A Prayer for All Saints

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship,
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord.
Grant us grace
so to follow your holy saints in all virtuous and godly living,
that we may come to those unspeakable joys,
which you have prepared for those who sincerely love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(United Methodist Hymnal, 713)

Crisis of Younger Clergy

Lovett Weems and Ann Michel have just written The Crisis of Younger Clergy, a book that analyzes the results of both the Lewis Center for Church Leadership's study of clergy age trends from 1985-2005 as well as its recent survey of young adult (under 35) clergy. This is all new stuff. The study of clergy age trends came out in 2006, and the survey of young adult clergy took place in March 2007.

I recently reviewed an advance copy of the book, and it is really well-done. Weems and Michel offer a detailed picture of the crisis the church faces in regards to its young clergy (who now number less than 5% of elders), as well as suggestions about actions that can be taken in areas as different as recruitment & response to call, theological education & debt, and emotional isolation & the appointment process. If you are a young clergyperson and you read this book, a whole lot of it will ring true. Abingdon Press will be publishing it in early 2008, and I highly recommend it.

On a related note, I have continued to get responses on the issue of the UMC's candidacy process for ordination. One of the most revealing was this one from Kyle Roberson, who is in his final year at Perkins School of Theology:

"As a young person going through the ordination process I cannot tell you how often I have truly felt like abandoning the process b/c of my frustration with some of the very issues you point out in your article. I have also spoken recently with three young people who are 'lifelong United Methodists' who are now seeking to serve as ministers with non-denominational congregations in our area b/c they feel they don't have the time to 'waste' on the ordination process ... I strongly agree with your observation regarding the UMC's apathy towards the seminaries, and I would add that the same sentiment exists towards campus ministry programs across the country who are doing the hard work of raising up leaders only to watch them become frustrated and bound by a process that is supposed to be, in the end, the focusing and enriching journey one takes to discern how to serve God's people in ministry. I pray that those in the United Methodist system who have ears may hear these words and take them to heart as we prepare to meet for General Conference and discuss this issue among the many we have before us."

That is just one anecdote, but I think it speaks for the experience of many.

Sex on Campus

It was with more than a little fear and trembling that I wrote this column - "Sex on Campus" - in the United Methodist Reporter this week. No one has ever accused me of being a saint, and I was about as far from sainthood as you could get during my own college years. But time and maturity cause one to reflect, not only one's own past but also on the way that environments play such a key role in helping people to live in healthy ways. I'd be curious to hear readers' thoughts on this column in particular.

I believe there is very little that is healthy about the recreational pursuits of college students these days. The levels of substance abuse and casual sex, the inattention to engagement with the larger world, and the neglect of virtue formation all have real consequences for later life. Bad habits ingrained during the formative years tend to stick around and only become worse.

By the way, I wasn't picking on Duke in particular in the blog post. I only use it as an example of the permissiveness of campus culture because it is the campus I happen to walk around on everyday. And despite all the Duke lacrosse controversy over the past year-and-a-half, I don't think Duke is any worse than most places.

Amy Forbus had this to say on the Reporter's own blog about the issue of campus culture. Her comments about the "Shirttails Serenade" tradition at our own alma mater, Hendrix College, is right on: "Back then I saw it as innocent fun. Now it seems far less innocent." You could say that about a lot of the troubling behavior that happens on campuses. We have lost the sense that virtue formation is something that is intimately connected with an educated person.

Letter to a reader

Sometimes it is interesting to compare what gets responses from a Reporter column versus what gets responses on the ol' blog. My post last week on the "Cheating on your church" Reporter column got almost no response from blog readers.

But when the actual column went into the print edition of the Reporter itself, I was inundated with e-mails from readers of the newspaper. As always, some were positive and some were negative. But the difference was that the negative ones were from people who were genuinely upset with me. They perceived the column as threatening, intimidating, or harsh. This was a surprise to me (as it always is when I get that kind of response). My writing is intended to help others think constructively about important issues related to our common faith, and this column was no different.

Nevertheless, I make goofs. And sometimes language I use can be interpreted in ways I did not intend. So in case you read the column and didn't like it, I wanted to offer some explanatory comments. To do that, I will print an excerpt below from a response I sent to one reader's concerns. For the record, this wasn't one of the angry readers, but was rather one who was writing to ask about the implications of switching from one denomination to another. Here's the excerpt:

Dear _______,

... Let me say a bit about why I wrote the column: As a pastor in the UMC, I am concerned about the path our church travels. I want us to be faithful, and I want us to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the needy. Some people have written me concerned with a perceived harshness in tone with this column in particular. Of course, I would never write anything to try to intentionally frighten or intimidate those in the church. I do, however, think it is important to think critically about what church membership means. And I think it is especially important in our current cultural climate, when we are taught to think of ourselves first and foremost as consumers who deserve to have their 'felt needs' met on demand. The way of salvation that Jesus Christ offers us is a far cry from the shallow version of happiness offered by secular culture today. My principle worry about church shopping is that it ingrains the consumerist habits of the secular culture rather than replacing them with the discipleship habits of a follower of Christ.

