Archive: A Look At The People’s Bishop

By Randy Petersen

In a United Methodist church in the heart of Pennsylvania, Bishop Felton May knelt in a prayer of repentance. He had invited his people to join him on this Ash Wednesday at Beaver Memorial Church in Lewisburg, and more than 400 did. Thousands of others throughout the Central Pennsylvania and Wyoming Conferences took part in prayer vigils and services in their own churches.

The bishop issued a 10-point call to repentance for the occasion (see below), confessing shortcoming such as “failure to grieve over the loss of members” and “failure to allow our daughters and sons to hear and answer the call of God to ministry.” At the top of the list was “being an unconverted church trying to convert an unconverted world.”

He doesn’t mince words. In just three years as bishop, May has gained a reputation as a man of action, a strong leader who inspires his people to do more than they had thought possible.

“He expects the best from himself and brings out the best in those around him,” says Gerald Wagner, who directs communications for the Central Pennsylvania Conference. “You walk away from a meeting with him, knowing he’s asked you to do something impossible, but you also know you’ll do it and do it well.”

In his first year as bishop, 1984-85, May gave himself the challenges of visiting every pastor in the two conferences he administers and sitting down with the people in each charge for a brief give-and-take session. The 13 districts in Central Pennsylvania and the neighboring Wyoming Valley include more than 1,200 churches with a combined membership of more than a quarter million. Throughout that first year, the bishop conducted his whirlwind tour, stopping for 15 minutes at a time in the various churches.

At each site, he would ask three questions: (1) If I were a new person in this community, how would you describe your church to me? (2) Does your church have a future, and what are you doing to ensure this future? (3) What questions do you have for me?

Anywhere from five to seventy showed up at the different locations. The tall black bishop would fire his questions and lean forward to listen to the answers, peering attentively through his wire-framed glasses. It was a leadership style he would become known for: being a listener. “He’s good at allowing people to speak, and then directing that,” says one pastor. “He is open and fair, but he won’t let himself be walked on. He will hear all sides and then set a course.”

What did the bishop learn from his first-year scouting expedition? “I learned that the local church is healthier than I first believed. In spite of what is generally thought, local churches are indeed in ministry in the name of Christ in their communities. That’s a broad statement, but this experience gave me a sense of hope which I would not have had if I hadn’t seen things for myself. There are mission and ministry efforts going on, and hundreds of thousands of instances where the name of Jesus is named and a cup of cold water is given.”

But there were needs that became apparent too. “I also learned that there were unchurched people in the community, and I began to discern why local churches are not reaching them,” the bishop explained. “People feel vulnerable in sharing their faith stories. We as an annual conference have not moved programmatically to strengthen them in this regard. People are reticent to be Christ’s models in the community; they are not willing to be different.”

The strengthening of the laity has become one of May’s major themes. The year after his own massive visitation, he challenged his pastors with a similar task—visiting every member of their congregations within the following year. His seven-point plan also included establishing new church school classes and conducting religious surveys in their communities. Three-quarters of the pastors completed the assignment. They came back with success stories. Their personal contact with church people had helped them discover and deal with some problems they hadn’t known about, such as acute loneliness or alcoholism. In some cases, people who had not attended church for a while were wooed back.

But May also got some resistance to his plan. A number of pastors said they just didn’t have time. Meeting in cluster groups with some of his pastors, the bishop reminded them that this was in essence what they had pledged to do when they were ordained and appointed in their parishes. He was merely asking them to be pastors. But the visitation still seemed to be a burden. As May looked into this further, he spotted some new problems. “Some pastors are enslaved. The expectations of some of our congregations are unrealistic. One pastor was required to be in his office every day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. That was what church leaders saw the pastor’s role to be. They also expected the pastor to attend every meeting.”

Therefore May’s message to local churches is simply this: “Free your pastor to do ministry. I believe very firmly in the ministry of all believers. Perhaps that is one of the tools to revitalize our congregations, to remind them that they are not just spectators, but participants.” He urges lay people to discover things they can do—office work or hospital visitation, perhaps—that can augment the pastor’s work and release him or her for creative ministry.

“At every point in history where the church has taken a quantum leap forward, it has been because lay people have returned to a creative study of Scripture and have developed a sufficient will to act out what they have learned.” Bishop May has high hopes for the “Disciple” program, and considers the forming of covenant groups “the order of the day.”

As lay people get more involved in the work of the church, pastors must adapt. “The pastor is going to have to become a teacher, a trainer, a nurturer of small groups, one who is not afraid to energize lay persons,” May says. He encourages pastors to utilize the many lay speakers available—he counts 2,000 competent lay speakers in his conferences alone. These persons could become the “front-line troops” in the task of extending the church’s outreach.

Lay Retreats

To help energize the laity, the bishop participates in annual lay retreats for study. nurture and action. In addition, he hopes to conduct conferences for people in different vocation groups. This September in Carlisle the first such conference—for lawyers—will convene. That may be followed by a gathering of health-care professionals next year. May also leads annual confirmation rallies and a strong follow-up program, so that young people realize they are not just graduating from some educational course, but becoming active. integral members of their churches. The bishop hopes to point some toward full-time Christian service.

In a way, Felton May was cut out for Christian service since childhood. When he was baptized at age nine, his pastor asked him what he would do with his life for God. “What you’re doing,” young Felton replied. The Lord confirmed his call to ministry when Felton was 16, and in the following decade—which included college, a two-year Army stint, and seminary classes—the young man got to work closely with several fine ministers.

