by Steve | May 11, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: John Wesley for Today
By Earl G. Hunt Jr.
May/June 1993
Certain fundamental needs of our modern United Methodist Church can be met more satisfactorily by a contemporary reproduction of John Wesley’s emphases than by any other means available. The brief development of the idea I offer here is intended to be merely suggestive of further possibilities not mentioned.
A high doctrine of the Bible
It is the studied conviction of this writer that many maladies which characterize our denomination in this present day are traceable to the plain, simple, and extremely unfortunate fact that across the years, we have gradually compromised our original understanding of the Bible as God’s Word.
I am constantly grateful for the insights which reverent critics have brought to our understanding of the Bible since the end of the nineteenth century: Sir George Adam Smith, Professor S. R. Driver, Dr. James S. Stewart, and Professor Hugh Anderson. These scholars have been able, without intellectual dishonesty, to accept the gifts of sound biblical scholarship, and still embrace Scripture as being something infinitely higher than mere human writing.
An examination of the position of Mr. Wesley at this point would constitute overdue therapy for our church. Let me quote a single paragraph from him:
“I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life, as an arrow through the air…. I want to know one thing, the way to Heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from Heaven. He hath written it down in a book! O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me.”
Wesley was always homo unius libri (a man of one book). I unquestionably agree, and believe that it is time for his church today to become again a church of one Book.
Sound Arminian theology
John Wesley had no patience with theological aberrations, even when offered in the guise of academic respectability. The great doctrines generally associated with his preaching and teaching include prevenient grace, repentance and justification by faith, the atonement, the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth and in assurance, the doctrine of the church, Christian perfection, and eschatological redemption. This is the catalogue of beliefs belonging uniquely in the Wesleyan tradition which former Yale Dean Colin W. Williams proposes in his book John Wesley’s Theology Today. Those beliefs offer an abundance of preaching material to last the lifetime of any faithful Wesleyan pulpiteer; and they constitute the kind of solid theological substance which, when served up intelligently and vividly, would surely inform the membership of our denomination, with new inspiration and commitment.
Wesley was not a systematic theologian. Dr. Albert Outler refers to him as an Anglican folk-theologian, “whose theological competence and creativity were dedicated to popular evangelism, Christian nurture, and reform, so that his theology could be evaluated more directly by his own stated (Anglican) norms: Scripture, reason, and Christian antiquity.” The plain fact is that many of our pulpits are offering an unfortunate and indefensible blend of Wesley with Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann, and the liberationists of Latin America. While it is always helpful to learn from other theological positions, the blending of these with the Wesleyan perspective only causes that perspective to lose its uniqueness and power. I am suggesting, without apology, that the modern United Methodist Church needs to accept again the components of sound Arminianism as the agenda for its theology.
Methodological flexibility
One of the thrilling practices of Wesley was his adoption of field preaching, which while actually abhorrent to him personally, he discovered to be effective in reaching the multitudes with the gospel. Wesley was able and willing to bend his own preferences to fit the demonstrated circumstances of his times. I am convinced he would do the same thing were he alive today. And so must we who are alive today. New methods, fresh, sometimes daring and bold, must be found to communicate the message of the Christian gospel. Times have changed; and the old approaches, successful in other days, may need to be honorably retired to make room for new approaches to be implemented.
Preaching
John Wesley was, indeed, a preacher. His plain preaching of plain truth captured the multitudes and resulted in countless conversions to Jesus Christ. It was fundamentally biblical in its construction, and depended entirely upon the work of the Holy Spirit to produce miracles of transformation in the lives of those who heard it. Contemporary United Methodism needs to recover once again its conviction about the centrality of the proclamation of the Word; and to realize anew that God’s Spirit does indeed work through faithful preaching, bringing to pass that which cannot otherwise occur. Our seminaries need to understand this, and communicate it to their students who will go forth into their annual conferences comprehending what preaching is all about, committing themselves to master its craft and art. The preaching event needs to loom large on the Christian horizon once more, and never again be relegated to a 10-to-12 minute slot in an intricately conceived liturgical pattern.
Strangely enough, John Wesley seemed to comprehend something of the importance of dialogical preaching as opposed to hortatory preaching. The deep and intense feeling with which he delivered his sermons and moved multitudes was never communicated by elevated voice and irresponsible declamation, but rather by impeccable logic, clear exposition, and a conscious effort to bring Divine resources to bear upon specific human problems. As a preacher, he was as modern as tomorrow morning. What a renaissance of vigor and vitality would visit United Methodism today if his quality of preaching could return to our pulpits!
Hope
Throughout the preaching of Mr. Wesley there resounds a message of undiminished hope. “His theology ends as it begins, with the optimism of grace triumphing over the pessimism of nature,” writes Colin Williams. He admonished his preachers never to proclaim sanctification in a way that would discourage those who had not attained that level of perfection. Moreover, throughout his preaching, there is a clear note about heaven and hell. He believed that the quality of life which a Christian may attain upon earth is a foretaste of the reality of another world. Jesus Christ will come again to judge both the quick and the dead, gathering believers into his perfect kingdom and completing the great salvation by his gift of a new heaven and a new earth. The dimension of eternity was constantly present in the sermons of Mr. Wesley, and Methodism was literally built upon both the assurance and the significance of that truth.
In a world of turmoil, it is inexcusable to enter the pulpit without a message of hope. The moral revolution, with its incredible devastation, can only be controlled when people recapture the conviction that life does not end with death, and that a human being, in the end, is responsible to Almighty God for his or her deeds in the flesh. More than any other lost ingredient of the gospel, our belief in the eternal dimension needs to be recovered. The eschatology of hope is a part of our Christian birthright, and we need it to restore glory and spiritual power to the contemporary church. John Wesley has much to teach us about this, which we would be wise to apply in the dangerous 1990s.
Among the prophets
Is it any wonder that the prestige of Wesley grows more dazzling with the passing years? He has broken out of the narrow, sectarian confines of a single denomination, and has been appropriated into a world view which ranks him with the major prophets, apostles, and saints of all time. In John Wesley’s Awakening, Dr. James Joy reminds us that “his tablet is in Westminster Abbey, with the memorials of monarchs, statesmen, empire-builders, philanthropists, and men of letters. The scholars of two continents have begun to recognize him as belonging in the grand succession of Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley – the great awakeners of the human soul-themselves awakened by the touch of God.”
