Polishing the Golden Rule

by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023

Polishing the Golden Rule —

By BJ Funk —

It was a beautiful spring day as I prepared my kindergarten class for our Easter egg hunt. Outside my classroom were plenty of trees and bushes to hide eggs, and several of my parents were doing just that as I stayed inside and talked with my children. They brought their Easter Egg baskets to school, eagerly awaiting the happy moment when they could start hunting.

Most of the children had dressed for the hunt, wearing clothes that their mamas would not care if they got dirty. South Georgia dirt cleverly hides in the most secure places until a child finds it and then wears it.   

“Fill up your basket,” I said, and with that we walked out to the playground.

Ten minutes into the hunt, I heard Mary crying. Not a shy little cry, but a loud bellowing. I got to her quickly. Fire ants? Skinned knee? No, it was neither of those things.

Mary was crying because she had not found any eggs. Not one. The children began running up to me calling out the number of eggs they had found, and then moving on to find more. Only two children remained by me. One was Mary, crying even louder, and one was Johnny, whose basket was filled to the top.

The two represented the contrasts in my classroom that year. Mary, who always dressed like a princess. Perfect hair flowing down her back in soft curls. Perfect dress, ironed to perfection with socks and shoes to match and with a large hairbow that perfectly matched her dainty pink laced dress. And Johnny, with hand-me-down shoes flopping as he walked because they were too large. Johnny’s T-shirt was old and wrinkled, which is the same way he came to school almost every day.

And then I saw an amazing thing. It was as if the ground beneath me became holy ground, as the sun fell on the three of us, its warmth softly playing the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the background. Time stood still.

Johnny walked up to Mary and without a word he began taking Easter eggs out of his basket, one at a time, and putting them in hers. He gave her half of the eggs in his basket. Mary stopped crying, and I almost started.

Johnny, without saying a word, demonstrated the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.” Does that mean when Johnny shared his eggs this time that Mary would then share with Johnny the eggs in her basket next time?

We wish it worked that way. But it doesn’t. This is how it works: When we treat others the way we want to be treated, something breaks inside of us, something hard and crusty, something like a dam, calling for us to treat others with fairness, not expecting them to return the favor.

We want to question Jesus with, “Why didn’t you put another clause in the Bible that states if the other person has hurt you over and over again, you don’t have to treat them like you want to be treated?”

But he didn’t. His command is always to love, and he doesn’t say anything about how the other person should act. There is nothing in this command that guarantees that the recipient of your doing good will do good back to you.

We are called always to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As Christians, we are called to do the extra thing, to go above and beyond in treating others the way we want to be treated.

Why are we to follow this rule? Not so others will do good back to us, but because it makes us be like God, for this is how he acts. God sends the rain on the just and unjust. He is kind to the person who brings him joy, and equally kind to the one who grieves his heart. God’s love embraces the saint and the sinner.

The dynamic Golden Rule came to life for me that day, its clear message reverberating in my head. In my thoughts, I pulled out the Golden Rule in my life, checking to see if it was tarnished.

You don’t need to know. But I will say this. I’m having a Polishing Party at my home next week. You are invited.

B.J. Funk is Good News’ long-time devotional columnist and author of  It’s A Good Day for Grace, available on Amazon. Artwork: bobysbk via Unsplash.

Sewing with Love and Faith

by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023

Sewing with Love and Faith

By Jenifer Jones

In South Asia TMS Global cross-cultural witnesses (CCWs) run a textile business that provides meaningful employment to people caught in the devastating cycle of extreme poverty. Women of primarily Muslim and Hindu backgrounds sew and embroider quilts, pillows, table linens, and more while earning fair wages in a safe, loving environment. 

Running a business can be challenging under normal circumstances. Keeping a business going during a pandemic in a place with strict lockdowns, even more so. In the midst of so many challenges, it can be tempting to worry. In what follows, one CCW, Sarah Wilson,* shares two stories that reminded her to have hope and not be afraid. 

