If you are a pastor, perhaps you remember how people began treating you differently when your identity changed from “student” to “minister.” You began to notice that the types of parties to which you were invited were tamer and the jokes people told in your presence had a more stringent filter. And, the moment you were introduced as “Reverend” certain masks seemed to appear. I remember the very week, over 30 years ago, when that unwanted barrier arose, and have been wrestling with that tension ever since. Over the years there have been many times when I have wondered how different my witness would have been had I pursued the secular vocation of my choosing and served Jesus in that context.

I am one of two members who have been attending our local United Methodist church since birth. We’ve attended longer than any of the present members. I can cry myself to sleep about the condition of the United Methodist Church—how it has drifted from the Wesleyan tradition and the roots our forefathers planted. There are a number in our congregation who have left the church to find spiritual food and feel a part of the church family. It’s disheartening to see United Methodist membership declining.

Hopelessness and Christianity cannot live in the same body, for the first word means we have no hope and the second word means we have all the hope in the world. To be hopeless indicates defeat. However, to be a Christian indicates the acceptance of the Power of the universe into our lives. So, how can we be both? How can we be a Christian and also be hopeless?

In John 14, Jesus talks to his disciples about the Father working through him, including doing miracles, and in verse 12 he tells them: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” Do you think that Jesus meant that even United Methodists who have faith in Jesus today would do what he had been doing? At Aldersgate Renewal Ministries (ARM) we do.

Without question, politics is often a nasty and mean spirited business. Everyone decries the tone and tenor of our local, state, and national politics. “Negative ads,” distortions of opponents’ records, political favors for large cash donations, and the political gerrymandering that strongly tips the scales in favor of incumbents makes for a dispirited, weary, and cynical electorate. Not surprisingly, good church people want none of this in their midst. But in its justifiable aversion to all the more unsavory aspects of politics the church overlooks its necessity and so mistakenly believes it can somehow have a polity without politics. This is naïve at best and disingenuous at worst.