The Temptation of Graceless Living (Photo credit: cwwozniak)

I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t know that my heroes were flawed.

I grew up in the days following Nixon, Watergate, Viet Nam, race riots, and the burgeoning practice of assuming that great men and women were not perfect. Leaders could be trusted, but only to a certain extent. A prime example was Ronald Reagan. His rise to power was a renewal of trust after years of brokenness in the White House. But when the Iran-Contra Scandal broke, few people were shocked. Sure, there was disappointment. But the primary emotion in the youth of my day was apathy: Here’s another leader who has done the wrong thing for the right reasons.

The problem with disillusionment is that you were “illusioned” in the first place.

Youth became sad and cynical. Here were the beginnings of a Pessimism that characterized the 80′s.

Sadly, this attitude would eventually cause many of our nation’s hopeful leaders to adopt a “scorched earth” campaign style. The goal in nearly every election cycle? Develop those character flaws and mistakes evident in one’s opponent to the point that they are irredeemable.

Irredeemable: To the American citizen, this should be disgusting. To the Christian, this should be horrific.

In recent days, we’ve seen the dismal results of foregoing trust to assume the worst about our opponents. First mistake: Assuming that those with whom we disagree must be opponents. Next mistake, withdrawing trust in toto.

Not One Good Quality

I have dear friends who cannot find one positive thing to say about Barack Obama. Now, my point here is not to sing the praises of the President. My point is that inability to find one single redeeming quality in a human being.

Pardon me for dropping my tone and manner, but declaring a human being to be unworthy of redemption simply sucks.

Human beings are flawed by nature, not by design. And there is redemption available and awaiting each of us. Why? Because of Grace. Grace is the “possibility of forgiveness and redemption.” Both of those ideas can be conditional. In fact, forgiveness most often requires forgiveness. Redemption requires change.

Admit it or not, too many of us seek out those with whom we disagree with one goal in mind: Hammer them into submission with our iron-clad arguments, challenge their every tenet of belief, and demand that they defend themselves lest we find their faith faulty, unworthy of our fellowship and beneath our regard.

Forgotten Grace

But Grace is beyond that. Grace is unconditional in that it is offered before those things take place. Grace doesn’t necessitate forgiveness and redemption, but neither would be possible without it.

Two weeks ago, I would have said that “lack of trust” was the chief failure of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, meeting in Tampa, Florida. But I am now convinced that our failure was in “not offering Grace.” It didn’t begin with that gathering, and it certainly didn’t stop at the close of General Conference.

Grace means listening and learning. Grace means finding room in our hearts for the other person, not just in spite of their views, but perhaps even because of those views. Grace means hoping for the agreement before there is any sign of hope for agreeing. Grace means caring about the other person’s opinions because we care about the other person.

I am challenging you to join me in reaching out to people with whom we disagree. And, in doing so, I am making friends with one goal in mind: To experience their ideas and to learn from their thoughts. That’s what relationship and communication are about.

The Hope

Here’s where it gets dicey. The danger lies in the ever present temptation to reach out with the intention of manipulating opinions. But the key factor is this: I’m not out to change anyone’s mind, not in this situation. I preach for results, yes. But I engage in holy conferencing to know and to be known; to share.

Friendships should not be designed to control or manipulate. The chief desire of God is that we become more like Christ, more like the one who reached out to us while we were yet sinners. Our friendships should reflect that. We should demonstrate our willingness to love those who don’t think like we do. We should live out our belief that the greatest demonstration of grace comes before the demands of righteousness are met – especially when we are living with the danger of self-righteousness. This, you see, is the chief enemy of grace, and results in judgement and bigotry on all sides.

The goal is to grow in our understanding of one another. And, from there, to increase our ability and willingness to trust.

In the grace of Christ, we become one. Apart from Christ, we cease becoming.

Related articles

• Defining Forgiveness: Forgiveness Is Not Trusting or Reunion (readingremy.com)
• Methodist in-Formation: We Need Each Other (methoblog.com)
• Only Wonder Understands: A Letter to Tony Jones from a United Methodist (methoblog.com)
• when grace is not what you thought it was {or what they say it is}, Part II (eatinglocusts.wordpress.com)
• Chuck E Cheese and God’s Grace (compassiondave.wordpress.com)

The Journey of Thought (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conversations with bold, young leaders are often difficult for me, mostly because I remember those early days out of seminary when I still knew everything. I had been drawn through a very complex set of ideas on a three year journey to enlightenment, and I was ready to unleash myself upon the world.