When Wesley died in 1791, he had arranged for six poor men to carry him to his grave in the unconsecrated ground behind London’s City Chapel. Soon thereafter a well-intentioned, but innocently thoughtless preacher named John Pawson, burned a great portion of the Wesley papers in the fireplace of Mr. Wesley’s home. The smoke that curled out of the chimney bore with it treasures of knowledge the world will never have about the little Oxford don who flung his leg across the back of a horse and rode out to save Old England. But more important than this, we may only conjecture what he might have said about all that we who are his followers have done to the movement which he began.
Earl G. Hunt Jr., a retired United Methodist bishop, is the president of the Foundation for Evangelism, affiliate organization of the General Board of Discipleship, in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
This article was excerpted from Recovering the Sacred: Papers from the Sanctuary and the Academy (Jonathan Creek Press), a collection of sermons, speeches, and other writings of Bishop Earl G. Hunt Jr. The portion used above was taken by permission from the chapter entitled, “John Wesley: Our Historical Contemporary.”
by Steve | Mar 13, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: Back to the Future with Thomas C. Oden
Part II
The January/February 1993 issue of Good News highlighted the illuminating thoughts of Thomas C. Oden, professor of theology and ethics at the Theological School, Drew University. The following is a continuation of his interview with Good News. —the editors
You have stated we have moved beyond modernity in the American university. Yet the fundamental values of modernity you mention still characterize the university and seminary scene. How have we moved beyond modernity?
When I speak of the death of modernity, I do not mean the death of all popular expressions of modernity. They will continue to have vitality for some decades, until observers realize that modernity’s moral and rational foundations have crumbled. What I am mainly referring to is the death of the ideological foundation, the energizing spirit of modernity. The spirit has died; what we have on our hands is really a cadaver, maybe still a little warm and dressed up in a black leather jacket.
The university remains more addicted than the rest of society to the illusions of modernity. If the conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality, fewer on campus have been mugged. There is a culture lag in the university. Faculties whose ranks have swelled with tenured radicals remain quite behind the curve in recognizing the limit of modernity. Outside the ivy-covered walls of the university, ordinary sufferers from modernity have long ago been forced to begin to kick its habits.
These values—reductive naturalism, autonomous individualism, narcissitic hedonism and speculative historicism—may seem to have achieved unalterable dominance in the university, but scratch the professorial surface and you will recognize their vulnerability. The heart is gone from the idyllic song of modernity. It has become a dirge with a heavy, hard metal beat.
Narcissism in the form of sexual experimentation may seem to be much alive in the university with its free condoms, gay advocacy groups, and coed dorms; but the party is over for the sexual revolution. The party-crasher is AIDS. The intellectual foundations of narcissistic hedonism are crumbling. We are living just prior to the time of its full collapse, and from this vantage point we can see that its inner structure is ablaze. We still have many popular remnants of hedonic experimentation, yet they are spawning so many human derelicts and no-win situations that the present trajectory cannot long be sustained—a little like the situation with the national debt. Condoms won’t fix the fiasco into which modernity has fornicated itself. No latex is thick enough to protect against the memory of impoverished relationships.
What about the influence of modernistic heroes such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud?
I do not imply that Marx will have zero influence in the future; but the actual history of Marxist experimentation has so many strikes against its recovery that it will need to allow people at least a couple of centuries worth of forgetting even to venture a revival.
I do not suggest that Freud will have no influence, but the once awesome tide of Freudian moral plausibility has almost totally receded, due primarily to its poor record of therapeutic outcomes. If the Freudian project, the Bultmannian project, the Marxist project, and the Nietzschean project are all dead, then modernity is dead.
How would you describe the theological condition of the UM Church today? Are we sick or healthy?
Chronically sick, but now gradually mending. There are many brilliant scholars in UM theological education, but keep in mind that brilliance can be brilliantly destructive. There remain many healthy dimensions in the theological situation: a growing cultural pluralism, a greater variety of faces in the classroom than were present some years ago, a return to the study of primary texts of the religious tradition. But amid this achievement of cultural pluralism, we are cursed with a cancerous growth, a toxic doctrinal pluralism that lacks attentiveness to the unity of the classic tradition. The cancerous growth is our forgetfulness, our amnesia, and therefore an aspect of our sickness—if amnesia is a sickness. I believe it is.
UM theology is recuperating, like a patient recovering from a lengthy, severe addiction. Our addiction has been a self-chosen disease, a compulsive accommodation to a dying culture; and we have been desperately looking for something in the culture to make right our religious emptiness. Wesleyan theology is sick only to the extent that it has forgotten Wesley. It is not an irreversible illness. But we are finding it difficult to reverse our regnant addictions. There are frequent relapses. United Methodism mirrors the waning cultural environment to which we have been desperately accommodating for several decades. Theological educators will be called to accountability on the Last Day.
By addictions, I speak of relapses into sexual experimentation and flirtations with dying ideologies—Marxist, psychoanalytic, nihilistic, and deconstructionist hermeneutics, and the more reckless forms of liberation and process theology. Liberation theology has clearly lost its vitality with the demise of Marxism and the embarrassment of the Cuban Revolution. Process theology keeps trudging along with sporadic adherents, but few in the laity are willing to listen as they are supposed to want to. Process theology has a few brilliant intellectual apologists, but they still have a negligible effect upon the life of the church. Yet, the voices of moderation and piety among women and minorities—notably African Americans, Hispanics and Koreans—are thriving.
If we mean by the “UM theological condition” the quality of theological writing and teaching in the church, the answer is hardly encouraging. If we mean the quality of the typical believer’s daily walk in the presence of God—its honesty, sincerity and tenacity—the evidences may be more heartening. The liturgical life at Drew’s Theology School is healthier now than at any time in the last quarter century, with less fluff, fewer balloons and group gropes; more classic hymnody, better preaching. If the liturgical life of the community is reasonably stable and deepening, it is a good indication of recovering theological health—or at least proximate recovery from previous addictions.
The presence of small groups of evangelical testimony and prayer has become a flourishing, recent dimension of the current life of most UM seminaries. At Drew there are prayer and Bible study groups with considerable sustaining power.
What has been the impact of radical feminism upon the church?
According to some definitions of feminism, I am happy to be viewed as a feminist. What I mean by radical feminism, however, is that particular form of feminist ideology that is deeply shaped by lesbian ideology, or at the very least, open to lesbianism as a legitimate lifestyle (Germaine Greer, Mary Daly, Kate Millett, et al.); and by a Marxist theory of history and oppression, by which one class, male, becomes fixedly cast in the role of demonic oppressors, and the victim class is viewed consistently as oppressed, regardless of the facts. The oneness of humanity is thus divided into two classes, a guilt class of oppressing misogynists and a guiltless class of oppressed women. This is a faddish form of demonization.
