by Steve | Dec 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: The Turning Tide of United Methodism
By Bill Bouknight
Over the past 15 years, we have witnessed the cresting and subsequent decline of the liberal tide in American Methodism. Simultaneously, the influence of evangelicalism and orthodoxy has been steadily increasing within the last decade.
As measured by membership and influence, the United Methodist Church has been in decline for the last 40 years. A definite low point for the denomination was November 1993, when United Methodists participated in the infamous “Re-Imagining Conference” in Minneapolis. Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, was worshipped, the doctrine of Atonement was ridiculed, and lesbianism was glorified. At least one United Methodist helped plan that conference, and it was an approved continuing education event for many staff members of United Methodist general boards and agencies.
Most UM bishops made no public response to this heretical display. Only a handful of UM leaders such as Bishops William Cannon, Earl Hunt, and Tom Stockton denounced certain teachings of that conference as being contrary to United Methodist doctrines and ethical standards. Despite the silence of most UM leaders, the Re-Imagining Conference had a sobering impact on the denomination—serving as a wake-up call within United Methodism.
The liberal tide in the UM Church, promoted by some bishops, general boards and agencies, and seminaries, began to ebb. Liberalism’s high point may have come in 1996—the year when 15 UM bishops took a public stand at General Conference in favor of liberalizing the denomination’s position on homosexuality. Since then, liberalism has been in decline and the evangelical influence has increased. This trend was clearly evident at the General Conferences of 2000, 2004, and 2008. The apparent rejection in 2009 of most of the 32 constitutional amendments by the Annual Conferences of the church just confirms the theory that a gradual course correction has been occurring within the grassroots of a misdirected Methodism in North America.
The most contentious issue in the struggle between the liberal and evangelical elements of the UM Church is the practice of homosexuality among members and clergy. On this issue and a range of others, United Methodism was considered to be one of America’s most liberal denominations 25 years ago. That perception has changed. A 2009 survey of Protestant clergy on the issue of same-sex marriage illustrates how UM clergy differ from others. Whereas 67 percent of United Church of Christ clergy and 49 percent of Episcopal clergy favor same-sex marriage, only 25 percent of UM clergy do. Though human sexuality dominates the national debate in the UM Church, underneath that issue is a more fundamental one—the authority of Scripture.
Jesus promised that he would build his church (Matthew 16:18) and one of the surest ways we know to be obedient to God is to be faithful to the Holy Scripture. It was Jesus who prayed for the church, saying, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
God seems to be using at least six factors in the continuing process of renewing and reforming United Methodism toward faithfulness to his Word.
1. Most evangelistically-minded churches grow, while others seldom do. Quite simply, too many of our United Methodist congregations don’t know how to reach out. Though most liberal United Methodists are compassionate, kind people, their churches seldom grow. One definite reason is theological. Most evangelical Christians feel a sense of urgency about lost people. They really believe that people who are outside a relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are at risk of spending all eternity in a horrible place where God is totally absent. By way of contrast, many liberal United Methodists are universalists—believing that all persons are going to heaven regardless of what they believe or do. Such a belief makes evangelism irrelevant.
Recently I studied one particular annual conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction. The ten local churches with the highest worship attendance figures for the previous year were quite diverse in terms of location (some are inner-city, others suburban) and in worship style (traditional, contemporary, and blended). But these ten churches have one thing in common—all of their senior ministers are evangelical/orthodox in theology. That same pattern probably prevails in most other annual conferences.
Jesus said that he came to earth “to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Holy Spirit seems to bless those congregations that focus primary attention and resources on seeking, serving, and saving lost people.
2. United Methodist renewal and reform groups are making a positive contribution. The “granddaddy” of UM reform organizations is Good News, launched in 1966 by Charles Keysor’s article in the Christian Advocate. For 28 years, the Rev. James V. Heidinger II led Good News with prophetic courage and winsomeness. Now, the Rev. Rob Renfroe leads this vital agency of renewal and reform. Other organizations like The Confessing Movement, The Institute on Religion and Democracy, The Mission Society, Lifewatch, Transforming Congregations, and others have joined in the struggle.
