Into the wilderness

My friend Eric Van Meter, campus minister at Arkansas State University, continues his series on the church in this week's United Methodist Reporter.

In his current column, Eric says that he has always had a desire to work along "the borders of the church." He uses the image of an old, rusty barbed wire fence that is meant to mark off territory but stands largely forgotten. Those familiar with the UMC's recent wrangling over the meaning of church membership will not fail to catch Eric's meaning: the dry description of boundaries off the page of a Book of Discipline are no match for the identity given to us in a living faith with Christ through the church.

Eric writes, "Regardless of how much time we spend trying to identify our target market, or how many assimilation classes we hold to help people transform from outsiders to one of us, the fact remains that the land between the United Methodist Church and the world at large is frontier territory. It's chaotic, disorderly, untamed ... And interesting."

He uses his own ministry group as an example - college students. They show a deep desire for relationship with Christ but are often skittish about the formal aspects of church membership. But there are plenty of them out there, in the wilderness areas, waiting to be found. (Note, for instance, my post earlier this week about the 48 million religiously unaffiliated people in the United States alone.)

Eric admits that boundary issues are important, but he insists that we pay a disproportionate amount of time dealing with them. He suggests that moving out into the wilderness - a call to evangelism if ever I've heard one - would help us refocus on the true meaning of the gospel.

The subtext here definitely touches on issues of sexuality in the church, and Eric is offering one way forward (even if it is implied rather than explicit). There are other ways of approaching that particular topic, of course, and some would suggest that a greater emphasis on discipline and accountability in membership is the way the church should move. Regardless, with General Conference looming ever closer, it is certainly a timely subject matter.