"Denomination" in the dock
Thursday, March 19, 2009
We live in a pro-confessional, anti-denominational age. For large mainline denominations like the United Methodist Church, that could mean disaster. Follow with me on this:
Christians (particularly younger ones) are starting to realize that faithful discipleship and good citizenship do not mean the same thing. There was once a time when the phrase, "America is a Christian country" did not sound so nostalgic. Our culture was, broadly speaking, Christian. So you could count on the idea that teachers, politicians, and businessmen would take Christian convictions seriously (even if they did not subscribe to them themselves). But that era has passed. Our culture has become secularized and pluralized to a degree that calling America "a Christian country" strikes one as hopeful but unrealistic.
And Christians are starting to catch on to this reality. They are - perhaps for the first time in American history - beginning to understand that Jesus may have a call on their lives that differs from that of the nation. Even more important, they are realizing that Jesus' call and the nation's call are not just different, but also at points incompatible. So more Christians accept the challenge that self-identifying as "Christian" actually means something. It may put them at odds with their neighbors, their co-workers, and particularly with the broader culture. But this is what it means to be confessional. The New Testament promises us that it will, in some ways, make life more difficult. But it is a life in service to the living God.
Here's the irony: At the same time when Christians are starting to realize the need for a confessional identity, they are becoming increasingly resistant to the idea of a denominational identity. In my own tradition (the United Methodist Church), you see that all the time in new church plants, where the name of the local church will either minimize or wholly conceal the name of the larger denomination (such as: "THE RIVER CHURCH" in huge letters, with "a united methodist congregation" in tiny letters underneath, if it is present at all).
The recent decision by the pastor and staff of GracePoint United Methodist Church to separate from the UMC and launch GracePoint Community Church in Wichita, Kansas, is an excellent example of this trend. This is a complicated situation, to be sure, and it is not one I care to issue judgment about. Frankly, I don't know enough of the details. (To find out more, see Shane Raynor's investigative piece on his blog and the United Methodist News Service's recent press release.) Whatever the events over the last couple of years that resulted in the split, you have to recognize this: the leadership of the church believed it had a vision, and it did not have the patience or the willingness to allow that vision to be lived out within the context of the UMC's ministry.
My interest is not in the details, but rather in the underlying cultural situation that leads to such unfortunate incidents. Why the recent and widespread desire for congregational polity over other forms of church organization, such as the episcopal and connectional polity of the United Methodist Church? As the new GracePoint goes its own way and takes its place among the growing crowd of "community" and "bible" churches, I want to ask, "Why is it that we have come to have such little interest in the identity that a denominational label gives us?"
For those who have been ordained into an ecclesiastical communion like the UMC and have no intentions of leaving (like myself) this is a crucial question. Here are two thoughts:
-- First, our culture is becoming increasingly individualistic in general, which means we tend to see large institutions as impersonal, bureaucratic, and lacking relevance for our lives. Whenever anyone makes a statement about "increasing individualism," everyone tends to nod his head and go on. But I think we have to pause and consider this more carefully. In his recent book, X Saves the World, Jeff Gordinier argues that Generation X'ers have witnessed and rejected the institutionalism of the Builders and the anti-institutional idealism of the Boomers. They've instead opted for an individualism that seeks very localized forms of community life. I think there's something to Gordinier's assessment. We're not individualists in the sense that we don't want the community of others, but we are individualists in the sense that we want our community to consist of people whose faces we know and whose lives are a part of our own. In that context, the idea of a denomination is simply too impersonal and lacking in relevance.