Those assumptions prevail in the dying form of radical feminism. That form is not as vital today as it was 10 years ago in our seminaries. Feminism of recent years is becoming more humanized, more influenced by the central body of women, less lesbian, less Marxist, less strident and outraged, more empathic. The earlier radical feminism is being corrected by neo-feminist or counter-feminist writers like Midge Deeter, Arianna Stassinopoulos, Ellen Hawkes, Megan Marshall, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Karen Mains, and Luci Shaw.
Many more women of moderation and piety are now coming into ministry to correct the earlier exaggerations of radical feminists. Women are more frequently refusing to allow themselves to be represented by pro-abortionist, lesbian advocates and sexual experimentalists whom they recognize to be unfriendly to women’s long-range interests.
In an earlier period, when the more radical feminists had a media pedestal of unquestioned moral authority—that was unfortunately acceded to by the moderate center—they gained a position of authority in some liberal-elite bureaucracies. They became very influential in reshaping language, diminishing free inquiry and setting limits on academic freedom.
Such feminists almost succeeded in taking over some venerable United Methodist institutions, which tended to become dogmatic in direct proportion to the amount of “unresisted” influence the feminist were allowed to exert. There are some UM seminaries that likely will not survive the next quarter century because they will be far too alienated to be supported in their sexual experimentation by the grassroots church.
This primrose path has already been taken by at least one Episcopal seminary, which has openly become a lesbian seminary with virtually all women, having the lesbian sexual assumptions taken for granted as a premise. Grassroots churches are now simply refusing to allow ordinal candidates to attend this seminary.
That could happen in a United Methodist seminary, one or two, but it only has to happen in one or two in order for the rest to flee in moral revulsion. It will not happen across the board. Even with our skewed forms of representation, the UM Church is smarter than to allow its institutions to be taken over by an ideology so alien as lesbian Marxism.
In light of your analysis, what do you believe about the future?
In every moment, human freedom is being given an opportunity to respond to grace. In every moment of theological inquiry, the human desire to know God is being given a fresh possibility of responding to God’s entry into history as attested in Scripture and confirmed by ecumenical tradition, rational inquiry and subsequent committed lives. The situation as given by grace is neither sick nor healthy as such, but full of possibility which persons can respond to in a sick or healthy way.
by Steve | Mar 12, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: Jet Landings
The inner city is filled with dead-ends and closed doors. Well, it used to be that way.
by Boyce A. Bowdon
Near the door to the Jets’ room at Pennsylvania Avenue United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, there is a cardboard box about two feet tall. The Jets know what it’s for. It’s where they dump their anger.
Who are the Jets? They belong to a youth group sponsored by Skyline Urban Ministries. They live in the inner city. Some of their neighbors are Bloods and Crips, gangs who frequently make the news with drug deals and drive-by shootings.
From early childhood, the Jets have heard the same messages that members of the gangs have heard—sometimes in a whisper, sometimes in a shout: “You are poor. You are second-class. You don’t belong. You have no power. You will never amount to anything.”
But those discouraging messages are not the only messages the Jets have heard. Actions, as well as words from people they trust, have instilled in their minds and hearts the Jet credo: “God is a good God; and the world he created, in spite of its pain and suffering and rampant injustice, is a good world. Life is good just the way it is, even though painful. The past has made me the unique individual that I am—a divine creation. I am good in the eyes of God, even though I don’t always like the way I act. The future is full of possibility, and with God’s help, I can change my situation.”
Every Monday through Friday, as soon as school is out, more than 100 Jets, from elementary school through high school, come to two United Methodist churches—Epworth and Pennsylvania Avenue. During the next two hours they have refreshments, play games, share feelings, study the Bible and sing praises to God.
Clarice Johnson, Skyline’s director of education, says one of the ministry’s major objectives is helping Jets learn to constructively handle their anger and other negative feelings.
“At Pennsylvania Avenue Church, we tell our Jets to visualize dumping their anger in the cardboard box when they come in the door,” says Clarice. “During our sessions, if a conflict develops over whose turn it is to do something, we take time out and ask the ones who are fighting, ‘Did you forget to dump your anger in the box?’ Nearly always, they smile, walk over to the box, dump their anger, come back and work things out peacefully.”
At Epworth Church, a different method is used to help Jets work through their anger.
“During sharing time, everyone is encouraged to express his or her feelings—both negative and positive. The act of sharing spreads the load around,” says Clarice. “Once anger is diluted, it is more easily managed. We discover that we don’t have to carry our anger, or any other burden, alone—that friends are there to help us handle it; and that God is always near to help us change bad situations and to make the most of the ones that cannot be changed.”
Jets are taught that they are not helpless victims, Clarice explains. “We say to our kids, ‘You always have a choice, even if it’s a limited choice. With God’s help, you can make a difference in your life.”‘
Youth in the program are taught the Jet decision-making process: observe and judge the facts, weigh the values, make a decision, act on it and accept the consequences.
Clarice says that a student in middle school was about to get into a fist fight recently that could have caused him to be expelled, or could have ended in someone being severely injured. A Jet reminded him that he did not have to fight—even though that was his usual way of dealing with conflict. He walked his friend through the Jet decision-making process. His friend cooled off, and differences were settled without blows.
Says Clarice: “We encourage Jets to be peacemakers rather than participants in violence, but we can’t make that choice for them. We teach them that they have to choose, and that they have to accept the consequences of the choices they make.”
The Jets ministry, which began in 1975, is built on the premise that a personal relationship with God is the foundation of our attitudes, which in turn, influences our actions and shapes our lives.
Clarice knows the Jets’ ministry can change lives. It has changed hers.
“It’s difficult to grow up, period!” Clarice says. “But it’s especially difficult to grow up poor; and to be convinced that you are limited, and always will be; that this is your life, and it will never get any better.”
That’s how Clarice—the seventh of ten children—felt about herself when she was in her early teens. And the feeling was reinforced every day in her relationships, even by people who had good intentions.