The reason those conversations can be difficult is that those conversations remind me of my own shortsightedness.

I wasn’t prepared to take folks on that same journey for themselves. I expected them to simply agree with me, despite the fact that my journey and their journey had been entirely different. Young leadership often finds this to be a problem. Sadly, I had been in ministry for better than a decade before I figured all this out.

Rev. Ben Gosden recently posted a fantastic article on self awareness for young clergy. In the wake of our General Conference in Tampa, Florida, this is a timely message. Ben has recognized the need for learning from our forebears rather than repeating the petulant, whining complaint, “Why don’t WE get to lead?” that resonated through many of the tweets on the #GC2012 Twitter feed. Far too many young leaders were questioning the abilities and motives of General Conference delegates and leaders simply because they were “old, white, straight men.”

Gosden joins the conversation with a well-placed rejoinder, “As much as I might think I’m ready for anything, I must remember that growth and readiness come as fruits of time, practice, and patience in ministry.” But he doesn’t go on to place himself under the yoke of everyone older than he. Without abandoning his responsibility to lead, he has wisely asked for guidance and advice from seasoned veterans of ministry so that he might lead now.

He’s not rolling over. He’s not buckling under. He’s asking for information that is the result of experience, and he’s expressing a willingness to trust those offering it to do so in good faith.

His implied reasoning is that, despite the many benefits and blessings of a very talented generation, one thing young clergy are missing (as were we all) is experience.  Thus, Gosden’s wisest statement of the article is this: “I have a lot I need to learn and mentoring (or shall I say discipling) is the greatest gift a seasoned pastor can give a newbie like me.”

I consider Ben a deep thinker already. And the only advice (for this particular situation) that I could muster, I’m sure Ben has already thought of. But I think this post is warranted, if it helps anyone at all, including me, to think more intentionally about how we communicate as leaders and followers in the United Methodist Church. Comments posted below will probably benefit us all.

So here’s the thing: We are a denomination of thinkers, despite evidence to the contrary. Our problem isn’t a lack of thinking, it is that we don’t share our thinking — just the results. Moreover, deep thinking leaders are usually short process thinkers. That means that they typically see the path from Point A to Point B very quickly — sometimes, while the most of the crowd is still exploring Point A and completely unaware of Point B.

On the heels of Gosden’s wise words to ‘know thyself, and thy limits,’ I would simply add this: Know your colleagues’ and congregation’s capacity to absorb your points of view, particularly if you  have been granted an insight that is light years from the status quo.

And the folowing lessons are the result of years of mistakes and missteps, and speak directly to the desired result of bringing people along on your journey of thought and discovery.

1. Be willing to repeat yourself. I remember that I often made the leadership mistake of thinking, “I’ve already said that!” But after several years of banging my head into that particular wall, I’ve realized two things: 1) Not everyone ‘gets it’ the first time. 2) The crowd is constantly changing; very rarely do the same people show up at the same time. Sooner or later, someone is going to miss something. And even if you don’t think someone deserves a special hearing, the message you’ve been given by God certainly deserves it. The best practitioner of this is Rev. Adam Hamilton. I’ve heard the story of the development of his church’s vision each of the many times I’ve heard him speak. And he is unapologetic for that repetition.

2. Understand the investment in Point A. If you are asking people to prefer your vision over the one they currently hold, you should be very aware of the loss they will suffer when they leave their paradigm, no matter how trivial you find it, to embrace the one you offer. Leaders must be willing to honor and value the very ideas that they are asking their people to abandon (in total or in part).

“The Church as Museum” may be wrong, but it is often wrong for very good reasons. In the absence of a better way forward, we tend to make camp. Even Peter wanted to build booths to remain on the Mountaintop with Jesus after the Transfiguration. It was obviously “good for them to be there.” But within a sentence or two, we find that they were moving on. I’ve often wondered what Jesus said to get things moving again. But Luke adds, parenthetically perhaps, that Peter didn’t know what he was saying. Sometimes, that is true of us today. And that brings us to our next point.

3. Make the Case clearly and succinctly. After you’ve fully appreciated the best parts of what is being lost or left behind, you can begin to make the case for why Point B is now better than Point A. This is especially difficult if you were the leader who got them to Point A to begin with. But no matter who led them there, when you want people to leave their long-held positions, you’d better have a clear reason for moving to Point B.

