by Steve | Nov 2, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Servant Evangelism
Opening Closed Hearts to God’s Love
By Steve Sjogren
To earn the right to speak words of love, we must first willingly demonstrate deeds of love to the hurting people in our cities.
It was the Friday evening before Labor Day, and rush hour traffic was backed up for nearly a mile at the corner by our church. The temperature was 95 degrees, with matching humidity. About ten of us from the church quickly went into action to touch several hundred hot, frustrated motorists with God’s love. We iced down 400 soft drinks and set up signs just down the road: “Free Drinks Ahead!” As the cars came to the stop sign, we asked, “Would you like diet or regular?”
“Diet or regular what?” was the skeptical reply. “We’re giving away free drinks to show God’s love in a practical way.”
“Why?”
“Just because God loves you.” Reactions varied greatly—some people smiled, some shook their heads, several mouths dropped open. Most were a little stunned to receive something for free. A UPS driver drove away saying, “But I don’t even know you guys. Why would you do this for me?” In less than one hour, we spoke with about 600 people, gave away all the drinks on hand, and were even given coverage on a local radio station’s traffic report.
A slow start
I met Christ in the revival atmosphere of the “Jesus People” movement in southern California. A lot of evangelism was going on, but most of us doing it at the time were high on enthusiasm and low on understanding about how people come to Christ. We had an oversimplified picture of what bringing someone into relationship with Christ involved. Our model for evangelism worked extremely well in southern California, but it depended on highly gifted leaders doing evangelism in public meetings. Little person-to-person evangelism was going on outside of corporate gatherings. We naively thought we could use the same approach elsewhere with identical effectiveness. We joked that you could sneeze at meetings and a dozen people would accept Christ! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that God was doing his own sovereign work of evangelism. Doing evangelism during the Jesus Movement was like fishing during a salmon run. Anyone with minimal availability could “catch fish.”
Today we are no longer fishing in a salmon run.
The day of “easy evangelism” has not been with us for more than a decade. People aren’t nearly as open to listening to evangelistic appeals as they once were. In their hearts, many non-Christians say, “You have no right to tell me about your God until you have shown me you have integrity.” The scandals of prominent leaders in the body of Christ have made it more difficult than ever to share the gospel. For whatever reason, unchurched people are jaded. It’s tough sharing Jesus with skeptics.
Ten years after I came to Christ, I found myself in a very different spiritual environment than the fertile fields of the Jesus Movement era. I moved my family to Cincinnati to plant a new church. We began in a conservative, Midwestern community with five people. During my first 18 months, I shared my vision for planting a church with 1,000 people. Yet for all that effort we started our first Sunday with 35 people. That’s enough rejection to give Norman Vincent Peale a challenge. At that point we were unenthusiastic about evangelism. Mentioning the “E-word” caused us to feel guilty and reminded us of our failure at reaching out to the community.
Seeing their pain
One day while sitting in a restaurant, having just told a visitor our vision for starting a church—and being rejected again—I felt the Lord speak to me: “If you will befriend my friends then you’ll have more people than you know what to do with.”
Until that day, I wondered if there would be any people to pastor. Now God was saying I would have more people than I know what to do with if I befriended his friends.
I began to look in Scripture for the kinds of people Jesus interacted with during his short ministry. I began to see something new: though Jesus loved everyone, he apparently enjoyed spending the better part of his time with three types of people: the poor, the sick, and the lost. Even the apostles came from the hurting of society. All the apostles came from Galilee, the most hurting part of Palestine.
I began to see Jesus’ friends as the ones who are in pain from bad decisions they have made, from rejection, and from living in a fallen world that knows little of God’s acceptance, forgiveness, and love. We all have our own version of pain—those tension points that make life somewhere between difficult and impossible to live.
I realized that almost no one is having a good time in life. I went to the mall one day to go people watching. As I looked into the face of each person, I realized almost everyone is experiencing a significant level of misery. Jesus longs to touch and heal this pain. Somehow, my job was to be around and minister to those people. But how? I’m too shy to go door to door knocking. Besides, people seemed more skeptical than ever. I had already heard several hundred people tell me no to the invitation to become involved in this new church.
Then an idea began to form. If we could somehow lighten some of the pain these people are going through—even for a moment—maybe we would get their attention. By serving our way into their hearts, maybe we could gain their ears.
