Archive: Blueprints for Renewal

Church leaders and ministry specialists make plans for church revitalization

Bishop Cannon

The first step the United Methodist Church must take if it is to renew its vitality and fulfill its historic (and I believe, providential) mission “to reform the nation and spread scriptural holiness over the land” is to reclaim its Wesleyan theological heritage. To take pride in being a pluralistic church, in which a person can believe anything and still be a United Methodist, is to revert to the latitudinarianism of the eighteenth century. This theological indifference almost wrecked the Church of England. John Wesley railed against it; the Wesleyan revival dissipated and in the end destroyed it. The theological pluralism that is rampant in our denomination today is a repudiation of the Gospel, a profane denial of our heritage and the obliteration of our identity and special place in the wide economy of God’s grace.

Our Wesleyan beliefs must become once again burning convictions. All of our people must be taught from the pulpit and in church school that sin is indigenous to human nature and that we cannot save ourselves. Yet even in sin we are not deprived entirely of divine grace, for God is omnipresent and his prevenient grace enables us to apperceive value, to know the difference between right and wrong and to be able to respond to God’s justifying grace in Christ when we hear it proclaimed.

We must teach that a person must be converted, that is, give control of his or her life to the controlling power of almighty God. Not only must we teach that Christ died for us, but also that the Holy Spirit lives in us. Once converted we have power through grace to resist sin and to live godly and righteous lives. We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and we seek Christian perfection, where the single motive of unselfish love dominates our whole life.

Concern for the welfare of others and the betterment of society for all God’s people is the necessary accompaniment of personal holiness, but it is by no means a substitute for it. Social concern will not get us into heaven. If we succeed in providing every person on the face of the earth with a job and means for material happiness, we still will hardly have begun the fulfillment of our mission as a church. That mission is to demonstrate the reality of the living God in our personal lives and thereby to commend our Savior to others. The perennial business of the church is to make sinners into saints.

The basic strategy of the church over the next 20 years is evangelism. By constant teaching and example we must strive to develop, with the grace of God, all our congregations into companies of righteous and godly persons. Then, and only then, can each person become an evangelist. Successful evangelism requires each lay person—as well as each minister—to seek to know, to help and to win every uncommitted person in his or her range of influence to Jesus Christ.

We must respect people of other faiths, work with them in common humanitarian causes and enter into serious dialogue with them. But we cannot afford to assume that it is presumptuous to recommend Christianity to people of other faiths and ideologies. If the apostles had made this assumption, Christianity would never have gotten started.

The only witness which we and the United Methodist Church can make and be faithful to the Gospel is: Jesus Christ, and He alone, is our Savior; and He can be your Savior as well. For God’s intention is for Him to be the Savior of the whole world. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, KJV).

Retired Bishop William R. Cannon is also a former dean of Candler School of Theology. A faculty member there for 24 years, his specialties were church history and Wesleyan theology. Bishop Cannon Is highly respected as a scholar among his peers.

Julian Goddard

A nervous young lady arose to share in a service, “You Methodists are so on fire! I have never seen or experienced anything like this in my denomination.”

A Baptist minister visiting a Methodist camp saw 250 out of 275 persons respond to an altar call for repentance, renewal and commitment. With amazement he reported, “Seldom, if ever, have I seen such hunger for God.”

Such experiences of spiritual renewal now taking place in evangelical United Methodist youth ministry are examples of United Methodist Youth Fellowships that are committed to evangelism, discipleship, caring outreach and leadership development.

I am personally acquainted with 50-75 evangelical UM youth ministries. In most of these groups conversions are the norm rather than the exception. One-to-one meetings and small group discipleship teams are encouraged. The young people are involved in dynamic outreach to their schools and community; consequently, the youth groups have grown. Through leadership development, these ministries have produced exceptional quality and effectiveness in the lives of their youth. I am convinced that these can well serve as a microcosm of what can happen to the greater church should discipleship-oriented youth ministry be given proper attention and support.

