by Steve | Sep 27, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Liza Kittle
At the 2012 General Conference, the Women’s Division (the leadership organization of United Methodist Women) will petition the worldwide church to become their own separate general agency called United Methodist Women, Inc. If this action is passed, the impact on women and women’s ministry in the UM Church may be dramatic.
Currently under the mantle of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM), the Women’s Division has operated somewhat autonomously throughout its history. They have raised and managed their own monies, set their own policies and procedures, and virtually monopolized women’s ministry options for women within the church.
While becoming a separate agency will prove beneficial to GBGM, which has experienced oppressive control by the Division for many years, its effect on evangelical women seeking other forms of women’s ministry cannot be ascertained.
United Methodist Women is the only officially recognized women’s ministry within the church. For nearly 40 years, membership has declined from 1.35 million in 1974 to the present level of less than 600,000 members. This number represents less that 15 percent of the total women in the UM Church. Attempts for official acceptance of other women’s ministries at General Conference have repeatedly failed due to intense lobbying by the Women’s Division.
Even in the midst of the church’s new focus on building vital congregations, offering choices for women continues to be resisted by the Women’s Division. It is a frustrating dynamic, especially considering the ideals of diversity and inclusiveness that are so valued by the denomination, and the fact that UMW is reaching a very small audience of women.
Regardless of the organizational changes that the Women’s Division is pursuing, their theology remains the same. Their emphasis has been on changing the world social order, rather than promoting the personal healing and transformation that can be experienced through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The spiritual teachings will undoubtedly remain based on feminist, womanist, and mujerista theologies. The social justice agenda will remain politically partisan, embracing a liberal, progressive worldview.
How do we know this is the case? We know this through the track record of the Women’s Division, including: the resources produced, the Bible studies offered, the activism undertaken, and the speakers invited to United Methodist Women events.
At the recent 2011 National Seminar held in Birmingham, Alabama, in August, the featured Bible study teacher was Dr. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz. She is one of the leading advocates of mujerista theology, an offshoot of feminist theology that emphasizes the liberation of Latina women under male-dominated power structures and injustice.
Central to the concepts of mujerista theology is what Dr. Isasi-Diaz calls “the kin-dom of God.” She replaces the biblical references of “the kingdom of God” with this new phrase, explaining that she rejects the word kingdom for two reasons. “First, it is obviously a sexist word that presumes that God is male. Second, the concept of kingdom in our world today is both hierarchal and elitist.” She prefers the word “kin-dom” because it “makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers—kin to each other.”
The concept of “kin-dom” of God is evidently supported by Women’s Division leaders, as Deputy General Secretary Harriet Olsen used the terminology in her closing address at the 12th Assembly of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women held in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 15, 2011.
Redefining key biblical terms is a common practice of feminist theologians. Dr. Isasi-Diaz rejects the biblical meaning of “repentance” as a turning away from sin towards holiness. She explained that “it is not a matter of regret, guilt, and shame…because to demand admission of guilt and repentance before forgiveness may well throw us into a cycle of death and violence.” She said that “the Christ” had two goals:”radical inclusivity and upsetting hierarchies.” She is thankful that feminism “carried out the social gospel Great Commission and helped revert power to the community.”
Is this the theological foundation women within the UM Church are looking for? Is this the avenue of deliverance for lost and hurting women? Is developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ no longer in the language of the Women’s Division? Unfortunately, evangelical and conservative women within the UM Church have virtually no official outlet for pursing other women’s ministry options.
According to a new Barna study, The State of the Church 2011, “no population group among the sixty segments examined has gone through more spiritual changes in the past two decades than women.”
Church attendance by women has dropped by 11 percentage points, down to 44 percent. Weekly Bible reading has plummeted by 10 points down to 40 percent. Women’s involvement in volunteer church activities has fallen 9 points and Sunday school attendance has fallen 7 points.
The only religious behavior that increased among women in the last 20 years was becoming unchurched—that rose a startling 17 percentage points.
Women still define most of the family traditions; thus, a drop in church attendance by women means a drop in attendance by men and children as well. This significant change must be addressed by our churches. Reaching women means reaching families for Jesus Christ. Reaching women is one essential key to church vitality.