As the idea of servant evangelism crystallized, we organized an “absolutely free car wash.” We stationed a couple of former cheerleaders on the corner with signs to direct dirty cars to the rest of our crew. We had several who washed, some who did windows, some who vacuumed, and a couple who were “designated” evangelists, explaining to people the reason we were doing this. Amazingly, many wouldn’t believe we would do something for free—no strings attached. The first car was a station wagon driven by a single mom with six squirming kids. She cried as we shared with her and prayed for her.
The owner of the second car turned out to be a well-known Cincinnati businessman. We told him we were doing this for free. He said, “That’s nice. To whom shall I make out my check?”
“No sir,” someone replied, “we aren’t receiving any money for washing your car. We did this just because God loves you.” It was one thing to see the mother cry, but I wasn’t ready to see this powerful businessman wipe away the tears.
I believe he was touched because we went around all his established defenses that had kept people—and God—away from his life. If we were to “battle” at a philosophical or theological level, we would not have gotten through to this sophisticate. In a sense, we broke the rules and were not “fighting fair.” We sneaked in the back door of his life where he was least expecting it—his heart—and made a significant impact.
When the afternoon was over, we had washed more than 40 cars. Surprisingly, almost everyone accepted prayer when we offered it. Our group stood in a circle, prayed, and cried together. We began to feel the pain of those we had served that day.
Since that time we have tried more than one hundred creative outreaches. Almost all of them have worked extremely well—putting us in touch with the community.
Reaching out to people has been the key to the significant growth we have experienced. Last year alone we touched more than 60,000 in our community. Our fellowship has grown from 35 people nine years ago to more than 2,800 today. We have seven weekend services and have planted six more fellowships in the area. What has happened here has caused us to see evangelism with new eyes.
Seeing the ”process”
Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 3:6 transformed our view of evangelism: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” Paul saw evangelism as a process, a view unlike our American mindset that focuses mainly on “closing the deal.” According to Paul’s agricultural analogy, harvesting comes after much planting and watering. Americans naturally value the harvest aspect of evangelism. Our culture extols results and the bottom line. Paul, however, valued the early stages of evangelism groundwork, as well as the final loop of the evangelism process.
Paul states a basic farming principle: the more you plant and water, the more you will eventually harvest. Because of the American church’s credibility gap, we must first willingly demonstrate love before we’ll earn the right to share the words of love with our society. We must learn to value what I call the first 90 percent of evangelism—the planting and watering—before we begin to see significant harvesting.
I define evangelism with this simple formula:
DEEDS OF GOD’S LOVE + WORDS OF GOD’S LOVE + TIME
Deeds of kindness and love give us entrance into people’s hearts. We design our deeds to relieve their pain and cause them to ask us, “Why are you doing this for me?” The deed of love or service is the initial seed planted in the hearts of people. As we serve people we tell them of God’s love by sharing the gospel message at whatever level they are open. Then, after a season (that amount of time is different for each individual), the Holy Spirit begins to work on the hearts of those seekers.
This approach to evangelism puts the pressure squarely on God instead of people or a program. I don’t think people can take that sort of pressure. I have found that they become guilt-ridden when pressure for doing evangelism is put on their shoulders. We determine to have fun when going out to serve the community, and leave the results with God. We have adopted a motto coined by George Bernard Shaw: “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong.”
To date we have seen many come into relationship with Christ. By approaching “pre-Christians” with a desire to serve them and relieve their pain we avoid battling in a mental or verbal arena and go straight to their hearts. I haven’t seen much fruit in trying to convert people at the head-to-head level of apologetics—telling and arguing. A heart-to-heart witness is hard to resist. As we go for the hearts of people we bypass their defenses.
Paul echoed this thought in Romans 2:4, “… it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.” Kindness is a key that opens hearts. It opened one man’s heart to God when we were doing a “Free Lawn Care” outreach. We had loaded a couple of mowers and rakes into a truck and driven around until we saw long grass. We approached the house and knocked on the door to tell the owner what we were up to. Through the screen door this man barked, “What do you want?” We gave him a brief explanation and, without even looking up, his response was simply, “Yeah, whatever.”
We mowed enthusiastically and finished in about 30 minutes, then we stopped by to tell him we were done and ask if we could pray for any needs in his life. He was sitting motionless in front of the TV watching a Reds baseball game and told us he didn’t have any needs. As we stepped away from the door, one young man in our group said he was sure this man was in great emotional need and that we ought to insist on praying for him, so we turned around and prayed a simple little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit and touch this man’s pain, whatever it is.” The response was instant and surprising—he broke down in deep sobbing, grabbing the nearest person in the circle and wetting his shoulder with tears for some minutes. When his crying died down, he told us his son had been arrested the night before for stealing a car to support a drug habit.