3. High-quality biblical material has been introduced into the UM educational curriculum. The Disciple series and Christian Believer program have anchored thousands of United Methodists to the Bible and to Wesleyan theology. The Walk to Emmaus ministry and the small-group movement have merged solid biblical education with Christian fellowship and shared prayer. Most revivals in the history of the church are triggered by a Spirit-led rediscovery of Scripture. The current movement of the Spirit is no exception.
4. Even one seminary can make a difference. Approximately one out of six UM clergypersons is being trained at Asbury Theological Seminary. Though Methodist in heritage and tradition, Asbury is not an official seminary of the church. Because the 13 official UM seminaries are forced to compete with Asbury, the smart ones are actively trying to recruit orthodox faculty and evangelical students.
5. Ph.D.s can contribute to the renewal of United Methodism. A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE) has sponsored over 100 bright students (usually orthodox in theology) who have completed their doctoral degrees. These “John Wesley Fellows” are becoming faculty members and leaders of UM colleges and seminaries. United Methodist seminary students are getting a far more orthodox and scripturally-centered education than they would have received 30 years ago.
6. The amazing growth of United Methodism outside the United States, especially on the continent of Africa, will transform the denomination. If current trends continue, it is estimated that within 15 years there may be more United Methodists in Africa than in the United States. Most African United Methodists are evangelical and orthodox and embrace a very high view of biblical authority. Thus it is not surprising that most African United Methodists oppose liberal activism.
What will be the future of the UM Church? Currently, the denomination is locked in a battle over scriptural authority (but debated in terms of sexuality). Many liberals are unhappy because they feel that their consciences are being violated by the UM rules governing human sexuality. Some liberals hope that a “middle ground” can be found, allowing each jurisdiction to fix its own standards governing sexuality. Traditionalist leaders are convinced that any middle ground that compromises scriptural standards would be devastating. However this conflict is resolved, it will not address the underlying disagreement over the interpretation and authority of Scripture.
The current stalemate is tragic because it robs the UM Church of vitality and distracts her from her mission. The UM Church has the word “United” in its name, but there can be no real unity as long as such fundamental disagreement persists about biblical authority and the essentials of Wesleyan theology. Martin Luther famously said, “Don’t trouble me with questions about unity when the Word is compromised.”
At this time, the theological and spiritual pendulum is swinging in the evangelical and orthodox direction, but the church is always tempted to sell out to cultural values and desert its “first love.”
The contemporary UM revival will continue only as long as its leaders and membership follow God’s recipe for revival as given in II Chronicles 7:14: “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 will heal their land.”
The Holy Spirit will provide power for a renewed United Methodist Church if we will be faithful to Scripture and will “contend for the faith once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:4).
Bill Bouknight served 41 years in full-time ordained ministry until his retirement in 2007. He served twice as a delegate to United Methodism’s General Conference and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the United Methodist Congress on Evangelism. He is a recipient of both the Harry Denman Evangelism Award and the Philip Award for distinguished service in evangelism. Dr. Bouknight is the former chairman of The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church and the author of several books, including If Disciples Grew Like Kudzu (Bristol House Ltd.).
by Steve | Dec 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: Methodism in Côte d’Ivoire
By Tim Tanton
The United Methodist Church’s roots in Côte d’Ivoire date back to 1914, when William Wadé Harris arrived in the country from neighboring Liberia.
Completing a prison sentence for his role in a political revolt, Harris heard God directing him to Côte d’Ivoire. Telling the story today, United Methodist Bishop Benjamin Boni says people would walk more than 100 miles to hear Harris preach, and the magicians and juju makers fled before the evangelist.
If Harris were to visit Côte d’Ivoire almost a century later, he would find a church that has grown over the decades into a powerful presence, providing a wide range of ministries.
The church started in the area of Grand Bassam, the French colonial capital on the coast of the West African country. Harris went on to neighboring countries, and in 1923, William Platt arrived and built on his predecessor’s work. In 1924, the Methodist Church was officially established in Côte d’Ivoire. The church was related to the British Methodist Church for most of the 20th century, becoming fully autonomous in 1985.
