Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Teams from 50 inner-city, metropolitan, small-town and rural churches, each representing an annual conference, met in August in Atlanta for the first national United Methodist Black Church Growth Consultation. The consultation was organized by Black Methodists for Church Renewal, an unofficial caucus of black lay and clergy leaders. Workshops, plenary sessions and worship services centered on the conference theme, “Black Pentecost: Saving Souls and Making Disciples.”

The consultation was inspired by the 1984 General Conference goal to double the denomination’s membership by 1992. Black churches, long touted as bastions of growth and vitality, discovered that sagging membership and lethargic programs were a problem for them as well as white churches. Church leaders set out to identify problem areas and help churches reverse the decline.

“We find ourselves losing black membership at the highest rate of any denomination—more than 140,000 since the dissolution of the [racially segregated] Central Jurisdiction in 1968,” said Bishop Forrest C. Stith, Syracuse, N.Y., in his keynote message. He said the historic role of the black church as an anchor that sustained its community has diminished.

Bishop Roy Nichols, Oakland, Calif., said growing numbers of non-church members are complaining that most churches seem more concerned about organizational matters and money than about social and spiritual needs.

“Jesus offered new approaches and various facets of the same messianic message to different people depending on who they were—whether a prostitute, a rabbi or a thief—and what their particular needs were,” said the bishop. The retired episcopal leader has researched trends and characteristics of growing churches for a book to be published next spring. “Churches now exist in a highly competitive environment,” he explained. “We have to be more aggressive, more visionary and more sensitive to people’s real needs if we’re going to invite them to come share the gospel.”

He urged the black leaders to explore new ministries for latch-key children and single-parent families, more prayer and nurturing groups, more training of lay people and more educational programs on topics such as personal financial management, parenting and marriage enrichment.

Workshop leaders emphasized the importance of spirited and innovative worship and music, encouraging participants to use and promote Songs of Zion, a hymnal in the black tradition, and the new United Methodist Hymnal, due out in. November 1989, which will contain music and worship resources from black and other ethnic traditions as well as standard church fare.

Participants like Preston Weaver, lay leader of St. Paul UMC, Dallas, called the consultation “a godsend.” His 115-yearold, 600-member church is a mostly middle-class congregation, but he hopes the church will expand its outreach program with tutorial and self-improvement classes for the large number of high school drop-outs in a nearby, low-income housing project.

Consultation planners will report their evaluations and other research data to the fall meeting of the Council of Bishops, according to Deborah Bass, consultant and coordinator for the event. They also will track the progress of many of the participating churches for two years and consult with the bishops and annual conferences who sent representatives.

Support for the consultation came from the United Methodist Council of Bishops, the General Council on Finance and Administration and the General Boards of Discipleship and Global Ministries.

United Methodist News Service

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: Storey Clarifies South African Crisis

Archive: Storey Clarifies South African Crisis

South Africa remains at the forefront of world controversies. Most United Methodists know they oppose apartheid, the racist system which defrauds black South Africans of their rights. However, many find the details of the crisis in South Africa confusing. Dr. Peter Storey is the former president of the South African Council of Churches and former head of the Methodist Church of South Africa. On a recent visit to the United States, Dr. Storey stopped in at the Good News headquarters and gave the following interview about his troubled country.

Good News: What is the racial makeup of the Methodist Church in South Africa?

Storey: Eighty percent black, twenty percent white.

Good News: How large is the church?

Storey: Membership is approaching one million and constituency two million.

Good News: How many Christians are there in the entire South African population?

Storey: The population is supposed to be about 70 percent Christian.

Good News: What is the Church’s condition in South Africa?

Storey: God will ask one question [to those of us in South Africa]: “What did you do about apartheid?” I’m afraid that means there’s a large body of sincere Christians who are not witnessing to Christ. They are avoiding the Christ who speaks with anger and compassion about the oppression of black people in South Africa.

If you were to ask what the Church’s priorities are in South Africa, vis a vis apartheid, I would say the first priority is to go on making Christians. Evangelism is not irrelevant in a time of political tension and violence. Political repentance in South Africa would mean a surrender of privilege by the 10 percent in power, so there’s a sense in which the [surrender] dynamic of Christian conversion has deep implications for the situation in South Africa.

Evangelism is not irrelevant, provided it is prophetic. Pietistic, personal-salvation evangelism, if not linked with the challenge to be involved in social transformation and justice, is, in fact, a dangerous thing for South Africa.

The second priority for the Church should be to tell the truth, to reveal what is happening. This is crucial because of the amount of control the media now has in South Africa. We only know what is happening because of reports we get from local parishes saying, for instance, “We were having a service, and the police came and smashed the church up and arrested 200 people.”

The next priority is to bind up the broken. There is a ministry in caring for and repairing people, which can sometimes be done by counseling ex-detainees who have been through a severe trauma. Some of these ex-detainees are 15- or 16-year-olds who have been in solitary confinement for 90 days.

Good News: What impediment has the Dutch Reformed Church’s support of apartheid placed upon the spread of Christianity?

Storey: The Dutch Reformed Church has recently moved from support of apartheid to a form of qualified neutrality. But you cannot be neutral and be a Christian in South Africa. If you are neutral, you are for apartheid, and you are being used by the powers of evil.

