Bandits No More

Here are the comments of another new Bishop on doctrinal issues in the UMC.

Like other mainline Protestant denominations, United Methodists have grappled with issues surrounding homosexuality. At their general conference last spring, in Pittsburgh, they reaffirmed their doctrine against ordaining “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” and against same-sex marriage.

Asked if he agreed with those decisions, Devahdar, who as a delegate cast secret ballots, would not say.

“I will not say whether I support the blessings of same-sex unions or the ordaining of gays and lesbians,” he said. “My duty is to be loyal and guard the doctrine of the church … As a United Methodist bishop, I am committed to be faithful to the discipline of the church.”

I think when he says something like, “My opinions are irrelevant” he is on the right track. I’m not a bishop, but my opinions are also irrelevant to the issue of UM doctrine. I submit.

I just took a “Belief-O-Matic” online test telling me what religion most closely fits my beliefs. I heard about it from a friend, and have to admit curiosity got the better of me, so I tried it. I’m not going to tell you which particular religion the internet thinks fits me best, but will admit that I am squarely within the Christian camp. This column, rather, is about how we got to the point that religion can be reduced to a 20 question multiple choice test.

For years now I have been concerned that our educational system seems so caught up with standardized multiple choice tests. Does one’s ability to darken appropriate squares really translate into one’s ability to succeed in life?

Even more than my lack of faith in standardized, multiple choice tests, I am extremely skeptical of anyone who thinks that religion can be so simply summed up with a set of beliefs deduced therefrom.

Don’t get me wrong; what one believes does matter. And I enjoy theological discussions, even debates as much as the next person. But I have also learned over the years that God is not nearly so worried about my ability to correctly articulate my beliefs as He is about my living in a relationship with Him.

Jesus even said in Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, that what is important is what one does, not what one says. He is interested in how we live our lives more than in how well we explain what we believe.

I admit, though, that this attitude of mine comes from this very basic belief: there is one God, and He lived among as Jesus to teach us how to live as humans in relationship with God. Whether or not you’ve got everything figured out, God still loves you and wants you to know that.

Some are inclines to interpret the doctrinal warfare of the past egeneration as a mere expression of a lust for control. When we see property fights like this emerge, we have to admit that on at least some levels comtrol is a very real issue. I only know UM polity (and I’m no Jack Tuell on that), so I’ll stick to our situation.

The practice of having local congregations hold their property “in trust” for the whole church (in the legal entity of the Annual Conference) is very long standing in Methodism, dating back to John Wesley’s Model Deed. The basic thought is: We want our churches to remain our churches. We don’t want outsiders coming in and usurping authority and taking them from us. In Wesley’s day, the fear was that usurpers would come from below – from the local preaching places (since Wesley never left the church of England, the Methodists didn’t have “churches” in his day). The phenomenon in California is very different. From the perspective of the congregations, the usurpation has taken place at the top. The problem: there is no theoretical space in United Methodism to conceptualize usurpation from above.

The UNited Methodist system is, to a large degree, defined and structured around distrust. The Congregations don’t trust the Annual Conference or the General Church. The General Church doesn’t trust the congregations. The laity don’t trust the clergy, the clergy don’t trust the laity. The bishops and their cabinets don’t trust the preachers, and vice versa. We’re thoroughly top down in our leadership structure. As Lyle Schaller noted in his book Tattered Trust, this distrust is destroying us.

What our polity has hidden from us (and here it is abbetted by the fact the the UMC is very much in the thrall of modernity) is that the buildings and intsitutions – the things with dollar signs attached – are not the only things held in trust. Our doctrinal heritage is also held in trust, and I would argue it is of much greater importance. Some of our Bishops and other leaders want to maintain the right to be completely free with their doctrinal proclamations while restricting the local churches’ freedom with their property. A betrayal of trust is a betrayal of trust – which ever way it works.

I went to Baylor’s home opener last Saturday, at which Baylor held on to claim their first victory of the year, defeating Texas State 24-17. That’s all the football I intend to write about here. I want to tell you about halftime.

Bands from both schools played. First, Texas State’s band played selections from Boston, a 1970’s rock group. Then, the Golden Wave Marching Band took the field and played music from Aerosmith. Though they are still fairly popular, Aeromsith is another 1970’s rock band. When I got home I told my 15 year old daughter that she could expect to hear college marching bands playing Eminem when she is 40.

I couldn’t help but chuckle and wonder if either band would have imagined 30 years ago that their music would someday be played by college marching bands as a halftime show for football games. My guess is no, they would not.

Rock wasn’t about halftime shows; it was about rebellion. The very volume of it screamed that! The artists wore their hair long and dressed in non-conforming ways. Some were militantly political, even anti-american, and mixed such views into their music.

Our society, however, has a tendency to domesticate almost anything. What was cutting-edge or even counter-cultural twenty years ago may be mainstream or even boring next year.
Have you noticed how “family” television stations merely bring back shows from at least twenty years ago and plug them as “family-friendly?” Some of these shows, at the time of their original release, were certainly not heralded as wholesome shows. By comparison with the current offerings, though, they are tame.

Christians, we too have to fight such a trend toward domestication in our own lives. Forces in society work toward making all of us the same. Everything anyone says is merely an opinion, and everyone is entitles to his or her opinion. “Religion” is relegated to the private, and everyone is free to believe whatever he or she wants to believe, but we are not to act according to our beliefs, unless they lead us to act the same way everyone else does.

Be careful you are not being domesticated by society.

New Methodist bishop envisions church growth – PittsburghLIVE.com

It sounds like Bishop Bickerton has a good record of growing churches. Should be good for Western Pennsylvania. One thing he says makes me wonder:

“Generally speaking, the United Methodist Church is an old denomination,” Bickerton said. “We have to work to find ways to be relevant today.”

Is he saying talking about (a) the fact the church was started in 1784; (b) the fact that our churches are full of older people with the average age of members going up every year? My guess is (b). I’m not sure how relevance connects with this. One could argue that we are being relevant – to old people. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, there are pleny of unchurched old people around that the church can be reaching. Or is he suggesting that we need to be relevant to younger generations?

I can’t help but think that if we’re obedient to God we’ll be relevant to the people around us. Of course, they still need the grace of God to recognize the church’s relevance.

Dan reiland always has something wise and provocative to say. In this issue of the Pastor’s Coach he lists several antitheses we need to pay attention to:

• You grow a church with talent and leadership. You impact a community with compassion.
• You grow a church on your terms. You reach a community on their terms.
• You grow a church by offering good programs. You reach a community by offering good relationships.
• You grow a church by investing in yourself. You invest outside yourselves to reach a community.

Another way to put this is that we’re in the people business. Read the whole piece for yourself.

“Driven” is the big word for Rick Warren. First he had The Purpose Driven Church. Now we’re looking at The Purpose Driven Life. His assumption is that every church and every person is driven by something. He lists several things people are driven by:

• Guilt
• Resentment and anger
• Fear
• Materialism
• Need for Approval

The alternative he proposes is – not suprisingly – a purpose driven life, a “life guided, controlled and directed by God’s purposes.” When we live this way, he claims, our lives will have meaning, be simplified, have focus and motivation, and we’ll be prepared for eternity.

Let’s take apart this whole concept.

“Driven” is a metaphor used to describe that which makes something happen. What is the best explanation for the way we live our lives? Why do we do what we do? What motivates us? When we rephrase and ask these questions we can get beyond the passivity of the “driven” metaphor. My car is driven. It has no choice where it goes. It responds directly to my action, although limited by its environment (wind, rain and ice affect ist performance). But we humans aren’t cars.

Knowing our purpose isn’t enough. We can know our purpose and still be “driven” by those other features: fear, guilt, etc. It is truly a good thing to know God’s purpose for our lives, but we must engage with those purposes intelligently. We must actively obey God. Again – we are not cars – not even to God. We are being made in his image. He doesn’t “drive” us. When we say we’re living a “purpose driven life” we’re saying that we are responding faithfully to what God made us for, whether that fits with our environment or not. Our environment may induce us to do what we do based on fear, guilt, need for approval, etc. We all have to deal with these motivations. Living the Purpose Driven Life doesn’t make these other motivatiosn unreal – it just makes it so that we chose to be motivated by something else – by God’s purposes.

Let me begin by saying that I’m happy to be your pastor. This church is full of interesting people – “characters” one might say. I can easily see your commitment not only to the church but also to the community. I have never served a church had so many community leaders. You may have noticed that I’m somewhat academic by nature. I appreciate the fact that you accept me as I am and have even expressed appreciation for the way this academic bent comes out sometimes. I have great people to work with – those on staff and those of you who are lay leaders.

Sometimes we pastors divide ourselves from our people. We use phrases like “your church.” My attitude is that if this church isn’t “my church” then there’s not much point in my being here. If you have to live in one place all your life or be the most recent of several generations in a place to truly be at home, then I’ll never be home. When we consider the Pittsburg tenure of everyone in the room tonight, I’m one of the newest here. But my calling is to make this town – and this church – my home as long as I’m here. This is where I’m committed. United Methodist polity says my membership is in the Annual Conference, and I understand what that is about. But for all effects and purposes my membership is here. I tithe my income here. I pour my energy here.

We – notice I say “we,” not “you” – face a number of challenges this year. These challenges are not new or peculiar to us here in Pittsburg.