That day God’s presence and power penetrated this man’s pain and isolation in a tangible way because we were willing to cut a little grass.
Getting started
You and your church can begin to reach out to your city in significant ways through Servant Evangelism outreaches. This approach can be condensed in the phrase: “Low Risk — High Grace” activity.
Risk has to do with the “cost” of the given outreach. Cost comes in a variety of ways other than money—emotion, time, energy. The “grace” factor has to do with how much of God’s blessing and presence is necessary for something significant to happen in the given outreach. I have done ministry that has been so heavily programmatic, there was little need for God to show up to ensure success in the ministry. We need to sponsor outreaches in which it is easy enough for the average layperson to succeed, and almost impossible to fail. If our approach to ministry requires an Olympic level of skill then we will have only a small percentage of our people reaching out.
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In other words, it doesn’t take much gifting, or much money, or even much boldness to begin to affect large numbers of people. But as we step out to do these acts of love, God in his mercy shows up in “high grace” ways. So how do you get started in opening closed hearts to God’s love?
1. Begin to ask the Lord to show you the pain in your city.
Ask the Lord for the gift of knowing and identifying your community’s pain. Every city is unique in its problems, hurts, and pain. What Cincinnatians feel as a need will differ from the needs of your city. Cincinnati has long and wet winters that leave road salt on cars. During the cold weather months we offer free desalting washes. Cold weather also gives us a chance to give out free coffee at grocery stores.
There’s a park in Toledo where many parents walk with their families on pleasant summer days. A pastor there has photo teams that walk about the park offering to take free pictures of the families— “just because God loves you.” They place a sticker on the back of the picture with the church name and phone number. I believe those families will save pictures taken of them for years. Every time they look at that picture they recall the kindness of the Christians that served them. One thing is for sure: As you begin to address people’s pain with the mercy and compassion of the Lord, you will draw a crowd. Few of the unchurched are looking for church. All of us are looking for relief from our pain.
2. Begin to meet the practical needs of your city.
In other words, scratch them where they itch. Robert Schuller says, “Find a hurt and heal it.” As you begin to look at the needs in each stratum of your city, you’ll begin to see some of what God sees.
A friend of mine pastors a church in a Colorado college town. Here, his church does servant evangelism by going door-to-door in the dorms, offering to clean rooms for free “just because God loves you.” They are beginning to see a lot of curious college students coming to their fellowship. They have a second outreach to the students by providing free tutoring, then praying for their success on the upcoming test.
3. You Step out First
Most pastors I know aren’t natural evangelists. However, we have all been called to do the work of an evangelist (II Timothy 4:5). Your people will listen to all you teach and talk about, but they really won’t do more than you do as their primary leader. By nature, pastors are often more Bible “studiers” than Bible “doers.” When I take personality inventories, I consistently come up as borderline introvert, but I find these low-risk outreaches feasible for me.
I look forward to mobilizing more outreaches into the community. We are now using our small groups as our primary force for doing these projects. Just think what could happen if it became commonplace for each small group to do a monthly outreach. It’s exciting to consider the sort of impact a church could make if it’s organized to serve its way into the hearts of the community.
Steve Sjogren is pastor of the Vineyard Community Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the author of Conspiracy of Kindness (Vine Books).
by Steve | Sep 25, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: UM official reveals lesbianism; Good News responds
The Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, associate general secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concern (GCCUIC), identified herself as a lesbian when she addressed the Reconciling Congregations Convocation in Minneapolis on July 15. The Reconciling Congregation movement is comprised of UM churches and other groups that welcome the participation of homosexual men and lesbians.
Powers, an ordained member of the Minnesota Conference, noted that “many, many people in our church” already were aware of her sexual orientation. The 63-year-old clergywoman called her announcement “a political act,” designed as “an act of resistance to false teachings that have contributed to heresy and homophobia within the church itself.”
Ms. Powers believes, “As long as the phrases ‘homosexuality and the Christian faith are incompatible,’ and ‘celibacy in singleness’ continue to stand in our Discipline, no matter how these phrases are introduced or framed, our church is on record as perpetuating heterosexism in its life and homophobia in its teaching.”