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One of our artisans, Anjali* has decided to start regularly attending a fellowship that meets in our neighborhood. Anjali’s husband, Vasant,* makes Hindu idols for a living. Vasant struggles with addiction and poor mental health. He is often abusive, and Anjali has suffered with depression as a result of the challenges in her home. Throughout the last year, Anjali has grown tremendously in her faith in Jesus. God has consistently given her peace, hope, and joy in the midst of her struggles.

My husband, Paul,* went with Anjali and her daughter for their first time to church. She’d been having some persistent leg pain, and during prayer time, God healed her! After fellowship, Anjali invited Paul for chai tea at their house. When they walked in, Anjali showed Paul the area where she used to keep her Hindu idols. She has cleaned the shelf, and in its place a poster of Jesus now hangs. Although she’s been walking with Jesus for years, the public, bold display of her faith to her husband, extended family, and neighbors is huge! The best part of this is that Vasant has experienced more peaceful, calm days since Anjali took the idols out of their home. Anjali’s heart cry and boldest prayer in this season is that Vasant would come to know the saving grace of Christ and join her in walking with Jesus. 

Another artisan, Surya,* has been very honest and open about her reluctance to jump all in with Jesus. Although she believes Jesus is real and good, she doesn’t want to leave her Hindu idols behind. She’s afraid of how her extended family and neighbors will perceive her. She’s been in this lukewarm place for a while – studying the Word, praying, but continuing to worship her other gods. But recently there’s been a shift in her. After she heard Anjali’s testimony of God healing her leg pain, Surya decided to go to church the next Sunday.

The week leading up to her visit to church, our teammate David* got a serious infection that required treatment in another city. Surya prayed for him without ceasing. On Sunday, he was well enough to return home. Surya got up in front of the congregation to share her testimony of how God answered her prayers for David. At the end, she said, “I don’t know what is happening to me. All of a sudden, I have this faith. And I’d like you all to ask God to give me more.”

Over the weekend, Surya’s son, Anik,* developed a fever. As his health continued to worsen, Surya took him to the doctor and discovered that he had dengue fever. His platelets started rapidly declining, and he was admitted to the hospital. Our state was in the middle of a dengue epidemic. Many people in our neighborhood had died or become seriously ill, so Surya was very scared. While Anik was being admitted, Surya also came down with dengue. Our team went to her house to pray together for Surya. After we left, Surya’s fever completely went away. She then went to the hospital to stay with Anik and his platelets miraculously rose back into the normal range and he was able to be discharged! Surya messaged us, saying, “God really is always with me.”

As I think about how I’ve worried and fretted over the business and our community in light of what God is doing in our midst, I find myself overwhelmed at the goodness of our Heavenly Father. God really is always with us, and if we seek first his kingdom, the other stuff really will be added to us! Really. Truly. So, fear not!

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Whatever our circumstances, we can take comfort in the fact that God is always with us. Whether he intervenes in miraculous ways like in the stories above or chooses to work in a different way in our lives, we know that we can trust him when he tells us to “fear not.”   

Luke 12: 32-34 (ESV): “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  

* Pseudonyms are used for security reasons.
Jenifer Jones is a writer with TMS Global. A mission organization in the Wesleyan tradition, TMS Global trains, mobilizes, and serves the body of Christ as it joins Jesus in His mission. It serves cross-cultural witnesses (currently in 28 countries) and provides mission training, coaching, and resourcing to local churches around the world. For more information, visit tms-global.org. Photo: Two artisans work on quilts as part of a business-as-mission in South Asia. Through relationships with the business owners and with each other, employees are learning to put their trust in Jesus.

The Challenge Before Us All

by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023

The Challenge Before Us All —

By JJ Mannschreck — 

I had a conversation a few years ago with an elderly member of my congregation. “I think I agree with you on your interpretation of the Bible, and I don’t really want them to change the policies of our church,” she said, “but I have a grand-daughter who is a lesbian, and I really don’t want her to be mad at me for coming to this church.”

I’ve heard this same basic concept over and over from various people when the topic of disaffiliation comes up. Beyond the actual facts of the situation, people are very concerned with the perception. Whether it’s factual or not, there has been a massive disinformation campaign launched against the Global Methodist Church (GMC) as it emerges from The United Methodist Church.