“I can remember a test that I didn’t do too well on,” Clarice recalls. “The white teacher in the integrated school said to me, ‘Oh, that’s okay. You did the best you could.’ I was saying, No, that’s not okay. I’m a good student and this is not my very best. I remember being very hurt. I asked my older sister why my teacher expected so little of me, and she said, ‘It’s because you are black. She thinks you can’t do any better. And you are going to have to learn to live with that—not just from your teacher, but from nearly everybody. They think black people are dumb.”‘
“My teacher was a kind person,” Clarice reflected. “I know she didn’t mean to hurt me. She just didn’t know any better. I didn’t know anything about white people, and she didn’t know anything about black people.”
During her early teens, Clarice began to sense that for a black person in the inner city, doors to a better life seemed closed and locked. She told herself she had to accept reality and make the most of it.
But then came the summer of 1977, when Clarice turned 15 years old. She had an opportunity to earn money during the summer through a federal job training program that was set up to help youth from low-income families. She signed up to work for Skyline Urban Ministries in a children’s academy.
“I remember going into the training session,” Clarice says. “There was one other non-white person in the room. I wasn’t sure what this experience was going to be like. The leaders started talking this strange talk about how every person is unique and unrepeatable, and how possibilities are tremendous, and how the future is open for everyone.”
Clarice was skeptical at first.
“I said to myself, Yeah, the future is open. Tell this to inner city kids and they’ll laugh. But after a week of training, I felt like my future was open. My eyes were opened, too. I saw there was more than just my corner of the block. I was hearing that I could make it happen—that I had power. Me!”
Clarice began to pay serious attention to the curriculum that she was being trained to teach others.
“I was ready to go out there and give it an honest try. Not just to teach the lessons to other children, but to learn the lessons myself. That was the summer when my life began; I really started living!”
Clarice had grown up in a Christian home. “I had always been taught that God is real; and that he is in me, not just in heaven. But now, I had a new impression of my self-worth. The Holy Spirit had come into my life. I knew I really mattered. I felt deep inside myself that with God’s help, I could do something with myself!”
Clarice had a great experience teaching that summer, and she went back to school that fall with renewed determination to excel. And excel she did. She graduated from high school with honors. Clarice earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Central Oklahoma, and taught school for the next five years while finishing a master’s degree.
Then she focused on her most ambitious dream.
“My mother had taught me that a good education is the key to the kind of life I want to live. I dreamed of earning a Ph.D. It seemed like a childhood fantasy, but Skyline taught me to look beyond the barriers and to dream big.”
During the next three years, Clarice completed a doctoral program at Oklahoma State University—all the while teaching at OSU and the University of Central Oklahoma.
Clarice was making more money teaching than she had ever expected to earn. “As the kids say, I was living large,” Clarice says with a chuckle.
Job opportunities began to open. In fact, she had teaching offers from two universities. But she declined both. Instead, she returned to Skyline for a salary that was significantly less than her other offers.
Why did she turn down better pay and a chance to get away from the inner city?
“This is what God put me here for,” Clarice says. “All the doors that God opened for me led here.”
Actually, Clarice had never left Skyline. She has been serving in the Skyline ministry nearly half her life—ever since that summer of 1977, when she was 15. All through her college and graduate school days, even though she was extremely busy, she made time to work with the Jets and other Skyline programs.
She rarely works only nine-to-five; she takes work home with her. In fact, she often takes children home. Some stay weekends. A few parents have even offered to let her keep their kids forever, and the kids have not objected.
“I want to feel that I have worked at making a difference, that I have given back to inner-city children what was given to me,” Clarice Johnson explains. “This is my chance to start paying my dues. I want to help those who are impoverished, emotionally and spiritually as well as financially—who feel embarrassed about who they are—to discover that they are God’s children.”
“I pray that young people who think they are stuck in a dismal situation will discover that Christ can set them free and empower them to be who they are meant to be— ‘unique and unrepeatable.’”
Boyce A. Bowdon is the director of communications for the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church.
by Steve | Mar 11, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Devaluing of Evangelism
By Bishop Louis Schwengerdt
March/April 1993
For 175 years, we the people called “Methodist” were enthusiastic and evangelistic. In the 1960s we stopped being both. A dramatic change took place. We became a different church. What happened? Why did we change?
Be reassured that some United Methodist churches are still enthusiastic and evangelistic. The faith of those in the congregation is deepening, and they are reaching out with the message of Jesus Christ to those outside their church walls. If we could by some miracle clone those pastors, or persuade others to be like them in theology and commitment, we could once again reform this continent.
Professor Earl Marlatt used to tell his students at Perkins School of Theology that the poets of today are the philosophers of tomorrow and the politicians of the future. Ideas are tremendously powerful and ultimately life-changing. They can either establish a communist government or cause its collapse. Ideas can give birth to a democratic nation or destroy the moral foundation upon which a free society must be built, causing societal collapse.
Merely changing programs, altering structures, or even relocating General Board offices will not bring about the renewal we seek; because the forces that came into prominence in the 1960s have changed our souls, shaped our attitudes and even modified our vision of who we are and who we want to be as United Methodists. Only a major renewal can deepen the faith of those who are already sitting in the pews, and give our churches the spiritual energies that are needed in order to reach secular people with the gospel message.
Let us look at the first idea that led to the forces bringing about that tremendous 1960s theological shift. In 1932, William Ernest Hocking’s book, Rethinking Missions: A Layman’s Inquiry After One Hundred Years, argued that:
I. Christian denominations should not try to convert people from their ethnic religions. Hocking believed that Christians should help the Buddhists, Muslims or Hindus to be better representatives of their own religions. He further suggested that all religious traditions can learn from each other; that Christians should share the best of their religion, and accept the best from other religions.
This view of the goal of missions was taught in most United Methodist seminaries; it was required reading when I attended Perkins School of Theology from 1947-1950. Arnold Toynbee, the world-renowned Anglican philosopher and historian, continued Hocking’s argument in his book, Christianity Among The Religions of The World. Toynbee wrote that it is vital for Christians “to try to purge our Christianity of the traditional western belief that Christianity is unique.”
Dr. D.C. Mulder, a World Council of Churches (WCC) official, carried this idea even further by stating at the WCC’s Vancouver meeting in 1983 that we should not evangelize at all, because it makes it difficult to have dialogue with people of other religious faiths.
The ideas of Hocking, Toynbee and Mulder are the dominant theological positions held today by the majority in the WCC, the National Council of Churches (NCC), and our own General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM).