Powers said she has no intention of withdrawing from the ministry or surrendering her ordination papers nor does she plan to indicate whether she is a “practicing” lesbian. In a statement, she said, “no one has the right to know intimate details of any other person’s loving sexual practices.” Practice, she added, “makes no sense, for identity is a matter of ‘being,’ not ‘doing.’”
Powers claims that she withdrew from “an almost certain episcopal election in 1976 because I did not want, as the first woman bishop and for the sake of the church, to have my life under a magnifying glass.”
In a prepared statement, Minnesota Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher—who did not attend the convocation—called Powers “a distinguished ecumenist in the global Christian movement and a respected leader in the United Methodist Church.”
“Throughout her ministry she has invited the church to reflect theologically and make decisions about the hard issues of life,” the bishop added.
The bishop said leaders of the Minnesota Conference, where Powers is a member, “will respond to her current invitation in a manner consistent with the compassion of Christ as well as the covenant of United Methodist people formed by their General Conference and described in their Book of Discipline.”
At its recent annual meeting, the Minnesota Conference approved a petition asking that the 1996 General Conference delete “all exclusionary references” to gays and lesbians in the Book of Discipline, including the statement about ordination.
The Rev. Bruce Robbins, the chief executive of GCCUIC, told The United Methodist Reporter that he believed Ms. Powers had “done a courageous thing by being truthful with people. She is convinced that her action will be good for the church.
“Her announcement will cause dialogue and hopefully result in better understanding of each other,” Robbins said.
The board of directors of Good News, an evangelical renewal movement within the UM Church, responded to the Powers announcement during its summer board with the following statement:
“The Rev. Powers, ostensibly taking the step of disclosing her lesbianism, is, from our perspective, doing no less than openly defying the witness of the United Methodist Church concerning human sexuality and using her position to advocate the acceptance of homosexuality. This is clearly in violation of Discipline Par. 906.12, which prohibits use of UM funds (staff salaries) ‘to promote the acceptance of homosexuality’; as well as Par. 402.2, which requires clergy ‘to maintain the highest standards represented by the practice of fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.’ While being applauded for her honesty and courage in ‘coming out,’ the Rev. Powers declined to be totally forthright about what was explicitly implied in her public announcement—she has refused to indicate whether she is a ‘practicing’ lesbian. Without ‘practice,’ the announcement would have no significance.
“In a time when clergy are being schooled in the dynamics and dangers of sexual harassment and sexual molestation, it is a transparent ruse for the Rev. Powers to claim that the sexual behavior of clergy is beyond the province of the church. While the resignation of the Rev. Powers might normally be expected, it is clear that she is raising the challenge as to whether United Methodism can and will effectively enforce its own Discipline.
“The supervisory personnel of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns is responsible for reprimanding or removing the Rev. Powers. In addition, the Minnesota Conference Board of Ordained Ministry has a supervisory responsibility for the Rev. Powers because of her membership there. In light of this premeditated attack on the standards of the United Methodist Church, and with the distinct possibility of an ineffective response by those charged to oversee the situation, we understand those United Methodist congregations which will choose to withhold apportionment monies from the General Church until it is demonstrated that the Discipline is being implemented.
“If the Rev. Powers’ public ‘act of resistance to false teachings’ goes without appropriate, albeit compassionate, accountability, it will make a mockery of our General Conference legislative processes and will cause more and more United Methodists to wonder whether their church has the will to enforce its own disciplinary standards.”
Adapted from United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | Sep 20, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Good News Celebration draws 600; says lordship of Jesus central to UM Church
“Nothing is more determinative of our life and faith than what we think about Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture,” Dr. Maxie Dunnam told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 700 persons on July 13, the opening night of the 1995 Good News Summer Celebration at the Marriott Hotel in Cincinnati.
More than 630 United Methodists from 27 states and all five Jurisdictions registered for the three-and-a-half day convocation which had as its theme, “Jesus Christ: The Heart of It All.”
Dr. Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and former world editor of the Upper Room, noted the struggles United Methodism has experienced in recent years and insisted the problem has been “a theological and doctrinal one.” He noted that “we institutionalized theological pluralism” in 1972 and “it became the driving energy for us.” The result was the church lost track of its core, its center. “We must keep the center clear. Without a center, you can’t define a circumference,” said Dunnam. He added, “The Confessing Movement [of which he was one of three convenors] believes this is the crisis of the church. Will we accept views that differ with the Articles of Religion?”
