by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Liza Kittle
“The altar of everything” reverberated through my thinking as I attended the Women’s Division board meeting in April 2010. The initial gathering was held at the Tillman Chapel, located on the ground floor of the Church Center for the United Nations, a 12-story building owned and operated by the Division and positioned directly across the street from the United Nations.
The marble altar was a beautiful display of over 70 Bibles lined in rows with stones placed between each one. The Bibles, each one in a different language, were gifts by member states to the Church Center at its 1965 dedication. What a wonderful display on the altar of God—a true visual representation of the Great Commission where Jesus says, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 24:19).
Originally, the chapel had a plain wooden cross hung discreetly to one side, no doubt signifying that although open to all peoples, this was a space consecrated to the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ. An article commemorating the forty year anniversary of the Center stated the building “has stood as a witness to Christian support for efforts in international diplomacy….”
Over the years, the Tillman chapel has taken on a different look and witness. Now, hanging over the altar, the wooden cross has been joined by large banners with the symbols of four world religions—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Shintoism. The chapel is the site for ecumenical and multi-faith events, interfaith marriages, and has even been used for “dialogue” with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sadly, this sacred altar has become “the altar of everything” under the auspices of the Women’s Division. From celebrating feminist liberation theology at the UN Commission on the Status of Women to worshiping social justice causes during UN meetings, the worship space at the Tillman Chapel is used as an altar for every religion, cause, and theology imaginable—all in the name of tolerance and diversity.
While respect for religious freedom and cultural diversity is essential, the promotion of multiple theologies is detrimental to the Christian witness. As the renowned Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias says, “Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of a pretended tolerance. All religions, plain and simple, cannot be true, are not in concert, and do not all point to God. Every religion at its core claims exclusivity and all-inclusive philosophies can only come at the cost of truth.”
If the Christian church embraces other religious faiths and is meek in its proclamation of Christian truth, the mission mandate of Jesus to take the Gospel into the whole world is disregarded.
United Methodism continues to compromise its theology and mission in the name of pluralism and tolerance. Recently, a multi-faith program of study was approved at Claremont University, an official United Methodist seminary, where a program to train rabbis and imams will be added. Emory University, another United Methodist institution, hosted a multi-faith conference last month on the pursuit of happiness from different faith perspectives with the Dalai Lama as a keynote speaker. He also serves as a Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory.
The Word of God and the Great Commission remains unchanged. While the display of Bibles in different languages on the altar at the Tillman Chapel was an impressive sight, the fact remains that out of 6,909 spoken languages in the world; only 451 have a complete Bible.
In October 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 4000 Christian leaders from 200 countries gathered for a week of prayer, repentance, study, and dialogue as they discerned the church’s next phase of evangelistic outreach.
Strategies and methods may have changed, but the passion for the Great Commission should not. Evangelizing “unreached people groups,” planting strong churches, and training indigenous missionaries have been extremely successful mission models. But billions of lost and broken souls continue to search for meaning, healing, and purpose in life that only a relationship with Jesus can provide. Christians continue to be persecuted and martyred all over the world. Billions have no access to the Gospel. The sacredness of the altar of God and the proclamation of biblical truth are more important today than ever before.
Liza Kittle is the President of the Renew Network (www.renewnetwork.org), P.O. Box 16055, Augusta, GA 30919; telephone: 706-364-0166.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Duffy Robbins
The marquee sign out in front of the Unitarian Church made me smile. It read, “Bible Study tonight. Bring scissors.” I envisioned a group of earnest Unitarians sitting around a comfortable room discussing which passages of the Bible should be cut out of the holy text so that God’s words might be a little easier to digest.
Of course, most of us would never presume to put scissors to page in an effort to whittle the Bible down to a more manageable message. But, in truth, we may be more guilty than we realize.
Somewhere around my tenth year in youth ministry, I came to the troubling realization that I was giving my youth group a Bible that was missing whole sections of divine revelation. It was an accidental discovery that happened when I went back over three years of my teaching in youth group. I discovered (a) that we devoted almost six times as much study to the New Testament as we did to the Old Testament; (b) that we spent more time studying topics than we spent studying texts; (c) that I was teaching on some of the same topics over and over again; and (d) that our teaching curriculum was more a reflection of my training and biases than it was a reflection of the whole counsel of God.