A new breed of Methodist youth with an experience of, and a passion for, vital worship, serious discipleship and world-changing outreach are filling both the pew and pulpit of the United Methodist Church. These youth are our surest hope for revival.

Thus, the pivotal question is, “What can we do to implement this kind of discipleship-oriented youth ministry in the United Methodist Church?” Allow me to make a few basic suggestions:

1. Catch the vision of just how plentiful and strategic the youth ministry harvest could be for the UM Church.

Realize that 589,687 youth presently attend UM Sunday schools. We have one-half million teens with whom to work, without going outside of the church.

2. Commit to take action.

Assess the state of youth ministry in your parish. How many youth are on the rolls? How many actually attend? What programs/activities are being offered to your teens? Who is in charge of youth ministry in your church? How much financial support is being provided? Create a support group of people in the church who are committed to youth ministry. Provide vital discipleship-oriented leadership. Adequately finance and strongly encourage your youth ministry leaders. Encourage them to attend training events.

Start with the youth you have. Discover and minister to their interests and needs by building relationships between adult leaders and youth.

Establish a program based on Biblical guidelines, the youth’s spiritual maturity and on your financial and personnel resources. Usually, this should include some “ports of entry” (Come Level) events, activities aimed at drawing youth to your church and presenting the Gospel in a winsome manner. Couple these with events dedicated to nurturing Christian growth and teaching the great principles of God’s Word that are relevant to the youth culture (Grow Level).

Initiate one-on-one and small group discipleship (Disciple Level).

Train young, but established, disciples to discover and develop their gifts, graces and abilities for Christian service (Leadership Development Level).

3. Help release the ties that bind youth ministry in your church. The laity and clergy tend to view the youth minister as a probationer on his way to becoming a “real” minister and to view youth ministry as a second-class stepping-stone. This can be corrected by helping our local churches to see youth ministry as vital and necessary to a healthy, growing church, and by involving youth in worship, visitation and teaching. This will help the congregation realize that youth ministry is not only an investment in the future, but a sound investment in new energy and vitality for the present church.

Julian Goddard, youth minister at Wilmore, Kentucky, United Methodist Church, has been Involved In youth ministry for nearly 15 years. Now in graduate studies at Albury Theological seminary, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Oral Roberts University.

June Goldman

In my years of involvement on the general church level, I have seen some breakthroughs within our United Methodist Church. Yet I am concerned that the very point upon which we have prided ourselves—pluralism—could also become the thing that destroys us. We have become too all-embracing; we seem to have gone through a phase in which we require little of anybody.

In the years ahead we need to find ways in which the church once again becomes very exciting—not only in our social involvement and social disciplines, but also in our spiritual disciplines. I don’t think spiritual emphasis or social action is an either-or situation for the church; it is something that can be resolved. Yet we have fallen into the pitfall of defining liberals as those who have a deep commitment to social action and conservatives as those who are concerned only with the spiritual. That is a false premise. When we establish such sharp delineations, we fool ourselves into thinking differences divide us.

So one strategy for renewal within our church may be to more boldly address the need for healing between the so-called liberals and the so-called conservatives. There are so many points at which our beliefs and attitudes intersect. We need to celebrate those points and then dialogue lovingly on those about which we disagree. If we cannot do this within the church, what hope have we of resolving differences in international and political arenas?

Practically speaking, I feel very strongly that we need to establish what I call the ministry of converging paths. In other words, on the local and district levels we should arrange for persons who consider themselves liberal, persons who consider themselves conservative and persons who consider themselves middle-of-the-road to talk honestly and openly with one another. I think we would find that we have far more in common than we thought. Such dialogue is essential for renewal to come to our church.

I propose that healing might come to our church by looking more positively at the rift created by the negative aspect of pluralism. Inclusiveness demands little from anyone. Furthermore, our society has encouraged us to slough off any sense of guilt. We keep passing the buck—on the national church level, the local church level and in every arena of our lives, whether secular or religious.