In another rousing sermon, Dr. Andrea Bishop, until last month copastor with her husband, Tom, of Jubilee UM Church in Waterloo, Iowa, said the gospel is about a God who sent his Son to redeem, reconcile, and restore us and to make of us a family intimately related to one another. She questioned why we don’t see more miracles. “We take wine and make it into water. We take God’s good stuff and dilute it. The wine of our Wesleyan heritage is on the verge of becoming water,” said Bishop. In response to her invitation to “throw off the symbol of your infirmity and allow God to work afresh in your life,” nearly half of those listening went forward in the meeting to renew their commitment to Jesus Christ. (The Bishops will be moving to Ghana, West Africa, at the beginning of 1996 to train pastors within the Ghanian Methodist Church.)
Celebration participants were also challenged by the personal witness of Dr. Jerry Kirk, for many years senior minister of the large College Hill United Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. He told how the Lord led him out of the security of a successful pastoral ministry to unite Christian leaders of all denominations in a fight against pornography. In leading the battle, Kirk formed the National Coalition Against Pornography, now the National Coalition for the Protection of Families and Children. Kirk winsomely challenged worshippers to get a vision from the Lord for the rest of their lives: “For awakening to come, revival must start in the individual life.”
Kirk believes that “if we don’t change the way the country thinks about pornography, we’ve lost the country.” He warned the audience that the equivalent of a million adult bookstores have just come on the Internet, a giant, international computer information hook-up. Kirk added, “No one can remain on the sideline of this battle. The adult video porn industry has grown 75 percent in the last two-and-a-half years.”
In still another high-octane address, Dr. Al Vom Steeg, president of The Mission Society for United Methodists in Decator, Georgia, and for some 30 years. A clergy member of the California/Nevada Conference, challenged those gathered by saying missions must also be at the heart of the church. In an effort to put the world’s needs in perspective, Vom Steeg said, “The 2.5 billion unreached peoples of the world won’t care about who is going to Denver [General Conference] next year. The lost are wondering why they are living.”
The passion of The Mission Society, said its new president, is, “We want to make sure that anyone who has a call can get to the mission field. We have a covenant with some 20 different mission agencies. We second missionaries to them or send them out ourselves, but in either case we care for them.”
Vom Steeg lamented the need for such a thing as a Confessing Movement within the UM Church. “With all those who are lost, here we are having to try to get convenes our theology straight about Jesus. We can’t even say, ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”
Dr. Steve Harper, executive director of A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE) and founder of Shepherd’s Care, was the morning Bible teacher. Good News board vice-chairman, the Rev. Bill Hines, and executive committee member, the Rev. Greg Stover, also gave plenary addresses. The Rev. Bob Snyder, along with his wife, Peg, served as co-chairpersons for the Celebration, and were honored for having served in that capacity for a third time.
Participants received training and equipping through 12 different afternoon seminars.
In his update to the Celebration audience, Good News president and publisher, James V. Heidinger II, cited theologian Alister McGrath’s remark that amidst the renewal and revival we are seeing around us, “The Christian vision of the future now seems increasingly to belong to evangelicalism, which is coming more and more to constitute the mainstream of American Protestant Christianity.”
Heidinger cautioned about the Church of Christ Uniting (COCU) proposal passed by numerous annual conferences, will be coming before the 1996 UM General Conference for approval. The COCU plan attempts to unite a number of mainline churches “that are themselves widely divided in their theology.” Most pastors and lay persons know nothing whatsoever about the proposal, he added.
Heidinger also reported that the initial tally from General and Jurisdictional Conference elections suggests that the delegation for next year is noticeably more conservative/moderate than in 1992.
Good News board convenes
At its summer meeting following the Celebration, the 40-member Good News board of directors met and dealt with a number of immediate concerns, which included the controversial May 4 Chapel service at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (see p. 35), and the public announcement of the Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, associate general secretary of the Committee on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, that she is a lesbian (see p. 40).
The board elected a new class of seven members, discussed plans for the upcoming General Conference in Denver, reflected on movements of the Holy Spirit in America and around the world, and heard reports from other unofficial UM ministries and organizations. Dr. Donald Shell, layman from Lake Junaluska, NC, chaired the board during its semiannual session.
by Steve | Sep 15, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Goddess litany at UM seminary chapel ignites controversy
At United Methodism’s Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (GETS) in Evanston, Illinois, spring term ended on a controversial note when a May 4 chapel service included a litany offering questions and prayers to more than a dozen ancient goddesses.