The first challenge is the most obvious, but the one that counts for the least in the light of eternity. I’m speaking of our finances. We have a historic sanctuary and an aging church plant. We have money due on our renovations and more work needs to be done. This need will never go away. We also have a budget increase. Again. Adding a part time staff person to do children’s ministry may sound extravagant. Some might say, “How can you add staff when you already owe so much? Shouldn’t you pay off the debt first?” Perhaps we’ve allowed ourselves to be deceived. Cindy Strait led the children’s ministry these past few years, giving hours and hours every week. It cost her family financially. Over that time we got the idea that that much ministry could always be done for free. The church leadership doesn’t think so. We also don’t think it’s intelligent to put children’s ministry on hold until we get our debt paid off. When we look at our mission as a church it doesn’t make sense to say to families with children, “Why don’t you just take your kids to another church until we get our debt paid? Then we’ll be glad to have you!”

I’ve seen too many churches that hit a financial crunch after doing building work who respond to the crunch by doing the obvious: cutting ministry and staff. Then they wonder why people stop coming. However much all of us love our buildings, it’s not the buildings that attract or keep people. It’s us. As I’ve said before, we’re in the people business.

The foundation of a church’s finances is the tithes of its members. Tithing is more than putting something in the plate each week. It’s giving ten percent of your income. That’s really easy to figure. Someone asks, “Do I tithe my gross salary or my net?” I don’t care. If our people tithe, we’ll make it fine.

So tithes are the foundation. Additionally we have special offerings. Some in the congregation have been blessed in the area of resources, so they are able to give beyond a tithe, especially when it comes to special projects. From what Jerry Massey tells me, you’ve already given more than a hundred thousand more to our renovation projects than what the experts said you would. Our church has a strong heritage of responding to needs when they arise. We also need people who remember the church in their wills – people who want to see their legacy of faith continue on for the generations to come.

What about fundraisers? We have our annual Lord’s Acre next Saturday. Fundraisers can be a lot of fun, and when successful, can bring in thousands of dollars. But whose money is it? Many times it is our own. I’ve never understood why we need to have fundraisers to get money out of some church people. Fundraisers that draw in from outside the church – those make more sense. It’s like the Israelites plundering the Egyptians. Maybe someday I’ll get it. In short: fundraisers are good, but woe to the church that depends on them in any significant way.

It all boils down to trusting God in the area of money. I hope I do a decent job of modeling that for you. I know I’ve seen the Finance Committee and the Administrative Council do it in the past year.

Our second big challenge is activating the whole body. We have over 400 members. We have a goal of averaging 200 in worship – a milestone this church hasn’t reached since 1966. We’re really close. Do you know why we’re so close? Because you’ve been committed. You’ve been coming. You’ve been inviting your friends and neighbors.

Of course attendance in worship is only the beginning of activating the Body. When I read the bible I see that God’s plan is to have all members of the body connected to each other, growing in relationship to Jesus (the head of the body), actively involved in ministry, and vigorously influencing outsiders toward the Kingdom.

Body activation in this sense then, is the main reason for the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign that starts next month. It will be a concentrated time for all our people to deepen their connections to, in and through the body.

If you think activating the body and getting the finances under control are big challenges, just wait till you hear the last one I’m going to mention. In the Great Commission Jesus commanded his followers to make disciples of all nations by going to them, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey everything he commanded. Does that sound big enough? We, like most churches in the country, are mostly configured around taking care of ourselves. We think of membership conferring privileges. We see ourselves as the recipients of the ministry done by the minister. The biblical model, however, is for God’s people to let him do his work in their lives so that the watching world can see, wonder, and ask questions. Through what they see of God in us – and I mean more than seeing that we’re nice people – and through what they learn from our bold response to their questions, they can come to the place where they are ready to give their lives to Jesus. It’s at this point that membership make sense – not membership as a claiming of rights, but membership as a taking up of responsibilities, of joining in the mission of Jesus.

Reaching outside the church in evangelism is another aim of the 40 Days of Purpose. That’s why we need more than just Sunday School – why we need to have groups meeting during the week as well. That’s why I keep talking to you about getting a Spanish language group going as well. We need to invite people. We need to offer them Christ.

Our internet ministry is also expanding, enabling us to reach the world. Sunday messages are now available to the world at streamgarden.tv. I’ve recently started a weblog where I post my commentary on what’s happening in the world from a Christian point of view. You can get links to both of these by checking out our website – www.fumcpittsburg.com.

If we pay all our bills, whip our debt and have piles of cash laying around, I’ll be happy, but I won’t be satisfied. If all four hundred plus of our members start coming to worship and get involved in the ministry, I’ll be happy, but I won’t be satisfied. I’m not going to rest – I’m not going to stop crying out to God until we become a place where people are regularly coming to faith in Jesus, crossing the line of commitment to Jesus and to the church.