Regardless of what we might wish, the majority in power positions today hold to Hocking’s view of the equal value of all religions. The decline of overseas missionaries for all mainline Protestant churches from 1962 to 1979 was enormous, and was the direct result of a confusion in the need for evangelism brought on by the ideas expressed by Hocking, Toynbee, and Mulding. The number of missionary volunteers declined in the Episcopal Church by 79 percent; the Lutheran Church of America by 70 percent; the United Presbyterian Church in the USA by 72 percent; the United Church of Christ by 68 percent; the Christian Church Disciples by 66 percent; the United Methodist Church by 46 percent; and the American Lutheran Church by 44 percent.
I witnessed the power of Hocking’s position four months before I retired from serving as a bishop. For a number of years, the New Mexico Annual Conference has been a sponsor of a ministry to the Navajos called The Four Corners Native American Ministry. There are two GBGM missionaries involved in this work, and for a number of years this ministry has been approved as an Advance Special. United Methodists across America have been most generous in their support for this vital ministry, giving more than the cap placed on this Advance Special by the GBGM.
The Four Corners Ministry believes fervently in evangelism. Every summer Henry Begay, a Navajo pastor appointed to the Shiprock UM Church, takes his tent and holds revival meetings in the remote parts of the Navajo nation. To members of all the clans, Henry Begay has been an answer to their prayers, because in their Bible study groups – which are like the house churches in China – they have been praying that God would show them the way to relate to Christians beyond the Navajo nation. The UM Church is the fastest growing denomination in the Navajo nation, with six new congregations planted in the last seven years.
Early in 1992, a complaint was registered with the GBGM that the Four Comers Ministry was imposing on them the white man’s standard, because the Navajo pastors were rejecting the ancient tradition of taking the drug peyote in worship. These pastors were also preaching that faith in Christ could free the Navajos from the fearful taboos of the night-time runners.
GBGM staff persons believing that the ancient religion was of equal value to Christianity decided to drop the Four Comers Ministry from the approved Advance Special list. This action was taken without consulting the bishop of the area or any of the conference representatives to the National Division of the GBGM, the Board of Global Ministries, or the UM Women. These representatives and others immediately met with all of the Navajos present at annual conference, stating their objection to the dismissal of the Advance Special listing. They requested that a consultation be held about the Navajo nation in the fall of 1992. Dr. Randolph Nugent, General Secretary of the GBGM, a man who does believe in evangelism and the saving power of Christ, was present. Thanks to his witness and that of other concerned Christians present, the decision was made to restore the Four Corners Ministry to the approved Advance Special list.
For those of us who are committed to evangelism, this story ends with good news. However, many of the decisions about missions are still being made according to the philosophy of William Hocking, the ideology which declares that it is not necessary to convert anyone to the Christian faith because all religions are of equal value.
The second idea that changed mainline Protestantism and the UM Church was:
II. The adoption of the Freudian ethic as the accepted moral code. When I was in seminary, the depth psychologists and the psychoanalytical physicians were the gurus who believed that they had a greater understanding of human nature than any theologians or biblical scholars. We turned to these doctors of the subconscious to heal us from all traumas and neurotic or psychotic behavior. Dr. Sigmund Freud, in his book Civilization and Its Dis-Contents, expressed concepts that were accepted by all therapists, both lay and clerical. An illustration Freud used to describe his attitude toward the Victorian moral code was one of a starving man seated at an elegant dinner table, waiting for each course to come, and being required to use the proper utensils for each bite. According to Freud, what the man wanted and needed to do was to take the food in both hands and devour it. Freud blamed the Victorian culture for repressing and controlling the instincts. He believed that repression caused the illness he saw in dreams and in psychoanalytical therapy.
According to Freud, another major cause of neuroses was the way parents treated their children, hemming them in with rules and regulations. He believed that if children had complete freedom to choose, and if they were allowed to express their subconscious desires, they would naturally develop patterns of wholeness and emotional stability. Many children growing up in this era came out of psychotherapy blaming their parents for all their emotional problems. ‘There are no bad children,” the therapy said, “only bad parents.”
In pastoral counseling we were taught that we should never ask any judgmental questions or use the word “sin” for any behavior. We were to hold up an emotional mirror before the counselee. When they saw their problem, they would correct their difficulties without any help from the counselor. We were not to use the word “sin,” because the problem was the conditioning by society and the parents, not the action of the troubled one. Making a moral statement would impose a code of ethics on the counselee, blocking the inner search for the traumatic situations that were causing the behavior. From this theory came the popular phrases, “If it feels good, do it”; “Let it all hang out”; “Look out for number one”; “Grab all the gusto”; and “Go for it.”
The influence of this philosophy on mainline Protestant churches was so powerful that we stopped preaching about sin, salvation, repentance and redemption. We removed the Ten Commandments from the Communion ritual. We decided that sins are forgiven before there was repentance, recompense for the sin, or a desire to rise and sin no more. Our preaching dropped the biblical language and concentrated on themes of tolerance, acceptance, affirmation and community building.
It was not until the Civil Rights movement that the word “sin” reentered America’s consciousness. Now the sins are racism, sexism and ageism. We do not call promiscuous sex, breaking the Sabbath, coveting, or bearing false witness, sins. We talk of criminal justice, but not of justice or the victims of criminals. We do not insist that criminals make recompense to those they have harmed. A few judges are requiring this to be done, but they have had little support from Protestant churches.
Secular society has completely adopted the Freudian ethic. The tragedy is that so many of our church members follow suit. We see church members coveting, buying on Sunday, consuming alcohol and drugs, lying, ruthlessly climbing and using power just like secular people. Success in the ministry is measured by secular standards of salary and church size. We speak of church growth in terms of success rather than changed life styles.
The inculcation of the secular value system into Christianity has caused many believers to feel that the church doors are definitely open to visitors, but we do not want to impose our desires on them. If they wish to come, they will. Until we “offer them Christ,” there does not seem to be much difference between those outside and those within the church. This thought leads into the third idea that brought about a significant change within the United Methodist Church:
III. The erosion of biblical authority for moral and spiritual living. When people asked the late Carl Michaelson, “What is the difference between the old hermeneutics and the new hermeneutics?” his reply was clear. “In the old hermeneutics we interpreted the Scripture. In the new hermeneutics, the Scripture interprets us.”
We need both the old and the new interpretation of Scriptures. We cannot have too much knowledge about the Bible. However, what has happened in our time is that we gain the knowledge, without then applying that knowledge. The new hermeneutics, according to Michaelson, has to do with the application of our biblical knowledge.
For example, we need to go beyond understanding the sociological and economic situation at the time of Jesus when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fed.” We need to ask ourselves, “Do I truly hunger and thirst after righteousness, or do I just hunger and thirst for things, for power and praise?”
