Bandits No More

Our Final Night in Nashville for the NYWC. Heard a group called Lost and Found tonight. They are a band that is funny, edgy, witty, and, did I mention musical.

They mentioned that they have been together for 14 years and for that time have been flying under the radar of “the christian music industrial complex.” I laughed. Many missed it.

Are we at such a place in history that even something like Christian Music is eaten up with power grabs, manipulation, and unfair practices? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Most “Christian” recording labels are owned by “secular” companies, so on what basis could one expect them to be run any differently than their parent companies.

After all, American Christians have plenty of money, and they (we) seem to like our music.

The Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church met in special session at Lakeview Methodist Conference Center today. After approving the Chartering Resolution, the Conference delegates readily approved the “Supporting” and “Implementing” Resolutions. Here’s the text of these six resolutions:

SUPPORTING RESOLUTIONS
1. Center for Congregational Excellence
Resolved that the Conference authorizes the Bishop to establish a Center for
Congregational Excellence with staff responsible for revitalization and new church starts. (Requires a ¾ vote. See Rule 27.)
2. Center for Clergy Excellence
Resolved that the Conference authorize the Bishop to establish a Center for Clergy Excellence, an expansion of the Office of Ministerial Services, with staff and resources to enhance clergy effectiveness. (Requires a ¾ vote. See Rule 27.)
3. Reformation of Districts
Resolved that the Conference authorizes the Bishop and the Cabinet to reorganize the Conference into nine (9) districts effective May, 2006.
IMPLEMENTING RESOLUTIONS
4. Restructuring
Resolved that the Conference authorizes the Strategic Mapping Team to propose rules and structure in alignment with our Vision, Mission, Key Drivers, Core Beliefs, and Strategic Themes, as well as requirements of the Book of Discipline. These proposals will be reviewed by the Conference Committee on Rules and Structure and presented to the May 2006 Annual Conference for action.
5. Process of Accountability
Resolved that the Conference authorizes the Strategic Mapping Team – in consultation with the Board of Ordained Ministry, the Orders of Elders and Deacons, the Clergy Effectiveness Task Force, and the Conference Council on Ministries – to propose a definition of accountability and processes for implementing accountability in all areas and to recommend a plan to the 2006 Annual Conference.
6. Realignment of Budget
Resolved that the Conference authorizes the Strategic Mapping Team to make proposals to Conference Council on Finance and Administration regarding alignment of the budget with Vision, Mission, Key Drivers, Core Values, and Strategic Initiatives and the Book of Discipline. CFA will present the budget to the May 2006 Annual Conference for action. (Requires 2/3 vote. See Rule 27.)

The first three resolutions generated the most discussion. Comments included:

• From a pastor with 49 years of service (including 11 years on the Cabinet), now retired for some years: (the quotes are approximate) “During all my years of ministry I never felt a need to call on conference staff people in Houston. We surely don’t have the need to add more staff there now.” (This is the same fellow who, when I told him I was attending Asbury Seminary, replied, “You’ll never get anywhere in this conference unless you go to Perkins.”)
• Church conflict was a big concern. (With the big changes coming, conflict will increase, not decrease.) The same pastor I just quoted said, “There’s an easy solution to conflict. Just move the pastor.” That comment received a raucous response. Have you ever been to a funeral and heard someone say of the deceased, “He looks so peaceful”? Of course he looks peaceful. He’s dead. For many of our churches conflict is a necessary step to LIFE.
• “The DSs already have too much work to do. Why are we cutting their number?”
• “Houston suburbs may be growing, but we don’t need any new churches in all these small towns around the Conference.”

In my judgment, the Conference did the right thing in approving these resolutions. The changes will definitely be difficult. Not only are we changing the declared purpose of the Annual Conference (“Equip congregations to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the
transformation of the world to the glory of God”), but we’re also pushing churches to shift from seeing their purpose as taking care of the members to making disciples. It will be very tempting to minimize the differences – to say that everything we’re already doing is making disciples. What will make the difference is accountability. This is where the work for leadership comes. Will leadership be willing to hold churches and pastors and districts to be accountable for making disciples? Or will we resort to “happy talk” instead? The UMC has a strong tendency to want to be affirming and nice. Real accountability will include a lot of actions that won’t look or feel like affirmation or niceness. We – pastors and churches – are going to have to want this real bad to let it overcome our entrenched lethargy, fear of conflict, and love of niceness.