-- Second, the mainline denominations are still operating off of the cultural dominance that they enjoyed until the 1960s. Methodists are probably the worst about this. We have this institutional memory of the time when there were more of us than anyone, and we've never gotten over it. Think about the ways this gets played out: the General Conference passes legislation that weighs in on global problems and calls on our government to act in specific ways. The General Board of Church and Society serves as a lobbying force to the U.S. Congress. Groups of bishops relish the opportunity to get audiences with national political leaders. In a desperate move to get people to like us, we launch a multi-year, multi-million dollar advertising campaign to show the culture how harmless we are and that (contrary to what they've heard about Christian discipleship requiring a new way of life) in reality we're just 'open' about everything. This all amounts to a big cultural hangover, and because we are still suffering from it, our moves as a church in recent years have been toward a mushy pluralism in the vain hope that the culture will repent, start listening to us, and come back to church.
I recently wrote an article arguing that young clergy and lay leaders in the church need to learn to embrace both church-as-community and church-as-institution in order for big denominations like ours to have any kind of future. I believe that. But for us to embrace church-as-institution and make that workable over the long term, the church also needs to change. Here are three ways how:
First, we need to accept the fact that nobody gives a damn what we think. I'm serious about that. Neither the president, the Congress, nor the World Wildlife Federation is holding its breath for what any Methodist body is about to say regarding political issues. If we can stop wringing our collective hands over that stuff, and stop spending all the valuable time and money we have when we gather dealing with it, then perhaps we can re-commit ourselves to the work of ministry. And regardless of what you might say, passing a resolution that goes in a book that nobody reads is not ministry, whether it's the journal of your annual conference or the Book of Resolutions. We need to stop trying to speak to the rest of the world and instead get our own house in order.
Second, we need to reduce the bureaucratic complexity of the church as a whole. This will mean difficult decisions about cutting staff and funding at the level of both annual conferences and the general church. It will mean restructuring and redefining their mission. Conference ministry staffs and the staffs of our general boards and agencies do a lot of good things (and those should continue). They are filled by committed servants of the church who are doing their best in a flawed system. But all bureaucracies evolve over time into organisms that generate a lot of stuff in order to justify their own existence. Our own denominational bureaucracy needs to be pared down and given clearly defined 'equipping' functions and nothing more. By simple inertia, we've arrived at a ministry model that sees bureaucratic processes as the way to get things done rather than the Holy Spirit working in congregations. It's like a ship that has been at sea so long its hull is weighted down with barnacles. We've got to pull into port, scrape those suckers off, and allow the ship to function the way it was originally intended.
Third, we need to realize that the purpose of our mission is not to make middle and upper-middle class consumers feel better about the shallowness of their lives. That's chaplaincy, and it is what goes on in a lot of our congregations. But Jesus wants to gives all of us a whole new life. Methodists used to know that. Wesley's stated mission to his preachers was to "save souls," and his belief about the reason God had raised up the Methodists was to reform the larger church and spread scriptural holiness over the land. In modern times, we have defined that mission as making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I can accept either version, but neither does us any good if it never gets put into practice. We've got a gospel to preach, but too often what ends up getting proclaimed in our churches is the gospel-of-how-to-live-a-more-fulfilling-materialist-existence.
I have been wanting to write a post on this subject for a long time, but it was something about the saga of GracePoint that made me finally do it. Part of the justification that people on the blogosphere have given for what happened was that we need to care about the work of the kingdom rather than the success of the denomination. Or put another way, we need to make more disciples rather than more Methodists. There is a way in which that sentiment is profoundly true and there is a way in which it is profoundly tragic.
The way in which it is true is obvious, since our own denominational mission statement is a call to discipleship.
But the way in which it is tragic is this: There was a time when Methodists really believed that the best way of making disciples of Jesus was to nurture that discipleship within the context of the Methodist Church. We believed we had a theology, an understanding of committed practice, and a Spirit-fired missionary drive that made our own church the best place to learn the faith.
It is no longer clear that that is the case, and both the GracePoint example and the reaction to it are testament to that. The future of the United Methodist Church as a viable church communion is dependent on our looking honestly at how we got here and taking the steps necessary to re-commit ourselves to our original raison d'etre.