Knowledge about the Scriptures does not automatically make us spiritually alive. This comes only as we apply what we know about the Scriptures to our daily lives. You may recall the conflict Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer had with many Lutheran and Free Church pastors during the reign of Adolph Hitler. During his first year in office, Hitler decreed that he would not interfere with affairs of the church as long as the church did not interfere with affairs of the state. All churches would be free to evangelize, but not to criticize the Third Reich. This won him great support from the majority of the clergy, especially ministers of the Free Churches who had been harassed by the Lutheran State religion.
Bonhoeffer would listen to and read their sermons about the recent de-mythologizing theories, their fine descriptions, and their appeals to be loyal to the church. But he noted that they said nothing as Hitler began to invade countries and kill millions. He felt that they were leaving out a vital part of the gospel.
Bonhoeffer established criteria for evaluating a sermon which he believed every pastor should follow. They are as valid today as they were in his time:
Is it faithful to the Scriptures?
Is it faithful to the text?
Is it faithful to the confession?
Is it faithful to the congregation?
Does it establish a relationship between the Old and the New Testament?
Does it establish the relationship between the Law and the Gospel?
Bonhoeffer did not want his students to omit any Scripture when a question about the relationship of the Law and the Gospel was asked. One reason we are not evangelistic today is that most people in our church eliminate from the faith by which they live those passages that apply to being evangelistic. It is easy to do this when we put ourselves in control of the Scriptures, and use our Bible training to say that certain passages applied only to former times and have, therefore, no validity today.
An example of the selective use of Scripture to fit a preconceived idea can be found in a statement by the United Methodist committee appointed to study homosexuality: “The church cannot teach that all biblical references and illusions to sexual practices are binding today just because they are in the Bible. Specific references and illusions must be examined in the light of the basic biblical witness and their respective socio-cultural contexts.”
If the committee were to ask the questions that Bonhoeffer asked his students to make of every sermon text, they could not have made that statement. When we take all of the Scriptures seriously, we will have come a long way on the path toward establishing the Law and the Gospels as spiritual and moral guides. As long as we read the Scriptures with preconceived notions of what is valid and not valid, what we will follow and not follow, we have eroded the authority of the Scriptures, and taken the road toward making the UM Church a secular church.
The combined power of these three concepts is awesome. Hocking’s view that all religions are equally good, Freud’s practiced view that the only sins are the restrictions that culture and parents place on the developing child, and the current popular view that we can be selective in using and excluding Scripture passages so that they fit our own ideas have taken us down the path toward being a secular church. Some of our present members are comfortable in that setting; but there are others who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who want to be told how to change their lifestyle to become more Christ-like. They cannot be fed by a secular church, by a church that is just a center for good works and fellowship rather than a saving station.
We will never be an evangelistic church until our theology changes.
Louis Schowengerdt (1926-1998) is a retired bishop of the United Methodist Church. This article is adapted from an address delivered to the 1993 Council on Evangelism in Houston.
by Steve | Mar 11, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Priority of Evangelism
By John Ed Mathison
Forget about all of those theoretical books on church growth. John Ed Mathison has seen Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, multiply from a 400-member congregation in 1970 to its present mega-church status. Without question, Mathison believes that evangelism has been the key to growth. —the editors
In order to develop a model for growth, our church created a planning group called the “Joel Committee,” taken from the Old Testament prophet who encouraged “the old men to dream dreams and the young men to see visions” (2:28).
Prayerful planning is essential for growth. We must discover God’s plan for our congregation and implement it, coming to terms with the priorities of the church. Congregations do not have the resources to spend their time, energy, or money without defining priorities.
After prayerful consideration, the priority for Frazer was established as that of making disciples, that is, evangelism.
The committee took time to carefully define evangelism because the word has been so misunderstood, producing regretful negative connotations with too many people. Therefore, we felt that our definition of evangelism had to reflect Scriptures such as: Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:14-16; Luke 24:45-48; John 20:19-22; and Acts 1:6-8.
On the basis of these biblical mandates, evangelism includes every member of the congregation. As such, evangelism—introducing people to Jesus—is the starting point for all of the ministries of the church. Stewardship, education, social action—all are the products of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Stewardship and tithing are important, but people do not tithe until first their own commitment to Christ is in order. Social concern is crucial, but the motivation must come out of what Jesus Christ has done in our individual lives.
Frazer’s definition
Evangelism is the proclamation, by word and deed, of the saving act of God in Jesus Christ to people, with a desire that they will decide for faith and become Christian disciples through the church.
Each word of the above definition is important.
The word proclamation is used rather than the word preach, because preaching in today’s culture usually denotes what happens behind the pulpit. Proclamation in the New Testament was what happened in the marketplace as people shared with each other concerning the event of Jesus Christ.
Proclamation is the “good news” that God has become known to us in the form of Jesus: “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, … full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Proclaiming the “good news” concerning the kingdom of God does not deal with ideas about God, but with the reality of God.
Proclamation is not an ideal, or a set of truths to be grasped, but sharing what God’s grace has done in your own life. The validity of the proclamation is not measured in terms of success, but rather in terms of faithfulness to the biblical mandate to “witness and make disciples.”
Evangelism is not having a revival once a year, or having some kind of special worship service, but that which happens when lay people share with each other in their everyday living.
The heart of Frazer’s growth is based on lay people, not clergy. Many churches have a concept that the pastor is paid to be the evangelist. But the pastor does not have the contacts with unchurched people that the laity have.
Our definition also places the emphasis on word and deed. Who a person is often speaks more loudly than what the person says. Lifestyle communicates and proclaims.
The Bible is not only a record of the historical acts of God, but a touchstone to show the activity of God for today: “It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive today” (Deuteronomy 5:3). Biblical proclamation is not commitment to formulated dogma of the past, but is open to God’s dealing with people today as God’s Word engages our contemporary situation.
Evangelism is not just a matter of proclaiming, but also a “desire that people will decide for faith and become Christian disciples.” This brings the hearer to a time of decision. Our message is proclaimed with a desire that the hearer will respond for faith.
Finally, evangelism aims at the making of “disciples through the church.” The Christian life is a converting process. This is why the term evangelism, when rightly understood, is synonymous with “making disciples.” Evangelism happens as God continues to work in the lives of disciples, reaching out through them to make new disciples, and making their own discipleship ever more full and true.