But there is a difference between neutrality and independence. I believe the Church must retain sufficient independence from political movements so that it is able to prophesy into those situations and not be so identified that it no longer has prophetic integrity

Good News: It seems there is a growing feeling that it’s only a matter of time before apartheid is dismantled.

Storey: The South African government is now committed to a multi-racial South Africa. It is willing to make any concession on the level of race and color as long as no one seeks to take away its power. It is more a power issue than a color issue now. As long as the white Afrikaner retains the power, he does not mind making some concessions on the issue of race. Whites can marry blacks, whites can sit with blacks in buses and eat with them in restaurants—these issues are irrelevant. The essence of apartheid is who’s running the show. It is a power game. In the maneuvering to deal with that power center, there is no question that the group with the largest support in the South African black community is the African National Congress (A.N.C.).

Good News: Is that even larger than Mangosuthu Butheleizi’s [Zulu tribal chief and chairman of the South African Black Alliance] support?

Storey: Yes. Butheleizi is limited because he has made the fatal error—short-term advantage, long-term error—of establishing his political base in an ethnic tribe, which immediately raises the suspicions of every other tribal group in the country. Many Zulus would support the A.N.C. rather than Butheleizi’s movement.

Good News: Regarding disinvestment by American corporations, I read that South Africa has the largest black middle class in Africa. It seems some of those corporations might have had an impact in raising the conditions for some blacks. Is that a misunderstanding?

Storey: No, but I think our people realize those changes happened soon after the first threats that the corporations might be losing their profits and have to give up. The commitment to change was sudden and happened just recently, but that does not mean it is not important.

Good News: What are practical ways Christians in America can be of help to South Africa?

Storey: The first practical way is to pray, and that is not impractical. Prayer is a political act. You should pray for South Africa not just because it is the last outpost of racism; pray for South Africa because it represents what lies under the surface of your own society.

The second thing you can do is maintain a sense of moral outrage. People say there are other situations in the world which are bad. I say, “I know that, but I am grateful that the moral outrage is directed against the evil in my own situation.” In whatever way possible, stay mindful that apartheid is condemned in the counsels of God.

Third, I would like to see every Methodist congregation (because I am a Methodist) bring one young person out of South Africa and expose him or her to a free society, democratic values and the opportunity to get away from the pathology of a hate-sick society.

Good News: If an American church wanted to know how to do this, would the Methodist Church of South Africa be able to help?

Storey: I’m not the boss of our church right now, but I’d say yes, we would.

Good News: One of the problems Americans have with processing reports of strife in the world is figuring out who has done what to whom, especially when information does not come clearly, and there are both right- and left-wing viewpoints.

Storey: I understand that. In South Africa today right-wing violence is increasing. On the other hand, there are bombs going off in white shopping centers which are either from the A.N.C. or some other liberation group, so we are confused about where the A.N.C. stands on the issue. Publicly they have condemned it.

Good News: What have they said about necklacing [putting a gasoline-soaked tire around someone’s neck and burning them to death]?

Storey: They condemn necklacing.

Good News: That’s interesting; I have never heard anyone say that.

Storey: There is an awful lot of literature that says the opposite. Necklacing was a horrible phenomenon which arose as a disciplinary method of execution; young people organized themselves in townships to resist the troops, and this was their punishment to collaborators. The A.N.C. did not initiate or control that uprising, but when they began to encourage it, it became an issue. In the end the A.N.C.’s answer was, “No, stop that.” And it stopped; it is not happening anymore.

Good News: One of the things we hear is that a significant chunk of the A.N.C.’s leadership has Marxist connections. Traditionally that has not been a good omen for representative government. How valid is that concern?

Storey: I think it is a valid concern; it is never easy to be sure who is calling the shots. My knowledge of some of the individuals in leadership indicates that they would say, “We will make up our minds about where we will go, and we certainly won’t have our program programmed for us from Moscow or anywhere else.” They mean it.

I also think it is odd to hear the West express such anxieties and then refuse to show interest in or support for these movements. If your house is on fire you borrow a hose from anyone; you don ‘t ask him what his politics are first. It was, in fact, the socialist countries—the communist countries—that offered support [to South Africa]. I think that is forever to the detriment of the West. If western democracies had given more attention and support earlier to movements like the A.N.C., they may never have abandoned their long-held, non-violent stance.

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: C.S. LEWIS ON CHRISTMAS

Archive: C.S. LEWIS ON CHRISTMAS

By Kathryn Lindskoog

Our earliest description of Christmas from C. S. Lewis is a bitter one. The year was 1922. As usual C. S. Lewis and his brother, Warren, spent the holidays with their widowed father in his big house outside Belfast

“It was a dark morning with a gale blowing and some very cold rain,” Lewis reported in his diary. Their father, Albert, awakened his two sons, both in their mid-twenties, to go to early Communion service. As they walked to church in the dawn light, they started discussing the time of sunrise. Albert, an illogical and argumentative man, irritated his sons by insisting that the sun had already risen or else they would not have any light. Saint Mark’s Church was intensely cold. Warren wanted to keep his coat on during the service, but his father disapproved. “Well, at least you won’t keep it on when you go up to the table,” Albert warned. Warren asked why not and was told that taking Communion with a coat on was “most disrespectful.” Warren took his coat off to avoid an argument. Not one of the three Lewis men had any interest in the meaning of Communion. The two sons hadn’t believed in Christianity for years.