In 1963, Felton and Phyllis May launched the Maple Park UMC in a semi-suburban area of Chicago. He was pastor; she was director of religious education. Five years later they had a thriving ministry, but Felton was invited to Wilmington, Delaware, to work with the Methodist Action Program. “I had no intention of going, but the socioeconomic conditions there just broke my heart.” He was strongly advised against taking the job, but he felt God clearly leading him eastward.

May spent seven years in Wilmington, two as associate executive director of the Methodist Action Program and five as pastor of the Ezion-Mt. Carmel UMC. He had been active in the civil rights movement previously, but those years in Wilmington kindled a fire in his heart for social ministry that still burns.

Traditional People

In 1975 May became the first black district superintendent in Easton, Maryland. Later he directed the Council on Ministries of the Peninsula Conference. In 1984 he moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, following his election as a bishop.

The people in the Harrisburg area are a traditional sort, mostly farmers and blue-collar workers. The national economy has not been kind to them in recent years. Unemployment is high, and income is on the decline. Yet the people give generously to the church. Gerald Wagner points out that Central Pennsylvania is among the leading conferences nationwide in percentage of churches paying their apportionments in full. But for these people, that’s nothing special. It’s merely what’s expected. They follow through on their promises, even in hard times.

Bishop May carries that sense of responsibility into the church’s spiritual life as well. “We are the people of the Good News—we should behave like it. We must become models for the presence of Christ in the world. Everybody talks about it, but we have to put up or shut up. Either Christ is Lord, or He is not. If He is, then act like it.”

Evangelism rides high on Bishop May’s agenda. Harrisburg pastor Charles Shearer cites the bishop’s help in planning an evangelistic crusade in his area for next spring. “He’s very sympathetic to matters of evangelism and church growth,” Shearer says. May has set up a task force on evangelism to determine what specifically is hindering the proclamation of the Gospel by United Methodists and what can be done to promote it.

But mention the idea that evangelism and social ministry might be in conflict, and Bishop May will vehemently disagree. “The dichotomy between proclaiming the Good News and doing social action is demonic. I do what I do because I know that I am a child of God. I have no choice. I am compelled by the authority of the Holy Spirit to be in ministry in every way that I can. Make no mistake about it; our deeds of lovingkindness are done in the name of Christ.”

He recalls a story he heard as a boy of four or five in a Bible school in Chicago run by missionaries from Moody Bible Institute. It seems a missionary once gave a sweater to a shivering boy. But the boy still did not seem happy. The missionary asked, “Why are you still unhappy? Don’t you like the sweater?” The boy answered, “I don’t like the way you looked at me when you gave me the sweater.”

As a skilled teacher, Bishop May extracts a lesson from the story. “We need to be ministering not only in the giving, but also in the looking. We should be projecting the presence of Christ.”

This attitude gives May what one pastor calls a “broad perspective” on the issues of the church. He can enthusiastically affirm the social ministry agenda of the denomination while also emphasizing the need for evangelism. For him, it’s merely a matter of practicing what you preach, living out what you claim to believe. “All of the ‘isms’—ageism, racism, sexism—would be wiped out tomorrow, if we would only act like the people of God.”

Racism has touched the bishop personally. He has walked into churches to visit pastors and had custodians treat him rudely. He has had people walk out as he rose to preach. Even in the face of such mistreatment, he looks for “teachable moments,” when he can help someone grow closer to Christ. “The problem is that people do not really believe the Gospel story. If they did, they would not—they could not—be racist.”

What does Bishop May see as the major problem facing the United Methodist Church? “We’ve lost our will to be the people of God.” He’s back to his theme of doing and saying. People know how to obey God, but will they?

Still, Felton May is no nay-sayer. He rejoices in the spiritual depth of United Methodist leaders. “It has not been reported,” he says, “that when the bishops gather, we circle our chairs for prayer.” He applauds his colleagues for issuing the pastoral letter.” In Defense of Creation,” as well as the recent emphases from UM boards on making disciples and evangelizing communities. He advises critics to put away stereotypes. ” Begin to celebrate that we are in missions and ministry around the world. We must appropriate for ourselves the same mind as that of Christ Jesus.”

Randy Peterson is a free-lance writer from Westville, New Jersey.

 

 

A Call to Repentance

On Ash Wednesday of this year Bishop Felton May issued the following 10-point call to repentance. It is characteristic of his firm, yet compassionate style of leadership.

1. Being “an unconverted church trying to convert an unconverted world”
2. Failure to grieve over the loss of members and our failure to rejoice over those who join our church by profession of faith and transfer from other denominations
3. Failure to communicate the love of God to persons in need, without condoning their lifestyles
4. Pointing the finger of blame at the denomination or others, without pointing at ourselves
5. Failure to allow our daughters and sons to hear and answer the call of God to ministry
6. Failure to recruit new persons in mission to supplement those already at work under the General Board of Global Ministries
7. Being willing to cry for peace, justice and mercy without taking appropriate steps to be peacemakers, justice bearers and dispensers of mercy
8. Failure to eliminate racism and sexism from every part of society
9. Being silent while others cheapen life through pornography, violence, crime and even “disinformation” in government
10. My lack of faith in the power of Christ to overcome the evils of the world and my unwillingness to be an instrument for His ultimate victory