The vast majority of youth ministers are convinced that Bible study should be a main component of their youth program. But the confusion often voiced by both youth ministry volunteers and professionals revolves around two questions: “What do I teach?” and “How do I teach it?” We will continue over the next several months in this column to address question number two. But for the next few issues of Good News, let’s focus primarily on question number one.
Developing a Curriculum: First Steps. It’s not that most of us as youthworkers ever intentionally decide to cut away vast portions of God’s Word. We believe in the Word. We want our students to embrace the Word. But, what we don’t do is give enough thought to how we will intentionally work to make sure our students are systematically exposed to the Word.
When I became aware that our youth group was missing out on whole food groups of God’s feast, I decided to get together with my volunteers and student leaders to talk with them about the situation. We invited our pastor and members of the youth committee to join us in the discussion. We came away with a list of topics and texts that we felt students should be exposed to prior to their high school graduation. We decided to teach on these topics and texts over a three-year Sunday school cycle. Obviously, each local youth ministry is going to have different topics they want to emphasize, and different needs they feel they want to address. But this may be a good model to start with.
We also made up a similar plan with some of the same topics for Wednesday night Bible study. That meant that students who came to our Wednesday night Bible study might hear some topics more than once, but we didn’t see much danger with that. We intentionally covered some topics (sex and dating) more than once in a three year period, using different curricula, and perhaps, coming at it from a different angle. We felt some topics needed to be repeated.
You will want to develop your own plan, of course. We broke the topics into three broad categories, just for the sake of balancing our own thinking: Bible – book studies, biographical studies of key biblical characters, these studies tended to focus on biblical texts; Life – these were more lifestyle issues, a more topical way of addressing how to apply what we had heard and studied in the Word; Body – the core issues here were related to “being the Body of Christ,” living out Kingdom values as a Christian community, locally and globally.
Obviously, kingdom truth is not so neatly separated into these three boxes. But, again, it helped us think strategically about what we wanted to address. Were you to develop a curriculum like this, you would probably want to get input from a wide range of sources: the students, parents, co-workers (paid or volunteer), and a sampling of church leaders. It wouldn’t be necessary to cover every topic suggested from these input groups, but it would certainly be wise to let people know they’re being heard.
The advantage of this kind of long-range approach to topic planning is that it helps us to avoid two common mistakes in teaching: (1) teaching on our pet topics over and over again, or (2) teaching on some topic just because we have some cool new media resource or curriculum. But, more than that, it opens up enough teaching territory that students can explore a wider, vaster landscape of God’s truth.
Duffy Robbins is Chairman of the Department of Youth Ministry at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and a long-time columnist for Good News.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
Members of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. voted 367 to 8 on Sept. 26 to allow same-gender marriages to be performed in its building. Foundry is among many congregations in Washington that have been discussing same-sex marriages since the city passed the Marriage Equality Act last March.
The Book of Discipline, the denomination’s rulebook, says it is a chargeable offense for a clergyperson to conduct a holy union or marriage for gays and lesbians. Following Foundry’s vote, Washington Area Bishop John R. Schol released a statement to clergy and lay leaders in the Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional) Conference. “In the midst of these difficult matters of the church,” he wrote, “I will do all I can to be fair and compassionate as I work to maintain the unity and witness of the church.” But as a bishop, he noted, he is responsible for upholding church law and “will process and follow through with any complaint or charge against a United Methodist clergyperson of the Baltimore-Washington Conference who performs a same gender wedding or holy union.”
Earlier this year, Dumbarton United Methodist Church, a Reconciling Congregation in Georgetown, publicly proclaimed its offer to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.
The United Methodist Church has dealt with the issue of homosexuality for 10 General Conferences (1972-2008). Each time, the denomination has affirmed the “sacred worth” of all persons while at the same time upholding that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Delegates to the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh expanded Paragraph 2702 of the Book of Discipline to include “conducting ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions, and performing same-sex wedding ceremonies” to the list of chargeable offenses that could evoke a disciplinary trial for a United Methodist clergyperson. Delegates voted overwhelmingly 756-159 (83 percent) to not allow homosexual unions or marriages.
From combined dispatches, including UM News Service.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Heather Hahn
Retired United Methodist Bishop James K. Mathews, who had a lifelong passion for mission work and evangelism, died September 8 in Washington, D.C. He was 97.
The son-in-law of noted evangelist E. Stanley Jones, Mathews traveled the world as a Methodist missionary. He made more than 60 trips to India, 28 to Africa, 16 to Latin America, and a dozen to Korea and Japan during his lifetime.