Christians (particularly younger ones) are starting to realize that faithful discipleship and good citizenship do not mean the same thing. There was once a time when the phrase, "America is a Christian country" did not sound so nostalgic. Our culture was, broadly speaking, Christian. So you could count on the idea that teachers, politicians, and businessmen would take Christian convictions seriously (even if they did not subscribe to them themselves). But that era has passed. Our culture has become secularized and pluralized to a degree that calling America "a Christian country" strikes one as hopeful but unrealistic.
And Christians are starting to catch on to this reality. They are - perhaps for the first time in American history - beginning to understand that Jesus may have a call on their lives that differs from that of the nation. Even more important, they are realizing that Jesus' call and the nation's call are not just different, but also at points incompatible. So more Christians accept the challenge that self-identifying as "Christian" actually means something. It may put them at odds with their neighbors, their co-workers, and particularly with the broader culture. But this is what it means to be confessional. The New Testament promises us that it will, in some ways, make life more difficult. But it is a life in service to the living God.
Here's the irony: At the same time when Christians are starting to realize the need for a confessional identity, they are becoming increasingly resistant to the idea of a denominational identity. In my own tradition (the United Methodist Church), you see that all the time in new church plants, where the name of the local church will either minimize or wholly conceal the name of the larger denomination (such as: "THE RIVER CHURCH" in huge letters, with "a united methodist congregation" in tiny letters underneath, if it is present at all).
The recent decision by the pastor and staff of GracePoint United Methodist Church to separate from the UMC and launch GracePoint Community Church in Wichita, Kansas, is an excellent example of this trend. This is a complicated situation, to be sure, and it is not one I care to issue judgment about. Frankly, I don't know enough of the details. (To find out more, see Shane Raynor's investigative piece on his blog and the United Methodist News Service's recent press release.) Whatever the events over the last couple of years that resulted in the split, you have to recognize this: the leadership of the church believed it had a vision, and it did not have the patience or the willingness to allow that vision to be lived out within the context of the UMC's ministry.
My interest is not in the details, but rather in the underlying cultural situation that leads to such unfortunate incidents. Why the recent and widespread desire for congregational polity over other forms of church organization, such as the episcopal and connectional polity of the United Methodist Church? As the new GracePoint goes its own way and takes its place among the growing crowd of "community" and "bible" churches, I want to ask, "Why is it that we have come to have such little interest in the identity that a denominational label gives us?"
For those who have been ordained into an ecclesiastical communion like the UMC and have no intentions of leaving (like myself) this is a crucial question. Here are two thoughts:
-- First, our culture is becoming increasingly individualistic in general, which means we tend to see large institutions as impersonal, bureaucratic, and lacking relevance for our lives. Whenever anyone makes a statement about "increasing individualism," everyone tends to nod his head and go on. But I think we have to pause and consider this more carefully. In his recent book, X Saves the World, Jeff Gordinier argues that Generation X'ers have witnessed and rejected the institutionalism of the Builders and the anti-institutional idealism of the Boomers. They've instead opted for an individualism that seeks very localized forms of community life. I think there's something to Gordinier's assessment. We're not individualists in the sense that we don't want the community of others, but we are individualists in the sense that we want our community to consist of people whose faces we know and whose lives are a part of our own. In that context, the idea of a denomination is simply too impersonal and lacking in relevance.
-- Second, the mainline denominations are still operating off of the cultural dominance that they enjoyed until the 1960s. Methodists are probably the worst about this. We have this institutional memory of the time when there were more of us than anyone, and we've never gotten over it. Think about the ways this gets played out: the General Conference passes legislation that weighs in on global problems and calls on our government to act in specific ways. The General Board of Church and Society serves as a lobbying force to the U.S. Congress. Groups of bishops relish the opportunity to get audiences with national political leaders. In a desperate move to get people to like us, we launch a multi-year, multi-million dollar advertising campaign to show the culture how harmless we are and that (contrary to what they've heard about Christian discipleship requiring a new way of life) in reality we're just 'open' about everything. This all amounts to a big cultural hangover, and because we are still suffering from it, our moves as a church in recent years have been toward a mushy pluralism in the vain hope that the culture will repent, start listening to us, and come back to church.