It takes me back to the very first time I attended the Detroit Annual Conference at Adrian College in Michigan. I’ll never forget when we walked into the auditorium that they used for the big plenary meetings. My mentor pastor showed me the ropes. We stood in the back of the room and he said, “Down there on the left side is the angry progressive crowd. They’re a bit exclusive and they don’t really let anybody else sit with them.” Then he pointed up over his shoulder into the right back corner, “and up there in that section is where the angry conservative crowd sits. They usually say the worst things you’ll hear from a microphone this weekend, and they’re not much fun to sit with either.” And then he pointed to the bulk of the seating in the middle of the room and said, “and this is where all the normies sit. Let’s see if we can find a seat.”

That was my introduction to church politics in 2013. I didn’t actually know much about those groups, but I knew that the vast majority of clergy would prefer to sit in the middle and not really interact with those two angry extremes.

As time went on, the drama of the church began to suck more and more air out of the room and I realized that I needed to learn more about these conservatives. As a young clergy who is theologically conservative, I needed to figure out where I was headed long term. I decided to attend the lunch put on by those “angry conservatives” (which I had found out was a group called the Wesleyan Covenant Association or the “WCA” for short). But I was nervous. I might be a conservative in my interpretation of Scripture, but boy I wasn’t sure I wanted to be seen in the same room as those with such a negative reputation. I sat in the back, near the door – ready to bolt if I heard anything terrible.

After we ate lunch, the speaker addressed racism. Her name was the Rev. Dr. Joy Moore and she is fiery speaker with a heart full of Jesus. She spoke out strongly against evil and called us to do better. It was convicting and heartfelt, and I was shocked. I thought to myself, Wait, aren’t these guys supposed to be the horrible racists?! After her speech, I met Dr. Moore and we struck up a friendship that led to my (predominantly white) church partnering with her (predominantly black) church in the city of Flint. For a summer, we had volunteers come together to hand out water in Flint every single week because of the contaminated water crisis.

After that lunch, I realized that I may have jumped to conclusions. I may have made assumptions about a group of people without actually meeting them and talking to them and knowing them. I had lumped the WCA together in my mind with the worst sort of human beings my imagination could come up with – but my real world experience completely shattered that picture!

Fast forward two years to 2021. I had continued to exist as a theological conservative, but largely under the radar. I wasn’t shy about my position, but I also wasn’t broadcasting it loudly.

The Global Methodist Church had been announced, and I had written an article with five reasons I wanted to go to the Global Methodist Church but I didn’t turn it in. I sat on it for a little bit. If the article got published, suddenly my name would be out there in a big way as one of those “angry conservatives.” Again, I hesitated. I had been wrong about the WCA folks, but what if the GMC turned out to be filled with horrible hateful people? I wasn’t sure I wanted to connect myself to that group.

Then I was invited to participate in one of the Global Methodist Church’s big initiatives called the “Multipliers Cohort” through the Exponential conference. It was a brilliant class on how to do disciple-making in the modern world, and I learned a ton. But on my first day of the class, I was sitting in a room with a bunch of people who were heading to the Global Methodist Church and it felt the same way it had when I was attending my first WCA luncheon.

Tentatively, I was trying to get a feel for the room. At the lunch on the first day, the conversation shifted to the Global Methodist Church, and who would be joining it when it finally launched. There was a young woman sitting across from me who said it very bluntly, “Look, I am not interested in joining the anti-gay church. I want to join a church where they actually make disciples of Jesus Christ.” My eyebrows shot straight up.

All around the lunch table, every single person strongly affirmed that sentiment. Not a single clergy in the group of two dozen had any interest in being a part of an “anti-gay” church. But all of them wanted to be a part of a church that was truly united around the core purpose of spreading the gospel and transforming lives. That night, after our first day of the class, I clicked “submit” on the article, sent it in to Good News magazine, and the rest is history.