In 2004, the United Methodist Church’s top legislative assembly welcomed the Protestant Methodist Church of Côte d’Ivoire into the denomination as a provisional annual conference. Four years later, the assembly confirmed Côte d’Ivoire as an episcopal area of the denomination. Boni, who had been president of the church since 1998, became bishop in 2005.
Steady growth. The church has about 700,000 members and serves a wider community of about 1 million, in a country with a total population of 21 million. The Côte d’Ivoire Conference’s main offices are in Abidjan, the commercial
capital.
About a third of Ivoirians are Christian, a third or more are Muslim, and some 20 percent follow traditional African religions. Methodism is the largest Protestant tradition, and the Catholic Church has the largest Christian presence.
The denomination has 900 churches and 100 preaching points, and its membership is growing 7 percent to 8 percent annually, according to the conference. This thriving church is led by a relatively small number of pastors—about 109—with help from 6,000 local pastors and 7,000 to 8,000 class leaders.
Boni also oversees the United Methodist mission to neighboring Senegal, which has 800 to 900 members, and Cameroon, with about 1,200 members. For those countries as in Côte d’Ivoire, training pastors is a priority.
Women and youth. Women and young people are driving the Ivoirian church’s growth. Up to 60 percent of the church’s members are 35 and younger, mirroring the country’s demographics, according to the Cote d’Ivoire Conference.
Methodism’s growth has been accompanied by an expansion of ministries not only into education but also health care and economic development. The church operates dozens of schools, a hospital, and other health care ministries. In a country where governmental resources are under strain, the United Methodist Church is standing in the gap to address the needs of the whole person.
Tim Tanton is director of the Media Group for United Methodist Communications.
by Steve | Dec 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: Bishop Boni’s Call to Prayer
By Tim Tanton
When God spoke to Bishop Benjamin Boni, the leader of the Côte d’Ivoire’s United Methodists responded.
It was October 2000, and violence had convulsed the country following public anger over a presidential election that was perceived to have been rigged by the military ruler. Boni heard God telling him to rally the country to prayer.
“One day, a voice clearly said to me, ‘Call on the churches, not only the Methodists, but other churches, to join in prayer, and we did that,” Boni says. “And for (a while)…we had peace.”
Boni’s ability to work with the other religious leaders of his country and mount a national call to prayer reflects his stature as the top Methodist leader in Côte d’Ivoire, and it shows the standing of the denomination, now part of the United Methodist Church, in the life of the country.
The incident also underscores the importance of prayer to the 57-year-old bishop.
Praying for the hopeless
It is about 6 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and the Boni household is getting ready for the day. For the parents, there is work. For the young people, work or school.
First, the family has worship. Bishop and Madame Boni gather with their five daughters and son, ranging from 20 to 32, plus two nieces. They read from the Bible, sing songs, hear a message, and pray.
This morning, the bishop and his wife, N’Gbesso Berthe Boni, have gathered their five daughters and son, along with other household members, on the patio of their home. Today’s Scripture is Job 28. Bishop Boni talks about wisdom, noting that we can find wisdom only near God. In Christ, we have all the treasures, he says, so if we need wisdom, we must go to Christ.
The bishop cites the proverb that says fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom should bring a person to know and serve his or her Creator, he says.
When the time comes to share prayer concerns, Madame Boni lifts up the country and people who are sick.
“Family worship is important because without prayer we cannot do anything, as stated by the Apostle Paul,” she says later, in a follow-up interview. “That is why we put Jesus in the beginning of everything. In the morning, we, the parents, lead the family worship. At night, the children will lead. Each has his turn. Everyone has his day. We pray for all subjects.”
Bishop Boni is writing a family prayer book in which he emphasizes the importance of worship time together.
“To be able to fight with victory in this world, we need God every time,” he says. Children must be educated and shown the way of God, so they will be close to him when they grow up, he says.
That close relationship is central in his life, as well. “Being bishop is not easy because you are responsible for a big congregation, so you have to be with God to learn from God,” he says. In times of trouble, he adds, God speaks to him.
A book for the soul
As at home, prayer and worship come first at work. Stepping out of his car, the bishop enters the annual conference office, wearing a dark suit despite the heat and carrying a brown leather briefcase with an elephant sculpted into the side. He proceeds to a room where the staff is seated in a circle for worship. Surrounded by his top clergy aides, the bishop leads the service, and during the sermon elaborates on his message from earlier in the morning about Job 28.
