Methodism Remix (Ft. The People Called Methodists)

Okay okay so it has a cheesy title, but with Justin Coleman coming up with witty titles like Shipwreck which you can read here and Krystle Wheeler with "Is It Time To Say Goodbye" I had to try something for this blog on the UMC and schism. I don't like schism. I mean not because of the idea, I just think it's a weird word. Weird words are either entertaining like piccolo or bad like schism so I'll stick with split. DreamUMC an ongoing discussion by UMC members on twitter hit one year old. A bunch of folks blogged on the topic of a split in the UMC. I'm nowhere near as well spoken on the issue as the other folks that blogged, but it's hard for me to convey my thoughts in 140 characters so I wrote this blog post haste. So the question comes up.

“Is Schism the best future of the UMC? Why or Why Not?”

Okay so I'm going a little off script on my answer. The simple answer is it doesn't matter. Right now a split in the UMC doesn't matter any more than whether the pastor wearing a robe or suit/dress affects how many people fall asleep during his/her sermon. As I read Rev. Coleman's post on the topic it touched on some of the many ideas I have. You seem I think the split doesn't matter, because right now we are dead. I'm not a biology major but I've never heard of a dead cell splitting. Everything I've ever heard is about how the body removes dead cells or creates new cells to replace the dead ones. So you say Shawn what do dead cells have to do with the UMC? I'm glad you asked. John Wesley once wrote;

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.

You see from where I stand, we are already a dead sect. We have the form of religion but not the power. When was the last time the United Methodist Church was on the forefront of theological or social change?The Civil Rights movement? When was the last time the United Methodist Church was growing Disciples at an alarming rate? Well that one's easy about the same time men were joining Freemasonry at an alarming rate. The difference being, that Freemasonry is now experiencing the type of growth in the US that the UMC could only hope for. 

    So maybe that's a little melodramatic. Maybe we're not quite dead yet, but we are definitely on life support. So from here on out there are really two options. We can keep dying or we can make some new cells. You see the issue isn't really about whether we make new cells together or separate, but that new cells have to be made. The main question isn't about whether the UMC needs to split, but how do we get the UMC off life support and back to healthy growth in Christ. We all have different ideas on how to do that. Maybe a split is best. If a split allows cells to grow and us to be revived from the dead sect we currently are then great. If it allows us to reclaim the power of Christ's redemption as living, breathing, life-saving grace and not simply something that makes us feel warm and fuzzy then outstanding. John Wesley went on to say that whoever has their mind in Christ that same person is our brother, sister, and mother. That's what it's about. I don't believe a split is necessary, but to keep that from happening we have to focus on the (and i'm low balling here) the 60% of things we agree upon and move forward. At this stage we are simply discussing if we can continue or will we allow the minority of things we disagree upon become the majority that causes us to split. I still think a split is inevitable but with Christ all things are possible. We must ask ourselves what can we do to reclaim the power and rise up as a Lazarus of Christianity and change this world again? We've done it before. Let's do it again. 

Why I'm jumping on a sinking ship

The United Methodist Church is a sinking ship. Amid dwindling numbers and fewer new professions of faith the church is dying. Truth be told by it's founder John Wesley's definition the church is already dead.