In addition, we do make vows upon church membership, and those vows need to be taken seriously. My comparison of them with marriage vows was only intended to highlight that fact. In a sense, I wrote the column because of the very high view I have of the role of the church in our salvation: it is where we are taught about Jesus, it is where we hear the Word preached, it is where we receive the Sacraments, it is where we are formed as disciples, and it is where we learn to be in relationships of sisterhood and brotherhood with Jesus' friends. That's all really important stuff!

Thanks again for your letter. I am very happy to hear that you have found a home in the UMC that is nurturing your faith!

Yours in Christ,
Andrew Thompson

Cheating on your church

Sometime ago I began developing an idea for a UM Reporter column on church membership. I moved that idea off the backburner after reading this blog post by Amy Forbus on the Methoblog. Frankly, the understanding of United Methodist church membership is about as shallow as our ecclesiology in general. But it is also an issue with which many people can relate, and because of that, engaging it might be a helpful in getting Methodist folks to think more broadly about the doctrine of the church.

The central problem with the idea of church membership in a society of 10,000 denominations is that it inevitably takes on the characteristics of what social scientists call a 'voluntary association.' Like a civic club in many respects, people join churches today with few requirements and little expectation. You get out of it what you put into it, so to speak, and no one is going to bother you too much if you just get your name put on the rolls for social reasons. When the 'voluntary association' mentality is combined with a market economy where all like 'products' compete for 'customers,' it means that churches will tend toward treating their evangelism as a form of marketing veiled in religious language. And that only waters down the understanding of what commitment to the church through membership means even further.

This is true of American church membership in general, but of course United Methodist church membership is a leading example of this norm. Our anemic understanding of membership is ironic in many ways, particularly with respect to the language of current membership vows in the United Methodist Hymnal. In our Hymnal, the pledges of membership we take to both universal church and local congregation are true vows spoken in a public setting. The fact that people then feel free to disregard them in such a cavalier fashion is remarkable.

There are some legitimate reasons to leave a church once you join as a member, as I argue in my current Reporter column. But they are few in number. And most reasons people leave amount to nothing more than ecclesial adultery. When you promise fidelity to both Jesus and a congregation of his disciples and then break that promise over matters as simple as boredom with worship or frustration with a committee, you are running out on the bride of Christ. It's cheating on your church, folks.

I can tell you that my comments on Amy's blog post and my Reporter column have generated quite a few frustrated comments and e-mails. The response is always, "Yes, but..." As in, "Yes, but you don't understand that in my case, it was justified." And like I said, there are a few justifiable cases. But not many.

There is, of course, an underlying reason why people instinctively think that seeking out a church that meets all their felt needs is a God-given right. And it has to do with consumerism and the aforementioned market economy. Most Americans simply cannot conceive of the idea of not being able to choose their church the way they do their cell phone plan or where they'll get tonight's take-out. But think about what that mindset does to the Bride of Christ: it turns her into a cheap prostitute, who peddles her wares on street corners in the hopes that you'll condescend to choose her over all her similarly cheap competitors.

If you want to do something truly radical for Jesus (and 'radical' is a relative term in our historically weak era), commit to his bride the way you did to your own bride or groom on your wedding day. Stay with her through thick and thin. Help your fellow brothers and sisters there to grow in discipleship. And whenever you get mad at some perceived slight in your church, realize that you are committed to that community in such a way that you are called to reconciliation rather than self-chosen alienation.

New and Improved Methoblog

While I was in Rome, Jay Voorhees & Co. launched the new and improved version of the Methoblog. It's really sharp. Check it out here.

The Methoblog has been online for a year or so, and it was originally intended to build on the important work that Shane Raynor (through his now defunct Wesley Blog) and John the Methodist (through the ever-popular Weekly Roundup, now managed by Allan Bevere) did in popularizing the Methoblogosphere.

The topics covered on the Methoblog are widely diverse and a broad range of topics related to church & faith. Of course, issues pertinent to United Methodists tend to get the most play.

Home from Rome!

Emily and I arrived back in Durham last night after a wonderful - and whirlwind - trip to Italy. I was hoping to blog about some trip highlights last night, but we were just too exhausted from the long day of travel. I'll try to do that in the coming days. And I'll be back on a more regular blogging schedule in general.