Prayer is the constant in a schedule that changes from day to day. One morning, for example, he participates in the dedication ceremony of a new Bible commentary at the Palace of Culture.
The bishop views the commentary as an important resource for the faith life of the country. Commentaire Biblique Contemporain is the first French-language Bible commentary written by African francophone scholars—Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, evangelical—and has been five years in production.
Being written in an African context makes it particularly important, says the bishop, who wrote the foreword.
His role in the dedication ceremony is to give the final prayer or benediction. Speaking in French, he thanks God for the commentary, which he says “will do good things for our souls.”
In the early evening hours, the bishop will gather again with his family. They will close the day as they began it, in prayer.
Tim Tanton is director of the Media Group at United Methodist Communications. Thanks to Isaac Broune, Cote d’Ivoire Conference communicator, for his help in obtaining the quote from Madame Boni.
by Steve | Dec 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: Letting Jesus build his Church
By Elizabeth Glass-Turner
Whether on the property of a declining, derelict United Methodist church, or in an old Winn-Dixie, Jorge Acevedo is haunted by the red letter words of Jesus’ great commission to go. Pastor of a church that has sprung from one location to three in the past thirteen years, Acevedo insists that having multiple locations was not part of the original plan. But as he and his congregation searched for ways to reach their community, what resulted was a unique series of opportunities between Grace Church and their target community: “the people nobody else wants.”
The phenomenon of big churches becoming small is a familiar one. Systemic congregational decline has been a problem for years. What is unfamiliar? A big church deliberately becoming small. And in adopting a struggling congregation, that’s exactly what Grace Church did. By taking on a shrinking location, the vision of the leadership was to turn decline into mission.
“When I first walked into the Ft. Myers Shores fellowship hall, it was filled with yard sale stuff,” Acevedo recalls. “The Sunday school classrooms were packed to the ceilings with it, because they needed to sell it to keep the church doors open. They had to do fish fries. So even though yes, we’re a big church, because we have three campuses, our second campus was a typical United Methodist church. In fact, it was smaller than the typical: we averaged about 40-50 in worship attendance when we got there.”
Acevedo acknowledges that small churches often have bad self-esteem. By adopting an existing, struggling church, Grace Church was able both to reach into a growing community and to encourage the folks who had been watching their congregation decline. With 25 people from Grace Church joining, the new site was energized, and after a work day, the church had been repainted, fixed up, cleaned, and was ready to be renamed as a part of the Grace Church community.
What were the results? That location now averages 400 people in worship on Sunday mornings, with a thriving Upward sports ministry that has introduced “the working poor” in the community to the lively congregation. As Acevedo insists, “the church was always supposed to be an irresistible force, a movement. It was the Jesus movement, it wasn’t anything other than the move of the kingdom of God into the world.”
With the flourishing results of the adoption of that congregation, Grace Church began to feel compelled to find other ways of expanding its reach into the surrounding communities. Having taken on decline in a nearby local church, Grace Church found itself taking on decline in its community when the opportunity came to purchase an empty Winn-Dixie. The new location provided a wealth of practical ministry to the surrounding area, increasing contact yet again with “the people nobody else wants.”
“The unique thing about Grace Church,” Acevedo describes, “is that our church reaches huge numbers of addicted, broken people. Last weekend, in our three Celebrate Recovery’s, we had 650 people. So, our church is filled with Harley Davidson people; the tattooed, the pierced; exotic dancers; folks who were drug dealers. Our vision and goal is to lower the crime rate in our city. And we know that by the grace of God we’re doing that, because we’re seeing felons—lifelong felons—experience the transforming work of Jesus in their lives.”
Acevedo acknowledges that the ministry gets messy. “We get taken. These guys who were doing well go back out and use, go back out and get arrested. We’ve done funerals for our addicts who decided to go out and use again, and the addiction killed them.”