There is now, more than ever, a need for alternative, Biblically-based women’s ministries within the United Methodist Church to reach this declining demographic. This is a need Renew and other women’s ministries stand ready to help meet. The time has come…thy Kingdom come
Liza Kittle is President of the Renew Network (www.renew-network.org), P.O. Box 16055, Augusta, GA 30919; telephone: 706-364-0166.
by Steve | Sep 27, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Rob Renfroe
I spent the first ten days of August in India, landing in Delhi, spending a day seeing the Taj Mahal, and then seeing what God is doing in the cities of Hyderabad (4 million residents) and Patna (6 million residents in India’s poorest state of Bihar).
It would take a lifetime to describe the history, the religions, and the culture of India. Most apparent are the overcrowding and the poverty. Wherever you go, you see people. And you see poor people. Some selling rice or lentils, hoping to make enough money that day to feed their family. Others sleeping on the streets—some with blankets, others without. And still others, begging—mothers, children, men who are crippled or blind.
Ten days in a country of 1.2 billion people doesn’t make me an expert. But this I know for sure. Jesus is the hope of India.
Sometimes, liberal Christians who pride themselves on being open-minded, will say that all of the world’s great religions are pretty much the same—just different paths to the same God that teach pretty much the same truths. Those who say that have most likely taken a comparative religion course. But I’m pretty sure they haven’t been to India where the culture has been fashioned by, and is today permeated by, Hinduism.
More than one of our Hindu guides told us proudly “we have 330 million gods.” Read that again. 330 million gods. Looking into a Hindu temple was heart-wrenching. Mothers were there with their children, kneeling before idols with their offerings. One popular god is Ganesh, “the elephant god” who brings good fortune. His image bears a human body and an elephant’s head. Others knelt and worshipped Hanuman, the monkey god—again with a human-like body but the face of an ape. Our guides were particularly devoted to the one they called “the monkey god” because he brings wealth and prestige.
One night we met in a house church in a slum outside of Patna. Seventy believers were crowded into the house of a man who had been converted from Hinduism. It was difficult to worship that evening because nearby a loud and lively Hindu service was being conducted. The service was devoted to a fertility deity—and the idol receiving worship was sexually provocative and obscene. This is what you see in India.
But there’s more. The caste system is still very much alive. From the time of their birth children are told who they are and that they should never strive to be more. One caste is known as “the rag pickers.” They will subsist all their lives picking up discarded rags and then selling them to whomever may want to purchase them. Why is this their lot? Why should they aspire to nothing more? Because Hinduism tells them that in a previous life their deeds merited such an existence in this life.
In India, I couldn’t help but think about Jesus over and over. He picked common people, like fishermen and tax collectors, to be his disciples and to carry on his work when he was gone. The outcasts of first century Judaism—the lepers, and the blind, and the lame—Jesus never told them they deserved their lot. He told them about a God who loved them. And he did the unthinkable. He touched them. And he healed them. And he called them to be his disciples and his friends.
Jesus loves Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. At the same time, let’s be clear that not all religions are the same. We can respect all people but we cannot accept all belief systems. We cannot call darkness light. And a religion that has people bow before idols and tells the lowest of society that they deserve to be crippled and blind and to be nothing more than rag pickers for the rest of their lives—that kind of religious oppression is darkness. And it breaks my heart to think that people live in that kind of hopelessness and despair.
Wherever faithful people have made Jesus known, societies and cultures have been raised and bettered. Hospitals have been built. Schools have been started. The hungry have been fed. And that is exactly what we see in India.
Christians make up 3-5 percent of the population, but their influence is unmistakable. We saw children who once lived on the streets, now living in a Christian orphanage. It’s hard to describe the beauty of these children. We were their honored guests and they joyously sang and danced for us. They quoted long passages of Scripture. Their eyes are alive and their clothes are clean. That’s Jesus, the hope of the world.