And your people deserve more than the all-too-standard answers of post-modernity. These just will not cut it:

• Don’t be on the wrong side of History…
• If you only knew the pain this was causing people you’ve never heard of…
• All the cool people/Mega Churches/Everyone else is doing it.
• You are reading the Bible wrong.
• I know everything there is to know about this. Trust me.
• All those pastors before me were wrong.
• You’d understand this if you weren’t over 40.

Naturally, we’d never say these things. But we manage to repackage these words into neat little leadership bundles — with which we proceed to bludgeon our congregations and our colleagues to death.

I cringe to think how often variants of these phrases came out of my mouth.

4. Share your process, not your results. I’ve underestimated congregations more often than I care to admit. And, most frequently, I’ve failed to trust the people to follow the process for themselves. Instead, I’ve thrown goals at them without rationale. Operating on sheer enthusiasm, I’ve actually managed to get them where I asked them to go. But the result has often been the question, “Now, why did we do all that?” More common, I would imagine, was a simpler response: “Not interested.”

People are smarter than we credit them. And if we continue to ask good questions, and provide food for thought, our minds can be instructed, broadened, and refashioned after the mind of Christ. This requires patience. And that’s another commodity, like experience, that often runs short in young leaders of any stripe.

While each of these points address the particular setting of a congregation, there is correlation to all human relationships. At General Conference, we failed to agree on a process of thinking, a method of believing, and a structure of operating in rapid succession  over the course of time together.

One last thought on all this comes to mind. Over the years, I’ve struggled with a question: Do we need better leadership or better followership? When we take turns leading and following one another through the difficult ideas and issues of our time, the issue ceases to be leadership OR followership. When we relate our ideas to one another, listening carefully and speaking clearly, that’s not leadership.

That’s communication — and the Church needs a fresh dose.

Related articles

• We Your People, Ours the Journey: Diary of a Delegate: in the end, Hope. (methoblog.com)
• The United Methodist Reporter: Erin Hawkins: Plan UMC will gut GCORR (methoblog.com)
• The United Methodist Reporter: With GC finished, can we focus on connection? (methoblog.com)

Sexism hates you? Really?! (Photo credit: rrho)

The United Methodist Church just wrapped up the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, FL.

I’m glad.

You see, our denomination was starting to fray at the edges — and in some places very near the center.

I found myself disgusted by some of the content I’ve been reading in blogs. I’ve been disappointed in clergy colleagues for their snide, snarky, and, in some cases, wrong and disrespectful treatment of others.

One of our problems is that we mistrust our colleagues, our leaders, and our members. I’ve seen blog after blog, tweet after tweet, each proclaiming the willful, organized opposition to the author’s  point of view.

Many of our colleagues believe differently, and are just as passionate for their causes as we are.  But we must come to terms in our disagreement. We must learn to utilize a common  standard for our scholarship and theological inquiry. More importantly, if we are to take each other seriously, and our respective views just as seriously, we must regain an attitude of mutual respect and agape love.

I have to say I’m past disappointed with the racism, sexism, and gender bias I saw from the very folks who were crying out the loudest for equality to finally gain a foothold in our denomination.

Here’s a hint to some of the more outspoken, often younger, and, sometimes, downright rude members of the clergy family. Don’t assume that every white, straight, over-40 male clergy-person is out to a) keep you from having a voice b) stop you from leading the Church and/or c) avoid hearing your points.

When you do that, you sometimes end up offending some not-so-young clergy who were speaking up for your rights before you knew anyone was doing so.

You forget that all of us will be over forty if we live long enough.

Most of all, you seem to forget that by assuming the worst of a person because of their white skin, masculine gender, and middle-to-advanced age,  you are stereotyping. And when you choose to act unjustly and justify it with your own sense of righteousness, you end up embracing that which you detest in others.

Related articles

• Do we understand how the church works? (umc.org)
• Confessions of a Young Pastor: I Love Women, Bacon, and You! (methoblog.com)
• May 3 wrap: Gay rights protest closes morning session (umc.org)
• Urban Ecclesiology:: Clergy Scarlet Letter: I (methoblog.com)

Downtown Tampa, Florida. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 2012 United Methodist General Conference continues in Tampa, Florida. The debate has heated up — and we still have a long way to go.