“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"-John Wesley

There is no power in a lot of the worship within the United Methodist church. Children who are born and raised in the church are leaving Christianity at an alarming rate (6 out of 10 men will walk away from their faith in college) those that are hanging around, are finding spiritual fulfillment outside of the Methodist Church. An example of such an event can be found on one of my previous posts. So why jump on a sinking ship? Why move towards ministry in a church that has hit an iceberg is going down fast? Because I believe in Jesus. I believe in redemption. I believe that "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still"-Betsie Ten Boom).  I believe that there is a better way than what we are doing now. I believe we can remove the fluff and regain the power. I believe that we can hold ourselves to a higher standards of our interactions with others without defending it with "i'm just a broken person". I grow so tired of seeing Methodist Pastors resort to snark and name-calling as if it somehow improves their point. I often find this occurring in articles posted by United Methodist Pastors. It's not a single place it happens either it's a total top to bottom epidemic. It occurs in letters coming from leaders of General Agencies all the way down to pastor's personal blogs. Look no further than the latest post on RethinkChurch. While my brother in Christ Morgan makes great points they are delineated by his name calling and snark used when dealing with Albert Mohler. I'm no fan of Mohler's either and goodness knows I've been way too snarky and condescending with those I disagree with but to do it on a nationally published article is not the time or the place. The points made in the post were outstanding (I would rather see an easter doodle from Google, but it's important to know the role faith played in Chavez's life) but I found myself wondering if using terms like "outragicals" did anything to improve the quality of the article. We must move on to better things. I'm jumping on the UMC boat because all of the work of going through candidacy has taught me that helping is a spiritual gift. I see people on this sinking ship grabbing as many buckets as they can working and working to bail out water and keep the ship afloat. It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and start bailing out water and lend a hand. How do we "fix" the UMC? Can the UMC be fixed? I believe it can because I believe in Christ's ability to redeem the broken and the UMC is most definitely broken at this point. I'm not anyone special. Just a small certified candidate for ministry in the UMC, but I do have a few ideas about how to fix the UMC.

1. Trim the fat (General Boards and Agencies all the way down to local congregations have too much fluff and fat. Get rid of it. Better budgets and more efficient use of mission shares.)

2. Accountability (As a pastor you swear to uphold certain ideas and rules. If you can't uphold that deal there need to be consequences. Ineffective leadership with zero accountability is killing the church)

3.End Online Seminary (Sorry I know it's "producing lots of UMC pastors" but it's killing the church because it's producing pastors that are the same person they are when they started seminary because they were never forced to interact and grow. This is really an argument of quantity over quality. Online or predominately online seminaries are producing large numbers of pastors but if 10 out of every 100 they produce is effective it's still a failure)

4. Increase educational requirements (Many Pastors coming out of seminary are ill equipped. Pastors get to small churches and realize they have to lead "Children's Church" with no training or idea how to most effectively communicate the Gospel of Christ to young children. That's just one example of how ill equipped some seminaries are leaving pastors)

5. Establish a better balance between personal and social holiness (Wesley tells us we need both, but right now the UMC is so sold out on social holiness at the expense of personal holiness that we're creating form with no power. I can hear the arguments coming in now "social holiness leads to personal holiness" that may be true in some cases not all. Whereas Wesley interprets the Bible to say in James that our works are an outpouring of our faith. )

6. Make room for more voices (right now there is no room for middle ground. If you want to have a voice in a conference, agency, church, etc you have to have a certain voice. You have to agree with the views of those allowing your voice to be heard. I despise the IRD, but their article about the revolving door at the general agencies has some truth to it. I as a moderate Methodist would not be allowed a place at the table at most of the general boards and agencies or even some local churches. That must change. We must quit seeing every issue in the church as win/lose and view it as a chance for holy conferencing and hope)

These are just thoughts. They are things I hope can happen and I feel would help the UMC regain some of the power to go with it's form. It's the hope of these things that leads me to grab a lifejacket, hop on board, take a bucket, and start bailing out water. God can redeem all. Maybe there's hope for the UMC yet.