We visited a school created by Christians. Many of the children who attend come from huts made out of grass in nearby fields. Their parents make $3 a day. But the children we spoke to dream of being engineers and doctors and nurses. And the work in their school notebooks—the mathematical formulas, the physics theorems, the literature notes in two languages—spoke volumes. These children will not be condemned to huts and field labor. Their gifts will be used and their lives will be full. That’s Jesus, the hope of the world.
And then there were the malnourished children still living in the poorest of conditions. But every morning, a young man gets up at 3 a.m. to make 18 quarts of soy milk for them. And when he’s done, he puts the pail on the back of his bicycle and he pedals 12 miles to give them what may be the only nourishment they receive for the day. And he tells them about a God who loves them. And he does all of this because he’s a follower of Jesus. And Jesus, he puts such things in the hearts of his followers, because he is the hope of the world.
Rob Renfroe is the President and Publisher of Good News.
by Steve | Sep 27, 2011 | Magazine Articles
In order to keep the lines of communication open between evangelical renewal groups and the Council of Bishops, a gathering of representatives from both entities will take place in Chicago on October 21, 2011. This is a follow-up meeting to one that took place two years ago.
In November 2009, leaders of the renewal groups within the UM Church met with the Bishops’ Unity Task Force to share their concerns about the unity of the church and how the Church can move forward in mission together. The same task force of Bishops had previously met with a group representing the Reconciling Movement and the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA).
The evangelical leaders spoke with the Bishops about (1) the theological differences that divide the church; (2) events at General Conference that have caused concern; and (3) activities and decisions outside of General Conference by United Methodist leaders that have created divisions rather than unity.
Good News President Rob Renfroe and Vice President Tom Lambrecht attended the original meeting in 2009 and both will be present for the October meeting in Chicago.
We believe that the Council of Bishops should be fully aware of the concerns of grassroots United Methodists. That is why we have created a blog that allows lay and clergy to express their hopes, beliefs, and concerns about the future of the UM Church. That future is threatened by bishops who are speaking out against the time-honored, Biblical position of our church on marriage and sexuality, by annual conferences that are encouraging the violation of our Book of Discipline, and by clergy who are promising to disobey the covenant that they had sworn to uphold.
The soul of the United Methodist Church is at stake. In this time of crisis for our church, we are having to decide whether to remain true to Scripture and the 3,000-year-old moral teachings of our faith, or cave in to a culture bent on excluding God from the public arena and making up its own standards of moral behavior.
We hope that you will utilize this site to tell us what you would like us to tell the Bishops. To participate, you can go to www.speaktothebishops.wordpress.com and add your voice. The Revs. Renfroe and Lambrecht will read your comments carefully and prayerfully consider them in formulating their conversation with the Unity Task Force in October.
by Steve | Sep 27, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Diane West
When I was informed that Jimmy Creech had recently released a book of his “memoirs,” Adam’s Gift, I thought about whether or not I wanted to read it. I was raised in First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and my family and I were very much involved in the situation that transpired there over a decade ago when Creech was appointed to the church as its pastor and was eventually put on trial for conducting a high-profile homosexual union ceremony. This storyline is one of the major topics in the book. Even though it was not really something upon which I wanted to spend my time, I concluded that I should reflect on his book in light of my firsthand experience.
The story told by Jimmy Creech in his book is about his journey over the past several decades. He begins with a story about “Adam,” a gay man who comes into his office crying one day in 1984 over the news that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church had just passed a new policy to prevent “self-avowing practicing homosexuals” from being ordained and appointed (pg.1). From this point forward, Creech recounts stories of his own “sexual awakening,” which are surprisingly graphic to the point of being unnecessary, proceeds to try to discredit each reference in the Bible referring to homosexual behavior, talks about how he basically changed his mindset regarding homosexuality, and describes how he acted on his new beliefs in his various ministerial appointments.
By the time I reached the end of the book, the text struck me as a rather desperate attempt to use emotion and sloppy “facts” to persuade the reader to empathize with the writer and his cause and to be emotionally obligated to adopt his point-of-view. There is also, of course, a recurrent theme of attempting to marginalize and trivialize the mindset of those who disagree with him, as though they are the ones whose convictions are violating the intent of God laid out in the Bible and the order of the church as determined in The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church. For example, Creech refers to the Confessing Movement as, “part of the global emergence of militant religious fundamentalism that seeks to hold onto archaic cultural structures of power” (pg. 108). He cannot seem to get past the fact that “lack of understanding” on the part of those who disagree with him is not the reason for their disagreement.