In the heat of the moment, there have already been celebrations in the face of pain, disregard of sacred worth, and evil words rationalized by zeal. Please let this be your prayer for our denomination’s leaders gathered  in Tampa.

God of us all, bless our Church with understanding.

Our hearts are heavy with the pain of having broken trust and faith in the name of being right.

Cover us once again with the spirit of your Son, so that we might remember what it feels like to be loved in spite of our flaws.

And then, return us to the work of your kingdom, unwilling to sacrifice one another upon the altar of our own self-righteousness.

Forgive us for our zeal. Temper it with love.

Forgive us our contempt. Eliminate it from us and replace it with compassion.

Forgive us our hatred. We have justified it with righteousness that comes not from you, but from our own misguided attempts to take your place and inflict upon the people around us our own understanding of justice.

Free us to an obedient Church, joy-filled and energized for ministry.

In Christ and because of Christ we ask it, Amen.

Related articles

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• John Meunier: Jones: General Conference and doctrine (methoblog.com)
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• Willis Wired: A Prayer for General Conference 2012 (methoblog.com)
• GC2012: Holy conversations have unintended effect (umc.org)

Change the World | May 19-20, 2012

What if one weekend all around the world, 11 million United Methodists focused on finding sustainable solutions to fighting malaria?

A few years ago, Rev. Mike Slaughter began to lead his congregation in an effort to make a difference in their community. Oddly, there’s not much malaria in Pennsylvania where Mike pastors. Mike leads the congregation at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church. But there are some folks living together in Christ. And Mike realized that there were opportunities to build that local community while tackling some global issues.

Their efforts have blossomed into a denomination-wide mission blitz with just a few objectives for this year:

1. Fight Malaria Globally
2. Create Community Locally
3. Last but not least, Change the World

Now, that last one sounds like no small thing. And it certainly is one of the more challenging objectives I’ve ever seen. But Change the World is much more than a slogan or a bumper sticker. Change the World becomes a goal that requires a great number of people. It requires a realization that there are problems too big for just one person, or even a small group of folks to solve.

In fact, to Change the World, it might take more than all of us put together. It might become a partnership in ministry with God.

The United Methodist Church, in partnership with www.imaginenomalaria.org, is calling upon every local church to participate in a local ministry that will benefit the fight against malaria. Or you can simply make a difference in your community. Changing the world can happen right where you are.

The best way to get started is to decide to get started. Then, head over to http://rethinkchurch.org/changetheworld. From there, the plan will come together as you share the information.

1. Decide on a project: It doesn’t have to be a massive drain on your resources. This doesn’t have to be a huge effort. It can be something you put together in just a few days. You can pick from this list or come up with one of your own!
2. Gather your team: Recruit your neighbors. Call your friends. Ask around at church, but don’t limit yourself to “church folks.”
3. Do a little advertising: Put the word out on Facebook. Tweet away on Twitter. Email your friends and ask for forwards.
4. SHOW UP: Get the project done. Make it your best effort. Really put something into it.
5. HAVE FUN: You can do a good job AND have a blast.
6. Send your proceeds: If you opted to do a fund-raiser, please make sure you get the money to the right place.
7. SHARE YOUR STORY!! Post your story on Facebook. Share it at one of the Facebook pages listed below. Email your pastor.

The important thing is that you don’t lose sight of the main objectives. And, no matter how small your efforts may seem, remember that we are here to Change the World.

Facebook Pages

• United Methodist Church
• UMCom
• United Methodist News Service
• Imagine No Malaria
• Rethink Church

Related articles

• Change the World – Ideas and Resources to Get Started (United Methodist Communications)
• Special Coverage of Change the World (United Methodist News)

The Online Face of Church Interaction? (Image via CrunchBase)

Folks who follow me on Facebook and Twitter might have noticed that I seem to have two voices. The reason for that is simple: I do.

They are closely related, mostly because they are both me. And I don’t like to divide myself into “Pastor Joey” and “Just Plain Joey.”  But it is impossible to “wear the collar” all the time. So I post fun things about the things that interest me, pictures of family, and snarky comments about the sports and entertainment industries.

And then, there’s the very intentional effort I make to offer spiritually encouraging content online.

When you read something that appears to be inspiring, you can rest assured that I’ve put some time in ahead of the post. I sit down, examine the calendar, pray, and do a little studying.