The litany, “A Psalm in Search of the Goddess” was taken from Miriam Therese Winter’s Women Wisdom, and followed this pattern:
Caller: Who are You, O Holy One? How have Your daughters named You?
Voice: I am Nut of the sky, of Egypt, Goddess of Affection.
People: Nut, we call upon Your name and long for Your affection.
Caller: Who are You, O Holy One? How have Your daughters named You?
Voice: I am Anath-Astarte, and Lady Asherah of the Sea from the biblical land of Canaan.
People: Anath and Astarte, forgive us, for all we have done to You.
The litany offered such interactive prayers to a number of goddesses including a “Prehistoric Goddess”; “Ishtar and Innanna” from the ancient Near East; “Sophia”; “Isis” of Egypt, eye of Re the sun god; “Hathor”; “Cybele”; “Hera and Athene, Aphrodite and Artemis, Demeter and Persephone—the goddesses of Greece”; “Anath and Astarte and Lady Asherah” mentioned above; and “Gaia,” Earth Mother.
Five days after the service, Garrett faculty member, Dr. Robert Jewett, responded to the chapel by circulating a statement in which he gave historical data about violent and perverse rituals and activities surrounding the worship of goddesses such as Cybele, Ishtar, Anath, and Lady Asherah.
“If worship is the acknowledgment and adoration of what faith communities hold to be supreme,” he wrote, “then praying to such deities should be repudiated as a fundamental contradiction of Christian faith.” He reminded the seminary community that if it wanted to identify a community that “celebrated a deity who had overcome social distinctions between males and females, Greeks and Jews, slaves and free, then look to some branches of the early Christian church, not at the Greco-Roman mystery religions celebrating Cybele or Isis.” Those ancient cultures hold “no promise of liberation for either females or males,” he wrote.
While affirming “the appropriateness of feminine metaphors for God,” Professor Jewett cautioned, “but this does not legitimate praying to false deities. … To revive the adoration of brutal deities in the name of liberation is not only an unfortunate example of historical amnesia; it is also a violation of some of the deepest commitments of Garrett-Evangelical and of the faith we are called to advance.”
Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether, a faculty member and the chapel speaker at the May 4 chapel, responded to Dr. Jewett’s paper by giving her own views on the controversy. The Jewett and Ruether papers were subsequently copied and placed in the seminary’s Administration Building for general distribution.
In her response, Professor Ruether, who had not seen the litany prior to the service, acknowledged “the planning of the service was poorly done. Elements of the service were thrown together at the last minute in a way that made an incoherent whole.”
She continued: “While I think the use of the Psalm in the May 4 liturgy was a mistake in terms of audience and communication strategy, it is, to my mind, not theologically objectionable” (emphasis in original).
Dr. Ruether went on to explain, “Basically the Psalm [litany] recognizes that true glimpses of the divine have been found in the many female names for deity that have been found in Jewish tradition, in Christianity and in the many religions of the ancient world that have named the divine as female. As we move beyond a Christian parochial exclusivism to including some recognition of world religions, we at GETS cannot continue to assume that only true insights into the divine are found in our Biblical and Christian tradition, while other religions enshrine only idols and demons which teach evil views and practices unworthy of God” (emphasis in original).
Responding to Dr. Jewett’s citing of the violence and war associated with the goddesses named, Dr. Ruether asked, “Can we ignore the enormous legacy of war and violence in Hebrew Scripture and Christianity?” She said, further, “In short, I think we need to get beyond our Christian patterns of religious bigotry in which we see only horror and evil in other religions, while ignoring their good qualities, and refer only to the kindly qualities in our religion, while ignoring its record of violence and injustice.”
On May 18, Professor Barbara Troxell and Dean of the Chapel Ruth Duck called a student forum at which more than 50-60 students and faculty were present for discussion. The purpose was to prayerfully seek discernment and understanding, not to “vilify” or “find fault.”
On May 30, Garrett-Evangelical President Neal F. Fisher issued a statement summarizing how the entire matter had been handled. His statement cited portions of the seminary’s chapel policy, which says in part: “Scripture, which provides the common language and narrative of the church in all its diversity, is central to worship at Garrett-Evangelical.” The guidelines encourage worship planners to use “inclusive language in referring to God, so that exclusive gender reference is avoided.” The guidelines also say, “Always, faithfulness to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ should be sought.”