I kept waiting to see a redemptive story appear in Creech’s book, but it simply never did. A few passages sadly stood out. Creech says, “Although my mother and father were devout, they were not rigid in their beliefs. They taught me that our way isn’t God’s only way, but that there are a variety of people and religions in the world, all deserving as much respect as our own” (pg. 5). He also refers to “…the spirit of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, who gave priority to piety over dogma and doctrine, and to social responsibility over purity and personal salvation” (pg. 13).
When referring to his ordination in the United Methodist Church, Creech says, “My application was not approved without controversy and resistance. Interestingly, this was not because of my theology. No one on the Board of Ordained Ministry seemed troubled by that, although I was told there was ‘too much horizontal and not much vertical’ in my understanding of God and the church. What caused the board difficulty was the length of my hair” (pg. 24). Also catching my eye was a comment made by Creech about a meeting with a parishioner from First United Methodist Church in Omaha “the day after Easter, which marks the mythic victory of God’s new order of life and freedom over the old order of oppression and death” (pg. 108, emphasis mine).
Days of my time could be spent addressing and correcting the many statements in this book attributed to my family and friends, as well as the situations described. There is a lot of selective memory, the taking of words and circumstances out of context, and flat-out embellishment, all while hiding behind the façade of “love.” It simply isn’t worth my time to sort through all of that, and I will not.
I’m surprised that a publishing company associated with a reputable university would publish a book where there are so many errors and assumptions. For example, Creech clearly doesn’t even know the people he wants to misrepresent well enough to refer to them by their correct names, and regardless of what he so righteously assumes, he doesn’t have a clue about their family relationships, their history of involvement in the church prior to his arrival, or the status of the family and friendly relationships with those who would call themselves homosexual. He is more interested in labeling them and trying to make them look like the minority, the “fringe,” and “subversive.” His many assumptions, “facts,” and recollections are sloppy, at best.
So, you may be asking, what prompted me to write about Creech’s book. To begin with, I think it is important for me to say that the ordeal that transpired at First United Methodist Church in Omaha upon Jimmy Creech’s appointment had a profound impact on my life. It changed me in wonderful ways of which I never could have fathomed.
Through this experience, my understanding of who Jesus is, as my Savior, was finally revealed to me. I had searched for this answer for quite some time, but the answers were not to be found in the social gospel to which I was exposed.
Through my searching of the Bible, discussions with Christians, and visits to biblically-sound churches during the turmoil my church was experiencing, I finally was able to see that Jesus was more than a “story” and a cultural preference. He became my living Savior, and the only One whose opinion really mattered. I developed a real, vital relationship with him that changed everything. Before, I knew “of” him. Now, I knew him.
I did not need to read this book for closure of any old, gaping wounds or to answer any questions I had about my own faith or point-of-view. My closure came a long time ago in the person of Jesus Christ, who brought me, and many of us who lived this experience, into a new life of salvation, deeper faith, and fellowship.
However, the fact that a book such as this was even written, and that the legitimate parts of the stories told about within it even transpired, is deeply troubling for the United Methodist Church.
Social justice is, without a doubt, very important. At the same time, it needs to be taken in context and with the entirety of what God has revealed in the Bible about sin, salvation, and redemption at heart. It seems as though, however, that a particular version of “social justice” has been allowed to consume the theology of many within the United Methodist Church.
There is some type of mental block for Creech and his supporters when it comes to understanding people who believe in the United Methodist stance on human sexuality, marriage, and homosexuality. We are not unenlightened, uneducated, or uncaring just because we do not agree with Jimmy Creech or his view of “social justice.” We are not bigoted, homophobic, abusive, or afraid of the “truth.” These types of statements and characterizations only show the desperation of those who want so badly to convince others to agree with them, that they will resort to personal insults and labels to do so.
