The task before us
I was asked this week what, exactly, was going to be different about the Global Methodist Church from what we have experienced over the years in The UMC. The questioner was very skeptical and had a lot of mistrust – quite understandable considering some of the questioner’s experiences over many years. This is not a side-by-side comparison or sales pitch, but just some thoughts on where we’ve been and where we’re trying to go. As I’ve heard more than once, “We’ve got ourselves out of Egypt, but now we’ve got to get Egypt out of us.”
So to begin with, I go back to what I said years ago when I was finishing my term on the General Commission on UM Men. There are two reasons, I said, why The United Methodist Church is dying: we can’t agree on what we believe, and we treat people like crap. “Crap” wasn’t the word I used, but this is for family consumption, so let’s take at least one step out of the mire.
The first issue to be addressed is what we believe and teach. And here, it is not enough to enumerate the various heresies and moral outrages that pass current in The UMC. If we’re going to preach and practice like Methodists that John Wesley would recognize, we’re going to have to go back to school a bit. We can’t just change the name out front and do what we’ve been doing. For we traditionalists have, over the years, acquired a fair number of quirks in our teaching which don’t fit very well with the theology and practice of John Wesley. We have to build a new theological identity – and then hold ourselves accountable for maintaining it. All of us.
The same thing is true of how we treat people. Like abused children growing up in a dysfunctional family, all of us tend to treat others as we have been treated, and we have acquired any number of unhealthy culture traits from our passage through The UMC (and other places we’ve been). Once again, the focus is not on the horrors of what bishop So-and-so did back in the old denomination; we’ve got to build a different culture. And like anybody who’s ever been through family therapy, it’s going to be long, difficult, and exasperating before the big breakthroughs come. But not to put ourselves through that process is to settle for just doing as we’ve been done by, and there’s no point in changing the name out front if all we’re going to do is that.
That’s not all. For when it came my time last year to send in my papers and depart, I did not cite either bad teaching or mistreatment as my prime reason for transferring my orders to the GMC. Rather, I said that the whole UMC had become lawless. People pledged to uphold and enforce the Discipline were just making things up, claiming powers they did not have, holding others to strict account while giving themselves a pass on other stuff. Nothing was stable anymore – not promises, not covenants, not definitions. And “sin is lawlessness,” as John says.
So just letting everybody, clergy and congregations, just do what they want, free from the restraint of an overarching organization, is not the liberty of the children of God. It is a recipe for more lawlessness. Our challenge is not just to get free of the control of the unaccountable prelates who yanked us back and forth for so long, it is to create a connection that is worthy of our obedience – and which we will, in fact, freely obey. As John Wesley said, “do not mend our rules, but keep them – not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.”
So, this is about what we must demand of ourselves, not what we were denied elsewhere. We covenant together to ask each other the tough questions and watch over one another in love. We must rededicate ourselves to the exposition of our faith, to building a loving and healthy church culture, and to learn how obedience leads to true freedom. And yet, when we have done all that, we are not done.
For the real test of our future is whether we can attract the lost and give them hope in Christ. Making the perfect home for us is not the final issue. We must attract those who never knew the struggles we went through over yonder, but who only see the power of God in where we are now. We must not settle for being the not-UMC. The people who need Christ don’t care about that, nor should they. We must build the right sort of community so that we can concentrate on what truly matters, which is sharing with others the best teaching, the best church culture, and the best discipline, “warning every one and teaching every one, in all wisdom, that we might present every one complete in Christ.”
So to begin with, I go back to what I said years ago when I was finishing my term on the General Commission on UM Men. There are two reasons, I said, why The United Methodist Church is dying: we can’t agree on what we believe, and we treat people like crap. “Crap” wasn’t the word I used, but this is for family consumption, so let’s take at least one step out of the mire.
The first issue to be addressed is what we believe and teach. And here, it is not enough to enumerate the various heresies and moral outrages that pass current in The UMC. If we’re going to preach and practice like Methodists that John Wesley would recognize, we’re going to have to go back to school a bit. We can’t just change the name out front and do what we’ve been doing. For we traditionalists have, over the years, acquired a fair number of quirks in our teaching which don’t fit very well with the theology and practice of John Wesley. We have to build a new theological identity – and then hold ourselves accountable for maintaining it. All of us.
The same thing is true of how we treat people. Like abused children growing up in a dysfunctional family, all of us tend to treat others as we have been treated, and we have acquired any number of unhealthy culture traits from our passage through The UMC (and other places we’ve been). Once again, the focus is not on the horrors of what bishop So-and-so did back in the old denomination; we’ve got to build a different culture. And like anybody who’s ever been through family therapy, it’s going to be long, difficult, and exasperating before the big breakthroughs come. But not to put ourselves through that process is to settle for just doing as we’ve been done by, and there’s no point in changing the name out front if all we’re going to do is that.
That’s not all. For when it came my time last year to send in my papers and depart, I did not cite either bad teaching or mistreatment as my prime reason for transferring my orders to the GMC. Rather, I said that the whole UMC had become lawless. People pledged to uphold and enforce the Discipline were just making things up, claiming powers they did not have, holding others to strict account while giving themselves a pass on other stuff. Nothing was stable anymore – not promises, not covenants, not definitions. And “sin is lawlessness,” as John says.
So just letting everybody, clergy and congregations, just do what they want, free from the restraint of an overarching organization, is not the liberty of the children of God. It is a recipe for more lawlessness. Our challenge is not just to get free of the control of the unaccountable prelates who yanked us back and forth for so long, it is to create a connection that is worthy of our obedience – and which we will, in fact, freely obey. As John Wesley said, “do not mend our rules, but keep them – not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.”
So, this is about what we must demand of ourselves, not what we were denied elsewhere. We covenant together to ask each other the tough questions and watch over one another in love. We must rededicate ourselves to the exposition of our faith, to building a loving and healthy church culture, and to learn how obedience leads to true freedom. And yet, when we have done all that, we are not done.
For the real test of our future is whether we can attract the lost and give them hope in Christ. Making the perfect home for us is not the final issue. We must attract those who never knew the struggles we went through over yonder, but who only see the power of God in where we are now. We must not settle for being the not-UMC. The people who need Christ don’t care about that, nor should they. We must build the right sort of community so that we can concentrate on what truly matters, which is sharing with others the best teaching, the best church culture, and the best discipline, “warning every one and teaching every one, in all wisdom, that we might present every one complete in Christ.”