A lot of people are in the exact same conundrum that I was in. I was born and raised in The United Methodist Church, and I will always have a love for the people who introduced me to Jesus Christ. But there is an element inside the denomination that has been working overtime to smear the image of the emerging church.

Rather than Paul and Barnabas blessing one another and sending them on their different paths, it has looked more like mud-slinging politicians. Beyond the cost of disaffiliation, the price tag for the creation of the Global Methodist Church contains an uphill PR battle in an already hostile social moment.

One of the reasons for writing this article is to reiterate that you cannot argue someone out of a first impression. If someone accuses you of being hateful, it will never be enough to simply yell back, “No, I’m not!” Our counter-argument must go deeper than the statements we sign or the things that we say. It must be steeped in the lives we live. Our example must be drenched in grace and overflowing with kindness. We must hold ourselves to such a standard and conduct ourselves in such a way that nasty rumors don’t stick because they don’t match anyone’s actual experience.

If our church is to be accused of sexism, then we must become warriors for women – strongly standing up for their right to preach and administer the sacraments. If our church is to be accused of racism, then we need to work across the colors of God’s creation to listen, to love, and to share the gospel of Jesus to every nation, and every community. If our church is to be accused of homophobia and hatred, then we must show more love to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters than anyone would expect.

I have heard it said over and over that it is possible to disagree with someone and still love them. If that is true, then our churches should be an abundant source of that love. For example, if someone in your community struggles with same-sex attraction, ask yourself how can you provide them with love and support? How can we walk alongside our brothers and sisters with both compassion and conviction? We have made it clear that we will not compromise our convictions, and now it time to show the world that we are still people of compassion.

If you stand up for anything, there will always be people who hate you. Our challenge as Methodists is to live our lives in such a way that when someone tries to spread stories of your hatred, the people who know you will respond and ask the accuser, “Wait, are you sure? Have you actually met them?”

When I started out in ministry, I believed what I heard about the WCA and their “hateful ways” until I actually met them. When I took a class with the GMC, I was tentative because I believed the rumors. Only later did I sit in the room and hear who they really were. We can’t stop people from spreading lies or jumping to assumptions and judging us. We are not always in control of the first impression. But we can, as followers of Jesus, live a life so full of love and compassion and conviction that when people finally do meet us, they will experience the counterargument before they ever hear it.

JJ Mannschreck is the campus pastor at the Cardinal Square campus of Aldersgate Church, a newly minted Global Methodist Church in the Midland-Saginaw area of Michigan. He transferred his ordination from The United Methodist Church to the Global Methodist Church. You can read more about him at thesimpleton.org. Artwork: Shutterfly.

Taking Stock of Methodism’s Shift

by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023

Taking Stock of Methodism’s Shift — 

By Thomas Lambrecht —

At the end of July, we reached the climax of church disaffiliations for the year. The flurry of spring annual conferences approved several thousand church disaffiliations, meaning most of the churches that wanted to disaffiliate this year have been allowed to do so. Several hundred more churches are in line for disaffiliation at special annual conference sessions later this year, with the expiration of the disaffiliation process set for December 31, 2023.

At this point, we have a clearer picture of how The United Methodist Church has been affected by disaffiliation.

As of the end of July by my count, 6,191 churches have disaffiliated since 2019. That represents 21 percent of the total number of congregations present in the UM Church in 2020.

By any interpretation, that represents a significant number of churches. At the time The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation was proposed in early 2020, many bishops and other church leaders were expecting about 5 percent of the churches to disaffiliate. The fact that 21 percent have done so, especially given the barriers imposed by some annual conferences, is a significant indicator of the dissatisfaction many local churches have with how the denomination has handled its theological conflict.

A substantial number of United Methodists are not  convinced the UM Church can be or should be a “big tent” that accommodates both traditional and progressive understandings of theology and sexuality. The ridicule and animosity that many traditionalists have experienced because of their views made such a “big tent” seem unrealistic. Many expressed through disaffiliation their inability to live in a denomination that has de facto changed its definition of marriage and its understanding of human sexuality in contradiction to biblical teaching and seems poised to change its on-paper doctrines on these issues at the 2024 General Conference.