While it is unfortunately true that there are many instances where people of the church have not treated each person’s need for redemption with the appropriate grace and sensitivity it deserves, that does not change God’s perspective on sin and redemption, and it takes nothing away from the work He can do in transforming lives.
Let me be clear. I do not write out of “love” for the United Methodist Church or for any particular denomination. Instead, I am motivated out of a deep concern for what has transpired and what continues to fester within one of the denominations in which God is still choosing to reach people whom He can call His own.
I have not been keeping an account over the past decade of names, what was said, or what was done to me, to my family, or to others I know. Frankly, I don’t care about that. I never did. It was far more important to the “opposition,” as Creech calls those from First United Methodist Church in Omaha who broke away during the ordeal that occurred there, to move forward and work positively for God and to be a part of where He is working to bring souls to salvation through Jesus Christ. That is our passion and our calling.
Living Faith United Methodist Church, which was born out of this struggle, has been richly blessed. My story of finding Jesus as the Savior is only one of many. Through this experience, some found their real faith for the first time, some renewed their faith, and others realized their need to contend for their faith. Our relationship with Jesus is more than just an hour spent on Sunday morning, as we strive to live up to the name we chose for our church.
We will gauge our success by how well we are planting the seeds for God to water and grow, not on how many members we have on our membership rolls. How can we force people to listen to God? All we can do is be faithful and provide the tools to allow that to happen.
Relevant Sunday school classes for all ages, Bible study groups, a fantastic VBS program written in-house that had every inch of our building bursting at the seams, are all signs of the vibrant life that the living Savior can bring to a church. As it says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
The United Methodist Church seems to be missing the point that a narrow version of the “gospel of social justice” alone isn’t working. It doesn’t have the power to change lives or conquer sin.
If the focus was on the Gospel of salvation, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and it was put back at the heart of the United Methodist Church, wouldn’t more lives be changed? Is it not a red flag that the United Methodist Church bleeds members like an open wound? A watered-down gospel has sold more than a few souls down the river. Members will continue to be lost as they wisely look for the message that can transform their lives elsewhere.
Other than its sloppy portrayal of many of the events that transpired and comments that were made in regard to the events involving the ordeal at First United Methodist Church in Omaha, there were no surprises in Creech’s book for me. Instead, I was reminded once again of how important and absolutely imperative it is for the United Methodist Church to turn its eyes back upon the Jesus of the Bible, who can speak nothing but the truth. That truth will redeem the souls of all who are willing to hear and follow him and should never be watered-down, distorted, or silenced!
Diane West lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband and two sons. She is a member of Living Faith United Methodist Church and is passionate about seeing Christ impact the lives of those within the United Methodist Church.
by Steve | Sep 27, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Jason Vickers
In 1963 E. R. Dodds, poet and personal friend of T. S. Eliot, as well as the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, gave a brilliant series of lectures at Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland. In his lectures, Dodds described the world of early Christianity as “an age of anxiety.” He depicted an age brimming with visions and dreams, as well as with asceticism and possession. In other words, the age of anxiety was also an age of prophecy.
But there was another side to Dodds’ account of early Christian history. If the age of anxiety gave rise to prophets and prophecy, then it also helped to create a drive for orthodoxy and order. Christians “were split into many warring sects, which had little or nothing in common save the name of Christian.” There was “as yet no authoritative Christian creed nor any fixed canon of Christian scripture.” Beginning in the third century, however, Christians became increasingly determined to mark off orthodoxy from heresy and to establish rules for ordering both their worship and their lives. Thus the age of anxiety was also an age of structure.
What was most compelling about Dodds’ account of early Christianity was the subtle way in which he kept the prophetic and the priestly structure in constant tension with one another. For example, Dodds told his audience of a second-century prophetess known by Tertullian to converse “with angels and sometimes even with the Lord,” and of children known by Cyprian to have “visions and auditions sent by the Holy Spirit, not only in sleep but in waking states of ekstasis.” But he also reminded them that the Holy Spirit whispered to Ignatius, “Do nothing without the Bishop.”
The Western church is presently immersed in yet another age of anxiety. It is characterized by pessimism and despair over the current state of the church and by uncertainty and fear about the church’s future.