Throughout his travels, he brought a commitment to Christian service, said his daughter Anne Mathews-Younes. “He loved life, he loved to serve, and he was always willing to share of himself,” she said. “He worked all the time because that’s what you do when you’re a Christian. There’s always something to do.”
John “Jack” L. Ewing Jr., the executive director of the Foundation for Evangelism, called Mathews one of “the giants of the faith.”
However, the office of bishop was not a distinction he sought.
Mathews declined the post when he was first elected to serve as bishop in India in 1956. He suggested that Indians should be ministered to by their own people.
In 1960, he was on a mission trip in India when he was elected to the episcopacy again. This time, he accepted. He served as bishop of the New England Area for 12 years and then the Washington (D.C.) Area for eight before retiring in 1980.
In 1985, Mathews came out of retirement to serve as bishop in Zimbabwe for a year, and during his tenure, he helped establish Africa University. He was called into service again in 1990, leading the newly created Albany Area in upstate New York until 1992. He later served as bishop of the New York Area starting in 1995, when its bishop went on medical leave.
Mathews retired again in 1996 as one of the longest-serving bishops of the United Methodist Church.
Wesleyan evangelism. In many ways, Mathews embodied what was best about Wesleyan thinking, friends say.
David McAllister-Wilson, president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and a longtime friend, said Mathews combined John Wesley’s ideal of “knowledge and vital piety.”
The late bishop also had a very Wesleyan understanding of evangelism that combined personal holiness with social holiness, said both McAllister-Wilson and Ewing.
“Mathews clearly understood it is not just about our personal relationship with God, our personal holiness,” Ewing said. “It is about our responsibility for our fellow human beings through social holiness.”
He was equally passionate about giving an altar call and calling for civil rights, McAllister-Wilson said.
As a bishop, he participated in the 1963 March of Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1978, he participated in “The Longest Walk” in Washington, which drew national attention to the plight of Native Americans.
On Easter Sunday in 1964, he and African-American Bishop Charles Golden were barred from entering an all-white Methodist church in Jackson, Mississippi. Decades later, Mathews-Younes said, her father was invited to preach at the church. The church is integrated now.
“My dad was on the right side of the issues,” his daughter said. “He wasn’t a rabble rouser at all. He was just patiently on the side of justice and Jesus.”
From medicine to mission. One of eight children, Mathews was born February 10, 1913, in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. His father was an itinerant Methodist preacher, but Mathews initially aspired to become a physician and was a pre-med student at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee.
While in college, he had a “profound conversion experience,” his daughter said, and his now-deceased brother, the Rev. Joseph W. Mathews, convinced him to enter the ministry.
He used to joke that he “saved a lot of lives by not becoming a surgeon,” Mathews-Younes said.
Mathews received a second bachelor’s degree from Biblical Seminary in New York City, earning his way by teaching newly arrived immigrants at the Five Points Mission on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1937. He then earned a master’s degree in theology from Boston University School of Theology where a lecture by an Anglican bishop from India inspired him to become a missionary.
In 1938, he set sail for India. The following year at the Sat Tal Christian Ashram in northern India, he met E. Stanley Jones and, just as importantly, Jones’s daughter Eunice. The two married in June 1940.
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Mathews returned with his wife to the United States, where he pursued his Ph.D. in theology at Columbia University under the G.I. Bill. He also took a post with the Methodist Board of Missions, the predecessor of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
As a missionary, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean some 220 times and mastered several languages, including the Indian languages of Marathi, Hindustani, Urdu, and Sanskrit.
He was “one of Methodism’s mission stalwarts of the 20th century,” said Thomas Kemper of the Board of Global Ministries. “His mission was the message of God’s love in Jesus Christ, proclaimed in acts and words,” Kemper said. “He wrote, preached, taught, and traveled for the gospel.”
As part of Mathew’s ministry, he also met a number of powerful people. He was lifelong friends with Mahatma Gandhi’s grandsons. He met with Jackie Robinson, the black player who integrated Major League Baseball. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun spoke when he retired as the Washington Area’s bishop in 1980.
He was invited to the White House to discuss civil rights with President Kennedy. During the administration of President George H.W. Bush, he helped establish an interdenominational chapel at Camp David. He flew on Air Force One with President Clinton on the way to help lead a ceremony at Pearl Harbor to commemorate the end of World War II.