But this is how Jorge Acevedo and his congregation feel led to serve. Rather than a program of growth in a relatively easy, white suburban neighborhood, he fervently believes that much of ministry is “letting Jesus build his church”—however that may look. In particular, the pastoral leadership experiences a blue-collar burden: the distinct call to reach the working poor. The average income at Grace Church is $42,000 a year, per household. The community has the highest foreclosure rate in America.
Acevedo is passionate about urging other churches to feel the compelling call to reach out to blue-collar folks. As he puts it, “carpet is cheap; people are precious.” The facilities at all three Grace Church sites are meant to be used and dirtied. This gritty, flesh-and-blood, hands-on outreach comes from a long season of reflection and discernment.
“I’m a good Wesleyan, and I believe in prevenient grace. I was completely unchurched. I was a pagan, alcoholic drug addict that Jesus found. I landed in the United Methodist church in Orlando. I believe the hand of God led me into the United Methodist Church, where I learned, but I didn’t apply to my life, that beautiful Wesleyan commitment to both personal piety and social holiness.”
Throughout the beginning of his ministry, Acevedo felt the tension between ministries of the soul and ministries of the body. “As I read and reread Wesley, there was no divide,” he realized. “It was something that we had just kind of drifted to, to this great divide.” It sunk into Acevedo that offering one or the other was offering only half of the gospel. “We’d see God clean up the insides of people, but the outsides were still damaged, broken, tattered, and torn. Addiction and sin had robbed their capacity to have a job, to get their education, to have food, to have medical care.”
“The gospel is about the full restoration of our lives,” he affirms. “It’s not just souls going to heaven. We want to help rescue people not only from the hell they’re heading to, but the hell they’re living in.”
It was a visit to Wesley’s famous New Rooms in Bristol, England, that broke Jorge Acevedo. While touring the site where Wesley had trained lay preachers, a fellow traveler asked the guide whether the old-fashioned, boxed-in pews had always been there. Acevedo recalls the response: “They said ‘no, when he was here, there were no pews. There were simply chairs and benches for morning services. And then afterwards, they would be moved out of the way, to either feed hungry children, or have a hospital clinic, etc.’ And I just began to sob, because I grew up in the Wesleyan/holiness tradition, where it was about saving souls, and I was passionate about that. But I realized that I wasn’t being true to my tradition, and more importantly, true to Scripture, if we weren’t holistic in our ministry.”
The resulting, robust ministry of meeting both physical and spiritual needs had another effect, as well. “I knew there were a bunch of people sitting in my church for whom the best expression of the love of Jesus was to hand out a bag of food. And we didn’t have that opportunity for them to do that, in our church. We weren’t helping those people grow to full devotion in Jesus, because we didn’t have any place for them to do that.” What Acevedo discovered was that the ministry of filling stomachs also filled souls—and not just of the recipients, but of those participating in the practical ministries.
As Grace Church continues to look for ways to let Jesus build his church, Acevedo still hears the haunting words of Scripture: “we didn’t only give you Jesus, but we gave you ourselves.”
“As a big church that averages 2,600-2,700 on three campuses, it’d be real easy to say, ‘Okay, we’re big enough. There are enough people that we’ve reached.’ But in my city, there are more lost, addicted, broken, hurting people that still haven’t heard the gospel. And I think we need to let Jesus build his church.”
Elizabeth Glass-Turner is a freelance writer, and a gardener with more enthusiasm than skill. Passionate about robust, sacramental faith and an avid reader of murder mysteries, she resides in central Kentucky with her husband and two dogs.
by Steve | Dec 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: “Lord, send us the people nobody else wants”
By Elizabeth Glass Turner
Jorge Acevedo never pictured himself as the lead pastor of a multi-site congregation. A self-described “pagan” before his conversion, Acevedo came from an unchurched background before landing in the United Methodist Church. For 13 years, he’s been pastor of Grace Church in Cape Coral, Florida. Shortly after this interview with Elizabeth Glass-Turner, he was recognized as the 2009 Distinguished Evangelist of the United Methodist Church by The Foundation for Evangelism. As much as ever, he feels the compelling push of the Great Commission.
What sparked you to plant multiple campuses?