However, our current situation is also like previous ages of anxiety in that it is teeming with prophetic figures who are promoting visions and dreams for the church and who are often critical of the church’s leadership. Not surprisingly, these prophetic figures, like their predecessors in ages past, frequently find themselves the target of criticism by “church dignitaries.” In other words, we are once again experiencing the tension between the prophetic and the priestly, or between prophecy and structure.
The primary problem that we face is one that arises anytime the church experiences a tension between prophecy and structure, namely, how to discern the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. As it turns out, this problem is two-sided. On the one side, there is a problem of discernment with respect to prophecy. Not everyone who claims to have a vision from God is a prophet. Like ancient Israel before it, the church has known its fair share of false prophets. At the same time, we would be wise to follow Irenaeus’ advice not to ban prophecy altogether simply because we have seen a false prophet or two.
On the other side, there is a problem of discernment with regard to the church’s structures. During times of extreme pessimism, uncertainty and fear, many people are tempted (partly by the influence and charisma of prophets) to set Spirit and structure wholly against one another. Yet it is far from clear that the Spirit is opposed to structure. On the contrary, we can make a good case that the church’s structures are themselves gifts of the Spirit to be received and cherished as means of grace through which we come to know and to love God.
To be sure, not everything that passes for structure is a gift for all seasons. Some charismata are clearly temporary in that the Spirit appears to have given them for a particular place and time in the life of the church. But other gifts, such as the sacraments, would seem to have a more enduring, even permanent place in the life of the church. In an age in which some are intimating that the Spirit may have withdrawn from certain ecclesial structures, we clearly need to develop an angle of vision from which we can work to identify the presence and work of the Spirit in and through the church’s structures.
The Present Age of Anxiety
Over the relatively short period of fifty years, a series of events has catapulted the Western church from the confident and at times exuberant optimism of the ecumenical movement in the 1960s to a deep and unsettling anxiety that began in the 1980s and that continues to the present day. Clergy, theologians, and other church leaders are clearly troubled about the current state and future of the church.
A quick survey of recent theological literature on the church confirms the diagnosis that we are living in an age of anxiety. For example, one prominent theologian recently declared that we are living in the ruins of the church. Another has announced the end of the church. And yet another has suggested that we are already living in a new dark age.
There are no fewer than eight developments that are fueling their anxiety.
1. Over the last fifty years, we have witnessed a steep decline in worship attendance and church membership in the West. Report after report has shown that local congregations and entire denominations in North America and western Europe are now in a statistical tailspin.
2. Over the last few decades, we have witnessed countless public scandals involving high-profile leaders.
3. Far from realizing the dreams of the ecumenical movement in the 1960s, we have witnessed numerous acrimonious disputes within denominations, some of which have resulted in church splits.
4. We have wrestled for several decades with the prospects of secularization. We have told ourselves repeatedly that the culture is increasingly secular, that there is a bias against religion in general and against Christianity in particular, and that Christendom is dead.
5. We have struggled with the extent to which Western culture now seems to revolve more around entertainment and recreation than religion. On this analysis, the problem is not that people are hardened atheists or secularists. They are simply finding it difficult consistently to make time for the church amidst their other commitments, including watching their favorite television shows, taking their kids to Sunday soccer leagues, attending professional sporting events, going to the movies, and a host of other weekend pleasures.
6. While we are worrying about secularization and the obsession with entertainment and recreation, we are also increasingly aware of the influence of other world religions in the West via globalization. We routinely hear that the church is losing “market share” to Islam, Zen Buddhism, and even to new religions. To complicate matters, we know that inclusivism and tolerance are now among the highest values in Western culture.
7. We are reluctantly beginning to acknowledge that the professionalization of the ministry has both assets and liabilities. After more than a century of commitment to higher theological education and to rigorous credentialing processes for clergy, we now see that we may have unwittingly discouraged the laity from active participation in the work of ministry.
8. Ironically enough, at the same time that the drive to professionalize the ministry was mandating that clergy become highly educated, religious literacy among the general population was plummeting. Studies have shown that, over the last fifty years, fewer and fewer people can name the four Gospels, not to mention the rest of the books of Scripture.