I recently wrote an article arguing that young clergy and lay leaders in the church need to learn to embrace both church-as-community and church-as-institution in order for big denominations like ours to have any kind of future. I believe that. But for us to embrace church-as-institution and make that workable over the long term, the church also needs to change. Here are three ways how:
First, we need to accept the fact that nobody gives a damn what we think. I'm serious about that. Neither the president, the Congress, nor the World Wildlife Federation is holding its breath for what any Methodist body is about to say regarding political issues. If we can stop wringing our collective hands over that stuff, and stop spending all the valuable time and money we have when we gather dealing with it, then perhaps we can re-commit ourselves to the work of ministry. And regardless of what you might say, passing a resolution that goes in a book that nobody reads is not ministry, whether it's the journal of your annual conference or the Book of Resolutions. We need to stop trying to speak to the rest of the world and instead get our own house in order.
Second, we need to reduce the bureaucratic complexity of the church as a whole. This will mean difficult decisions about cutting staff and funding at the level of both annual conferences and the general church. It will mean restructuring and redefining their mission. Conference ministry staffs and the staffs of our general boards and agencies do a lot of good things (and those should continue). They are filled by committed servants of the church who are doing their best in a flawed system. But all bureaucracies evolve over time into organisms that generate a lot of stuff in order to justify their own existence. Our own denominational bureaucracy needs to be pared down and given clearly defined 'equipping' functions and nothing more. By simple inertia, we've arrived at a ministry model that sees bureaucratic processes as the way to get things done rather than the Holy Spirit working in congregations. It's like a ship that has been at sea so long its hull is weighted down with barnacles. We've got to pull into port, scrape those suckers off, and allow the ship to function the way it was originally intended.
Third, we need to realize that the purpose of our mission is not to make middle and upper-middle class consumers feel better about the shallowness of their lives. That's chaplaincy, and it is what goes on in a lot of our congregations. But Jesus wants to gives all of us a whole new life. Methodists used to know that. Wesley's stated mission to his preachers was to "save souls," and his belief about the reason God had raised up the Methodists was to reform the larger church and spread scriptural holiness over the land. In modern times, we have defined that mission as making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I can accept either version, but neither does us any good if it never gets put into practice. We've got a gospel to preach, but too often what ends up getting proclaimed in our churches is the gospel-of-how-to-live-a-more-fulfilling-materialist-existence.
I have been wanting to write a post on this subject for a long time, but it was something about the saga of GracePoint that made me finally do it. Part of the justification that people on the blogosphere have given for what happened was that we need to care about the work of the kingdom rather than the success of the denomination. Or put another way, we need to make more disciples rather than more Methodists. There is a way in which that sentiment is profoundly true and there is a way in which it is profoundly tragic.
The way in which it is true is obvious, since our own denominational mission statement is a call to discipleship.
But the way in which it is tragic is this: There was a time when Methodists really believed that the best way of making disciples of Jesus was to nurture that discipleship within the context of the Methodist Church. We believed we had a theology, an understanding of committed practice, and a Spirit-fired missionary drive that made our own church the best place to learn the faith.
It is no longer clear that that is the case, and both the GracePoint example and the reaction to it are testament to that. The future of the United Methodist Church as a viable church communion is dependent on our looking honestly at how we got here and taking the steps necessary to re-commit ourselves to our original raison d'etre.
Labels: Church Reform, Ecclesiology, UMC
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 10:59 AM
18 Comments:
Amen Andrew! As some one who is going to be ordained this summer. I have really been taking a hard look at exactly what you're talking about. Do I really want to become an ordained clergy person in the United Methodist Church. What it boils down to is that I do believe that we have a theology and emphasis on covenant community and small groups that God can use today, but we have to trim the fat. Christianity is an alternative lifestyle that is at odds in many ways with culture. We need to get leaner, more flexible, and re-ignite the fire of the Holy Spirit that was so much a part of the early Methodists. It has been used a lot, but Wesley's words should haunt us and inspire us
"I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out."
