I find myself thinking a lot about what I’d like to find in a church. This is partly the essential dilemma of the retired preacher: where do I fit in? Particularly if I hope soon to live in another community? But with the implosion of The UMC and the launching of the GMC and all the rest of the hubbub in the church world, the question of what kind of a church I’d like to find – assuming it’s on offer – is more than just daydreaming. Does such a church exist? How can I help it be what it should be, assuming I can? So bear with me a bit as I think through what I would like a church, the church, that church over there, to be. TEACHING For me, the first thing that I want in a church is good teaching. Methodist teaching, in particular. And that means, first of all, the Bible – all of it. It does not necessarily mean chasing rabbits connected to concepts of infallibility; we don’t affirm the Bible’s infallibility, but its authority. The Bible is the part of the Tradition that does not change. Its definitions and moral standards show development across the years of its composition, but what the Bible actually says, consistently, Old Testament and New, is not in serious doubt. It’s just not what the progressives want to hear. But a biblical faith must reckon with biblical standards as well as the biblical story. Good teaching means also, orthodox Christology: The Apostles’ Creed; The Nicene Creed; The Chalcedonian Definition of the Faith. Those are the bare minima, you can add in The Athanasian Creed if you like. I am very pleased to see the GMC add the Nicene Creed (with filioque ) to their Doctrinal Standards, but I wonder how deeply the formulations of the Fathers will penetrate the teachers of the new church. I mean, all traditionalists can cite you dozens of examples of how the progs basically just make stuff up, stand words on their heads, import non-Christian (and un-Christian) ideas, and contort or dismiss the biblical witness. But the ugly little secret is, a fair number of evangelicals also make stuff up, even in their insistence that they derive all their teaching from the Bible. For many of them, being rather more clever than wise, employ great ingenuity to the problems of Christology, but being allergic to creedal formulations they wind up re-discovering some of the plausible heresies of the past. I was sitting in church one day, listening to a friend preach – an orthodox preacher, mind you – and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I heard him invoke Genesis 1:3, “let there be light” as the origin of God the Son by God the Father. He’d been preaching from John 1, where in verse 4 it says, “In him [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men.” And where did light come from, he asked rhetorically, and went straight to Genesis. I’m sure he was very pleased with his discovery. If you complimented him on it, he would probably tell you that he couldn’t take credit for it, the Holy Spirit led him to his interpretation. But would that be the same Spirit who inspired the Gospel of John, wherein it says (vs 1:3) “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made”? We believe that God the Son executes the will of God the Father in creation, and that therefore God the Son – who is incarnate in Jesus Christ – made the light in the first moment of creation. All this was argued over at the Council of Nicea (AD 325) and subsequent ecumenical Councils. Oh, but the Church “fell” under Constantine, they reply. That’s all “Catholic” stuff. We get our doctrine from the BIBLE. Yeah, right. The same bunch of leaders who finished the long discussion over what to include in the New Testament are the ones meeting in Nicea, debating biblical doctrines – especially a particular text in the Book of Proverbs about Wisdom (9:22): “the Lord created me in the beginning, the first of his works of old.” If this isn’t a biblical discussion, I don’t know what is. As for being “catholic,” Catholicity is one of the four marks of the True Church (Nicene Creed: We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church), not just a shibboleth from a long-ago faction fight. The creeds are not alien to the Bible, they are the finest exposition of biblical truth by our greatest biblical expositors. They aren’t just making this stuff up. But too-cool-for-school preachers who avoid learning anything about what happened between John on Patmos and Martin Luther at Wittenberg consistently leave out important truths that need to be conveyed to the people. They also frequently stumble into the path trod by teachers whose doctrine was rejected by the Church – men like Arius, a very learned man, and Nestorius, an equally learned and very spiritual man. Good teaching also means sacramental understandings that date from before the Great Schism, not just since the latter part of the Protestant Reformation (I’ll say more about that, below). And it means Methodist distinctives like Prevenient Grace and Sanctification. PRACTICE We have lost much Methodist practice. Many of us, laity and clergy, have never participated in a Class Meeting or Band. But if we are to recover this practice, it must become as second nature to us as worship and potlucks. Accountability has to be for real and for everybody. I want to find a “high-demand” church that emphasizes the right kind of expectations, where both membership and ordination vows are taken seriously. This is a cultural thing, a common desire to be held accountable, like teammates pushing each other to become better at what they do. It does not mean playing “gotcha” like some self-righteous Puritan or virtue-signaling wokester. Sacramental practice has to reflect our Anglican roots, not the revisionist theology of the American frontier. Remember, Methodism is just revived Anglicanism, while Anglicanism is basically reformed Catholicism. The English Church Tradition goes back to the 7th Century -- before controversies over “believer’s baptism” and the meaning of the Real Presence in communion. We are not Calvinists, we are not Baptists and we most especially are NOT Campbellites. When we celebrate the sacraments, we are calling attention to objective realities, we are not manufacturing subjective realities. As Flannery O’Connor said, “If it’s just a symbol, then to hell with it.” The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing we are called to do is to seek and save the lost, and teach them how to be disciples of Jesus Christ. That means recovering evangelism and personal witness, and it means recovering Christian formation. TRADITION I don’t want to re-launch the worship wars, but I have to confess, P&W and CCM leave me cold. I don’t want to deny them to people who like them, but I want to sing the hymns that have meaning to me. At the same time, I want to worship with the saints of many centuries, and while I like new stuff, I also feel that Tom Cranmer is somebody I need to spend more time with. I want church that feels like church. Disorganized, stripped-down worship and the hypertrophy of preaching bore me. I want more frequent communion. I want more quiet time in my worship and a helluva lot less of the folksy warmup schtick that I encounter these days. I want a church that accepts whatever people can give, but which is open to excellence in many ways. I don’t want to pretend to respond to stuff that doesn’t turn my crank, or to hide my light under a bushel. I don’t want to have to justify the things I like or worry about making people who are intimidated by my smarts uncomfortable. I want to see children included in a natural way, not segregated off to something “on their level” and not patronized or used as props, either. Well, I suppose that encapsulates what I’d like, if I could find it. I will, of course, continue to try to be obedient in whatever situation I find myself. I don’t want to be a complainer, but a supporter. I remember that old poem about church gripers, "It isn't the church, it's you." But if you were to ask me what I want, well, there’s a time to be honest and put it on the table. Who knows, maybe God will point it out to me if I ask him for it.