“Christmas dinner, a rather deplorable ceremony, at quarter to four,” Lewis continued in his diary. After dinner the rain had stopped at last, and Albert urged his two sons to take a walk. They were delighted to get out into the fresh air and headed for a pub where they could get a drink. Before they came to the pub, however, some relatives drove by on the way to the brothers’ house for a visit and gave them an unwelcome ride right back home.

After too much sitting and talking and eating and smoking all day in the stuffy house, Lewis went to bed early, dead tired and headachy. He felt like a flabby, lazy teenager again. It had been another bad Christmas.

In 1929 Albert Lewis suddenly died of cancer. There would be no more going home for Christmas. Within a couple of years of their father’s death, both Warren and C. S. Lewis privately made some major shifts in their ideas about religion. They were separately moving toward Christian faith.

It was 1931. In Shanghai where he was serving as a British military officer, Warren got up at 6:30 on Christmas morning. There was bright sun, frost on the ground and what Warren called “a faint, keen wind.” For the first time in many years Warren went to church to take Communion. He was deeply excited about it.

Warren couldn’t help thinking about the old days when he had attended Christmas Communion at home in Ireland. “The kafuffle of the early start, the hurried walk in the chill half-light, Barton’s beautiful voice, the dim lights of Saint Mark’s and then the return home to the gargantuan breakfast—how jolly it all seems in retrospect!” It hadn’t seemed jolly at the time. Warren felt great sorrow about the past, but his sorrow was outweighed by gladness and thanks that he was once again a believer in the Christmas story.

On that very day, Christmas of 1931, C. S. Lewis sat down in Oxford to write an eight-page letter to Warren. He began by warning that, because of his teaching duties, he had done, read and heard nothing for a long time that could possibly interest Warren. Then he proceeded to write one of his usual entertaining letters full of humor and ideas and bits of news. In the middle of the letter he mentioned that it was a foggy afternoon, but that it had seemed springlike early that morning as he went to the Communion service. That is how he admitted the big news that he had taken Communion for the first time in many years.

At that point in the letter, C. S. Lewis recounted a few things that he had heard in recent sermons. In a sermon on foreign missions the preacher had said, “Many of us have friends who used to live abroad and had a native Christian cook who was unsatisfactory. Well, after all, there are a great many unsatisfactory Christians in England too. In fact I’m one myself.”

Another preacher had said shortly before Christmas that he objected to the early chapters of Luke, especially the story of the Annunciation, because they were indelicate. Such prudery left Lewis gasping.

That Christmas letter from C. S. Lewis found its way to Warren on January 19, 1932, and he wrote in his diary, “A letter … today containing the news that he too has once more started to go to Communion, at which I am delighted.” Had he not done so, Warren reflected, they would not have been quite so close in the future as in the past.

From 1931 to the end of his life, C. S. Lewis looked at Christmas from a Christian point of view. In 1939 Warren was on duty away from home again, and on Christmas Eve C. S. Lewis wrote that he had been thinking much that week about Christmas cards. “Aside from the absurdity of celebrating the Nativity at all if you don’t believe in the Incarnation, why in heaven’s name is everyone sending everyone else pictures of stagecoaches, fairies, foxes, dogs, butterflies, kittens, flowers, etc.?”

Warming to his topic, Lewis asked his brother to imagine a Chinese man sitting at a table covered with small pictures. The man explains that he is preparing for the anniversary of Buddha’s being protected by the dragons—not that he personally believes that this is the real anniversary of the event or even that it really happened. He is just keeping up the old custom. Neither does he have any pictures of Buddha or of the dragons; he doesn’t like that kind.

Aside from thinking about Christmas cards, Lewis had enjoyed himself in two ways that week. He was back at work on his book The Problem of Pain, and he was able to enjoy good winter walks. Near the end of his letter he said, “Well, Brother, (as the troops say) it’s a sad business not to have you with me to-morrow morning. …” That meant church.

During World War II C. S. Lewis gave a series of talks about Christianity on BBC radio, and later he brought these out as his book Mere Christianity. In that book Lewis summed up Christmas and Christianity in one memorable sentence: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God.”

In his 1950 book for children, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis made it clear that he was all for merry times and good gifts and Christmas pudding. The land of Namia was under the spell of a wicked white witch who made it always winter and never Christmas. When the great gold lion, Asian, brought the thaw that spelled the witch’s doom, Father Christmas came at last.

In 1954 Lewis published a very different kind of fantasy about Christmas, “Xmas and Christmas.” It is an essay about the strange island called Niatirb (Britain spelled backward) and the winter festival called Exmas that the Niatirbians observe with great patience and endurance.

One of the customs that fills the marketplace with crowds during the foggiest and rainiest season of the year is the great labor and weariness of sending cards and gifts. Every citizen has to guess the value of the gift that every friend will send him so that he may send one of equal value whether he can afford it or not. Everyone becomes so pale and weary that it looks as if calamity has struck. These days are called the Exmas Rush. Exhausted with the Rush, most citizens lie in bed until noon on the day of the festival. Later that day they eat far too much and get intoxicated On the day after Exmas they are very grave because they feel unwell and begin to calculate how much they have spent on Exmas and the Rush.