The whole multi-site strategy for us was really birthed out of a practical necessity. When I came in 1996, there was plenty of space and room to do everything. There weren’t a lot of people, and things weren’t going real well. On my first Sunday, we totaled 330 people in one service. Last weekend, we had somewhere between 2,600-2,700 people in 10 weekly services on three campuses. So things have changed quite a bit.
We came to realize that if we were going to grow, we had to grow on multiple campuses. At the time, I hadn’t seen any United Methodist churches that had done it, but I had seen other churches that had. I really wondered whether there was enough liberty and stretch in our United Methodist polity to do that, and found out that there was.
How did the transition get started?
In late 2003, I was having some conversations with my district superintendent about a dying, declining congregation in a nearby community that was starting to really explode in growth. There was a serious conversation about closing it. I asked the superintendent and bishop if we could adopt that campus. To my surprise, I got a full go-ahead. Then we went to work.
We had 25 people who were attending Cape Coral, who were driving 17 miles to come to our church. We had become a regional church. I asked those 25 people if they would prayerfully go back to their community to partner with this church, which would be a campus of Grace Church. It would have the same DNA, a different preacher, but the same kind of preaching. By the grace of God, that thing just started to grow. We’re now finishing our 5th year. We’re now running over 400 at that campus.
So honestly, at the time, it wasn’t the plan to be a multi-site church. It just seemed like the right thing to do. We started seeing things happen. We became multi-site by accident. That was really our first campus.
By 2005-2006, we started saying, “Hey, this multi-site thing will really work!” At the campus I was appointed to— Cape Coral—we were out of space. We could put about 1,500-1,800 in three services on Sunday morning; then we added a fourth service on Sunday morning. But that was about all we could do.
We had tried to buy property around us, and we couldn’t. Our leaders agreed that there was no way we could shove many more people into the campus and that the only way to expand was to become multi-site. That’s how it was a practical necessity for us. We seemed to be kind of stuck. We now believe that that was kind of a divine thing, and that God was really setting us up to be multi-site.
In 2006, we felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to buy a vacated Winn Dixie grocery store that was on 8 1/2 acres: 57,000 square feet under one roof.
Six and a half days a week, the resulting Grace Community Center is basically a holistic ministry center. On Sundays, because we had no more space a half-mile down the road, we asked about 150 leaders to come and start the new worship service there. We’re running between 250 and 300 at that service right now on Sunday mornings.
Why do you think many growing churches think primarily in terms of building programs?
I heard a guy one time at a multi-site conference say the only people who like big church buildings are pastors and architects!
What we discovered is that congregational diversity was a good thing; if we could keep the vision and the DNA the same, but put it in new wineskins, in different parts of the community—it would look a little different, but beneath the surface, it’s the same stuff. And that looks different at each of our campuses. We discovered that you can reach more people by using multiple sites.
There’s a church next door to us that has the same amount of acreage that we do. For years, we’d been trying to buy that property. Our hope was, we could build a 1,500 to 2,000 seat auditorium and park people. But as we began to do the math—what it would cost us to buy the property and build the sanctuary—it was two to three times more than it would cost us to buy an existing building that’s bigger than we could have ever built. So in terms of a stewardship issue, it seemed obvious.
But here is where the pastor’s ego has to be put aside. The pastor has to realize that he or she isn’t going to be standing in front of 1,500 to 2,000 people. And we’re not doing a video venue; we have live preaching at all our sites right now. We’re a real blue-collar congregation and we’re simple. We don’t have million dollar plasma screens. We all preach the same basic message—same Scripture, same points. We now teach as a teaching team, and our church is healthier because it’s not personality-driven. There’s an efficiency that happens with these multi-sites.
You’ve had people who are committed enough to the vision of the church that they’ve been willing to help launch the other campuses. There are a lot of great people who would be willing to do that kind of thing—but a lot of other people wouldn’t.
We still bump into that. For every one that went, there were 10, 15 who stayed. There are some brave, apostolic souls out there. Notice I said we sent 150, not 500, to start the new campus. I wish we had, frankly. It would open up space here, and it would really jump start the other one.
There are—and I think they’re in every church, by the way—those men and women who feel that calling. I think there are always those frontier, pioneer kind of people in every congregation. When I was in seminary, I was a youth pastor at a relatively new church. When the district started talking about starting a new congregation, a number of people who helped start my church were pretty excited to start going back to a high school and starting all over again. There are those people who have that kind of anointing in their life.