And then I schedule about 20 posts at a time, usually a week or so ahead of the time you see the post using a program called Hootsuite — and a whole host of other apps that are free and available to you today.

Hootsuite

“You mean you aren’t really posting those?” Yes, I’m posting those carefully crafted thoughts and well-researched quotes. I’m just posting them a week at a time using a scheduler called Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com). Hootsuite allows me to write a series of “Twitter-length Sermons” and schedule them to be posted in the coming week. I could schedule them further out (like my sermons, which are prepared as much as 8-10 months in advance). But I keep imagining something happening to me. In the event of my untimely death, Hootsuite would just keep churning out the posts — and that’s just creepy.

When I first started using Hootsuite, it was just for posting my sermon synapsis to Facebook on my church’s Facebook page — sort of a preview. Then I added follow-up tweets as reminders of the points from the sermon on Monday. Soon, I was posting two or three tweets a day and cross-posting them to Facebook as well.

And that was before I ever thought to use Hootsuite to share great articles I run across online. It was just too cumbersome to keep switching to Hootsuite and posting links. Enter the Buffer.

Buffer

Almost all of those articles that I post are generally found a week ahead of time as well. I use a program called Buffer (www.bufferapp.com) to schedule links to be posted from blogs and articles that have great content.

Here’s a quick overview: When I read the writers I follow, I read them all at once, usually every couple of days.  All of the blogs in my blogroll are conglomerated into Google’s Reader. As I read, I may see a really insightful article. When I do, I click the little star icon and make it a favorite. Then, another little gem of a program picks it up from there.

IfThisThenThat

Within an hour, an application called IfThisThenThat (www.ifttt.com) will check my Reader application to see if there are any new favorited articles. If there are, IfThisThenThat sends the link to Buffer. There, it will be sorted to the end of the line. The free version only holds 10 articles. For me, that’s five days of article posting. Sometimes, when the buffer is full, I’ll post a link immediately. But not often does that happen.

IfThisThenThat also picks out my favorite Tweets from folks I follow on Twitter and cross-posts them to Facebook.

WordPress and Networked Blogs

Finally, we come to the product you are reading here, my collected articles and posts on a variety of things. I write these articles in clusters as well, and use WordPress to schedule them for later publishing. Then, a nifty little program called Networked Blogs (accessed through Facebook apps) detects the new published material and posts a quick blurb on my Facebook Timeline and my Twitter feed. I also use the Jetpack plugin to measure traffic and determine my website’s effectiveness.

Whew.

Why All the Fuss?

This effort is worth the trouble because I am convinced that online media, especially social media, are the crossroads of our society and culture. John Wesley preached at the literal crossroads of his day, encountering people in meaningful ways where he could find them. We should do the same — not standing on street corners, but finding the crossroads and setting up our pulpits and singing our sermons into the crowds and masses whenever we can. Today, that’s online. Less than a decade ago, it was still television. DVRs make commercials a waste of time for so many ideas and products. So I take up my digital pen and I write.

But I also realize that people are physically social as well. And I don’t have time to do all these things manually and still get around to seeing folks face to face. By interconnecting all of my social media efforts with this seamless automation,  I am spending less time than ever on social media and producing nearly four times as much meaningful interaction.

I measure this interaction with two metrics: Personal feedback and another nifty program called Klout (www.klout.com). Klout uses a very complicated algorithm to determine not only my productivity (how often and how  much I post) but the interactions that result (comments, likes, retweets, etc.).

While Klout cannot assess the quality of my offerings, they can tell me how well I am communicating with the folks who are reading them. I rely on your feedback to know when I’m hitting the mark, and when I’m whistling past the graveyard, as it were. For that, I depend on your responses and comments; and, of course, the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Now, how do you use social media for your personal purposes?

Related articles

• Social Media Scheduler Buffer Could Save your Sanity (tonygallacher.wordpress.com)
• How to Use Hootsuite and Buffer Symbiotically to Improve Your Efficiency on Twitter (insatiablesolopreneur.com)
• Connecting Your Social Media with ifttt.com (epiphanysolutions.co.uk)
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Laura Nichol, a member of the Call to Action Interim Operations Team, facilitates a conversation about the cultural changes The United Methodist Church needs to reverse decades of declining U.S. membership. (Photo credit: UMNS - Heather Hahn)

Logic seems to have failed some of us Methodists — probably because we aren’t Vulcans, or something like that.