Where have churches disaffiliated? A disproportionate share of churches has disaffiliated in the Southeastern and South Central Jurisdictions. When one compares the proportion of total UM congregations with the proportion of the churches that have disaffiliated, that imbalance becomes apparent (see chart above).

For example, although 35 percent of all U.S. churches are located in the Southeastern Jurisdiction, 46 percent of the churches that disaffiliated are located in the Southeast. By contrast, 21 percent of all U.S. churches are located in the Northeastern Jurisdiction, but only 11 percent of the churches that disaffiliated are in the Northeast.

Another way of looking at this is to see what percentage of the churches in a given jurisdiction have disaffiliated. The average for the whole denomination is 21 percent. Both the Southeast and South Central experienced 28 percent of their churches disaffiliating. The North Central had 18 percent of its churches disaffiliate, the Northeast 11 percent, and the West 5 percent (see the chart on next page).

Why would this be the case? One reason is that the South has remained a traditionalist bastion within the UM Church. Annual conferences in the South have generally upheld the provisions of the Book of Discipline and abided by church teaching. Traditionalists have remained in these churches because they saw no reason to leave, despite the progressive advocacy and occasional disobedience in other parts of the denomination.

Annual conferences in the West and in parts of the Northeast and North Central have for many years agitated to change the church’s teaching on marriage. A number of those conferences have ordained or appointed self-avowed practicing homosexuals as clergy, mostly without any consequences. The progressive voice has been much more outspoken in these areas and is even the controlling voice of the dialog in many of them. As a result, many traditionalists have left UM churches in these areas well before 2019, seeking out churches that were more congruent with their theological understanding. Often, these turned out to be non-denominational churches.

With fewer traditionalists remaining in the United Methodist population of the North and West, proportionally fewer churches would seek to disaffiliate.

A second reason for the preponderance of disaffiliations in the South is that most southern annual conferences followed a straight Par. 2553 disaffiliation process with no added fees or costs. In some cases, annual conferences used reserve funds to pay down pension liabilities and even apportionments to reduce the cost of disaffiliation. Only two of the 26 southern conferences (South Carolina and Florida) imposed high barriers to disaffiliation. (Alabama-West Florida just made it number three going forward with their ruling that no additional churches have a valid reason to disaffiliate.)

While none of the North Central conferences imposed high barriers, several made it more difficult than it had to be. That is why the 18 percent disaffiliation rate in the North Central is close to the 21 percent denominational average and close to the 21 percent of all churches found in the North Central.

In contrast, half the Western annual conferences imposed high barriers, including charging 50 percent of property value in the California-Pacific Conference. This is part of the reason why only 5 percent of Western churches have disaffiliated. In the Northeast, half of the annual conferences have imposed high barriers to disaffiliation, which has resulted in a disaffiliation rate that is 10 points lower than the denominational average.

How is the Global Methodist Church progressing? As of the end of June, around 3,000 congregations have been formally recognized by the Global Methodist Church. With the huge wave of disaffiliations taking place in May and June, many more are in the pipeline to be approved. Well more than 3,000 clergy have also been recognized, although some of them are retired.

As of mid-July, ten provisional annual conferences have been formed in the U.S. GM Church. Outside the U.S., three provisional annual conferences and two provisional districts have been formed. Six additional U.S. annual conferences are in the process of formation and should be up and running by the end of the year. Groundwork is being laid for additional annual conferences outside the U.S., as well.

Work is being done to plan the convening General Conference of the GM Church. Local churches that want to be represented at that General Conference should move now to join the GM Church, so that they will be able to help elect delegates to serve at that conference.

GM annual conferences are meeting and holding ordination services. For example, the Eastern Texas Conference ordained 92 clergy in February and another 73 in July. Other conferences are doing the same, although in lesser numbers.

Future Prospects. In many U.S. annual conferences, the process of disaffiliation is over. About a dozen annual conferences project to have additional disaffiliations this fall. The largest group of those is nearly 200 churches in North Georgia, where the conference recently removed the “pause” that had been in place, thanks to two favorable rulings for disaffiliation in state courts.