As the denomination talks more openly about church planting, what advice would you give?
First off, we need to figure out a way to engage the blue collar and the poor. I think we’ve got to go to places where nobody else is going. We’ve got to figure out a way to reach the urban areas and the rural areas where the church is not prevailing.
And then I think there’s something to be said about our strategy—for our United Methodist churches that have strong DNA, to do what we’ve done and adopt some of these dying, declining churches and help new life come again. Is it hard? It’s very hard. It’s a whole lot easier just to go out there and start a new thing in an upper/middle income white neighborhood and we’ll grow a whole bunch of big churches. We need to figure out a way to multiply our efforts with these large churches and go to other places that typically the church isn’t going to and, interestingly enough, our Muslim friends are. They’re going to the inner city.
What do you want to say to United Methodists who want to see denominational renewal, reform, and revival?
I have a guarded optimism about our denomination. My guardedness is birthed out of a concern that we tend to put all our renewal hopes in the general church. I’ve been to General Conference three times, and frankly I’m not convinced that renewal in our church is primarily going to come from there. I appreciate the crystal clear mission of the United Methodist Church. I believe the four focus areas are right on, but I also think that renewal is going to begin for our denomination in the local church. We’re going to have to have vibrant, vital, reproducible congregations of all sizes and in all places, led by God-honoring men and women who are passionately committed to personal piety and social holiness if renewal is going to come to the United Methodist Church.
I am hearing this kind of talk among the leaders of our church and this is a good thing! But we need to ask ourselves what we are personally doing in our local congregation that is significantly making an impact for the turn-around of the United Methodist Church. We can fight about church issues at annual conference and general conference, but we need to really ask ourselves what our local churches are doing to reverse the decline.
A number of years ago, I heard Bishop Peter Storey of Johannesburg, South Africa, talk about the hellish season of Apartheid in his country. One of the things he said was, “You can either shout at the darkness, or you can light a candle.” What I fear is that as United Methodists if all we do is shout at the darkness then nothing will change. Instead we need to light some candles. Vital, vibrant, healthy, and holy local churches will attract the lost and broken of our world. People will beat the doors down to be in a place where Kingdom life is being experienced. It’s the fire of early Methodists. It’s the fire of Pentecost.
Shouting at the darkness seems like such an alluring temptation. Do you see this same kind of challenge at the local level?
I have to deal with this every week. Some of my best friends in the church work in one of our ministries where they refill the pockets in the sanctuary chairs. One of the things we do is let people eat and drink in our sanctuary. We just don’t feel it’s a big deal for there to be coffee stains. And my friend emailed me and said, “Don’t you think that maybe we don’t have to have coffee in the sanctuary?” And I said, “It pains me to even disagree with you, but I have to lovingly disagree. Because it would be inconsistent for us to say that we’re a church for people that nobody else wants and nobody else sees, and then not do everything to be hospitable to them.”
We don’t have coffee in the sanctuary because we’re trying to be cool. We have coffee in the sanctuary because people who are barbarians, who are pagans, who are barely saved, if saved at all, we want them to be comfortable, to feel safe so that we can give them the dangerous message of Jesus.
How do you stay fresh and inspired?
Well, for me, there’s my personal devotional life, prayer time, and commitment to Christian community. I’ve been in a pastors group for about 16 years. We keep each other from taking long walks off short docks. We remind each other that we need to stay in the game, and that God and our city are depending on us to be faithful. I’m in two men’s groups here in my church. So for me, community is a big part of that, staying community-connected.
I don’t like the term, but on the “professional” side of my career, I am most concerned about giving the ministry away and not caring who gets the credit. I do believe that a lot of ministries are dwarfed by leaders who are afraid to give the ministry away. All the trails end up sneaking back to their desk. I’ve worked very hard and very diligently at trying to empower our staff and our leaders to own their ministry and to manage the problems that come with owning their ministry. If we don’t do that, it’s going to kill us. I struggle with that. Perfectionism and control are two areas of recovery for me right now. But I’ve just discovered by sheer exhaustion that I can’t juggle that many balls in the air.