The scales are tipped in the favor of success by Bishop Huie’s leadership. After leading us through the resolutions today, she shared a short message from Mark 16:15, 20 (I was surprised to hear a UM Bishop preach from a text the top textual critics reject as an original part of Mark) on “Preaching the Gospel to all Creation.” She said the first thing we need to do is pray for ourselves and our churches – for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to make the things we voted on a reality.

As her “altar call” she issued three challenges to those present.

1. Will you raise your 2006 worship attendance 5% over 2005?
2. Will you raise your number of professions of faith in 2006 5% over 2005?
3. Will you raise the number of people engaged in hands-on outreach ministry (outside ministries that serve church members) 5% in 2006 over 2005?

In each case those willing to take the step were invited to stand, look around, and hold each other accountable in the coming year.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. But we’re off to a good start.

UPDATE: Peter Cammarano at A Padre Complex has another good post up on the Conference session, and here’s what Guy Williams has to say. I’m trying to collect responses from Texas Conference bloggers here. If you’re a TAC blogger send me a link and I’ll add it here.

I am in Nashville for the weekend, at Youth Specialities National Youth Worker’s Convention. I am a first timer, but this won’t be my last time.

Oddly, just after I sat down in the little turbo-prop puddle-jumper on which my journey began, I looked up and saw a colleague in ministry. As he sat down I realized this was also the weekend of the AAR-SBL Annual Meeting, held in Pittsburg this year. That was the meeting toward which my colleague was headed.

As we travelled together from Waco to D/FW Airport, I couldn’t help but ponder the irony in having these two separate meetings at the same time. At one, the academic study of religion will be recognized, even glorified. At the other, ministry within the Christian tradition will be celebrated and practiced.

Can you imagine a weekend of meetings where both of these things happen?

Sometimes I hear folks who think that dissent is part of the Great American Tradition. We hear it in politics – whether the issue is taxes, abortion or war. If we stifle dissent for the sake of national security or to “support the troops” it is said that we’re letting the bad guys win (or that we’re becoming like them).

This disctinctive American attitude is also part of the American church. Bishop Sprague illustrates this with his dissent from many doctrinal positions long thought normative in the church. Dissent is good – it shows that one is truly rational and authentic, brave enough to stand against the (evil?) powers-that-be.

Part of this tradition of dissent seems to come from a reluctance to admit the existence of a truth or reality we have to submit to regardless of our personal likes or dislikes. Lawson Stone (in the midst of a series of posts on the literal meaning of Scripture) writes:

For now, let’s note that Augustine raises a caveat for both moderns and post-moderns. Both of these Spawn of Kant share a disquiet with.. Truth. Both want truth, especially the truth about God and salvation, to be…negotiable. Neither wants an inconvenient “meta-narrative” to bound their “meaning making.” Both prefer the truth to be inaccessible, valuing the lattitude for a multiplicity of “stories” afforded by Truth’s elusiveness. Kant’s modernist children show their stripes by marshalling the open-endedness of the historical quest to undermine any witness to…the Truth. It’s somewhat out of context, but I think Augustine exposes the mendacity of both when, in attacking those who quibble over his interpretation not being that of Moses, he says

Rather they are proud and know not Moses’s meaning, but love their own, not because it is true but because it is theirs (Confessions 12.25.34 emphasis added)

Neither wants to be held accountable to a Truth that simply sits there and demands allegiance. To both groups, I suspect–but I am no expert–Augustine would say “A pox on both your houses!” Those who love the Truth do not put that truth at risk when they confess the inadequacy of their historical quest for the inspired authors’ meanings because they are not seeking to escape anything. They are simply being humble. Likewise, those who love the Truth will not hold it hostage to a quest that inherently cannot end, and that might never return a final answer. They will pursue their quest, but realize that even as we pursue the truth we are embraced and sustained by “the Truth.”

Whether the issue is the sexuality, economics, or war & violence, we often let our feelings and desires trump scripture and the Christian tradition. We move from the fact of variety within the tradition of the church in each of these areas to assert the place of dissent against the tradition so that we can have our way. Sometimes this is in order to deny the tradition, sometimes to absolutize one option within the tradition.

Too often dissent is lifted up as an abstraction. Dissent is good, dogmatism (the oft-perceived contrary to dissent) is bad. But no one dissents (or can dissent) from everything. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to function in society.

So when it comes to dissent in the United Methodist Church, let’s drop the praise of dissent as if the abstraction has value in itself and seek instead to defend dissent only in particular instances.

At the recommendation of an aquaintance, I picked up Christianity and the Postmodern Turn Myron Penner, ed. I am not linking this to Amazon or anything else, because I don’t care to help you find it. This collection of essays primarily sets up straw men of the positions of self-identified postmodern Christians and then knocks them down “convincingly.” If you buy every argument Josh McDowell has ever offered, you’ll love this book!

I bought and read this because this aquaintance was so concerned that I admitted to being a postmodern Christian. I read it. I remain postmodern.

Any suggestions as to what I ought to recommend he read in return?

North Korea is known for being one of the most backward and horrible places to live. Misruled by megalomaniacs for over half a century, they routinely starve their own people to death so they can build a bigger army.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has just put out its new report on religious persecution in North Korea (available here as a pdf). The New York Sun has a bried summary of the contents of the report if you’re short on time. Here’s a brief excerpt showing the brutality of the regime:

on a summer day in North Korea in 1997, a young woman was washing clothes in a tributary of the Tumen River when she dropped a small Bible she had hidden amid the laundry. Spotted by a fellow washerwoman, the girl was reported to North Korean authorities on the suspicion that she was engaging in an exercise of thought or religion condemned by the state. The girl, believed to be in her 20s, and her father, estimated to be around 60, were arrested by local national security police and imprisoned for three months.

One morning, they were taken to a public market area, where, after a brief show trial, the father and daughter were condemned as traitors to the North Korean nation and its communist dictator, Kim Jong Il. The father and daughter were then tied to stakes a few meters from where they had been “tried,” and, before an assembly of schoolchildren, were riddled with bullets by seven policemen who fired three shots each into the pair.

Pray for the people of North Korea.

Las Cruces is in trouble. At least a couple of the Lawyers WIthout Nothing Better to Do have decided to waste some tax money pursuing justice for the beleagured non-Christians in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The city’s logo is three crosses. Of course the city’s name translates “the crosses.” What a religiously bigotted thing to name a city! While stopping short of calling for the city to be renamed, those offended want the symbols removed.

Oddly, they say that “the crosses serve no governmental purpose other than to disenfranchise and discredit non-Christian citizens.” Are we then to believe that the Las Cruces government intends to disenfranchise and discredit non-Christian citizens? I have been to quite a few city council meetings (though none in Las Cruces) and have never heard a city councilmember advocate disenfranchising or discrediting anyone.

Frankly, I don’t understand why The Offended are satisfied with changing the logo. How could any reasonable non-Christian be expected to live in a city named for crosses?

The solution? Las Cruces, New Mexico needs to become Los Simbolos Significativos, New Mexico. In a state with a city named Truth or Consequences, would that really seem so strange?

Over at Locusts & Honey John has a post about the acceptable range of dissent in the United Methodist Church.

In the comments section David says, “I’m not sure why someone would want to be a United Methodist if s/he had strong objections to infant baptism.” Tim remembers from long ago, “I said something like ‘But your a lesbian! How… why… would you do that?’ Her response: ‘I’m going to reform the church from the ‘inside’ ‘.”Perhaps I’m just being irenic, but I think we see our root problem regarding these issues in these comments. It’s easy to dismiss our opponents (or if we’re trying to be more “spiritual” we’ll call them “those who think differently”) as bigoted, ignorant, out to destroy the church, tools of the devil or right/left wing special interests, liberals, fundies, etc. Some may be, but that’s not what I’m seeing.Instead, the people I’ve met over the years grew up in a denomination that was afraid to have a unified and distinctive doctrinal identity. When we grow up in a denomination where doctrinal pluralism is the de facto standard, why ought we wonder about what’s happening now?Doctrine has consequences. It’s not just a list of beliefs we have in our heads. It shapes our worldview, our actions, and our judgments regarding good and evil. With no clearly articulated and shared doctrinal vision for the past few generations in Methodism ought we be surprised when we find uncritical acceptance of the world’s views on sexuality, abortion, economics and war?It used to be that in the midst of this doctrinal confusion we could rely on authority – the Bishops and DSs and Boards and Agencies would keep us in line. Authority doesn’t seem to be working as well as it used to.

The oft-expressed notion, “If you don’t agree with the United Methodist position on X, then you ought to go somewhere else,” might work if we had maintained doctrinal discipline over the generations. But we haven’t. Although moderns would like us to think so, we’re not blank slates. Most if not all these folks in the forefront of arguments in the church have grown up in the church. They understand the positions they now defend as expressions of or faithful developments of what they’ve learned since infancy. That’s why people seek to “change the system from within.” They’re not trying to undermine it – they’re trying to bring it in line with what they think it ought to be in light of the vision of Methodism they’ve been given.

