Wish list for 2008
Friday, January 04, 2008
My New Year's resolution for this year is to live more into a life of holiness. I'm in a Covenant Discipleship Group with four other guys, and I know that will be a great source of strength for me. I'm trying to look more at holiness in an integrated way, encompassing my mind, body, and spirit. After all, God wants to transform all of me, not just one part!
But beyond that resolution, I also spent some time a few days ago thinking about what I would like for our church in the coming year. I put those thoughts to paper and shaped them into a my first United Methodist Reporter column for the new year. You can find that column here. Here's a short version:
1) One of the most pressing concerns, I believe, is in helping our young hear the voice of God - and this goes for both laity and clergy. We have declining numbers of both, and the reasons why are complex. My suspicion is that the greatest reason is that families no longer see the church as the center of their lives, but rather one among a laundry list of extracurricular activities. And if that's the case, it is not just a failure of the church reaching the young, but of the failure of the church to nurture God's people overall. That will only change when we once again understand the church as the only community where we can know true life.
2) My greatest hope in the area of worship is that the church experiences a renewal of the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I believe that Holy Communion is the chief means of grace available to us, and if that's the case, we ought to put it at the center of worship! That doesn't mean we have to shortchange preaching, but we should rather understand preaching as a proclamation which finds its fullest embodiment in the sacrament. If the church is about sharing the word of God, we should be eating the sacred meal together at every opportunity.
3) General Conference needs to be clothed in prayer. If you have any questions about that, see General Conference of 2004, General Conference of 2000, etc.
4) I hope that a part of our growing reclamation of our Wesleyan heritage will be a greater understanding of the unity of holiness and compassion. There can finally be no separation between works of piety and works of mercy. We are called to love God and neighbor, and focusing only on one to the neglect of the other produces a thin faith. Lord, give us both!
But beyond that resolution, I also spent some time a few days ago thinking about what I would like for our church in the coming year. I put those thoughts to paper and shaped them into a my first United Methodist Reporter column for the new year. You can find that column here. Here's a short version:
1) One of the most pressing concerns, I believe, is in helping our young hear the voice of God - and this goes for both laity and clergy. We have declining numbers of both, and the reasons why are complex. My suspicion is that the greatest reason is that families no longer see the church as the center of their lives, but rather one among a laundry list of extracurricular activities. And if that's the case, it is not just a failure of the church reaching the young, but of the failure of the church to nurture God's people overall. That will only change when we once again understand the church as the only community where we can know true life.
2) My greatest hope in the area of worship is that the church experiences a renewal of the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I believe that Holy Communion is the chief means of grace available to us, and if that's the case, we ought to put it at the center of worship! That doesn't mean we have to shortchange preaching, but we should rather understand preaching as a proclamation which finds its fullest embodiment in the sacrament. If the church is about sharing the word of God, we should be eating the sacred meal together at every opportunity.
3) General Conference needs to be clothed in prayer. If you have any questions about that, see General Conference of 2004, General Conference of 2000, etc.
4) I hope that a part of our growing reclamation of our Wesleyan heritage will be a greater understanding of the unity of holiness and compassion. There can finally be no separation between works of piety and works of mercy. We are called to love God and neighbor, and focusing only on one to the neglect of the other produces a thin faith. Lord, give us both!
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 9:29 AM
4 Comments:
Andrew, does your group follow the pattern for CDG's that the GBOD has on their website? I'm interested to know how you pattern the time with your group.
I tried responding once but blogger ate my comment. Hmmm...
Anyway, yes, we follow the pattern for our CD Group meetings each week (if the pattern on the website is the same as in the printed literature, which I am assuming that it is).
It goes like this: We have a structured covenant, divided between acts of devotion, worship, compassion, and justice. We have a group leader (that rotates on a monthly basis) who is responsible for keeping time and moving the conversation around the circle. (He also calls on people to pray.) As each person takes a turn, the other group members are able to ask probing questions and follow-ups from the previous week. The whole thing only takes an hour.
Andrew,
Regarding church as "extracurricular activity." It's true, and I can tell you that parents endorse and model that pattern for their children. What makes this so? The answer is so simple as to be absurd: money. We have it, we can use it (i.e. engaged in extracurriculars), religion is another one on the list. Poor folks from Mexico to Egypt cling to the church because it's all they have. They don't have dance, basketball, football, band, etc.
Too bad Wesley was right about this...oh, and the Bible, too.
That's a very good list, Andrew. The most significant impression I took from my two internships in Methodist churches was #1 exactly. The teenagers had no knowledge of Scripture, no spiritual life that was in any way being nurtured, and no direction from parents or church leaders on how to see their life in line with the mission of God. I kept thinking that if most Methodist youth groups were like this, then the church's demographic woes are going to get much more serious in ten years...
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