So, I’m still a work in progress. I struggle every day with not allowing my clock to rob my time with God. I’d love to tell you I hit it seven days a week. It’s probably more like five days a week I get my devotions in, reading Scripture. And then I end up losing, and if I get too many strings of those days hooked up together, then I’m not of much use to God.
Elizabeth Glass-Turner is a freelance writer, and a gardener with more enthusiasm than skill. Passionate about robust, sacramental faith and an avid reader of murder mysteries, she resides in central Kentucky with her husband and two dogs.
by Steve | Oct 28, 2009 | Archive - 2009, Magazine Articles
Archive: Evangelicals respond to Mississippi controversy
Mississippi United Methodists are still reeling from the controversial testimony of a lesbian couple during a planned worship service at the June 12 Annual Conference session. The presentation by the two women was reported in both newspaper and television reports. It has been widely viewed on the Annual Conference website, as well as YouTube.
“We have no doubt that God embraces who we are and blesses our relationship,” the women told the Annual Conference worship service, “that God’s doors are open even when the churches’ doors sometimes aren’t.”
In the wake of the controversy, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward has held meetings with concerned clergy, stating that she would uphold the Book of Discipline’s stance on homosexuality, and pledged that a same-sex witness in a worship service would not be repeated. In the flurry of statements being issued and meetings being convened, many evangelicals find themselves frustrated and disappointed that an apology has still not been issued.
Shortly after the Annual Conference, the Mississippi Fellowship of United Methodist Evangelicals (MSFUME) issued a statement pointing out that the presentation “during the worship service appeared to condone and even commend a sexual activity that the UM Book of Discipline deems ‘incompatible with Christian teaching.’” They believe that “great harm” was done at the event because “many people were blindsided by this disregard for the Bible and our Discipline.” The group also expressed regret that the two women who testified “and others in the gay and lesbian community could mistake as condemnation the vigorous call to our leaders to uphold church teachings.”
In their statement, MSFUME protested that the “witness” was presented in the context of a worship service—allowing “no recourse to those who strongly object to this unbiblical witness.” Although the evangelicals welcomed Bishop Ward’s pledge to uphold the Discipline, they point out that “she did not explain how the lesbians’ testimony during worship could be interpreted as support for the position of the Discipline.” In response by some to abandon the denomination over the controversy, the evangelical renewal group urged church members to remain in the UM Church and called for a Day of Prayer and Fasting on July 29.
On July 21, retired Bishop Clay Lee convened a meeting between Bishop Ward and the Mississippi delegation to General Conference. That group issued a statement acknowledging that Bishop Ward “was not involved in the planning of this worship service. There was no conspiracy to change or attempt to change the United Methodist Church’s position or influence the vote on the Constitutional Amendments.”
The delegates testified that the “worship service was planned by a worship committee of the Annual Conference as is our tradition” and that the “placement of these witnesses was not appropriate in the worship service.” The statement concluded by affirming both the bishop and the United Methodist stance on homosexuality.
For her part, Bishop Ward issued a second pastoral letter. “In our most recent time together, I received with you the gifts of the planning teams for each of the worship services at Annual Conference,” she wrote. “On Friday night, I heard personal stories when you heard them. They were not pre-read or approved. The intent was not to challenge or defy the Discipline. The intent was to lift up the conference theme of Biblical doors and to expand our desire and energy to reach out to persons God loves who are often beyond our churches. The expansiveness of the gathered assembly and the reality of the internet increased the potential for controversy. I deeply regret the chaos that has arisen among us.”
This was not what the evangelical renewal group was hoping for or expecting.
Three of the members of the evangelical renewal group also signed the General Conference delegate statement with the understanding that Bishop Ward “would issue a letter taking responsibility for the testimony that was presented.” That is an action they believe she has yet to accomplish. The Revs. Ginger Holland and Mike Childs, as well as layperson Anne Harrington found the bishop’s statement inadequate and described themselves as “deeply saddened when Bishop Ward’s only expressed regret…was over ‘the chaos that has arisen among us.’”
By Steve Beard, editor of Good News.