Once Par. 2553 expires at the end of 2023, over 90 percent of annual conferences in the U.S. have made no provision for any continued disaffiliations. A few have said they will allow disaffiliation under a provision that enables an annual conference to close a church and then sell it to the congregation. These conferences have said they will sell the building to the congregation for the same cost they would have paid under Par. 2553.

Outside the U.S., the disaffiliation situation is much different. Bishops are not allowing local churches outside the U.S. to use the process in Par. 2553, even though it was meant to be operative for all churches, not just in the U.S. There is currently no process for annual conferences outside the U.S. to disaffiliate easily. A few have done so by taking an end run around the Discipline. A few more are going through the arduous process of becoming autonomous Methodist Churches, which requires the approval of General Conference, as well as the central conference.

In light of the U.S. conferences that have imposed high barriers to disaffiliation, and in light of the fact that conferences and local churches outside the U.S. have not had an equal opportunity to disaffiliate, Good News and the Renewal and Reform Coalition will be proposing the 2024 General Conference adopt a new Par. 2553 for local church disaffiliation and a new paragraph for annual conferences outside the U.S. to disaffiliate. A significant number of U.S. churches, as well as nearly all churches outside the U.S., have been denied a fair and reasonable opportunity to disaffiliate due to conflicts in conscience. This inequity must be addressed.

Again, the tragedy of this whole situation is that it did not have to be an adversarial process. The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation envisioned a fair and reasonable opportunity for churches and annual conferences to learn the facts of the situation and make an informed, prayerful decision on their future alignment. It would have avoided lawsuits that have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would have minimized animosity and conflict, making it possible to envision future cooperation between the UM and GM Churches. But many leaders of the UM Church determined to block the Protocol, even though some of them signed on to it in agreement. They created a power vacuum through postponing the General Conference, and then stepped into that vacuum to run the church themselves in the way they saw fit.

Despite the adversity, the fact that 21 percent of UM congregations have been able to exercise their conscience is a testament to their perseverance and conviction. Those qualities will come in good stead for the future of those congregations.

Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.

When Life Doesn’t Go According to Script

by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023

When Life Doesn’t Go According to Script —

By Elizabeth Glass-Turner —

What do you do when you do what you’re supposed to do and it doesn’t go right? What are you supposed to think when your best preparations, intentions, and actions seem to go to waste or lead to loss instead of fruit?

A multitude of critics and coaches will tell you what the problem is and how to fix it. You sow again; nothing sprouts, or if it does, you suspect it’s a harvest of weeds. What do you do when this continues for a stretch of months – years, even? What if the more closely you follow Christ, the worse things go?

It’s not reducible to the usual learning curves: the normal process of gaining wisdom in the practice of Christian faith or vocational ministry. It’s not just about practical tools developed through growth. Sometimes, it’s not even necessarily tied to real and related dynamics: injustice, and spiritual warfare and the call to anointed intercession.

Every Christian needs community; every Christian needs prayer and needs to pray for others. And there are times when your prayer life deepens, only to see your professional traction spinning in the mud.

There are times when you follow Jesus Christ into the center of a mob to put your presence next to someone shielding their head from hands holding stones, only to see your calendar gradually empty.

But there are also times when stakes are unclear; when you’re sailing along fairly predictably. You’re not harboring or fostering known sin, you’re tending to self-management and due diligence, you’re growing in self-awareness and wisdom, you’re continuing to follow Christ to the best of your anointed, sanctified ability, and yet – you sow all your seed and little sprouts. What do you do when you do what you’re supposed to do and it doesn’t go right?

It doesn’t mean you must’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t mean you’ve been unwise. It doesn’t mean a particular method is faulty. If you’re not sure what’s going on and whether or not it’s a tool of the Holy Spirit’s conviction, run that sense of conviction by a few mature, trusted friends in your close circle, local or scattered.

When difficult seasons arrive, you won’t be short on critics or well-platformed gurus advertising solutions. But a sense of condemnation does not come from the Holy Spirit. The enemy of your soul would love for you to look around at a seeming lack of fruit, assume it’s your fault, and grow discouraged.