Fisher also described the seminary’s policy that consultation be held between the student conducting chapel and a faculty member, prior to preparing the outline for worship. “That consultation did not take place in this case,” he said.
Fisher has expressed to many UM leaders and to Good News that the “litany introduced into our seminary chapel on May 4 was not one that I or my faculty colleagues would be willing to defend. Our stated aim is to ‘gather to praise God, to engage the scripture witness to God in Christ, and to encourage one another to live in faith.’ In my view we clearly failed on all counts in this litany. I found it theologically objectionable and completely out of place in our chapel.”
Fisher continued: “As an educational institution, we try to acknowledge a mistake when we make one and to learn from it. I think we have all learned from this incident, and we have done it in a manner that honors fellow member of the Body of Christ and not one that demeans them.”
by Steve | Sep 12, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Tarzan Christianity
By Duffy Robbins
When I was a young boy, one of my favorite television heroes was Tarzan, “King of the Jungle.” I can still see him flying through forests, his bronzed muscles framed by that classic leopard-skin outfit, the whole jungle coming alive with the sound of his trademark scream.
The most amazing part of Tarzan’s whole show was the way he could swing from tree to tree. There was always a vine right where he needed it, always the right length, and always loose enough to release from the tree with the slightest tug.
I used to wonder about that. I roamed in the woods behind our house looking up at the tree tops, suspicious that it would take more than a quick pull to launch these vines. I worried about what might happen if Tarzan’s vine were ever too long or too short. I imagined how sad it would be to see my leopard-clad hero swing down into the jungle floor with a thud, and how gruesome it might be if the vine were ever too short to allow my hero to make it to the next “vine station.” These were frightening thoughts for a young boy.
I think my greatest fear, though, was that Tarzan would someday come to the edge of the jungle and simply run out of trees. Imagine Tarzan screaming his way through the jungle … first to one tree … then to another … then to another … then to another . .. when all of a sudden … Tarzan comes to a clearing. No tree. No vine. Just a blur of flesh and leopard skin flying through the air. Not a pretty thought.
And yet, it is precisely that image that comes to my mind sometimes when I think about the students we work with in our youth ministries. I can see them in my mind’s eye, swinging from Sunday night to Sunday night, youth meeting to youth meeting, retreat to festival, summer camp to mission trip.
But what will happen to them when they come to the clearing? What will happen when they leave our youth groups and no longer have the luxury of swinging from one tree-top experience to the next? What will happen when they find themselves out there in the jungle of everyday life with all of its risks and dangers?
My great concern is that what we are seeing in the lives of so many of our students is a classic case of “crash and burn”—a plunging, groping blur of leopard skin and Bible cover. In short, we are witnessing “Faith Failure.”
Is There Life After Tree Tops?
For those of us in youth ministry the critical question is how we can prevent this kind of fall. How can we nurture our students in such a way that they can survive in the jungle without experiencing the pain of “faith failure”? To be sure, it is God who begins the “good work,” and it is God who can see it through to “completion” (Philippians 1:6). But, as youth workers we dare not overlook the fact that our task is not completed just by getting teenage Tarzans to jump into the jungle; we must help them to land, to stand, and to keep walking with Christ on a daily basis.
Some of you reading these words have only recently returned from summer camps and retreats with your youth groups. Many of you have seen God work mightily in the lives of your students. That’s wonderful! It’s always a joy to think back about summer nights, work camps, prayer times, and camp fires. If you’ve been out with a group of teenagers this summer, you deserve a little reminiscence (and a purple heart!).
But, let us be warned that “a crisis not followed by a process becomes an abscess.” We must be careful to avoid breeding in our students a Tarzan Christianity that swings from one tree top experience to the next. The job of youth ministry is not in getting kids to swing from the trees; it is in helping them cling to the Vine.
