A strained love

My friend and fellow pastor Eric Van Meter has got a remarkable article in the United Methodist Reporter this week, where he tells the imaginative story of being in "therapy" for a troubled relationship with his true love - the church. The church he's talking about is the UMC, and he relates how he was attracted to it by the warmly evangelistic outreach of the Wesley Foundation where he went to college. His love of the church grew throughout his college career as he saw a Wesleyan expression of faith at its best, from heartfelt worship, to weekly Holy Communion, to outreach ministry to children and the elderly.

Eric then describes how his idyllic view of the church came crashing down around him during the ordination process, particularly when he started meeting with the Board of Ordained Ministry. There he saw how particulars of polity certain structures or traditions of the church (though he doesn't say which ones) caused him to become frustrated, because it seemed that they stood in the way of the church's full flourishing. These experiences caused him to begin seeing the church as having a "split personality."

This article is worth a read, both for its creativity and for the way so much of it will ring true in the experiences of young clergy. This is only the first installment in a series of articles continuing the same story. I'll post them all as they appear online.