There is also a festival in Niatirb called Crissmas, held on the same day as Exmas. A few people in Niatirb keep Crissmas sacred, but they are greatly distracted by Exmas and the Rush.

On December 17, 1955, Lewis wrote to an old friend that he was pleased by the card the man had sent him, a Japanese-style nativity scene. But, he continued, Christmas cards in general and the whole vast commercial drive called “Xmas ” was one of his pet abominations. He wished they would die away and leave the Christmas observance alone. He had nothing against secular festivities, but he despised the artificial jollity, the artificial childlikeness and the attempts to keep up some shallow connection with the birth of Christ.

In 1957 C. S. Lewis published “What Christmas Means to Me.” He claimed that three things go by the name of Christmas. First is the religious festival. Second is an occasion for merrymaking and hospitality. Third is the commercial racket, a modern invention to boost sales.

He listed his reasons for condemning the commercial racket. First, it causes more pain than pleasure. Second, it is a trap made up of obligations. Third, many of the purchases are gaudy rubbish. Fourth, we get exhausted by having to support the commercial racket while carrying on all our regular duties as well. “Can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter …?” Lewis demanded plaintively.

Two years later C. S. Lewis was featured in the Christmas issue of the Saturday Evening Post. The issue, dated December 19, 1959, bore on its cover a 15-cent price, a picture of a man struggling clumsily to get a package wrapped, and the announcement of a new Screwtape letter by C. S. Lewis. Inside was a life-size, close-up photo of Lewis’ face and his essay “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” This was a kind of Christmas gift to the public from the editors.

In 1963 the Saturday Evening Post featured C. S. Lewis in its Christmas issue for the second time. This time the price was 20 cents, and the picture on the cover was of a children’s choir. Inside was Lewis’s article “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” with the heading, “Is happiness—in particular sexual happiness—one of man’s inalienable rights? A distinguished author attacks the brutality of this increasingly common notion.” In the upper right-hand corner is the announcement, “As this article went to press, its author died at his home in Oxford, England. The article is his last work.”

Since Lewis’ death on November 22, 1963, a number of his writings from earlier years have become more widely available. A few not published at all in his lifetime have now found their way into print. One of these is his undated poem “The Nativity,” available in his book Poems. In this brief poem Lewis shows what the nativity scene meant in his own prayer life.

First, Lewis likens himself to a slow, dull ox. Along with the oxen he sees the glory growing in the stable, he says, and he hopes that it will give him, at length, an ox’s strength. Second, Lewis likens himself to a stubborn and foolish ass. Along with the asses, he sees the Savior in the hay, and he hopes that he will learn the patience of an ass. Third, Lewis likens himself to a strayed and bleating sheep. Along with the sheep in the stable, he watches his Lord lying in the manger. From his Lord he hopes to gain some of a sheep’s woolly innocence.

One of the earliest photos of C. S. Lewis shows him as a little boy posed with a Father Christmas doll. The half-smile caught forever on his plump, young face seems balanced between anxiety and pleasure. He looks thoughtfully attentive. It is fitting because he half-smiled at Christmas the rest of his days. We might do well to pause in the “kafuffle ” and “Exmas Rush ” and look into the manger with C. S. Lewis.

Kathryn Lindskoog is a freelance writer living in Orange, California. She met C. S. Lewis while studying at the University of London and received Lewis’ personal endorsement of her thesis, written about his works.

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: Bishop Ayo Ladigbolu

Archive: Bishop Ayo Ladigbolu

By The Right Rev. Ayo Ladigbolu

This Muslim Nigerian prince traded his kingdom for Christ

I happen to belong to the family of the Alafi of Ayoc. (He was known as the king of kings and ruler of rulers in Nigeria.) The royal family embraced the religion of Islam when it first spread to the southern parts of our country, so I was not only born into a ruling family but into a Muslim one.

I was the first male child on my father’s side of the family, so I was given the best available education. I became somewhat well-versed in the Koran and in the religion of Islam, and I quickly rose to become an assistant to one of the prominent Muslim evangelists in the land.

God Is a Ferocious Judge

I went everywhere with him, and that not only enhanced the people’s respect for me as a prince, but it endeared me to many of them as someone who was fighting the cause of the religion they held very, very dear.

My master and I did a lot of open-air preaching; the Christian missionaries also preached, and they gained some converts. Some of the Christian leaders would come to debate with us, and I was always assigned to read passages that attacked Christianity. Whenever the Christians proved difficult it was no problem for us to gather enough of a crowd to stone or shout them away.

Because of my involvement in these happenings, many people looked forward to the day the old ruler would pass away. “There’s a bright future for you,” they said. “The way things are going we know you will be our ruler in the course of time.” But that was not to be.

As a Muslim I knew God as benevolent, but I also knew Him as a ferocious judge who kept track of every little thing I did and would one day bring me to judgment. There was always the quiet fear inside me, “If this God is the ferocious judge I understand Him to be, and if my eternal fate will be determined when God puts my bad works on one scale and my good works on another, and whichever one weighs the heavier, which I know will be the bad, then He will have no option but to throw me into hell fire.” I just could not see any way to become fit to serve this God.

