wesley, it is someone who is committed to holiness of heart and life. Who loves God and neighbor. Who cares for the poor. Who is inwardly and outwardly conformed to the will of Jesus Christ.

If that's not you, then you're not a Methodist. You may be a member of a United Methodist Church. You may have a cross & flame lapel pin. But you ain't a Methodist. Not according to Mr. Wesley.

Happy (late) Birthday to Gen X Rising

The 1-year birthday of this blog, Gen X Rising, happened earlier this week on September 9. It was that day last year that I published my very first post. As I wrote then, I began the blog after some readers of my column in the United Methodist Reporter suggested that I should branch out and expand my writing into the blogosphere.

I have to say that it has been a thoroughly enjoyable year of blogging. Writing the blog in addition to my column has allowed me to get in touch with many more Gen X'ers and Millennials, all of whom care deeply about their discipleship and the future of the church. I've read several times recently that blogging as a literary form has reached its 'peak' and begun to decline. But I have also found that the community of those who continue to write and read blogs regularly has remained steady and continues to add to the supremely important theological conversation about how to understand the Christian faith in our day. Indeed, Gen X Rising has seen its monthly number of 'unique hits' increase from under 8000 to over 11,000 since January of this year.

I don't see myself slowing down on the blogging front anytime soon. I started with a goal of posting twice a week, and - interestingly enough - this is the 105th post since I began a year ago. That works out to exactly twice-weekly posts over a 52+ week period. I hope to continue on that pace.

The real congratulations goes not to the blog but to the readers and reader comments that have sustained me over the course of the past year. If no one was reading at all, it would be hard to sustain the energy needed to stay on top of blogging regularly. So thank you, readers. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. And keep those comments coming!

Covenant Discipleship and growing in the faith

Out of all the aspects of our Wesleyan heritage that have fallen by the wayside over the years, I think that serious attention to sanctification through holiness of heart & life may be the biggest loss. Thankfully, it's not a total loss.

Covenant Discipleship is a movement in the church that seeks to address that core need. It is simple, very un-programmatic, and focused on the Wesleyan concept of social holiness. That is, Wesley believed that all holiness (the conformity of one's heart, mind, and soul to Christ) had to be done in the company of others who could help to "watch over one another in love." For Wesley, that meant making the bands and class meetings a fundamental part of the Methodism of his day. And it is those Wesleyan forms of small group discipleship that Covenant Discipleship seeks to emulate.

The basic idea is that you gather in a group of 4 to 7 people and give an account of your discipleship over the past week. You go every week, as an absolute priority. And you agee to abide by a covenant document that the whole group writes together, and which includes a number of "acts of discipleship" oriented around works of devotion, worship, compassion, and justice. There is no need to buy the latest, hot new small group study. There is no need to frantically search for ways to make CD Groups "relevant" to "younger people." You don't even need Powerpoint. All you need is a willingness on the part of the group members to really engage in the work of their own sanctification.

CD is especially interesting to me, because I think it represents a willingness by one of our general boards and agencies (the GBOD) to commit to a form of ministry that is really seeking to embody a Wesleyan approach to discipleship. But at the same time, CD Groups are essentially a grass-roots movement in the church. There is no heavy-handed attempt to impose them from the top-down. They seem to spring up wherever a small group of people in a local church is willing to take its commitment to discipleship to the next level.

Steve Manskar at the GBOD is the Director of Accountable Discipleship. Check out his online resources, and I'm sure he'd enjoy hearing from anyone who is interested in finding more out about Covenant Discipleship.

As I reported previously in this post, Steve asked me sometime back to become a regular contributor to the Covenant Discipleship Quarterly. My column for the Spring 2007 - "The Pursuit of Happiness" - is online now. I'll highlight future columns as they appear. And FYI, the CDQ is a free publication that Steve would be happy to send you if you drop him a line.

Ordination Process: One more round

Dr. Rebekah Miles has published her op-ed piece in the United Methodist Reporter, calling for changes to the ordination process in the UMC. I initially told you about Dr. Miles' interest in this subject in this post back in mid-August.

You can find her op-ed here.

She makes a challenging, lucid case that the church needs to wake up and smell the ordination coffee. In the article, Dr. Miles writes:

"We have put into place a long, bureaucratic process with loads of paperwork, saying all the while that we want to attract more young adults to ordained ministry. Yet young adults (between 21 and 35) are members of two generations that tend to share several things in common: their deep dislike of bureaucracy and red tape, their suspicion of large, centralized institutions, and their frustration with hierarchical systems based on seniority and not merit.

"If we were to set out to design a system that was unattractive to Generations X and Y, we would have a hard time coming up with anything worse than the system we have now."

I only offer two observations:

1) After my posts dealing with this subject last month, I had a couple of people respond that the ordination process didn't need to be easy. If folks are really called, they said, a little red tape wouldn't dissuade them. To this, I would say that it isn't the difficulty of the process that is the problem. It is the needless difficulty. There is nothing wrong with having a rigorous ordination process, where a person's call is genuinely explored and tested. But I also think you can make a strong argument that the process we currently have in place does not do a good job of this at all. It has bureaucratic processes set up that make it look rigorous, when they are really just a series of almost-useless hurdles designed to give the whole thing a veneer of professionalism.

2) I've read the letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the past week. In them, Ignatius talks incessantly about the churches of Antioch, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Rome, etc. And it is clear that all these churches are connected to one another, communicate with one another, and send missionaries to one another. But you also get the idea that there is very little bureaucratic red tape traded between them. They didn't seem to have a problem forming people in the faith. In fact, they did such a good job of it that Ignatius and scores of others were willing to be martyred for the faith they received. So what, do you think, they had that we are lacking? Hmmm?