This is the poverty of the “prosperity gospel” Dr. Kate Bowler has written on so incisively in her book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. Even sound Christians and experienced ministers may inadvertently assume that input leads to output, that best practices lead to multiplication, that expertise raises the likelihood of achieved goals or success.

When a veneer of piety is applied – that God will bless the faithful with a particular set of outcomes – the stage is set for believers in the pew or pulpit to encounter a crisis of faith if their lives or ministries go sideways.

“But I did everything right!” “But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

This sense runs deeply: that we control a “blessing” lever. Pastors pursuing ministerial fruit may unknowingly pursue the reassuring salve of concrete outcomes. “Bearing fruit” slyly shifts to tallying up the numbers associated with people sitting in pews, pulling out their wallets. It’s uncomfortable waiting for invisible, long-term, hard-to-quantify fruits, like those of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

If you sense condemnation when you face inexplicable hurdles that continually pop up, ask yourself what metrics you’re using, and whether or not they’re the metrics of Jesus, who saw many disciples walk away: “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66, NIV).

Ask if your unconscious metrics can withstand a visit to a pediatric oncology unit: a ward where kids with cancer receive treatment. If we live in a world where children get cancer, how can we say God always blesses the faithful with specific outcomes? If we live in a world where children get cancer, we have to sit with suffering, with the “unfairness” of it. If anyone “deserves” cancer, it’s certainly not a child. Sometimes, there are miracles. Sometimes, there are not. Neither case proves faithfulness, piety, or belovedness, or denies them.

Deep down, if you know this about the hardest examples of suffering, you also know you can take less credit than you’d like for any part of your ministry that seems “fruitful.”

But you also can’t wilt under a sense of condemnation when things don’t go right despite your best efforts. It can be true both that your actions have real meaning and consequence and also that you’re able to direct less than you think.

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) is famously quoted growling her irritation with this reality. Slipping in mud, falling in a ditch, or being swept off her horse in high water (depending on the account), she burst out to God, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”

It may be one of the most honest prayers in church history.

On days when it’s all manure, no harvest, we face a simple fact. We all want to be fruitful; few want to live the line from John Wesley’s covenant prayer: “let me be laid aside for Thee.”

What if God asks you to trust the Holy Spirit’s calling and empowerment, whether or not you ever see any fruit? Any impact? Any positive results?

What if the Holy Spirit asks you to trust the sound of God’s voice through hurdle after hurdle, as your own goals keep getting obstructed? If God asks you to till hard soil with little yield, what will you say? Would you say, “of course, yes, I’ll do it,” like the son who said yes, then went away? Would you say, “oh–no, I’m not sure I can handle that,” only to be softened by the Holy Spirit, like the son who said no but came back?

When things don’t go right, it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong; it also doesn’t mean you’ve done something right, a hero or martyr. Sometimes, God is weaning you off the approval of your peers. Sometimes, God is showing you that you put your confidence in metrics or methods or even theology instead of Christ alone.

Sometimes, God is entrusting you with the companionable silence of his presence, not disavowing you with the punitive withdrawal of his presence.

Sometimes, as Pete Grieg points out in God on Mute, in a physical universe governed by the laws of physics, you just slip in the mud.

When so many of Jesus’ disciples walked away, what did he say? “‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God’” (John 6:67-69).

Fruitful seasons are nice, but they have their pitfalls too. In reality, some fruitful seasons are overinflated bubbles ready to burst, like the disciples who turned back. The desire to maximize our time can tempt us to declare a harvest prematurely or hurry our discernment.

You don’t need a bumper crop of obvious fruit in ministry. You never did. It won’t prove you’re faithful; it’s not a reliable indicator of the state of your soul, either. It’s kind of an old lie, after all – that possessing a certain fruit can ensure you are like God.

Silly, really – trading the quiet companionship of God in the cool of the evening for the illusion of validation that external fruit tempts us with.

“‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”

Jesus has always been enough.