Oh, and the picture at left is a giant fourth-century Constantine head from the Capitoline Museum in Rome. It's right next to other giant Constantine body parts from a broken statue. He had a pretty serious look on his face.

Florence is an awesome city...

So Emily and I have been here for about 8 hours. But I've just got two observations:

1) Michelangelo's David is redonkulous. No human being should be able to carve something like that out of marble. The kneecaps, the tendons in the legs, the veins in the hands - a tour guide in Rome earlier this week who was showing us the Pieta in St. Peter's said, 'Great sculptors know how to make marble look soft. Michelangelo makes it look like ice cream.' I'll second that. Ol' David looked like he was going to walk right off that podium (and maybe go looking for some boxers).

2) The Duomo (that is, cathedral) in Florence is unbelievably huge. Emily and I only saw it from the outside tonight, but we are going to go in tomorrow. This may be a sad commentary on the time in which we live, but when I first saw it today, I thought it was part of a movie set.

So I had hoped to blog more from Italy, but I've been trying to stay away from the computer. And hey, that's a good thing, right?

La dolce vita

Emily and I are in Rome for a few days over my fall break. It is the first time here for both of us, and it has been a fantastic experience so far. We are staying with my friend, Jonathan Rhodes, works lives here and works with the United Nations' World Food Program.

We got here on Sunday morning after an overnight flight, and Jonathan gave us his best jetlag medicine: a quick shower followed by an all-day walking tour around Rome! We hit a brickwall of fatigue at about 3 p.m. and had to go back to his apartment to rest. But overall, the jetlag hasn't been too bad.

Today we visited a lot of the major sites associated with ancient Rome in the city's historic center: the Forum, the Coliseum, and the Capitoline and Palatine hills. All were amazing; I was surprised at the extent of the imperial palace on top of the Palatine. It is so massive that it is hard to conceive what the entire, intact structure must have looked like.

Tomorrow we'll visit the Vatican, as well as some of the Christian catacombs and the Circus Maximus. If I am able, I'll send a couple more updates throughout our trip. I've got to say, being where so many famous Romans and famous Christians have trod has been quite an experience thus far.

Devil in the details

The outpouring of commentary I've read the past few weeks over problems in our ordination process - in blogs, columns, and e-mails - has been both surprising and encouraging. So I took stock of it all and penned a Reporter column sketching some things to remember as we seek to reform our process. These include:

-- Holding on to the idea that there is nothing wrong with rigor. It's not the seriousness of the ordination process that is the problem. It's rather the fact that "rigor" takes the form of "mind numbing bureaucracy" in our current system. And that leads to...

-- Fighting bureaucracy. We all know about this: forms, timelines, intricate steps to follow, and lots and lots of repitition. Which leads to...

-- Avoiding needless repitition. I know the process reflects our connectional structure of charge, district, conference, and general church. But a slavish adherence to this hierarchical structure can quench the fire of the Spirit. And besides, can't we somehow involve our seminaries in the process, since a great deal of a person's formation for ministry takes place there? That leads to...

-- Engaging the seminaries. It's no secret that UM theological schools are completely off the leash. That leads to the teaching of ridiculously un-orthodox theology at times, but probably more importantly, it means that they are not accountable for helping shepherd their students through candidacy. They offer the courses required by the Discipline, but not much else. All of this together makes me want to cry out...

-- Humanize the process! The system itself, and the various levels where it is played out, all need to re-orient themselves around people rather than paperwork. We've got to get the devil out of the details! And until that happens, a candidate's best friend has got to be her candidacy mentor. Mentors, you're the last line of defense!

I know it seems like we've talked this thing to death on the 'sphere the past few weeks, but any suggestions you'd like to add are welcome.

Favorite Bible Translation?

For the past few years, I've been using Ellsworth Kalas' The Grand Sweep: 365 Days From Genesis Through Revelation as a guide to reading through the Scriptures in a year. I'm about to finish my third year of this practice, and so far I have used the NRSV, the NIV, and the RSV for my yearly treks.

It is helpful to see how actual translations are different. But to me, the truly fascinating differences are those between various study editions in their footnotes and introductory articles. (For a good example, just go compare the HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible and the Zondervan NIV Study Bible. It's remarkable.)

I want to use a new translation in the coming year, but I've run out of the ones with which I am familiar. I grew up with the RSV, used the NRSV in divinity school, and turned to the NIV during my first appointment in ministry. The only other version I've even heard read very much is the KJV.

My question: What version do you prefer in your own study and devotion? One of the ones already mentioned? Another one? And why?

I am leaning a little bit toward the New Jerusalem Bible right now, mostly because it is an accepted Roman Catholic translation and I've never read one of those. But I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise!