Perceptions from a Pewboy

Would you describe yourself as patriotic?

The word “patriot” is a derivative of a Greek word that essentially means “of one’s fathers” (as in “forefathers”). In a more general sense, the Greek word from which we derive the word “patriotic” means “relating closely to those of one’s country.”

Based upon this foundational etymology, I feel very comfortable describing myself as “patriotic.” Even as I type these words, for example, I am cognizant of my profound gratitude for my forefathers and foremothers who sacrificed much—some their very lives—to create a land of liberty and hope. I am even more grateful that, in those seasons of moral blindness and failure, when America accommodated incomprehensible evils such as slavery, slaughter, and civil war, the nobler impulses at the heart of our nation’s identity inspired new and, at times, countercultural patriots to stand against accepted atrocities until others began to recognize the truth of their prophecy.

One of my dearest friends (who happens to be a soldier) has experienced several lengthy deployments in recent years. When I look into his eyes (and the eyes of his family), I am instantaneously reminded of the fact that patriots are alive and well. My friend, and thousands like him, are willingly placing themselves in harm’s way all around the world, laboring sacrificially for the freedom and integrity that America, at its best, dares to champion.

I am free to write these paragraphs on my own personal blog only because of those past patriots who have gone before me and those current patriots who protect me. I feel inseparably connected to their character and am ever grateful for their bravery. In short, their spirit of patriotism inspires me to love my country, its ideals, and its nobler principles.

I hope that what I have just written will help you to understand with greater sensitivity what I’m about to write.

As much as I love my country and as deeply as I respect its flag, I am frequently concerned about the church’s willingness (and perhaps even eagerness) to generate what I perceive to be a dangerous fusion of patriotism and discipleship. In the American church’s zeal to create what might be described as a nationalistic spirituality—a spirituality in which one can carry a cross in one arm and an American flag in the other—we have produced a “theology of the state” in which discipleship to Jesus Christ is inappropriately measured by the degree to which it produces good Americans (good citizens).

I am not suggesting, of course, that good discipleship and good citizenship are mutually exclusive. After all, history has proven time and time again that cross-carrying has a way of producing humble and selfless people (which has been crucial in the development of America’s moral center). My concern, however, is that Jesus never called people to a governmentally-defined citizenship. Nor did he establish the church as a bastion of nationalism. Rather, Jesus called (and calls) us into a new Kingdom—one that doesn’t negate our national identity but transcends it, thereby helping us to live in a transformed relationship with both nation and world.

Put simply, in the Kingdom inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the water of baptism is thicker even than the blood of the patriots. In that regard, our covenant relationship with the Christ-follower in Iraq is more defining for us than our connection with the American agnostic who is living right next door.

This Sunday, many churches will not think very deeply about the complexity and the importance of these realities. All across the land, American flags will be an eagerly-accepted portion of Sunday’s liturgical environment, as will be the pledge of allegiance and, in some cases, the national anthem. Am I suggesting that this is somehow unforgivable or unredeemable? Of course not. I do pray, however, that, during its 4th of July services, the Church does not lose sight of the fact that Trinitarian worship always bears witness to the Way of Christ—a Way that cannot be linked to any one nation’s interests nor contained by any one nation’s boundaries.

Back in the early 1990’s, I served a church in North Carolina that was 9 miles north of Fort Bragg. The congregation there was replete with current and former soldiers. The spirit of patriotism in that place was understandably strong, as was evidenced by the large American flag that was prominently located just inches from the altar.

One day, a faithful member of that church came to see me in the sanctuary. She was the well-educated, fifty-four-year-old wife of a career military man, and she was every bit as patriotic as her husband was. That day in the sanctuary, she was troubled about something.

After some pleasant conversation, she arrived at the heart of the matter. “I want to tell you something,” she said to me, “and I don’t want you to judge me for saying it.”

“O.K.,” I responded. “I promise that I won’t judge you.”

“Well,” she said, “it really troubles me to have THAT in our sanctuary.” She pointed to the altar space.

“Do you mean the altar,” I asked.

“No,” she said, “not the altar. The flag. I want you to know that, every Sunday, it bothers me to have the American flag so close to our altar.”

I had never encountered this sentiment before. I was momentarily dumbfounded and speechless.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I love my country and its flag. I really do. My husband has spent his entire life in the military because he loves this country so deeply and I’m proud of him for doing that. In fact, I can’t sing a single verse of ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ without weeping.”

“O.K.,” I said, “so what’s the problem with the flag?”

“Well,” she said, “my husband and I have lived all over the world because of his military service. That means that I have friends all over the world. My two very best friends are from Germany and Italy. They come to visit me every year.”

I still wasn’t getting the point.

“When they come to visit me,” she continued, “I want them to come to church with me, since both of them are faithful Christians.”

All that I could think to do in the moment was to affirm her desire to invite people to church!

“Don’t you get it,” she said to me. “When I bring my German and Italian friends to this church, I want them to see the cross and the pulpit and the Bible and the stained-glass windows. But I don’t want them to see the American flag and the altar right next to one another.”

“Why would that be such a problem,” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “by putting them right next to one another, we change the meaning of both the cross and the flag. The flag can help us to remember our national identity, which is really important to me. But the cross is bigger than that. The cross is about salvation. It’s about eternal life. It’s about the whole world.”

She paused to reflect upon what she had just said.

“I guess it’s like this,” she continued. “When my foreign Christian friends walk into my church’s sanctuary, I don’t want them to feel like foreigners any more. I want them to feel like they’ve come to a home away from home. I want them to know that they are part of us.”

That conversation, which made its way into the journal that I kept at the time, initiated a struggle within me that continues even to this day. It is a struggle to discern the nature of patriotism, the nature of discipleship, the difference between the two, and the dangers of synthesizing them too quickly. I don’t want it to be a struggle that alienates those of you who might disagree with me on this issue. But I do want it to be a redemptive struggle—one that compels me to think more clearly about everything from nationalism to liturgical imagery.

At any rate, that conversation from the early 1990’s is part of the reason why my favorite patriotic hymn is “This Is My Song.” It is a hymn that enables me to be patriotic enough to acknowledge that “this is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.”

At the same time, the hymn helps me to guard against nationalistic idolatry by forcing me to remember that “other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

May God bless America where it warrants a divine blessing. May God bless all the world’s nations in the same fashion. And may God bless the Church around the world as it continues to bear witness to the Kingdom in which our defining citizenship is to be found.

Not surprisingly, there have been numerous reactions to the recently-issued United Methodist document entitled, “A Call to Action: Reordering the Life of the Church.” Produced by a steering team and affirmed by the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table, the “Call to Action” document is intended to illuminate several segments of the journey that will lead the United Methodist denomination out of the numerical decline that it has experienced in recent decades and into a more vital future.

The “Call to Action” document can be found here.

Some have criticized the document for emphasizing ecclesiastical statistics at the expense of sensitivity to context of ministry. Others have denounced the “Call to Action” because they believe that it places the focus on programmatic deck-shuffling and liturgical gimmickry instead of theological reform and missional impulse. Still others have said that the document is far too “top down” in its structure and content to be anything more than just another United Methodist misfire.

Some of these criticisms are deserving of attention because of the valid concerns they raise. How, for example, can a contemporary and institutional “Call to Action” resonate among people that have lost touch with the Biblical “call to action” that must be heard and heeded before any other call can make sense? In other words, what difference will an institutional call to action make among people that have lost their passion for carrying the cross, proclaiming the Gospel, teaching and modeling a Biblical worldview, worshiping in spirit and in truth, forming disciples, and living by countercultural ethics that bear witness to the Kingdom that God inaugurated through Jesus Christ?

And what about the unbridled emphasis upon attendance statistics in the “Call to Action”? Is it not possible to become fixated on statistics to the point of institutional idolatry while losing sight of other forms of vitality that cannot be measured or tracked? And, in light of what the “Call to Action” emphasizes, how much more tempting will it be for churches and pastors to pad their statistics in order to preserve their status?

These are valid concerns (raised by perceptive critics) that will hopefully help all United Methodists to discern both the merits and the limitations of the “Call to Action.”

It must also be acknowledged, however, that some of the critics are fairer than others in their treatment of the “Call to Action.” Some no doubt offer criticism out of fear, or resistance to evaluation, or a desire to rail against the institutional church. Some are so eager to jump onto a pre-constructed bandwagon of negativity toward the document that they fail to examine its potential as a means to greater accountability and vision.

As a District Superintendent in the United Methodist tradition, I am well aware of the fact that I represent the institutional church in unique fashion. As a result, any affirmations that I offer concerning the “Call to Action” will likely be dismissed by some as the ramblings of a denominational bureaucrat who simply wants to toe the party line. And yet, I would be less than honest if I did not acknowledge that I find myself encouraged by the “Call to Action.” My encouragement emerges from what I perceive to be the document’s primary strengths—strengths that I hope to illuminate in the remainder of this post.

Strength No. 1—A Spirit of Much-Needed Confession and Repentance

The “Call to Action” includes a prayer of confession that is noteworthy:

We have pursued self-interests and allowed institutional inertia to bind us in ways that constrain our witness and dilute our mission. We have been preoccupied more with defending treasured assumptions and theories, protecting our turf and prerogatives, and maintaining the status quo for beloved institutions than with loving you with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. And we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

Those who say that the “Call to Action” is without theological underpinnings miss the point of this prayer. If the prayer is prayed authentically, it becomes a long-overdue acknowledgement of our denomination’s passion for institutional preservation at the expense of missional vision. Such an acknowledgement is not to be minimized. It represents the theological foundation that undergirds the entirety of the “Call to Action”: a recognition that United Methodism’s best chance of furthering the ministry of the Kingdom is not to be found in its institutional structures and its organizational compartmentalization but rather in its willingness to lay even the comfort and security of the status quo at the foot of the cross for the purpose of seeing how Jesus might unsettle that status quo in meaningful and redemptive ways.

Of course, there is nothing new about lamenting the denominational status quo. Individual church leaders have been doing that for centuries. But to make that lament the heart of a denominational prayer of confession gives to it new and fresh life, not to mention a noteworthy theological gravity. To confess the sin of “institutional inertia” is to acknowledge that we have all been guilty of perpetuating institutional behaviors that have prevented us from becoming more faithfully the church that God is calling us to be.

Strength No. 2—Well-researched Confirmation of the Drivers of Congregational Vitality

A significant portion of the “Call to Action” is the report from the Towers Watson consulting firm. The firm was commissioned by the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table and charged with the task of measuring congregational vitality in a variety of United Methodist Churches in terms of the following areas: worship attendance, growth over five years, professions of faith, and annual giving per attendee.

The firm collected and analyzed data from 32,228 United Methodist churches in North America (of all different sizes, ethnic compositions, theological persuasions, and societal contexts). Of those churches 4,961 were classified as “high vital” in terms of their demonstrated growth and ministry. Among the “high vital” churches, four key areas were discerned as primary drivers of congregational vitality:
1. Engagement of disciples in small group ministry
2. Creative and artistically diverse worship
3. Effective and invested lay ministry
4. Effective, relational, and visionary clergy leadership

Some have criticized these identified drivers for being theologically vacuous and ecclesiastically simplistic. To do so, however, is to miss the doors that these drivers open to further theological dialogue and exploration.

One cannot have a holistic conversation about effective small group ministry, for example, without also having a conversation about the theology and practice of prayer and its communal implications, not to mention the theology of pastoral care (which any effective small group must provide for its participants).

One cannot speak comprehensively about creative worship without also giving careful attention to the church’s sacramental theology, liturgical identity, and hermeneutical priorities.

One cannot form a lay ministry that is well-grounded and well-equipped without also developing an understanding of the priesthood of all believers; an ever-deepening appreciation of the spiritual gifts and their theological meaning in the church’s life; and a relentless devotion to the disciplines of faithful stewardship and relational evangelism.

And, most certainly, one cannot have a healthy vision for clergy leadership until one becomes a lifelong student of the servant leadership of Jesus—the meaning of his incarnation, the profundity of his atonement, the theological revelation of his teaching, and the world-altering glory of his resurrection.

Can there be any definitive and perfectly exhaustive list of primary drivers when it comes to congregational vitality? Probably not, and the “Call to Action” does not claim perfection in this regard. However, I believe that the 4 primary drivers highlighted by the report (and the secondary drivers that accompany them) are biblically sound, theologically provocative, and statistically verified in the ministries of currently vital congregations.

As a District Superintendent, I look forward to helping the churches and clergy on my district to reflect both theologically and practically on the meaning and development of these 4 drivers.

Strength No. 3—A Bold Vision for Clergy Accountability and Leadership Development

Perhaps no portion of the “Call to Action” has generated more conversation than its emphasis upon the desperate need for reform in the development, deployment, evaluation, and accountability of our denomination’s clergy. Some have interpreted the document (wrongly, I think) as being threatening in its tone, especially in its articulation of the need for gracious and prompt methods of exit for those clergy with a demonstrated history of ineffectiveness or inertia. A call for greater accountability among clergy, however, can only be interpreted rightly as a threat if it is devoid of compassion, random in its application, and punitive in its motive. As I read the “Call to Action,” I do not find a spirit of threat in its words. Rather, I find a powerful reminder that clergy are to view their ministry, not as an entitlement, but as a sacred covenant for which clergy must be held regularly accountable.

Perhaps the segment of the “Call to Action” that I find most compelling and exciting is its vision for a denomination that blesses its clergy with “ongoing opportunities for mentoring, learning, and receiving support and constructive help to enhance skills and performance.” How might clergy leadership become more vibrant if an Annual Conference were to create a network of mentoring among its active and retired clergy? How might skill sets be broadened if we were to see mentoring, not only as a step in the candidacy process, but as a lifelong discipline by which clergy continue to learn, improve, and grow? What might it look like in an Annual Conference for retired clergy to come alongside younger clergy in a mentoring relationship; for younger clergy to come alongside older clergy for the purpose of helping them to understand newer trends and patterns in ministry; and for all clergy to be humble enough to acknowledge their need for learning and mentoring?

The “Call to Action” beckons us, not only to raise and contemplate such questions, but also to invest our time, energy, and resources in the kind of mentoring and training that will enable clergy leaders to become more faithfully the leaders that God is calling them to be.

United Methodism’s “Call to Action” is certainly not above criticism or corrective analysis. But it does represent the prayerful work of gifted and passionate souls who long for a more vibrant church. My prayer for United Methodist Christ-followers is three-fold: that we will heed this call where it is right; that we will expand or clarify this call where it is incomplete or misdirected; and that we will allow the call to become a means of sanctifying grace by which God brings the church more deeply into the Way of Jesus Christ, in whose name I humbly offer these thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

For what kind of church are you praying, believing, and living?

These days, I am praying and believing that the church will become more faithfully the church that God is calling it to be. That will mean many things:

1. It will mean that the church’s people become stubbornly resistant to cynicism and chronic negativity. Nothing corrupts the joy and vibrancy of the church’s ministry faster than a grumbling spirit and a cynical heart. I am praying and living for a church whose people recognize possibilities instead of settling for disparagement, thereby becoming instruments of prophetic joy and hope.

2. It will mean that the church’s people stop pretending that racism is no longer an issue for us and acknowledge that it is still a heartbreaking sin that all too often finds expression in our sanctuaries, our institutions, our attitudes, our language, and our presuppositions. I am praying and living for a church in which people name racism instead of denying it; repent of it instead of accommodating it; stand against it instead of giving it a place to live and grow.

3. It will mean that the church’s people begin to take an honest and critical look at their buildings for the purpose of making certain that those buildings are in alignment with the ministry that God is calling the church to do. While it is important to be sensitive to the time-tested sacredness of our sanctuaries and the precious memories that are linked to our fellowship halls, we must also be sensitive to the danger of becoming idolatrous about buildings that are no longer maintainable or practical. I am praying and living for a church that is more passionate about strategic location than it is about preserving an architectural albatross.

4. It will mean that the church’s people become uncompromising in their commitment to reaching people in the margins of life: the margins of poverty and hunger; the margins of malaria and killer diseases; the margins of loneliness and isolation; the margins of domestic violence and addiction. I am praying and living for that kind of a church—a church that regularly looks into the eyes of hurting and marginalized people and sees the eyes of Jesus looking back at them.

5. When all is said and done, becoming more faithfully the church will mean that the church recovers its foundational conviction that it’s all about Jesus. His ministry. His justifying and sanctifying grace. His life, death, and resurrection. His Way. His love. His righteousness. His call. I am praying and living for that kind of a church—a church whose people are willing to subordinate every portion of their lives to the Lordship of Christ. That is discipleship. That is the church at its best.

For what kind of church are you praying, believing, and living?

These days, I am praying and believing that the church will become more faithfully the church that God is calling it to be. That will mean many things:

1. It will mean recovering or re-emphasizing the urgency of biblical theology and sound doctrine.

Even as I type those words, I can hear some of you asking “What do you mean by ‘biblical theology and sound doctrine?’” It is not my intention in this post to establish the theological and doctrinal boundaries in that regard. After all, the Articles of Religion have already accomplished that in good fashion.

I do, however, want to make the point that, for the church, theology and doctrine are not expendable lambs to be slaughtered at the altar of pluralism. Quite the contrary, they are the time-tested disciplines through which the church has determined both the content of its proclamation and the nature of its practice.

Is there room for differing theological and doctrinal opinions in the church’s ministry? Certainly. The shadow of the cross covers a good bit of ground in that regard. Therefore, I am not calling for a cold theological rigidity that truncates exploration, or a doctrinal myopia that prevents us from thinking deeply about the history and implications of our doctrines. I am simply calling the church to recognize that, in kerygmatic matters, it is the steward of an existing story and not the crafter of a new one.

To be a faithful steward of the story that has been entrusted to it, the church has no choice but to be a community that takes its theology and doctrine very seriously.

2. Becoming more faithfully the church will also require the church’s people to begin to recognize afresh that tearing one another down is antithetical to the spirit of agapic love in which we are called to live. To be certain, followers of Christ are called to hold one another accountable. But accountability is for the edification of both the individual and the community, not for the creation of rancor and alienation.

Put simply, the church stops acting like the church if its people become comfortable with disparaging one another, especially when the ones disparaged are not present to defend themselves. We are called to be a different kind of church than that.

3. Becoming more faithfully the church will mean that the church’s people embrace ever more deeply the truth that starting new churches and new communities of faith is not simply a passing fad but an urgent necessity. If the church is to reach new people, then it must become the church in new ways, in new places, through new ministries and new communities of faith. If churches could become more entrepreneurial than provincial, more missional than protective, then forming new churches and new communities of faith might become a joyful way of life for us instead of an occasional impulse.

That is the kind of church for which I am living and praying these days—a community of sound theology and doctrine that is stubbornly resistant to disparagement and passionately devoted to being the church in new places and in new ways.

For what kind of church are you praying, believing, and living?

These days, I am praying and believing that the church will become more faithfully the church that God is calling it to be. That will mean many things.

1. It will mean that the church’s people recommit themselves to the Way of Christ and to the practice of the spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, the study of Scripture, solitude, community, confession, repentance, and frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper. These are the time-tested activities through which the Holy Spirit has historically ushered people into a deeper attentiveness to the presence of God and a transformational obedience to God’s will.

Not surprisingly, one does not have to delve too deeply into ecclesiastical history in order to discover that a re-emphasis upon the spiritual disciplines has been a crucial part of every season of renewal and reformation that the church has ever experienced.

2. Becoming more faithfully the church will also mean that the church’s people will practice an extravagant generosity in their giving—not for the purpose of meeting a budget, but for the purpose of honoring Jesus Christ, who is himself a relentlessly extravagant giver.

How would the church’s ministry broaden if the disciplines of tithing (or growth either TOWARD or BEYOND tithing) became the congregational norm instead of a rare exception? How might the spirit of the church deepen if the church’s people gave boldly and sacrificially to the church’s ministry, as though they believed that the church of Jesus Christ deserved their very best offering? How might Christ’s goodness be more vibrantly illuminated if people’s giving truly reflected the belief that the church is Christ’s precious Bride to be honored (as opposed to a common prostitute to be trifled with)?

3. Finally (for this post, anyway), becoming more faithfully the church will mean that the church will become a place of healthy and holy balance. Balance between hard work and Sabbath. Balance between community and solitude. Balance between reaching inward to the hearts of people who are already present and reaching outward to those who have not yet found their way. Balance between acts of piety and acts of mercy.

That is the kind of church for which I am praying and living these days—a church in which spiritual disciplines are joyfully practiced, in which extravagant generosity finds frequent expression, and in which a Christ-honoring sense of balance is fervently sought.

For what kind of church are you praying, believing, and living?

These days, I am praying and believing that the church will become more faithfully the church that God is calling it to be. That will mean many things. It will mean that the church’s people recognize that loving God with heart, soul, and mind is not a shallow sentimentality but a passionate and fully invested way of living—a way of living in which disciples of Jesus begin to care for their body, spirit, and mind with reverence, as through they truly believed every segment of their life could become a song of praise to the One who created them.

That is the kind of church for I am praying and living—a church that loves God relentlessly and comprehensively (rather than selectively and sporadically).

I am also praying and believing that the church’s people will become people of integrity.

The word “integrity” is a derivative of a Latin word that means “intact” or “whole.” People of integrity, then, are people who commit themselves to authenticity, wholeness, and ethical intactness in their relationships, their administration, their self-care, their communication, and their personal conduct, thereby bringing honor in all things to Christ and his Way.

Where is my integrity lacking, I wonder? Where is yours lacking? Where are we failing to be a Christ-centered people of integrity?

At any rate, that is the kind of church for which this humble pewboy is praying and living these days—a church in which “integrity” is not a spiritual sound bite but a way of life.

A pastoral colleague of mine made this comment recently:

I think that the institutional church is on the way out…How can it not be? The institution has become more interested in self-preservation than it is in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Another colleague put it this way:

The United Methodist system often gets in the way of authentic ministry. When administrative processes become more important than reaching souls, we wind up becoming idolatrous about our denomination’s way of doing things.

Still another colleague offered these thoughts:

Our [United Methodist] general boards and agencies have become painfully out of touch with the ministry of our annual conferences. Our annual conferences have become painfully out of touch with the ministry of our local churches. And our local churches have become painfully out of touch with what’s going on in their communities. It’s time for us to let go of the institutional church and get back to the life-changing, heart-to-heart ministry that Jesus initiated.

I share these comments with you because of the way that they shed light upon an ecclesiastical trend that is at once both revelatory and troubling. The trend of which I speak can best be described as an eagerness to demonize the institutional.

I will acknowledge at the outset that, as a District Superintendent in the United Methodist tradition, the office that I occupy, in the eyes of many, is a primary cog in the institutional machinery that is in question. I am not blind to the complexity of this, nor am I naïve about the possibility of sounding unnecessarily defensive or self-preserving in a blog post like this one. Believe me, the institutional nature of my current ministry has become frighteningly clear to me over the last year.

First, allow me to offer a word of affirmation concerning the anti-institutional trend that I have described. At its best, this trend is a desperately-needed prophetic critique of structures, leadership, and administrative processes that must consistently be held accountable for their function. This is where the postmodern skepticism concerning anything that smells “institutional” serves the Body of Christ quite well. It is a skepticism that prevents us from bowing at the altar of any denomination’s polity.

Likewise, the anti-institutional trend helps the church to remember that the heart of ministry is not to be found in parliamentary procedure or in an elaborate meeting agenda or even in the successful completion of the year-end statistical reports (cue the whining!). Rather, as the anti-institutional trend makes clear, the heart of ministry is to be found in ever-deepening relationships; in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the marginalized; and in helping the lost to find their way home to Jesus Christ. If institutional components become stumbling blocks in the way of such ministry, then the anti-institutional trend is right on target: It’s time to dismantle the institution for the purpose of recovering the church’s true mission.

But, to be fair, allow me to point the critique in the other direction for a moment. Here is what troubles me about some of the manifestations of the anti-institutional trend:

First, in my experience (which is my only perspective concerning the issue), the critique of the institution is often voiced most loudly and most angrily by those who have become resentful of the way in which the institution has attempted to hold them accountable. Granted, there are certainly times in which institutional accountability feels like little more than jumping through vapid administrative hoops. On the other hand, institutional accountability, at its best, can become a communal means by which to keep people in proper alignment with the covenants by which they live.

Therefore, when offering a critique of the institutional church, it is imperative for the agent of the critique to be very attentive to his/her motives. A critique that emerges from clear and level-headed discernment can become a prophetic corrective. But a critique that emerges from resentment often ends up sounding more like an agenda-laden venting of one’s spleen.

Second, the anti-institutional trend is often much heavier on the critique than it is on meaningful solutions. If the United Methodist institution were to go away, for example, I would have to go and find a real job, to be sure. (Is anyone hiring, by the way?! Are there any comic book stores that need an extra employee?!) But what would remain in the absence of the existing ecclesiastical institution? How would the work of UMCOR continue in Haiti? How would people be encouraged and equipped to respond to a call to ministry? How would we support missions, local church food pantries and clothes closets, and the formation of meaningful curriculum? How would pastors be trained, sent, and appointed? Would we leave this all to individual inspiration and the formation of “house churches?” If so, what would be the institutional mechanism to connect individuals with ministries that would help them to invest in something that is bigger than their particular corner of the world?

In the current anti-institutional trend, quite frankly, I hear far more random criticism than I do helpful answers to these questions.

Third, the demonization of the institution often overlooks the fact that the concept of “institution,” in and of itself, is neither inherently evil nor necessarily contradictory to the ministry of Jesus Christ. The word “institution,” after all, is a derivative of the Latin “instituere” which means simply “to set up.” Setting up is a discipline that Jesus saw fit to embrace. In a sense, he “set up” (instituted) the disciples and their tasks. He set up (instituted) the Lord’s Supper. He set up (instituted) Peter as the “rock” upon which the church would be built.

And what about the church in the book of Acts? Many of the issues of the early church were issues of “setup”—institutional issues revolving around things like the relationship between Jews and Gentiles; the relationship between circumcision and uncircumcision; the relationship between staying put and being on the move. In order for the church to have been able to address these issues in Acts, it had to take itself seriously as an institutional reality. Which brings me to this point:

Realistically, I see no way to avoid the realities of administration, polity, and structure in the ministry of the church. They are inevitable portions of good stewardship of time and resources.

Let’s say that, in a fit of institutional angst, I am inspired to leave it all behind. “Hey United Methodist Church! I’m tired of your heavyhanded institutionalism! I’m going to blaze my own trail. I’m going to start a church in my living room, and I’m going to keep it small and focused and biblical and real. That is what God is calling me to do.”

How long do you think it would be before my living room church became an institution? How long would it be before the ten or fifteen people in my living room felt the need to become more efficiently organized in order to accomplish the ministry that God was calling them to accomplish?

My point is this: institutional church is an inevitable reality. It always has been. In fact, good ministry DEMANDS good institution (good setup). Therefore, in many ways, the anti-institutional trend is a protest against a reality that MUST exist, in one form or another. The real issue, then, is not whether we will have an institutional church. Of course we will. The real issue is whether or not the institution will be strategic and nimble enough to assist the church in accomplishing the ministry to which it is called. That is a different question altogether.

As I suggested earlier, some will no doubt dismiss this post as little more than the feeble rambling of a church bureaucrat defending the institution that he represents (towing the party line, if you will). I understand that. In that regard, I have no choice but to bear the symbols of the office that I am honored to occupy. But I’d like to think that I’m onto something here—something more than an undue fondness for the institution that pays my salary. I’d like to think that the United Methodist institution can still become a conduit through which the Holy Spirit makes its way into the nooks and crannies of the world to which the church has been called to minister.

Where the institution is outdated, out of touch, or out of whack, my prayer is that we will have the courage to recognize and name that—not because of a destructive eagerness to demonize, but because of a desire for the church to be at its best and its most faithful. Where the institution has caused harm to precious souls (shot its wounded, so to speak), my prayer is that the church will be sensitive enough to recognize and confess those moments of spiritual violence, so that the collective heart of the church will be deepened and softened.

In short, my prayer is that the church’s people will treat the church’s institutional nature, not as an enemy to be demonized, but as a portion of the church’s order that falls within the boundaries of God’s redemptive grace. If that happens, we might be inclined to see the institutional church as yet another segment of the “groaning and travailing creation” (Romans 8:22) that is yearning for the redemption into which God is leading it.

Perhaps this is naïve on my part. I hope not.

Keep up to date with the United Methodist Church’s relief efforts in Haiti here.

The above site also provides important information concerning making donations and preparing health kits.

It is difficult for me to believe that I am a mere two months away from the completion of my first year in the district superintendency. The calendar, however, does not lie.

As I have been praying and journaling about all that I have experienced and learned during this last year, several observations have begun to emerge. I share a few of those observations here in the hope that they will fall meaningfully upon your heart and mind:

1. Observation #1: I have been regularly inspired, impressed, and, at times, completely overwhelmed by the power and beauty of the small church. On the Washington District, we have several mid-sized and larger congregations, but they are greatly outnumbered by smaller churches. I must confess that, prior to my appointment as superintendent, my fondness for the small church was little more than the sentimental residue of my student appointment back in the late 1980’s (at a 75-member church in rural North Carolina). My experiences over the last year, however, have taken me beyond mere sentimentality and into a more comprehensive understanding of the uniqueness and the intimacy of small church ministry.

I have been reduced to tears in a small church worship service by a sharing of prayer concerns that lasted for twenty minutes (because of that church’s emphasis upon the urgency of personal prayer requests). I have been deeply inspired by a small church’s eagerness to provide thousands of dollars of financial support for two of its families in desperate need (because of that congregation’s capacity to be sensitive to the details of its members’ lives). I have been reminded of the beauty of the United Methodist connection by one small church’s creative fundraising efforts, rendered for the purpose of enabling that church to make at least 100% of its mission share.

It is not my desire to romanticize the journey of the small church. I have heard the people of the small church give expression to the pain of not having many children or young people and the struggle of having limited financial resources and very few committed volunteers. And yet, when I visualize the body of Christ in the Washington District, it is impossible for me not to think first of the small church, simply because the small church seems to be so very close to the heart of who we are as a district, as a conference, and as a denomination.

2. Observation #2: If there were any doubt in my mind concerning the end of the age of Christendom, that doubt has completely evaporated in the first year of my superintendency. The Christendom model of “build the church and people will come” is not working anywhere on the district, even where congregations are investing thousands of dollars in programs that have worked in the past. In many of these congregations, the attitude is one of exasperation and confusion: “This worked in the past. It worked for my parents. Why isn’t it working now?”

In this regard, my conviction has been confirmed that the church of 2009 has far more in common with the church of the book of Acts than it does with the church of the 1950’s. By that I mean that the church is surrounded by a pre-christian or non-christian population that will require a relentlessly inventive and relational approach to ministry and an equally relentless willingness to experiment. The most critical need in the church is for the church’s people to stop acting as though they are living in a culture that accommodates the Christian narrative and instead look for new and creative ways of making that narrative accessible to a spiritually hungry people that have lost interest in the institutional church.

Bearing witness to this fact is the vibrancy of some of the entrepreneurial efforts on the Washington District. One of our churches, for example, has begun two new campuses over the last couple of years in an effort to bring a fresh and unconventional United Methodist presence to portions of the population who are not currently connected to the institutional church. One of our churches is in the process of creating a coffee house ministry near a college campus (which, as you might imagine, has been strongly criticized by those church members who don’t understand why the church’s existing program is not sufficient). The Washington District Board of Laity held a Vacation Bible School this August for some children and families at the Washington City Mission in an effort to build a redemptive bridge between the church and the marginalized—a bridge that extends to the heart of where the marginalized live.

These christocentrically entrepreneurial efforts are the kind of ministry that this post-Christendom era demands. United Methodist polity must find a way to encourage, bless, and empower such efforts (instead of getting in their way with heavy-handed hierarchy).

3. Observation #3: The movement away from connectionalism to congregationalism is very real in that portion of the body of Christ called United Methodism. I see clear evidence of this movement in a burgeoning resistance to mission share (which has always been present in our denomination, but never with such passion and articulation). Further evidence is the common desire for congregational meetings and congregational votes—a desire that represents a clear departure from our Book of Discipline’s vision of a representative and connectional system of polity.

Some are panicked by this movement. Personally, I am not so much panicked as curious. My sense is that United Methodism’s connectionalism has been one of its most unique and precious gifts to the body of Christ. I am wondering where the movement away from connectionalism will take us as a denomination and what God will do with it. What happens, in other words, if the desire for congregational autonomy doesn’t go away?

4. Observation #4: The weight upon the appointment system—and the guaranteed appointment in particular—has never been greater. As the number of full time appointments in the denomination continues to dwindle, we will no doubt have to give substantive thought to what it might mean to maintain and nurture the good theology of the appointment system while at the same time addressing the practical realities of the contemporary church.

5. Observation #5: With Observation #4 in mind, I would be remiss if I did not give expression to this additional observation: Facilitating a meeting between a newly appointed pastor and a Pastor/Staff-Parish Relations Committee is some of the most precious and sacred ground of the superintendency, and I am grateful for the privilege of standing upon it.

6. Observation #6: The number of churches on the district that have a large American flag located within an arm’s reach of their altar space leads me to believe that very few Christ-followers these days are even moderately concerned about the danger of crossing over the line between healthy patriotism and a nationalistic idolatry. It is difficult, of course, even to raise this issue without being accused of holding an anti-American sentiment. My conviction, however, is that a Christian sanctuary and, more particularly, the Christ-followers who worship within it, bear witness to the reality of a kingdom that is not at all limited by any nation’s borders. Any symbolism in a sanctuary, therefore, that diminishes the transcendence of that kingdom has to be questioned.

Interestingly, one of our churches on the Washington District has (behind its altar) small but highly visible representations of dozens of different flags, representing all the nations of the world. Whenever I travel to that church, I am reminded that the only truly theologically appropriate way to have flags in a Christian sanctuary is to have all the flags present (since we are living toward a time when all nations will become fully the kingdom of our God).

Obviously, I am not militant about this issue. Truth be told, I can’t afford to be! But it feels good to raise the issue in the land of blog.

7. Observation #7: I have come to believe that Bishop Robert Schnase’s identification of “The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations” is remarkably on target. When I think about where it is that the churches on the Washington District can be accurately described as fruitful, it always seems to have something to do with the disciplines of radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity. These disciplines are simultaneously biblical and measurable. Beyond this, they are nothing short of essential to the right kind of church growth.

8. Observation #8: If you will permit me to abandon all attempts at sophistication for a moment, church conferences can actually be pretty darned cool. Granted, they always have the potential to become little more than an administrative formality or, even worse, and extended and combative gripe session. But some of the holiest moments that I’ve experienced thus far in the superintendency have occurred in the worship, administrative work, celebration, and holy serendipity of a church conference.

9. Observation #9: God is good all the time. All the time God is good. What used to be little more than a liturgical catchphrase has become my ceaseless affirmation of faith. Part of what has enabled me to embrace this affirmation with fresh perspective is the fact that many of the struggling congregations on the Washington District (some of which are faced with the need to become a part of some new configuration in ministry) are helping me to understand that followers of Jesus Christ never have to become people of despair, even when the circumstances are bleak. Why? Well, quite frankly, because God is good all the time. And all the time God is good.

10. Observation #10: For all the negativity in and toward the church, God is still doing amazing things in the lives of both laity and clergy. The other day, a lay person told me that she is experiencing a call from God to be a part of an international Volunteers in Mission experience (although she has never been outside of Greene County for more than a day). A pastor recently told me that he has entered into a weekly prayer fellowship with 7 other men in his community (none of whom is connected to any church). When I ponder these testimonies (and many others like them), I am convinced that United Methodism in the Washington District (and elsewhere) still has the potential to recover its identity as a Spirit-driven movement (as opposed to an anachronistic institution).

Allow me to describe for you a vocational epiphany that I experienced in the first year of my first pastoral appointment in North Carolina, back in 1989. Early on a weekday morning I received a phone call from a church member. The conversation went something like this: “Pastor Eric, you need to go and see ________.” (I’ll call him Frank).

“Pastor Eric, you need to go and see Frank.”

“Why’s that,” I asked. “Is Frank sick?”

“No,” the church member said, “its worse than that. He’s angry. He’s angry at you, and he’s angry at the church.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Haven’t you noticed that Frank hasn’t been in worship for the last four weeks? And he told me that he stopped giving his money to the church too. I’m tellin’ you, preacher, you need to go and see him.”

So, I went to see Frank. He did not hesitate to make his way to into the heart of the matter: “Well,” Frank said, as I sat down in his living room, “it’s about time you came to see me.”

“Frank,” I said, “I hear you have a problem.”

“You bet I do,” he responded. And with that, Frank launched into a rather lengthy list of grievances. He didn’t like it that I preached a sermon on tithing because he believed that preachers should never talk about money. He didn’t like it that I asked a certain person to be the chairperson of the Finance Committee because he wasn’t fond of the person I asked and didn’t think that he was qualified for the job. He didn’t like it that I implemented both hymns and praise choruses in the liturgy of the Sunday Morning worship service. Most of all, he didn’t like the fact that the church was “permitting” me to do these things.

After listening to Frank’s complaints, I attempted to clarify what I was hearing. “Let me get this straight, Frank: instead of making an appointment to talk with me about these matters, you decided to stop coming to worship?”

“That’s right.”

“And instead of meeting me for a cup of coffee so that we could speak face to face, you decided to withhold your giving from the church’s ministry?”

“That’s right.”

“Frank, why would you do that?”

“Because,” he said, “I knew that if I would stopped attending and stopped giving, you’d come to my living room, and that’s exactly what you did?”

“So,” I continued, “you’re telling me that you pulled away from the church to do a little bit of spiritual pouting for the purpose of getting some attention from your pastor?”

Frank smiled with the confidence of a man who knew that he had me right where he wanted me. “Hey,” he said, “you can call it pouting if you want, but it got you here didn’t it?”

It was a profoundly epiphanal moment for me early in my ministry. I describe it that way because the experience opened my eyes to at least three revelations. First, it made me to understand with crystal-like clarity that the church, at its heart, is not as much an institution as it is a community. More specifically, the church at its heart and at its best is a community of Christ-followers who are connected by their shared desire to follow Jesus and their shared commitment to organizing their lives around the rhythms of his life, death, and resurrection. Some people come to this community and make the decision to invest themselves in its ministry. Others (like Frank) choose to leave simply because that are opposed to the way in which the community is conducting itself.

But that is the nature of community, isn’t it? It is dynamic rather than static, fluid rather than fixed. That day in Frank’s living room, the complexities and nuances of ecclesiastical community became clearer to me than they had ever been before. I found myself confronted that day by an angry man who wanted me to address his grievances and beg him to return to the “institution.” In a true community, however, people must be given the freedom both to come and to leave.

Second, my experience with Frank helped me to understand like never before that the integrity of the church community depends largely upon the way in which church people manage conflict. In that regard, the church community is very much like the community experienced in marriage or friendship or even the work environment. The integrity of each one of those contexts depends largely upon the way in which conflict is stewarded and processed. I probably don’t have to say much to convince you that many churches (and marriages and friendships and work environments) are in declining health precisely because their conflict is managed primarily through withdrawal and disinvestment rather than through discernment, exploration, and prayer.

Finally, my experience with Frank taught me that spiritual pouting is never a healthy and Christ-honoring way of managing conflict. In fact, following my encounter with Frank back in 1989, I made a decision that continues to inform my ministry in 2009. Specifically, I made the decision that I would never again devote a substantial amount of my pastoral energy to spiritual pouters.

Please don’t misunderstand the nature of my point. I am not suggesting that spiritual pouters are not precious to God. Nor am I suggesting that spiritual pouters are somehow beyond the boundaries of God’s saving and transforming grace. Nor am I suggesting that pouters are without valid concerns that deserve to be heard. What I am suggesting, however, is that spiritual pouters—people who manage their conflict by spewing venom, dropping out of the church’s ministry, and waiting resentfully to be wooed back by the pastor and other church leaders—have abandoned a communal ethic in favor of an individualistic desire to grumble. To invest substantive pastoral energy in the investigation of such grumbling honors neither the grumbler nor the church from which he or she is alienated.

Since that day back in 1989, I have not traveled to the living room of a spiritual pouter, nor have I made it a priority in my ministry to go after the absentee grumbler. I have prayed for them. I have sent them cards and notes, telling them that I am only a phone call away if they want to initiate a dialogue. I have reached out to them by inviting them back to church. But, since 1989, I have never validated people’s pouting or grumbling by giving to them an attentive audience in the comfort of their personal habitation. To do so would have been to communicate to them that disinvestment is an effective means of garnering pastoral attention.

That said, if a disgruntled soul were ever to call me on the phone and say something like this—“Hey pastor, do you think you could meet with me? I have some issues with the church that have made me very angry and I’d like to discuss them with you so that we can understand one another a little bit better”—I’d take him out to lunch that day. Because, with that simple phone call, with that simple moment of community-honoring initiative, that person would have moved from a manipulative spiritual pouting to a meaningful management of their conflict. I’ll make time for that kind of conflict management every day of the week and twice on Sunday.