The called session of the Texas Annual Conference is this Saturday at Lakeview. The Pre-Conference Journal highlights several themes that make up the proposals from the Strategic Mapping Team. I’m enclosing my comments in brackets[].

GOAL – Lead congregations to revitalize and to reach unserved resident populations. [The starting point is to realize that these are goals for the Annual Conference. The purpose of AC leadership will not be to collect apportionment money or to have meetings, but to lead congregations in reaching people. I observe that it doesn’t say, “Lead needy churches to revitalize…” The assumption – and I think the statistics easily support it – is that the vast majority of TAC churches need revitalization. This may be a hard sell. Most congregations think they’re doing pretty well. They have nice programs. They usually meet the budget. They’re full of nice people – well, the people they have are nice, at least. But most of us aren’t having a significant impact on the surrounding population. We’re not winning people to Christ. We’re not crossing cultural boundaries. It’ll take leadership to transform our ways of doing things if we’re going to start winning people to Christ. It’ll take even greater leadership to create and maintain dissatisfaction with the status quo. As long as most churches think the purpose of the church is to take care of its members, they will resist efforts to push them elsewhere.]

Objectives

• Equip congregations to become vibrant and grow. [Yes! We want congregations were insiders and outsiders can tell God is at work. When they see God, it will attract the, Because the insiders have experienced Jesus and been filled with the Spirit, they will be able to introduce others to Jesus, resulting in growth.]
• Identify and prioritize resident populations and start new churches. [The usual UM church planting model has been to look for new developments. This contrasts with other denominations that not only target new developments, but allow congregational freedom to divide and multiply. Although UM ecclesiology doesn’t fit well with the Homogeneous Unit Principle, I think part of the thought here is to fid ways to reach the different cultural and ethnic groups in E Texas through church planting. We have at least 60,000 Urdu speakers in the Houston area – and one Urdu speaking UM pastor. We have work to do.]
• Implement the Congregational Development Task Force Plan.

The Conference will:
Develop a congregational vitality assessment to assist churches in identifying

• challenges, opportunities, and needs. [This will enable our churches to answer the question: “How are we doing?” By having clear measures and assessments, we’ll be able to get beyond the “happy talk” of “I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok together.”]
• Provide resources for congregational revitalization and transformation. [This will enable us to answer the how question: How do we change?]
• Assist in identifying strategic opportunities for new church starts. [This is a big change. No longer will the Conference simply do this – it will assist in the work. By distributing the responsibility for church planting, not only will wisdom and knowledge increase, but so will buy-in.]

Learning and Growth [These points sound like what’s already been said. Unless this is identifying areas the Conference needs to learn. If so, it constitutes a confession that they don’t already know how to do everything. A wise move.]

• Model and coach churches to become vibrant in ministry and to grow.
• Provide resources and financial support for new church starts in identified strategic
• opportunity areas.

Financial Strategy

• Reallocate currently available funds to support strategy
• Develop volunteer partnerships

If you’d like to read the whole report (the Pre-Conference Journal for the upcoming special session) you can find it on the Texas Conference website. In my previous posts on this proposal I highlighted the positive reasons for making this move: There’s lots of people out there and we’re not reaching them!

There are also “negative” reasons. We’re in trouble. The first negative statistic, worship attendance last year was down .06% from 2000. As I consider the attendance reports since 1998 I don’t see any really significant change. Churches compute attendance by a variety of means: (1) Counting people (some ushers & preachers are pretty imaginative with their counting); (2) Attendance pads (I have never seen these be 100% accurate. They undercount more often than they overcount.); (3) A checklist. (Usually in a software package.). None of these methods are fool proof; all have a margin of error. I’m inclined to think that the worship attendance variance over the past few years is within the margin of error. If so, we’re not seeing substantial decline (assuming the numbers are real), but since these numbers are just over a third of our reported membership, we’re still doing pretty pitifully.

By my reckoning, attendance is hugely important. Healthy churches will have more people in attendance than they do members. Why? First, because they will be attracting seekers – people who are investigating Jesus – who have not yet committed themselves. Second, because membership is seen as a substantive commitment, not just getting your name on a roll.

Other statistics are down also: Professions of Faith (new Christians), Baptisms, and students in confirmation classes all declined over the past 5 years. We’re apparently not doing enough to help people become Christians and connect to the church.

Considering these statistics, the document sums up the situation very briefly:

The Texas Annual Conference is at a turning point. We can maintain the current path, which is not addressing the opportunities of our growing area, or we can choose a new path leading to growth, revitalization, and enhanced ministry and mission.

I’ll put up more later.