The Bible teaches in John 3:3 that we must be “born again.” Doctors are not allowed to deliver babies and leave them lying on the street. They would have their licenses rejected and be prosecuted for malpractice. Someone has to feed the baby, change the baby and, care for all the baby’s needs.
People who decide for faith are reborn as babies. Some evangelism efforts just end there and leave them on the street, and “babies” have no chance of survival by themselves. We must nurture and care for them until they become mature enough to become reproducing disciples.
In the Frazer definition of evangelism, the phrase “through the church” is essential. This is a structure of accountability. The congregation is designed and gifted to assume the nurturing, discipling process. This means that the church has a great responsibility for each person, and each person has an ever-increasing responsibility to become involved in the whole process of making disciples.
Assimilation, therefore, is a vital part of evangelism. It becomes important for the person who has made a new commitment and joined the church to become involved in a small group and in a function of ministry.
The concept for the church is really understood at two levels—the overall community of the membership of the church, and the different subgroups or “communities” that are formed around several different dynamics. Some of these small groups are based on special interests or talents; some are sociological, economic or vocational groupings. It is essential for the new member to become involved in a small group and in a function of service.
The purpose of these small groups is to minister to the world and to the community itself. It is crucial for the direction of interest to be both out to the world and in toward the group—for service and fellowship.
In summary, the purpose of evangelism is to produce disciples who by word and deed will proclaim the good news in the day-to-day situations of life. This proclaiming calls and gathers people into the church, which provides communities where the new disciple can find fellowship and service. Evangelism becomes self-propagating in the sense that proclamation produces disciples who, through the church, become proclaimers who produce disciples, and so on.
Each ministry at Frazer is evaluated yearly by the Council on Ministries, according to the criterion of whether or not it is making disciples. Frazer does not have the time, money, or energy to be involved in good programs that are not making disciples.
The Result
An excellent example of evangelism in operation is seen in the lives of two people in the Frazer family. It all began when some members took seriously the importance of carrying the good news to all people—even to those in prison. About eight years ago, one of the prisoners named Tommy Waites made a commitment to Jesus Christ.
The prison ministry helped disciple him in the Christian faith. Tommy was serving a life sentence. About six years later, he was up for parole. Two of the requirements for parole were to have a place to live and a place to work. After seeing several doors close for Tommy’s employment, the committee suggested that the church hire him as part of the custodial staff, which it did.
Tommy has no formal education, but he is a diligent student of the Bible and an excellent communicator. He loves to talk to people while he does his custodial work. He even became an extremely popular Sunday school teacher.
About five years ago a man in Montgomery, Wes Strane, who had not been to church in years, was invited to come to Frazer. Wes did not really like being in church and resisted coming, but finally decided to play it safe by coming on a Sunday night. During the closing prayer time, he saw a seriously handicapped young man trying to make his way down to the altar. The man was holding on to each pew as he went forward. God used the scene of that young man to touch the heart of Wes Strane. He thought to himself, That boy is crippled in body, but I am crippled in my mind.
Wes got up from his pew and helped the boy down to the altar, and knelt beside him. It was there that he confronted the reality of a God who really cared for him and was calling him to be a disciple. Wes made that commitment. He is an example of what can happen when people invite others to church!
Wes joined a Sunday school class and became interested in the prison ministry.
One Sunday morning Tommy Waites was invited to teach a large adult class. Wes Strane was sitting with his wife on the front row. Tommy was thanking the church for reaching out to him in prison, and was describing what God had done in his life. He said, “One place God had a hard time changing me was in my attitude toward white policemen. I hated white policemen. But when God changed my life, he changed my attitude toward them, and today I have learned to love everybody—even white policemen!”
Just then Wes Strane stood up and said, “I am an ex-white policeman. I didn’t go to church for years until I was invited to come to Frazer. God has changed my life. The one area where God has had the most difficulty with me is in my attitude toward black prisoners. But I am here today to witness to the fact that God has changed my hatred of black prisoners into a genuine love.”
At that point, these two men walked toward each other and embraced in front of the class. It was the most moving lesson that had ever been taught in that room. It was an example of the results of evangelism. You cannot legislate human relationships and race relations. The answer to the prison problems lies in the kind of prison ministry that changes the hearts and attitudes of people. The answer to changing racial prejudice is found through evangelism—making disciples.
Shortly after this, some lay people suggested that Tommy should be involved in a large housing project where we wanted to start a ministry. It is the worst drug-pushing area of our city. Several different churches and organizations had tried to start ministries there, but had failed.
We talked with Tommy about starting a ministry there. The first person to volunteer to help him was Wes Strane! Today these two provide a vital service in the Riverside Heights Housing Project. On Sunday mornings they have about 75 adults in worship, and often have more than 100 boys and girls in Sunday school. They are disciples making disciples with an important ministry in that section of town.
This is why evangelism is a priority. Social concerns, stewardship, education—all are expressions of love motivated by what Jesus Christ has done within the lives of disciples. Through evangelism, every member becomes essential to the heartbeat of the church.
John Ed Mathison is the senior pastor of Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. This article is adapted from his book, Tried & True: Eleven Principles of Church Growth from Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church. Copyright 1992 by Discipleship Resources, P.O. Box 840, Nashville, Tennessee 37202. Adapted by permission of the publisher.
by Steve | Jan 13, 1993 | Archive - 1993
Archive: The Touch of God
Hungering after the presence of God will bring the church back to Life.
By Sandy S. Kirk
“I felt like the dead sent to raise the dead,” groaned John Wesley after fruitless attempts to convert the lost. Yet isn’t this the cry of the United Methodist Church today? In the midst of a dying world, sadly we must admit: We feel like the dead sent to raise the dead! “We are wasting away like a leukemia victim when the blood transfusions no longer work,” laments Bishop Richard Wilke in his book, And Are We Yet Alive? (Abingdon). Former church history professor, Gerald Anderson, reports that at the rate we are losing members, by the year 2045, the number of United Methodists left in this nation will be a whopping—two!
John Wesley, however, refused to be complacent about his own spiritual deadness. He was hungry for a witness of the Spirit, the assurance of his salvation, a touch from God in his heart. A healthy spiritual appetite urged him onward in his search for God.
What about us? Do we have a healthy spiritual hunger for the presence of God? If not, perhaps this is one reason for the dryness in the church today.