God help us to claim that doctrine, spirit, and discipline today while seeking to be innovative and creative in transmitting it to a post-modern, and post-Christendom culture today.
I agree completely. Our mission to make disciples has been compromised by our bureaucratic complexity. We need to speak out for social justice issues and its true nobody cares what we think. That's where we've made our mistake. We tend to be more concerned with worrying about if anyone cares about what we think on paper that we've forgotten that ACTIONS speak louder than words.
I think you thoughts are right on. We need to challenge the church to live into its voice.
Thanks for both those comments.
Dee, I think that is one of the most powerful passages in all of Wesley's writings. He is right in that it takes doctrine, spirit, and discipline together. Sound doctrine keeps us faithful in proclaiming the gospel as it has been handed down to us in Scripture and the tradition. The right spirit connects us with our forebears and helps to direct us toward the exciting mission that God has laid out for us. And commitment to discipline keeps us from being distracted by so many of the things the church has been distracted with over the years, as well as directing us back to the means of grace again and again to be spiritually renewed by the grace of Christ we find therein.
Shawn, your point about the difference between actions and words is a crucial one. I wouldn't want anyone to misunderstand what I say in the blog post, when I write, "We need to stop trying to speak to the rest of the world and instead get our own house in order." What I mean there is that we need to stop looking to governments and other organizations as the 'standard' for making a difference in the world, and realize instead that it is the Holy Spirit in the church that is driving history. That means that the first task of the church is its own ministry. By doing that faithfully and with a full commitment, we will show the world the truth of the gospel.
Peace,
Andrew
It's good to read your thoughts on a topic that's occupying a lot of my attention these days, as well. While there's certainly a lot here I'd agree with you about, I'd like to try and complicate somewhat the first of your three concluding points, the one about nobody giving a damn what we think. While I think that's perfectly valid on a national institutional level, I'm not ready to concede that on more local levels, the very levels of localized communities you talk about earlier. There are still many places where UMC leaders, members and congregations can still influence public policies (from local parent-teacher organizations to county commissions), as well as holding out positive portrayals of Christian discipleship in the public sphere. I hesitate when you exhort our churches to "stop trying to speak to the rest of the world and instead get our own house in order," as if those were two mutually exclusive options. I'd agree with you about the need for some difficult self-examination about our ongoing place in the larger national and world cultures, but not at the expense of remaining engaged in the world around us.
And now that I read your response to the above folks after I posted mine...never mind, so much. :-) Thanks for clarifying.
Andrew, have read you for more than a year. Today, you said in words what my heart has been working through for some time. I simply have not been able to put it into words. I am a Methodist who has moved away from the denomination "culture" as I found it empty. Still searching, but wanted to say thanks for puting into words some of the things my heart has been speaking to.........
Henry Judah
"Third, we need to accept that the purpose of our mission is not to make middle and upper-middle class consumers feel better about their shallow lives. That's chaplaincy, and it is what goes on in a lot of our congregations. Wesley's stated mission to his preachers was to "save souls," and his belief about the reason God had raised up the Methodists was to reform the larger church and spread scriptural holiness over the land. In modern times, we have defined that mission as making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I can accept either version, but neither does us any good if it never gets put into practice. We've got a gospel to preach, but too often what ends up getting proclaimed in our churches is the gospel-of-how-to-live-a-more-fulfilling-materialist-existence."
Well, bring the wood then, Andrew! Well done, sir.
"Or put another way, we need to make more disciples rather than more Methodists."
Is this our American need for productivity taking priority over the Christian need for unity in the Body of Christ?
I am but a laymen, and don't profess to be as learned or as educated as anyone else here... so here is a simple question in layman's terms...
If Christ shall build His church, and the real work is done through the Holy Spirit, why spend energy correcting a flawed organization when those energies might be better spent connecting with people and allowing God to use us in the day to day, face to face connections we make.