We could easily think of more reasons to be anxious about the current state and future of the church in the postmodern West. For example, we might add to the list the transformation of theology from a practical discipline intimately related to the sacramental life of the church to a speculative and scientific discipline struggling to meet the demands of the so-called “hard sciences” in the modern university. However, we have done enough to secure the point that we are living in an age of great anxiety. We must now turn our attention to a response.
The goal of church renewal
Most of us think about and advocate for church renewal because we are concerned about numeric decline in the worship attendance and church membership of our local congregations and denominations. This is perfectly understandable. Numeric decline is a real and growing concern. It is not primarily a matter of poor marketing. On the contrary, numeric decline suggests that we are not doing a good job with evangelism, catechesis, and discipleship. So we are in no way suggesting that we should simply ignore numeric decline.
The problem here has to do with nearsightedness. We see problems directly in front of us, but we rarely look further down the road. We do not take the time to think about what we really desire for the church over the long haul. We succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, doing whatever it takes to stave off further decline and, if possible, to increase worship attendance and church membership. In most cases, the formula for growth is simple enough. We freshen up our worship, we emphasize hospitality to the unchurched, and we work hard to create a warm and friendly environment.
Let us be clear. Clergy and laity should be worried about worship attendance and church membership. However, we need to address an even deeper issue. We need to put as much time and energy into thinking about why people should come to church as we do into thinking about how to get them to come. In other words, we need to think carefully about what the church actually has to offer people who come to worship or who become members. If we are not clear about why people will be better off for the trouble of getting out of bed on Sunday morning, then we may succeed in boosting attendance for a season, but we will fall short of the long-haul renewal that we so desperately need and desire.
In the postmodern West, people want to know more than how big the church is. They want to know whether the church has anything of substance to offer. They want to know whether the Christian God is impotent or indifferent. They want to know whether Christians are truly different; whether we are the called-out ones, sanctified and made perfect in love for God and ministry to one another and to the world. They want to know whether the church is a place of spiritual stagnation or genuine spiritual growth.
Aiming toward Perfect Ministry and Perfect Love
To speak of “perfect ministry” and “perfect love” as the goal of church renewal will no doubt strike some as hopelessly optimistic and unrealistic. We must be very careful to say that by perfect ministry and perfect love we do not mean that the church should advertise herself as a sinless or flawless community. Rather, perfect ministry and perfect love is the goal toward which the church strains. Indispensable to this straining is the ongoing work of mutual confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Indeed, the church will be about the business of perfect ministry and perfect love only when she becomes the kind of place where people feel free to tell the truth about themselves. Far from a sign of imperfection, humble repentance and forgiveness is a crucial part of perfect ministry and perfect love made possible by the presence and work of the Holy Spirit among the people of God.
Having said these things, what ought to set the church apart from the wider culture in which it is situated is a robust sense that we are not doomed perpetually to repeat our sins. We are not doomed perpetually to violate ourselves and those around us. We are not doomed to self-hatred or pride, to manipulation or victimhood. We are not doomed to selfishness, to greed, or to lust. We are not doomed to racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. Thus while the church must provide time and space for humble repentance and for forgiveness, she must also make clear that she possesses powerful medicine by which we can be delivered from our violence and insanity, from our hostilities and insecurities, and from all forms of idolatry. So equipped, what we ought to desire in our efforts to renew the church is nothing less than the sanctification and perfecting of the people of God.
The perfecting of the church in ministry and love is not an abstract idea without shape or content. On the contrary, perfect ministry and perfect love are concrete in their manifestation. The Spirit sanctifies and perfects the church in and through the means of grace which the Spirit so generously makes available. Through the means of grace, including prayer, repentance, confession, fasting, worship, reading the Scriptures, the sacraments, and the like, the Holy Spirit creates divine graces in the people of God that they would not otherwise enjoy and for which they would not otherwise have a capacity.
While the church has described the divine graces that the Holy Spirit creates in her members in a variety of ways across the centuries, three ways of talking about them are especially worth mentioning. In and through the sacramental life of the church, the Holy Spirit forms in the church’s members three things: the mind of Christ, the theological virtues, and the fruits of the Spirit.