“How can we present the Gospel to people who increasingly fail to acknowledge their guilt?” was a question Dr. Albert Outler raised in his lectures at Southern Methodist University in 1974. Within our church we seem to be trying to embrace as many persons as possible and offend as few as possible.

Steve Harper, professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, has written a paper entitled “Gospel for the Guiltless,” which, in my opinion, is right on target. “Accommodationism,” he writes, “will not accomplish our goals. A gospel for the guiltless challenges the church and its leaders to communicate God’s revelations which can lead people out of their particular Egypt—by whatever name—into the Promised Land. A gospel for the guiltless will accept people where they are, and communicate to people where they are, but it will not leave them where they are. ” As a church we must be less timid about challenging.

I am hopeful about the renewal of our United Methodist Church. If we are led by the love of God and the spirit of Christ, we can’t even despair that the situation in our United Methodist Church is hopeless. The heart of the Gospel is a message of hope. We would be reneging on our faith if we gave into the temptation to say “What’s the use?”

An Iowa layperson, June Goldman has been a delegate to the last three General Conferences, served on the General Board of Church and Society and held jurisdictional office. She also served on the Commission on Religion and Race.

Dennis M. Campbell

The future of the United Methodist Church will depend on theological renewal. Methodism is not a tradition in which theology has received front-burner attention. The Anglican Church provided, through its articles, creeds and liturgy, the theological and ecclesiastical foundation for the British Methodist evangelical revival of the 18th century. American Methodism lacked the Anglican context and emphasized preaching and evangelism. It assumed evangelical theology but, in the 19th century, abandoned other aspects of Wesleyan theology, especially regarding the nature and purpose of the church. This led to a decline in the place of the sacraments and a lack of concern for doctrinal articulation.

The absence of a doctrinal tradition allowed 20th century Methodism to become characterized by “theological pluralism.” The positive aspects were that Methodism became open, inclusive and free. On the negative side we developed a stance of “anything goes” because we didn’t have the internal theological resources to make judgments. We lacked consensus about whether there is any limit to diversity within the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition.

The results of this can be seen in several examples. First, when hard questions of theological substance arise, we do not have the intellectual resources to deal with them, so we turn them into political questions. An illustration is the debate about inclusive language and the doctrine of the Trinity. When questions of sexism are raised about the names of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), the terms of the debate turn to issues of “discrimination,” “rights,” “justice” or “fairness” instead of theology.

Often we resort to pluralism, suggesting that “personal preference” and “human sensitivities” should be respected. Discussion of the basic theological and philosophical issues concerning the way the church talks about God and whether there is such a thing as Christian truth, get lost. We lack the tools of theological debate and have no consensus about our theological tradition which allows us to make judgments.

Second, the conception of ordained ministry as a teaching office is lost. United Methodist pastors, for the most part, have absorbed the social and intellectual climate of modern American liberalism. We do not view ourselves as the embodiment of Christian teachings as articulated in the Wesleyan Methodism. Individualism dominates the ministry. The connectionalism of Methodism stands for episcopal appointment, itinerancy, local church financial obligation and general church decision making. But worship, preaching and teaching is left to the individual pastor and church. Curiously, our polity of connectionalism cares for everything except theological teaching.

Renewal of Methodism will depend on learning that the major reason for an ordained ministry is the continuity of Christian teaching through Word, sacrament and order. Theological students must realize their responsibility to teach not their own ideas and opinions, but the message of the church.

Third, we lack the capacity to think theologically about our polity. We need to evaluate our procedures for surfacing leadership, particularly episcopal leadership. We must ask hard questions about our institutional machinery and understand that such matters are, finally, theological.

Most of all, theological renewal will involve clarity about our mission. Early Methodism believed that it had a clear purpose in this world. This clarity motivated men and women because they were convinced that the ministry of the church had ultimate significance. It does; we need to understand that and proclaim it.

Dennis M. Campbell la Dean of the Divinity School and Professor of Theology at Duke University. An elder In the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, Dr. Campbell was educated at Duke and Yale Universities.