In his book A Thirst for God, Sherwood Wirt explains this sad but profound truth: “When we are physically hungry and miss a meal, our appetite becomes ravenous. But if time passes and we receive no spiritual food, we may lose our appetite for it. … Malnutrition sets in and we cease to care. ”
Could malnutrition be destroying the United Methodist Church today and we have ceased to care? If so, how can a robust spiritual hunger be restored? Augustine gave the answer: “I tasted and it made me hunger and thirst: You touched me, and I burned to know Your peace.”
You see, in physical hunger, we eat and our hunger is satisfied. But in spiritual hunger, we taste and our hunger becomes voracious. The more we eat, the hungrier we become. As St. Bernard said, “We taste of Thee, the Living Bread, and long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, and thirst our souls from Thee to fill.”
This was the kind of hunger that drove John Wesley. The presence of God was missing from the church of his day, most of all from his own life, and he was panting after God with all his heart. His throat was parched for the living water, and he knew—the same God who creates the thirst will quench it with himself.
One can feel the aching dryness of his soul as he cries, “I felt like the dead sent to raise the dead, a Judas sent to cast out devils, a lion in a den of Daniels. I could only pray in my despair: ‘Oh, thou Savior of men, save me from trusting in any thing but Thee! Draw me after Thee! Let me be emptied of myself, and then fill me with all peace and joy in believing.”‘
Charles Wesley’s Search for God
John was not alone in this questing after God; his brother Charles also had an insatiable thirst for God’s presence. Like John, Charles had returned from a disappointing trip to America, and he too was desperately hungry for God.
On Pentecost Sunday, May 21, 1738, Charles awoke with a sense of great expectancy bubbling within him. With all his might he prayed, “Oh, Jesus, You have said, ‘I will come to you.’ You have said, ‘I will send him, the Comforter, unto you.’ You have said, ‘My Father and I will make our abode with you.’ You are God, who cannot lie. I wholly rely upon your most true promise. …”
And this is the secret.
Charles was not asking for wealth or healing or power or gifts or anointing. He was asking for Christ himself. Later he wrote, “In me a quenchless thirst inspire, a longing, infinite desire; and fill my craving heart. Less than Thyself O do not give; in might Thyself within me live; come all Thou hast and art. ”
Indeed, this was the highest kind of prayer. He was asking God for God. With a yearning heart, he was knocking on the door of heaven, asking continually for the promise of the Father, the blessed Holy Spirit.
This is the prayer God waits to hear, for on that same night something amazing happened to Charles, who had been deathly ill and was staying in the home of a godly mechanic and his sister.
On the same day he had prayed so fervently for the Holy Spirit, the mechanic’s sister received a dream from the Lord, and was commanded to tell Charles he would recover in body and soul. For two days she struggled with the message as it surged and burned in her spirit. Finally, after her brother’s prodding, she went to Charles’ room and thundered, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise and thou shalt be healed of thine infirmities!”
When Charles realized these words were from Christ himself, though spoken through a human vessel, he reached out to Jesus with his whole heart and took hold of the promise. Like a bucket scooped down into a fathomless well, he dipped into the wells of salvation and drank deeply of the heavenly waters. And in that one divine moment, Charles Wesley was born again.
The next day the power of God came upon Charles and led him into deep intercessory prayer for his brother John. As he prayed, the Lord’s presence was so strong, he said, “I almost believed the Holy Spirit was coming upon him.”
And indeed he was! Within 48 hours of this earnest intercession, the power of God fell mightily upon John. May 24, 1738, John Wesley entered that obscure little room on Aldersgate Street in London, and as the powerful words of Martin Luther were being read, the Holy Spirit fell upon him and ignited the flame of Christ within his heart forever.
The Holy Spirit is Our Wesleyan Heritage
God touched John and Charles Wesley with his Spirit, and their lives burst into flames that eventually spread throughout all of England. We need that touch today. It is our heritage.
Without the literal presence of the Holy Spirit in the church, like faith without works, we are dead. Charles Spurgeon explained, “Without the Spirit of God we can do nothing. We are as ships without wind or chariots without steeds. Like branches without sap, we are withered. Like coals without fire, we are useless. As an offering without the sacrificial flame, we are unaccepted.”
Yes, we need to seek the fullness of God’s spirit, like John and Charles Wesley, until we find Him. Wrote Bishop Wilke, “The wind of the Spirit, ah, that is what we need most. … We cannot baptize only with water or we die. We must baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit.”
“He Touched Me”
I sat in a meeting with a group of Methodists one night 20 years ago. I had been earnestly seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit for months. That day a deep, cleansing wave of repentance had swept through my heart and prepared me for what was getting ready to happen.
As the people joined in the hymn, “He Touched Me,” I was silently and desperately praying, ” O Come, Lord Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus. … ”
I didn’t realize at the time that this is the prayer God waits to hear. But suddenly, the Holy Spirit came upon me and flooded my spirit. I felt as though every fiber of my being had been awakened and filled with God’s presence. Waves of his love coursed through my heart, and desire for God’s word ignited in an instant.
That touch from God changed my life forever, but I made a terrible mistake. Fifteen years passed before I learned the importance of asking continually to be refilled with God’s Spirit. Said Dwight L. Moody, “A great many think that because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time. But oh, we are leaky vessels! We have to be kept under the fountain all the time in order to stay full.”
Let’s End the Debate and Pray!
It’s time to be done with the divisive debate over “when ” we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The question is: are we being filled now?
We need to invite the Holy Spirit to come and fill us afresh every day. Then we need to invite God to come to our bone-dry and languishing churches. Like John and Charles Wesley, we need to pray,” Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast!”
If the heavens seem shut, if rains of revival are not falling upon the church, we need to do just what God said to do in times like this:
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain … if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land ” (II Chronicles 7:13-14).
This is not a time to pack our bags and abandon ship. It’s a time to humble ourselves at the wounded feet of Christ; to seek his presence in prayer; to repent of our loss of spiritual appetite, and ask the Lord to open heaven and rain the spirit of revival upon the church. Said Charles Spurgeon, “Death and condemnation is preferable to a church that is not yearning after the Spirit, crying and groaning until the Spirit has worked mightily in her midst.”
Won’t you join with Methodists all over this world to pray, “O come Holy Spirit! Breathe upon our malnourished hearts until we can feast once again on the presence of God in the church. Then at last we will be like a church—risen from the dead, bursting with God’s life, and bringing that living bread to a hungry, dying world.”
Sandy S. Kirk is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Good News. She is a Bible teacher and the wife of R.L. Kirk, pastor of St. Luke’s UM Church in Lubbock, Texas.