But I went along doing all that I was taught I fasted during the Ramadan, gave the little alms I could and did all the good works I knew to do. But everything I did was inadequate to appease this God; I lived in constant, minute-to-minute fear of death.

Then two Jehovah’s Witnesses approached me; they were the first Christian people ever to come to me. They knew that I could get them arrested, beaten up or imprisoned if I desired, but they came anyway. They wanted me to read the Bible with them, so we read Old Testament stories. It was fun because most of the stories in the Koran are adulterations of Old Testament stories. These people kept coming for about a year, and as I went from the Old Testament to reading stories in the New Testament I found there were questions I needed to ask—particularly about Jesus, the Son of Mary.

The Koran says that Jesus was not actually crucified, that God substituted someone else because He never would have allowed His servant to be treated so poorly. Another part of the Koran says God gave Jesus the power to escape, and He went on to Pakistan; He’s coming back to preach Islam to the whole world. But the New Testament says that Jesus was actually, truly crucified. It was difficult for me to understand what the New Testament says about Jesus because it is so different from what I had been taught, and my Jehovah’s Witnesses were not able to help much.

Some time later I went to teach amidst friends with a young man, a member of the Methodist Church, who had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and he was able to share what he knew about Jesus with me. He said, “You know, Jesus is the mediator between man and God, and all the sins that we have committed God has laid upon Jesus. If we are willing to confess our sins and put them upon Jesus, God will overlook them.”

That’s what I had been groping for in all the good deeds I did as a Muslim young man. I kept thinking, “Is it possible that Jesus can take care of my sins and help me to relate to God? And this God will not be my ferocious judge, but He will become my father? And I can talk to Him, and He will talk to me?” It was too much for me to comprehend.

Cold Water from Heaven

But as I saw the radiance of this young man’s Christian life, I began to want that kind of life. So I asked my friend, “If I want to believe in this Jesus, how do I do it?” And he said, “It’s very simple. You don’t have to give any money; you don’t have to give away anything. Just go to Jesus as you are and say, ‘Look, I’m tired of who I am and what I am. I want to believe in Jesus, and I want to take care of my sins.’ Confess those sins you can recall, and just leave those you can’t remember to Him. He knows all about them anyway, and He’ll take care of them.” Right there in his room I asked Jesus to come into my heart, to cleanse it of all sin and to make me a child of God.

I did not feel my heart strangely warmed as did John Wesley, but I felt as if cold water were dripping from heaven through my head and into the rest of my body. It was the very best day of my life.

My friend told a Methodist minister about my experience with Christ, and this minister invited me to a Methodist church. I felt a strong urge to go, so I went. Right away people went back to my father saying they’d seen me go into a church. When I returned home my family was waiting. My father said, “Welcome back from church. What in the world took you into a church?”

I broke out in a cold sweat and for a moment became almost blind with fear, but I managed to say to him, “You’ve given me my education and prepared me for life the best you knew, and I’ve been attacking Christians. But all my life I have felt in my heart a fear of death because the god you introduced to me is a different one than the One I’ve come to know in Jesus Christ. I now know my sins are forgiven. Now I can talk to God, and He talks to me. I want to be with Christians because it’s when I’m with them I feel right.”

It seemed like my eyes opened, and I saw that everyone was looking at me, and no one was talking. They sat staring at me, and my mother burst into tears. A lot of them were wailing. But I was able to say, “A young man shared with me about Christ, and I found it to be real. When I said to Jesus, ‘Come into my heart,’ I felt Him come! I knew He was there.” My mother laid prostrate in front of me and said, “You are throwing away everything. You are putting my life in jeopardy. You are putting your life at risk. Don’t you see the future ahead of you? Don’t you see all the possibilities? Don’t you wonder what will happen to me?” And I could not control my tears because she was weeping as she was saying these things to me. But I could not go back from following Christ.

My mother went to all the Muslim scholars and medicine men hoping they would make medicine that would charm me so that if I’d been bewitched the spell would be removed. But I knew I wasn’t bewitched.

In a week the family told me, “You’ve had time to think about this. If you do what you are doing now it will spoil your name. The people will stop respecting you, and they will hate you. You will put the name of this family in disrepute.”

But the Lord made my heart so strong at that moment I was able to say, “I’ve found joy and assurance in belonging to God and believing in Jesus, and I know my sins are forgiven. And that’s where I will stay.”

My dad said, “If that’s your choice then we will regard you as dead, and you may as well be dead.”

My Life Was in Danger

The following day I knew I might be poisoned because the news had spread everywhere, and everyone was talking about me. I went to the pastor of the Methodist church and told him everything. He was very sorry. I said, “You did what was right and good for me, and I am most grateful. Now my life is in danger. I cannot stay anywhere nearby. What shall I do?”

That holy man of God gave me a note to take to the United Missionary Society in another town. That’s where I went, and that’s where I lived for four years. Of course I missed my family back home, but the people of the Missionary Society became my father, mother, sisters and brothers. I lacked nothing that I needed in those four years of exile.

A Message from My Father

In the course of living with them, I felt the call to be a preacher, to go all around Nigeria talking to people about Jesus, so my new family enrolled me in their training course. I studied the Bible, and I learned a lot about what God can do if our lives are surrendered to Him.