But he touched the lives of far more than celebrities and presidents.
Mathews-Younes said that when her father made what would be his last visit to the hospital, the nurse who cared for him recognized him from seeing him preach 25 years ago in her native South Africa.
“She changed all of her shifts so she could be his nurse,” Mathews-Younes said. “I never saw such gentle caring. It was a blessing. We knew God was there, and God was putting people around him.”
His survivors include his wife of 70 years, Eunice; his daughters, Mathews-Younes and Janice Stromsem; and son, J. Stanley Mathews, as well as six grandchildren, and soon to be three great-grandchildren.
Gifts can be made on behalf of missionary work in India through the E. Stanley and Mabel Jones Foundation at the General Board of Global Ministries, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115.
Heather Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Jim Nelson
In mid-September, pastors and laity from around the country gathered for three days at the Dunwoody United Methodist Church in Dunwoody, Georgia, for the “IN Conference: A Leadership Nexus Event.” The event centered around five crucial concepts of church health, all of which begin with “IN.” The intent of the Conference was to give attendees a “chance to engage in innovative and integrative ways to empower their churches to Invite, Involve, Inspire, Invest, and be a congregation of Integrity.” The gathering was sponsored by the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and the Dunwoody UM Church.
According to the Rev. Dr. Bob Pierson, executive director and founder of Leadership Nexus, one of the primary purposes of IN conferences is to help pastors and church leaders “navigate and reach the post-modern culture.” The conference featured seven keynote speakers, each exploring one of the “IN” words, and 30 workshops, plus several panel discussions by a variety of church leaders.
Attendees also enjoyed several entertaining as well as informative presentations. Coach Dan Reeves, former NFL player and coach, gave one of the morning devotionals. He spoke about his faith, and how it helped him as a player and as a coach, steering him through some of the more difficult times in his life.
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, spoke about the future of the United Methodist Church, the struggles the church is facing, and possible changes to come. This was a highlight for the Rev. Larry Van Camp, a United Methodist pastor from Rockport, Indiana, who attended Bishop Goodpaster’s Q & A. “He was honest and truthful talking about changes that may come,” said Van Camp.
Bishop Mike Watson of the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church delivered the first keynote address. His focus was “Integrity,” which he said people can smell in a pastor. “All preachers only have one sermon,” he stated, “and that is his or her life. It is what the people remember about you when you leave.” He said pastors should not trust themselves. “You better have some help,” he challenged. “We are all sinners and need others to hold us accountable.” Pastors, he said, need to be part of small groups with people they can trust.
The Rev. Tyrone Gordon, pastor of the St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, shared thoughts to “Inspire.” “We need to do things in new and radical ways; we need to ReThink Church,” he said. Gordon then added that if we are going to be inspirational as a church, “We need to move from a maintenance mentality to a missional mentality. We cannot just be caretakers, and we cannot waste people’s time doing church as usual.”
“Ministry is hard,” Gordon said, “and unless we replenish ourselves we cannot inspire others.” Gordon posited that people do not share with others about their church, “because they are not inspired by their church.” To be inspirational, he said that we need to be risk takers, and we need folks in our congregations who are risk takers as well, and who are willing to “step out of the boat.”
Bishop Goodpaster also spoke on the church’s need to “Inspire.” He talked about the nominal or “almost” Christians who are members but attend only occasionally because they “do not feel included: God and Gospel do not matter in their lives.”
Dr. Jan Love, Dean of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, spoke on the word “Invite.” Dean Love stressed the point that we need to invite those who are different from ourselves to journey with us. “We need to share our faith with one another if we are to continue to grow.”
One of the problems she highlighted was the fact that, “We spend more time fighting with others within the faith, than we do reaching out into the community.” Christians on both sides of the political and theological spectrum have more in common with each other than they do with those who are outside the faith. She urged participants to set their differences aside and work together so that the church can effectively offer Jesus to everyone.
Leadership Nexus’ Bob Pierson also spoke on “Invite.” He stressed that, “Making disciples of Christ needs to be a priority. Jesus is not only our Savior, but our Lord, and we need to do what he commands.”
He went on to say that to be an inviting church, “We must pay attention to cultural shifts and changes in the family structure. And we need to know how to communicate in today’s environment,” because people need to know that God loves them.