Does all that sound impossible yet? Does it sound like something we can’t do? Does it sound like a set of goals we will definitely fail to reach – unless God intervenes? That’s the thing – we’re trying things that are hard and difficult – things outside the norm. We can fail. We need resources beyond our own, the chief being a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit that not only empowers us, not only sweeps away our apathy and lethargy, but also opens our mouths and lives to the watching world.

That’s what I’m working and praying toward. Will you join me?

Scott Burns wrote of longterm population decline in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. By “longterm” he means 50 years out. He notes that population growth in Western Europe and Japan is already negative, and that it is declining in the US. For those who see overpopulation as one of the major risks facing humanity, this is good news. But Burns points out that this could be disastrous for a foundational institution, the family.

Drawing on the work of Philip Longman, Burns writes:

… no business or government institution can replace the functioning of a family. Without that functioning, society would cease to exist… Mr. Longman sees a birth rate that is literally verging on extinction (nearly half the required rate for replacement) in Europe, Japan and Russia. And he asks questions few are asking. Those questions turn on two words.

Care. It will become more difficult in such a rapid population shift. Mr. Longman points out that there will be 35 million fewer children in the world by 2050 but 1.6 billion more elderly people. We can measure that by asking what portion of the population will be at least 60 years old in 2050, remembering that in most of human history it has been less than 5 percent.

In forever-young America, the figure will hit 26.9 percent, the lowest of any of the developed economies. In Italy and Japan it will be 42.3 percent. In Germany it will be 38.1 percent.

These are massive changes. They will absorb the lifetime work of millions of younger people. It will strain – or completely destroy – institutional systems of retirement income and health care that depend on transfers from younger workers. It will put devastating strain on younger households that may have to care for aging parents and stepparents.

Nurture. This is what adult parents do for the next generation. Nurture will be increasingly problematic as young couples confront the competing demands of caring (or paying) for the elderly, paying off education debts taken on to be competitive in the job market and paying for expensive housing in the shrinking number of school districts that offer quality public education.

Burns has a long history of warning us about the upcoming demise of Social Security (the math just doesn’t work). Now we see the deeper problem – the generational balance is out of whack. We’re all happy about the advances of medicine that have enabled us to live longer. But we have not taken into account all the effects that ripple through society.

If we think that Burns (and Longman) are correct in their assessment, what can we do?

At the very least, we need to turn our attention to those places where the population is not cratering – especially Africa. Africa is faced with exploding populations, rotten government, and new diseases. As Christians, we need to find ways to bless the people’s of Africa. It won’t only be for their good, but for the good of the world. Perhaps Africa University will prove of immense importance here.

We’ll also have to find ways to build up families in America. This will mean finding ways to encourage families to have more children. I have three children, so I know this is tough both economically and socially. Children cost us time and money. They’re the biggest investment we make. We need to find ways to convince people that investing in children (I’m not speaking of government investment in children but parental investment) instead of new and bigger houses, cars, vacations, etc.

Update: Here’s some new commentary on Africa University. Since they’re in Zimbabwe, thye certainly have their work cut out for them. Keep praying.

Rick Warren in this chapter makes both points that are profoundly true and points that are questionable. First the profoundly true:
“You are not an accident.” This is the thesis statement of the chapter. Many of us live like we are accidents. Not only do we not matter in the light of eternity, we think we don’t even matter in the light of this week. According to the bible, however, “God never does anything accidently, and he never makes mistakes.” He has a purpose for each of us.
“While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.” Some of us may have made a mistake when we “chose” our parents. That may have done a rotten job with us – led us to see ourselves as accidents – but God got the first word with us and will get the last word.
“If there was no God, we would all be accidents.” What he means here is (a) without God, it would only be random chance that brought us here, and (b) we would lack any purpose larger than ourselves.
He quotes Dr. Michael Denton of the University of Otago in New Zealand: “All the evidence available in the biological sciences suppots the core proposition… that the cosmos is a soecially designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality have their meaning and explanation in this central fact.” This is a strong statement of what is called the Anthropic Principle.

What do I find questionable? Warren presents a strongly controlling God, pictured as actively planning everything that is. “God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and very other feature.” Including your disabilites and defects. Do you have any congenital defects? God prescribed those also. It sure reads like everything is the way it is because God planned it that way. When I read scripture, I see that something AREN’T the way God wants them to be. Sometimes God is disappointed in the way things are. God made us not only for a purpose, but to be freeling willing and acting beings. Our free actions have consequences, not merely in our own lives but in the lives of the people around us.

So what’s my alternative? How would I explain the defects we experience in our bodies? First, I would make a simple admission: Not everything we consider a defect is a defect in God’s eyes. Our values and valuations are warped by sin and our limitations. Second, because of sin we live in a broken world. This brokenness, which is not God will, affects us on many levels, even the genetic and biological. Brokenness is not only outside us, but within us.