At the conclusion of that training, I received the message that my father wanted to see me. My friends at the Mission Society said, “Go. You’ve never received such a message. This might be an answer to prayer.” So I went.

When I got home there was another gathering of my family and the elders, and they said, “We’ve had the news that you’ve been married, and you’ve had a baby.” (I had met my wife during my exile, and we had our first baby.) My father said, “I’ve heard many good things about you, and I’m very happy with what I have heard. You may not know it, but I followed you everywhere you went. I now believe this faith you have embraced is good for you. If you would like to return to this family, you are welcome anytime.” I could not control my tears; everyone was crying tears of joy. I wanted to introduce my wife and little daughter to them. My father said, “Go ahead, bring them.”

I brought my wife and our baby home. My family accepted my wife; they would not normally have accepted her because she’s from a tribe against which my own tribe is prejudiced.

Then the Methodist Church invited me to do frontier missionary work, and during that time we had our second child, also a girl. After we’d named her and done everything the Christian way we brought her home, and my parents put the family marks on her and said, “This is our child because the one you had before is your own.” That marked our official acceptance back into the family.

Many in my homeland never forgave me for embracing Christ. When it came time to elect a new king my uncle was chosen. I didn’t mind because a number of my brothers and half-brothers and sisters and cousins had become Christians. I had become a Christian and, along the way, an ordained minister. I was later surprised to find I had been elected bishop. I would not even consider becoming a king in my homeland, because I’ve found a kingdom that is splendid and glorious, a kingdom which I would not trade for any tribal kingdom.

My family and I had to leave home. For my mother the move meant the loss of a lot of property. She was left with four, maybe six acres. If I had remained who I was and eventually had become king the whole land and people would have been ours. But my Bible says, “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” And with Christ I have not lost anything.

These Are the Lord’s Doing

I would like to deal with a few issues related to all I’ve said. For the gospel-sharer it is not sufficient to speak the Word. We must live it out. What happened to me is not ideal and is not unusual. It is simply an act of God.

It is possible for a Muslim to become a Christian. It is difficult, alright, but it is possible. If anybody could claim to be a Muslim I could, just as Paul claimed to be a Jew of the Jews. But when it came time for Christ to reach out to me He did, and He used people who knew Him to get hold of me.

Christians should not be afraid to befriend Muslims. Most Muslims will not respond to Christians; they may even be hostile toward them. Some Muslims still regard Christians as infidels who believe in more than one God. But it was through the friendship of a young Christian man who shared his faith with me that I came to know the Lord. God found me, and by grace I am what I am. That can happen to any Muslim.

When I look back on my life, my upbringing and what I am today, I ask myself, “How come?” And the answer I get each time is, “These things should be marvelous in your eyes, because they are the Lord’s doing.”

Christ is real to me. Is He real to you? Do you just know about Him, or do you know Him? He could become real to you if you would simply say, “Lord, come into my heart. Stay there and take care of all my sins, and make me fit to be a child of God.” He’s willing to do it even now. It won’t cost you anything because it costed God everything to make it possible. He can become real to you, and I’m saying that because I know.

Ayo Ladigbolu is a Methodist bishop serving in Nigeria.

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: What Does it Mean to Be Holy?

Archive: What Does it Mean to Be Holy?

In the second of a two-part series, Robert Coleman, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, issues a summons to holiness

In view of the unspeakable blessing of the life of divine grace, one would think that the body of saints would constantly herald the beauty of holiness. Yet, strangely, this does not seem to be the case. It is not that the truth is denied; it is just that other things appear to be more appealing. The church, under the illusion of relevance, tends to accept the world’s agenda of concerns. Inevitably, then, more mundane and humanitarian interests take precedence over the demanding claims of the lordship of Christ.

The presentation of holiness and sanctification will be considerably enhanced by a careful exposition of Scripture. I am afraid that in Wesleyan circles, to our shame, far too much emphasis has been given to the recitation of personal testimonies to the neglect of solid biblical exegesis. I am convinced this deficiency is one reason holiness teaching is so often compromised.

Human experiences help illustrate the power of the written Word, but only the authoritative Word of God can focus the full reality of holiness. The muting of this central truth of Scripture in the private and public witness of the church, whatever the tradition, reflects a tragic displacement of priorities.

Danger In a Defensive Posture

Bound up with this confusion is an inordinate fear of fanaticism which, unfortunately, some misguided people associate with holiness. Just the thought of this message conjures images of wild emotionalism or anti-social behavior.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not suggesting that we should endorse every harebrained zealot that crowds under the holiness umbrella. Clearly there are many strange fellow travelers, but this is something over which we have scant jurisdiction. Let us be careful that, in our desire to be removed from these perceived excesses, we do not become defensive and divert our energy from our cause.

This is a failing all too common today in the so-called “holiness movement.” We spend too much time protecting ourselves from embarrassment—pointing out that we are not this and we are not that—until we become more astute in maintaining an appearance of respectability than in being confident in our own experiences.

Any time that we become more concerned with self-preservation than with proclamation, we have lost our advantage in the mission of Christ True holiness needs no defense; it will vindicate itself when seen in its own beauty.