The Rev. Dan Kimball, pastor and author of They Like Jesus But Not the Church, highlighted how to “Invest.” “We need to invest in the future of the church by investing in those who are not part of it yet,” he said. “If you care about the future of the church, we must invest in the younger generation.” Pastors and church leaders must have a passion for investing in others.
“Jesus called disciples to go out and get new disciples,” which is what we are all called to do. Kimball added, “We need to train the people of our churches to see themselves as local missionaries every day.” He then challenged those in attendance by saying, “What if we really viewed our local town or city as a ‘mission field’ in the same way we do other countries? What would you do differently?”
The Rev. Wiley Stephens, pastor of Dunwoody UM Church, focused on the last word, “Involve.” Stephens believes that pastors should use administration to involve people in the church, which will help “to create ownership” on the part of our members.
Stephens said, “We must value the potential of every person.” He went on to say the people must feel that it is “our responsibility” to be in ministry to Jesus and to grow the church.
The IN conference primarily focused on the emergent church, understanding the current culture and how we can reach the new generation that for whatever reason has dropped out of church. The workshops offered ideas for designing more creative worship experiences, how to overcome objections from existing congregations, how to use social networking as a part of our overall communication effort, and practical advice on various aspects of church administration.
Jim Nelson is the pastor of the Dawson Street UM Church in Thomasville, Georgia, and was the last editor of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, the newspaper for United Methodist in both North and South Georgia.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Isaac Broune (UMNS)
African United Methodists desire a greater voice, more sharing of power, and the ability to adapt some church rules to local contexts. And a study committee exploring the global nature of the denomination is listening.
After meeting with church leaders throughout the continent, the Committee to Study the Worldwide Nature of the United Methodist Church decided to work toward goals that include defining the covenant that unites the global church, promoting greater regional connections, exploring how the denomination’s Book of Discipline can be adapted for local needs, and examining the U.S. and international roles of general agencies.
Throughout their visit, committee leaders were encouraged by the church in Africa’s great commitment to and desire to serve the United Methodist Church.
“We understood over and over again that it was a vision to not only serve the needs of people in this country, but also to be engaged in worldwide ministries,” said Bishop Scott Jones, study committee chair.
Hearing global perspectives. The committee studying the global nature of the church visited Africa in August 2010 as part of its mission to hear representative voices throughout the denomination before it makes its recommendations to the 2012 General Conference, the denomination’s top legislative body.
Divided in four groups, study committee members listened to church representatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe from August 14 to 17.
The committee asked three basic questions: “How is God at work in your church to accomplish the mission of the United Methodist Church? What are the things that are working well? If you could change one thing in the United Methodist Church, what would you change?”
The whole committee then met in Abidjan from August 19-22, where members shared their experiences and heard from leaders of the Côte d’Ivoire Annual (regional) Conference.
After listening to African leaders speak of their desire to be of greater service to the denomination, the study committee assigned four goals to subcommittees.
The first goal is to develop a covenant that helps the church express its theology in ways—including multiple translations of resources—that serve the global church. As United Methodists think more globally, Jones said, “They understand cultural differences in relating to each other.”
Another subcommittee will look at ways to provide greater regional connections. “In Africa, there are three central conferences. How often do people from all parts of Africa meet to talk about things like theological education and other issues related to them?” Jones asked.
A third subcommittee will prepare recommendations on adaptations that can be made to the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s book of rules and bylaws, to meet local needs. A fourth will study general agencies to determine whether they are global agencies or U.S. agencies.
Voices of hope. “Coming to Africa to hear the voice of the church is something that we need to celebrate,” Bishop Benjamin Boni of Côte d’Ivoire said in his welcoming words to the committee.
That optimism extended throughout the consultation.
Bishop John Innis of Liberia, a study committee member, said the African visit promises “great things for the church by the time the committee completes its work.”
Boni also expects a lot from the study. He said the denomination needs to advance into “the deep waters of evangelization” and social action with efficient policies that bring forth the glory of God to the world.
“African realities are different from those of Asia or America. The study committee’s concern to hear all parties involved in the global church needs to be praised, all the more so since we all have certain features in common as well as specificities,” Boni said. “We must continue to live the global dimension of the denomination while taking into account our specific characteristics. This is extremely important.”
Isaac Broune is a United Methodist communicator based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. This article was distributed by United Methodist News Service. UM News PHOTO (2018): Members of the United Methodist Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters gather for Communion at Canaan United Methodist Church in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Consecrating the elements is Bishop Benjamin Boni (center). Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.