I believe that people need descipleship, but isn't that better provided one on one than by an organization?
While I am no scholar, it is my humble opinion that Wesley would not be a part of the UM denomination he helped to form, if he were to see its current state.
I am open to correction. However, if Christ doesn't need us to build the church, why do we need bloated beuaracratic organizations?
Respectfully asked...
This is a great post, Andrew! Given your concerns yet your said commitment to our communion, what would you foresee as the future of the UMC if as a whole we do not address these issues? And if left unaddressed how long is your resolve to remain in our denomination? In other words, if the UMC is no longer a "viable church communion" would you remain? And/or are there specific, measurable, or identifiable marks, statistics, or some other type of indicator that would designate the denomination as non-viable?
Would the few "pro-confessionals" among us maintain the UM identity or move towards the more structured liturgical bodies (probably Anglican in our case), who are experiencing revitalization as people of our generation are finding identity in these heritages?
I have these questions because resonate with what you are saying and (although I am not ordained) I, too, have no intention of leaving the UMC.
It is refreshing and encouraging to see this post written by an ordained (and remaining) member of the UMC, rather than as a "burn the ship" hurrah from someone that just left--preferring to stomp tradition in favor of experience, I suppose.
I further appreciate the care you used to not be damning nor finger-pointing in your critique of the state of the UMC--it's ultimately the kind of thought that can lead to the rebuilding of a missional, collective work.
Good word.
Thanks for your post I really resonate with a lot of what you are saying. Thanks for the good word!
Excellent post. Now the question becomes. How? How do we move past the bureaucratic nonsense that has been General Conference for the last several decades and into fulfilling our mission to "make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world?" As a fellow UM pastor, I appreciate your point of view, and believe I'm where you are on this issue.
Amen, especially on the fact that "nobody gives a damn" about our opining ala The Book of Resolutions. Certain bishops have a real problem pontificating on major news items as if the world cared...
I heard N.T. Wright give some personal insight at to why he is an Anglican - and a bishop, no less! He said that it was in no way guaranteed in his mind many years ago that he would be an Anglican. Yet...he felt God called him to be an Anglican, for whatever reason. I think God still calls people to be United Methodists. We should not read into that that God rubber stamps all the UMC is and does. Nor should we, however, assume that God despises the UMC. Can we burn up the chaff without the wheat?
As a young pastor new to the UMC yet who identifies strongly with "Wesleyan DNA," I try to lift up and celebrate those parts of our Wesleyan DNA that are to be commended and continued - a strong commitment to the mission of sharing Jesus Christ with all people in word and in deed (the latter being our most recent strength). Whatever aspects of the Connection let that DNA shine, I let shine, in sermons and conversations. But whatever aspects are chaff, I say so or ignore.
Andrew,
Great post, as everyone else has said. In this post you talked about structural reform within the denomination. Do you feel that the amendments proposed at the last general conference will lead to a UMC that is more concerned about discipleship than the denomination? Do you think they make the problem worse (Shane Raynor does)? Or are you talking about completely separate issues in regards to structural reform?
Splendid! You nailed it on the head. However I am not as evangelical as you, I see your point. I am with the Nebraska Conference and we struggle so much with huge dramatic change. It's so frustrating to sit at the table and suggest change but get ignored. I will share this article with all 50 members of our Common Table.
Hello all -
I deeply appreciate all the comments you have left, as well as the questions directed to me. My schedule since late last week has prevented me from giving this post the attention I would have liked to.
Instead of burying my response here in the comments section, I am going to write a new post later today that looks further at the issues discussed here. I'll also try to address the questions some of you have posed to me.
Thanks -
Andrew
I wonder, with all the agreement here, what is holding us back? I agree with Andrew, and have been on the bad side of church bureaucracy all too often. I hear many church leaders saying things must change. But, with the natural pace at which the church accepts change, I wonder, are we simply re-arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic, or can we truly implement these changes before its too late? I hold out hope.
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