Resistance Of the Flesh

This is not to say that the holy life will elicit popular acceptance from the masses. By its nature holiness will always have an uphill battle with the flesh, since it cuts across the grain of the carnal mindset. If we are overly sensitive to what people think, there will be little preaching of holiness.

For this reason it should not seem surprising that in Wesley’s day there were many among his followers who “little insisted on” this message.[1] The same problem was seen in response to Francis Asbury’s ministry. He noted that “sanctification and Christian perfection” were not “commonplace subjects”—a fact, incidentally, which caused him to resolve to “make them the savor of every sermon” he preached.[2]

The situation is aptly described by Benjamin Lakin, an itinerant Methodist minister who made the following entry in his diary under the date March 15, 1814:

I have been making some inquiry into the cause of the gloom that is on the minds of professors and the decline of religion. Lately an old Brother observed that he had observed for some time our preaching to begin with the fall of man, the redemption by Jesus Christ, repentance and justification by faith, and here we stopped, and for a long time he had not heard the doctrine of sanctification enforced. I immediately began to make my observation on experiences that I hear, for a considerable time have observed them go as far as justification and there stop and no talk of sanctification. I have further observed that professors have lost that bright experience (at least too many of them) of their acceptance with God they once had, and rest too much on general determinations to serve God. And as I have reason to thank God that there is as little immoral conduct among us as I could expect among so large a body, I concluded the following causes have produced this effect: (1) The confused state of affairs and the interest every man takes in the event of war, (2) We have preached the gospel but have been deficient in enforcing the doctrine of sanctification, and (3) the people stopped in a justified state without pursuing holiness. Immediately [I] set about a reform in myself and began to preach and enforce the doctrine of holiness by showing the state I found the people to be in, and the need of perfecting holiness in the fear of God.[3]

Holiness In Church Growth

What can be detected in this faithful circuit rider’s account underscores the continuing need for renewal of our first love if the priorities of the kingdom are maintained. This becomes increasingly imperative in the succeeding generations of any revival movement, of which Methodism is a prime example. By and large the holiness teaching of Wesley became diluted, as well as slighted, as the nineteenth century progressed; and the doctrine of entire sanctification met with increasing resistance from the hierarchy of the church. The tensions from this conflict, combined with other conditions, resulted in the formation of various new holiness denominations and contributed to the rise of the modem Pentecostal movement.

Many stalwart exponents of the holiness doctrine remained in the established church, but, bereft of institutional support, their influence has been marginal in shaping policy of mainline Methodism for more than 100 years. The loss of this emphasis has been progressively apparent in the ministry of the church, of which the erosion of evangelistic effectiveness and the corresponding membership decline are only symptomatic evidence. On the other hand the dissident holiness groups (many of which came out of Methodism), imbued with a revival, have generally manifested a higher degree of commitment and a sustained increase of disciples as a by-product.

There are numerous factors to consider in church growth, of course, but a shared quest for heart holiness certainly must be included among them. Whenever this scriptural truth has been lifted up in word and deed the blessing of God has been obvious in evangelism despite buffetings from the world. Any time this principle of growth is compromised, degeneration, while not immediately apparent, inevitably follows in the long term.

Weakness Of Contemporary Methodism

Here, I believe, is a glaring fallacy in the United Methodist Church. Much of the talk today about church growth strategies is simply too shallow to develop the necessary spiritual resources for dynamic reproduction. Attention seems to center on better sociological understanding, programs of outreach, training in management and the like. All of these are helpful, but the great theological and spiritual issues in sanctification are largely ignored. Ecclesiastical rhetoric is confused with godliness.

We have all seen the old television commercial featuring a haggard little lady looking at a hamburger. With an expression of bewilderment on her face, she asks, “Where’s the beef?”

I think her predicament might be somewhat analogous to the feeling persons looking for the substance of the Wesleyan revival in our churches experience today. Where is the “beef” of holiness, that ingredient of Christian experience which Wesley described as “religion itself”? Even in institutions founded to propagate holiness I have sometimes wondered, “Where is the unabashed, forthright witness to this most distinctive Methodist doctrine?” Oh yes, one recognizes references here and there—code words such as “second blessing” or “perfect love”—intended to convey an association with tradition. But upon closer examination it often turns out that the hamburger is mostly bun.

Facing Up To Carnality

Why do holy people and the institutions they build drift away from the holiness mandate?

Doubtless there are many reasons, but the heart of the problem, I believe, is the pervasive tendency of the flesh to take the course of least resistance. Unless this human characteristic is persistently overcome through the renewing power of the Holy Spirit, the deceitful nature of carnality, ever lurking in the shadows of disobedience, will stealthily arise to take control. Consent to its leavening influence may be so gradual and refined as to be undetected at first. After all, do we not need times to relax and enjoy the pleasures of the world? Do we always have to deny ourselves recognition and advancement in order to bear the cross of Christ? Why should we have to bring the Great Commission into every aspect of our lifestyle?

Such questions may seem innocent enough, but carnality has a beguiling way of turning our responses into self-indulgence. All too easily we pamper ourselves under the guise of God’s blessing, failing to measure our lives by the pattern of our Lord. Holiness is an exacting standard, and as the values of Christ’s kingdom become clearer, we will be more able to identify with the publican who cried, “Lord, have mercy on me!” Quibbling over hair styles and forms of dress will not be the issues. When we see ourselves with more Christlikeness, I expect that we will become far more sensitive to worldliness, materialism, prayerlessness, disregard of the oppressed and indifference to the lost multitudes who have never heard the gospel.