Through the formation of the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit enables the church’s members to exhibit the attitudes and dispositions of a servant in their relationships to God, to one another, and to the world (Philippians 2). Rather than clinging to their lives, the church’s members are enabled by the Holy Spirit to give their lives away freely for the sake of others.
Through the formation of the theological virtues, the Holy Spirit enables the church’s members to exhibit faith, hope, and love in good times and bad (1 Corinthians 13). Instead of turning to cynicism and despair or to a politics of revenge, the Holy Spirit enables the church’s members to remain faithful unto death, to give the hopeless reason to hope, and to embody a politics of loving kindness toward friends and enemies alike.
In bringing about the fruits of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit enables the church’s members truly to display love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, and self-control toward one another and toward the world (Galatians 5).
When the mind of Christ, the theological virtues, and the fruits of the Spirit are manifest in the life of the church, people cannot help noticing. After all, life in the postmodern West is anything but loving and peaceful.
The truth is that we do not need more demographic or generational studies to figure out what people are looking for. In the midst of workplaces full of resentment and hostility, people are searching for love. Surrounded by anxiety and depression, people are looking for joy. Amid the violence and insanity of city streets and war-torn countries, people are searching high and low for peace. Faced with spouses and co-workers who lose their tempers at a moment’s notice, people are looking for self-control. Amid rampant road rage, people are in desperate need of patience. Against the backdrop that is the harshness and cruelty of the evening news, people will inevitably be drawn to churches that exhibit gentleness and kindness in every aspect of their lives. Over against the gospel of pervasive pessimism about human nature and human communities, people will be drawn to churches that proclaim and embody a gospel of transformation and holiness.
Conceived along these lines, the real question for the church is not whether we can get people to come to church in the first place. The real question is whether, upon coming, they will find compelling reasons to return time and time again.
People will not be drawn to and held captive by the church simply because it carefully preserves and maintains its long-standing structures. Nor will they be drawn to and held captive by the church simply because it is part of a prophetic movement aimed at renewal or reform. Rather, people will ultimately be drawn to and held captive by the church when they discover in the church something they cannot readily get anywhere else, namely, a community that embodies in readily discernible ways the mind of Christ, the theological virtues, and the fruits of the Spirit. In other words, they will be drawn to and held captive by those churches that bear the marks of incorporation into the Trinitarian life of God. Short of this, people may come to the church for a season, but they will ultimately look elsewhere for their salvation.
Adjusting strategies
If I am right about the changing sensibilities in the wider culture of the postmodern West, then we need to stop and ask ourselves whether it is time to adjust our strategies for reaching the culture around us. We need to ask ourselves whether first-time inquirers want to hear arguments in defense of the existence of God or self-flagellating apologies about the church’s complicity in social and structural evil. This is not to say that there is not a time and a place for such things. It is simply to suggest that visitors may now be looking for something more basic and fundamental, namely, to hear what the Holy Trinity is like and to see what difference the Holy Trinity has made in the lives of Christians. It is to suggest that we may now be living in a time in which people are longing to encounter the sacred and in which they are searching high and low for the holy.
If this reading of the culture is even half right, then the time has come for the church to regain her confidence that she really does have a gift of inestimable value to offer to the world—something that the world cannot readily acquire elsewhere, namely, incorporation into the Trinitarian life of God. For better or worse, this is the only gift that the church has ever had to offer to the world.
Accordingly, what ultimately matters with regard to prophetic movements and ecclesial structures is whether or not, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can learn once again to receive and to appropriate them both not as ends in themselves, but as means of grace through which we can come to know and to love the Triune God. Whether or not the wider culture is ready to receive this gift is a matter that is open for debate. The fact remains that this is the only gift that the church has to offer. And even this she does not really have. Rather, she receives it anew and afresh each day from the Holy Spirit. Therein is the source of our hope for the future.
Jason E. Vickers is Associate Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including most recently The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley; Wesley: A Guide for the Perplexed; and Invocation and Assent: The Making and Remaking of Trinitarian Theology.
This essay is excerpted by permission from his new book Minding the Good Ground: A Theology of Church Renewal (Baylor).