There are any number of factors that short-circuit this important work. Ultimately, however, the key to preventing a nasty fall is restoring a consistent balance in the way we do youth ministry. In the next several issues of Good News we will examine some of the most common errors of imbalance in our youth ministries.
by Steve | Sep 10, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Passion for God
Early Methodism was filled with vigor; vitality, and the fire of the Holy Spirit. The passion for God in the heart of the circuit riders and revival preachers was the spark that caused the miraculous growth of early American Methodism. The following letter is dated May 10, 1887 and entitled “A short sketch of the life and conversion and call to the ministry of Austin Taft.” We believe that you will be blessed and encouraged by this testimony. —the editors
My parents were Presbyterians after the strictest sect. We left Vermont when I was 15 years old. I never saw but one Methodist in that state. We settled in the state of New York—Steuben Co. where I lived until I was married on the 9th of February 1831. Here I became acquainted with the people called Methodists. But I was taught they were from witches, full of wild fire and [that it] was very dangerous to hear them preach. In 1833 we moved to Huron Co., Ohio. Here we found a Methodist Society that held their meetings in a log school house near our house.
We frequently went to hear them preach and I was convinced they enjoyed something that we knew nothing of. Subsequently a two-day prayer meeting was appointed in the neighborhood conducted by H. G. Dubois. We attended this meeting, but became offended at the loud and noisy demonstrations witnessed there and left with disgust.
The meeting continued and we were urged to come back by a good sister and attend the meeting; for the Lord was reviving his work. I told my wife it was none of their business whether we attended meeting or not—But if she desired to go I would harness the team and we would go.
We went and found a number of the leading men of the town at the altar of prayer pleading for mercy. I was invited to go and went and resolved that I would seek God until I found Him. With cries and tears, I pled for mercy. My feelings were so intense that I despaired even of life, but concluded I would spend life’s last hour in pleading for mercy, with little or no expectation of finding it. Eternity with all its dread realities opened up before me and it’s impossible for any pen to describe the awful agonies of my mind. It is beyond all human description.
It seemed to me I had already entered the dark abodes of eternal night, and right here something seemed to whisper to me—that there was mercy for me. I stopped and listened for a moment. What a word—mercy for me. It was the best news I ever heard. From that moment my faith laid hold upon the Savior’s promises with an unguiding grasp, and I saw a light in the distance far above my head, which grew brighter as it came near, and when it reached me I fell to the floor as quick as the lightning flash, and that moment was filled with the fullness of God. Old things passed away and all things became new. My happiness was complete. … And I remained motionless for 45 minutes without power to move a muscle. My good Presbyterian father thought I was dead and talked of sending for the doctor.
The people were engaged in singing, shouting, and praising God—and it was the best music I ever heard. I arose singing “O How Happy Are They, Who their Savior Obeyed.” From that time to this I have never opposed the Methodists for making a little noise. I soon felt it my duty to join the Methodist Church; told my good mother one day at her house what my intention was. She told me not to do it; that it would be my ruin.
On my way home, while passing through a piece of woods, my heart was strangely drawn out in prayer. I fell upon my knees and asked God to send staying power upon my mother. That moment the power of God came upon me like a mighty rushing wind, and I know my prayer was answered. My sister came to our house that afternoon and said soon after I left their house while mother was setting the table for dinner she suddenly fell to the floor and shouted aloud the praises of God and thanked God that she had the same religion that Austin had. Father and mother soon joined the M.E. Church and have long since joined the Church on high.
I felt from the time of my conversion that it was my duty to preach the Gospel of the Son of God. I told the Lord I had no education, had no gifts and it was impossible for me to preach, and asked to be excused. But I had no rest while I refused to do my duty.
At last I told the Lord if He would give an evidence that I could not doubt, I would try. I went into the dense forest about one-half mile and laid the case before God in prayer. And all at once the Savior appeared before me. There seemed to be a halo of Glory around his person and his person appeared as bright as the lightning. This appearance was manifested twice and vanished out of sight but left inscribed upon the heavens in great bright golden capitals—The Promise— “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.” O! How many hundreds of times have I realized the fulfillment of this blessed promise by feeling his presence with me when trying to speak for Him, and this is the best witness that we can have. Amen.
This letter was written by an ancestor of Margaret Stratton, youth pastor and children’s coordinator of the Johnson Hill United Methodist Church in Eutaw, Alabama.
“My relatives on my father’s side were known as the shouting Methodists,” she says. “They were overjoyed with the love of Jesus Christ, and the world could see it. People were created to have a deep relationship with God and these shouting Methodists drew sincere people to the Methodist Church. There, people were looking for more of God in their lives.
“I believe this letter will be a blessing to all the Christians in the United Methodist Church who are seeking to understand their roots.”
This testimony first appeared in The Advocate, the magazine of the Alabama/West Florida Annual Conference.