Here we must be utterly honest with ourselves, and with God’s help we must relentlessly seek day by day to bring our lives into conformity with His holiness. If we try to trim the corners and excuse a few favorite shortcomings, carnality reigns in our hearts.

The Incontrovertible Witness

A dear friend, when being examined for admission into a Methodist Conference, was asked by the Board of Ordained Ministry: “Are you wholly sanctified?”

Detecting a spirit of skepticism yet wanting to be helpful, he replied, “Don’t you think that you are asking the wrong person? My wife is sitting outside in the lobby. Why don’t you talk to her?”

What a Solomonic response! It is not the creed you profess that convinces other persons of holiness; it’s the life they see. I will never forget the closing service of the World Congress on Evangelism in the great Kingresshalle of Berlin, Germany, in 1966. Billy Graham was speaking on the need in Christian work for “a gentleness and a kindness and a love and a forgiveness and a compassion that will mark us as different from the world. The Christian minister,” he said, “is to be a holy man.”[4]

To illustrate his point he told of the conversion of Dr. H. C. Morrison, the founder of Asbury Theological Seminary. He described a day when farm worker Morrison was plowing in a field. Happening to look down the road, he saw an old Methodist circuit rider coming by on a horse. The young plowman had seen the preacher before, and he knew him to be a holy man. As Morrison watched the saint go by he could feel the power of the preacher’s godly presence way out there in the field. Such a sense of conviction for sin came over Morrison that, fearful for his soul, he dropped on his knees; and there, alone between the corn rows, he gave his life to God.

As he concluded the story Billy Graham earnestly prayed, “Oh, God, make me a holy man—a holy man.”[5]

That is the prayer, I trust, that speaks the yearning of all our souls. Upon its answer is the hope of revival in the United Methodist Church.

FOOTNOTES

[1] John Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, IV, p. 149. In this letter Wesley went on to observe that when such neglect was common “there is little increase, either in the numbers or the grace of the hearers.”

[2] Francis Asbury, Journal, Monday, March 1, 1803, quoted in Francis Asbury’s America, compiled and edited by Terry D. Bilhantz (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), p. 82

[3] Benjamin Lakin, Journal, in William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, IV, The Methodists, 1783-1840, A Collection of Source Materials (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 249.

[4] Billy Graham, “Stains on the Altar,” One Race, One Gospel, One Task, ed. by Carl F. H. Henry and W. Stanley Mooneyham I (Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 1967), p. 158.

[5] Ibid., p. 159.

Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Archive: A Shepherd’s Story

Archive: A Shepherd’s Story

By Sara L. Anderson

At four o’clock several mornings a week you will find Bill Mason, pastor of the 5,200-member Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Okla., beginning his devotional time. By six he’s at a local hospital praying with a church member that may be about to undergo surgery. Mason will often remain in the waiting room with anxious family members until the operation is over. Even when an early morning visit is not necessary, Mason makes trips to the hospitals at least four days a week.

Why does the pastor of a large church spend so much time doing what would often be relegated to a junior staff member? Mason feels that hospital patients and family members “are more likely to be open to the things of the Lord.”

He adds, “There are practical things I’ve found I can do to assist families, as well as dealing with spiritual needs.”

This sense of caring for a person’s emotional, physical and spiritual needs is a hallmark of the Asbury congregation’s evangelical emphasis. Consider the following efforts:

  • Under the leadership of staff member Dick McKee, approximately 800 Asbury members have participated in 18-month discipleship groups, and another 1,500-2,000 have completed a 14-week class on the basics of the Christian life.
  • For years the church has helped financially and volunteered labor to the UM-sponsored Frances E. Willard Home for troubled girls.
  • The church’s United Methodist Men’s group, numbering about 100, has done volunteer painting and repair work for several UM campgrounds and the Little Lighthouse School for preschool children with vision, hearing and birth defects.
  • Approximately 1,750 attend Sunday morning worship services, and Sunday school attendance has nearly equaled that figure.
  • About 400-500 people are involved in the single adult ministry.
  • Church staff operates Destination Discovery, an after-school and summer program for children and families living in densely populated, low-income, public housing projects. The program helps youngsters develop new skills, tutors students and provides recreation opportunities. Still, the desire behind this effort is to bring people into a vital relationship with Christ.
  • Asbury’s mission budget totals more than $500,000 annually, including World Service apportionments. The funds are distributed to individuals and organizations in Tulsa, Okla., in the United States and around the world.
  • An Alcoholics Anonymous group has met in the church building for more than 20 years, and Mason has worked with programs dealing with alcoholism since the beginning of his ministry.
  • For six months of the year a group goes to a pre-release center for the state’s correction system every Saturday night and conducts services for the inmates.

These types of ministry flow from the people’s love for Christ.

“Jesus gave us the Great Commission to go into the world baptizing and teaching, and then He gave us the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself,” Mason says. “I can’t separate the two,” he adds. “I don’t imagine that anyone who knows and loves the Lord can be insensitive to the needs of people.”

Sara L Anderson is the associate editor of Good News.