United Church of Cracker Jack

In my new effort to lose weight and live a more healthy lifestyle, I've come to enjoy grocery shopping. Every aisle is a litany of possibilities now that I understand the dynamics of healthy eating. Occasionally I buy myself a little snack. The other day when I was grocery shopping, I came across Cracker Jack. For $1.25 you could get 3 boxes of Cracker Jack. Cracker Jack conjures up memories of my childhood for me so I bought it. I got home and unpacked my groceries, my mother remarked "oh look cracker jack". I told her the price and she said "wow i remember when they were 10 cents a box". As I enjoyed a box of cracker jack I pulled out the prize. A folding piece of paper that when folded and unfolded showed a young then an old George Washington. My mom then said "wow you don't even get real prizes in them anymore". As I laid in bed that night thinking, I began to realize something. The United Methodist Church is a lot like a box of Cracker Jacks. The prize (Jesus) is still there, but rising costs and ineffectiveness have caused the prize to be cheapened. The United Methodist Church in part due to inflation and other economic circumstances now spends more than they ever have to accomplish the churches mission while the number of members have dwindled to the point that in 20 years the UMC will not exist if the decline doesn't stop. You see much like Cracker Jack, the UMC relishes in nostalgia  People don't buy Cracker Jack anymore because of the outstanding taste or it's affordability. People buy Cracker Jack for the sheer nostalgia value. The same reason people purchase thing from the Cracker Barrel store. It's simply a reminder of better times for most people. The UMC experiences the same thing. As I said before the UMC is spending more now than it ever has. Every year the church is spending more money in an attempt to accomplish it's mission. However, the mission is not successful as it could be because of nostalgia  The old way isn't necessarily bad. The UMC could stand to get a healthy reminder that Wesley focused on both personal and social holiness to bring it back where it originally was rather than the social holiness centered ministry the church mostly engages in now. The nostalgia we hold on to is the unhealthy kind. The kind of nostalgia that says we've always done it this way even though it hasn't worked in years. For some reason, the UMC abandoned it's method of discipleship of the band,class, society system that had led to growth in membership and true discipleship among early Methodist  Instead we've held tightly to systems that haven't developed true disciples in decades. In the process we've cheapened the meaning of Jesus and what it means to our world. We've done things to help the poor, homeless, and disenfranchised in the name of Jesus without actually sharing the hope and reason that we actually are moved to that action. Many don't see much difference in members of the UMC and the outside world they live in. In that instance we've spent more money for a cheaper prize. We treat Jesus like a cheap paper Cracker Jack toy instead of the precious jewel of grace that he was. When will we move beyond the nostalgia  When will we embrace healthy change and re-adapt the things about Methodism that allowed it to grow to meet modern needs? When will we realize that we are called to both personal and social holiness not just one or the other? Until we change, we are simply the United Church of Cracker Jack. Join up, pay some money, get a cheap prize, and feel just a little bit of nostalgia about how great the UMC used to be.Cracker Jack serves a great role in American culture. It ties us back to some say a simpler time. Some nostalgia is healthy, but too much leaves us to being relegated to a bottom shelf tiny spot in American alongside the boxes of Cracker Jack.

Why I chose the United Methodist Church or why It chose me

Well I've taken a break but now I'm back. My friend Brittny asked me if I could offer her any information about the Methodist Church. Being the Methodist Nerd that I am, I gladly mailed her about 5 books. This brought me to revisit a question I've often been asked. Why the United Methodist Church? Now this question probably wouldn't occur nearly as often, had I not had the distinction of coming to the UMC from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or The Mormons. Before I get to the UMC let me discuss why my mother and I left the Mormon Chuch. My family has never been overly religious. We may have went to church on Sunday we may have missed it. It wasn't a big deal to my family. When we got more diligent about going, my mother quickly realized the Mormon Church was no longer for us. The final straw for us was spending a worship service sitting at the back of the Church with no actual worship going on. The "worship" for the day was an entire family Father, Mother, and three children got up and in front of the church confessed every little thing they had done wrong that week all the way down to the youngest child. I remember the little one confessing things as simple as not sharing with someone at school. While I believe that admission of sin is an important part of reconciliation with God, something moved inside of us. We left the church never to return. After spending about two months visiting various denominations, we arrived at Gateway United Methodist Church. We were given a loaf of fresh baked banana nut bread by the United Methodist Women's group to welcome us as a visitor to the church. Then after the service came the defining moment of what would become my faith journey so far. Unlike the other denominations ministers, pastors,etc the pastor of this church answered our questions that day. You see the other churches we had visited the pastors all wanted us to make time to come in and talk to them. The pastor of Gateway UMC after greeting everyone changed out of his robes and sat for an hour and a half answering our questions. About 6 months later I was baptized and mine and my mothers request as member of Gateway United Methodist Church and the larger United Methodist Church body. When I ask people why I chose the United Methodist Church, I often assert that God chose it for me and brought us there, but the main difference is the welcoming to visitors regardless of circumstances or past. This continues to be a bright point for me as I serve in various capacities within the church. I see a church that fully embraces the belief that Christ loves you enough to meet you exactly where you are, but loves you too much to just leave you there. The people of the United Methodist Church are actively working and serving in this capacity to meet people wherever they are on their journey of faith and work to create Disciples for the transformation of the world. That is why I am United Methodist.