United Methodists all over the blogosphere and twitterverse are posting and tweeting logical fallacies right and left, mostly in the area of the recent Call to Action initiative that will be addressed at General Conference in just a few days.

Most recently, a photo of a recent denominational meeting has been circulating. The photo depicts a woman standing next to a flip-chart with some key phrases on it:

• Denominational Goal
• Stop the Decline
• Encourage Growth

This has incurred the derogatory commentary of many who feel that Call to Action is all about numbers and not about denominational vitality. The recurring theme is that our denomination should be about the core principles of our faith and not about metrics.

The revelation here is that we don’t have to choose one or the other. United Methodists can make disciples of Jesus Christ. We can stop the decline of our denomination. United Methodists can renew their faith and commitment to supporting their church with their prayers, their presence, their gifts and their service, and their witness. And we can thus encourage growth, both spiritually and numerically.

Leaders embrace a logical fallacy to assume that these are mutually exclusive.

Vulcan (Star Trek) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In fact, the opposite is true. For over a decade now, the denominational goal has been to Make Disciples. This phrase has been the “focus” from our denominational leadership and implemented across our multiple-silo structure for that same length of time — and without much traction achieved in slowing our numeric issues. I would also argue that we haven’t seen much traction with pastors and our leadership of local congregations toward a deeper and more significant faith.

Logic is a subject that hasn’t been taught in schools in a long time. But it still deserves our attention. God is not the author of confusion, but the Designer of Order. Things have a tendency to make sense if they are thoughtfully examined. Much of the rhetoric of this election cycle can be seen for what it is when examined in the light of truth and logic. Television commercials lose some of their hypnotic draw. Theology doesn’t have to make a constant appeal to mystery (though there is certainly plenty of room left for it). And you don’t have to be a Vulcan like Mr. Spock to make this happen.

Accountable Discipleship, Accountable Leadership

The key is accountability.

As a denomination, we’ve clearly defined our identity. We are the Church that Makes Disciples. And, by embracing our Wesleyan heritage, we are the Church that does so via small groups. A cursory review of our denominational history paired with a five-minute study of Matthew 25 reveals that we are mission-minded, both monetarily and with regard to our hands-on ministry efforts. And vital worship has always been a key factor in Methodist identity.

So why aren’t we growing? Why aren’t we thriving?

The answer is simple, but hard to acknowledge: Too many of our churches resist the call to discipleship. And too many pastors, for a variety of reasons, fail to create the tension needed to draw their congregations into vital discipleship. In short, there is a lack of accountability.

Strengthening Our Priorities, Not Replacing Them

The claim that we are replacing our denominational identity and priorities with a set of metrics is a red herring. Call to Action does not replace our denominational priorities with metrics. Call to Action bolsters our belief in our denominational priorities by making them real priorities. I wrote about this in Call to Action: Don’t Confuse the “What” with the “How.”

Examine the budgets of non-vital churches (and Towers Watson did) and you see that their priorities often lie elsewhere. Examine the goals of their church councils, and you’ll see that many are replete with platitudes regarding disciple-making. But upon examining their church council minutes, you are more likely to find discussions about “museum mindsets” and a greater emphasis on pet projects that once served the kingdom, but now serve as little more than a drain on church resources.

There’s another assumption that seems to be at work here: Pastors cannot do real ministry and maintain an appropriate focus on metrics. This is false as well. But in congregations where metrics become all-consuming, this could certainly be true. The trick is to keep “the main thing” the main thing.

To put this another way, the United Methodist Church has spent the better part of the last two decades on two major initiatives. The first was to re-establish that our goal was to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. The second was to promote evangelism through our Igniting Ministry campaign. But a soul-searching examination of that particular initiative revealed that we were basically advertising a “product” that didn’t exist: Vital, open, welcoming churches engaged in world-transforming ministry. As a former Igniting Ministry National Trainer, I discovered an incredible number of churches across the country that were, in my opinion, not yet ready to receive the influx of newcomers. They just couldn’t provide what the commercials were promising. Newcomers arriving in those churches starting asking a question that dates back to the ’80s. “Where’s the beef?”

We got the cart before the horse.

If our third decade of reform had come second, we might have seen more real results from Igniting Ministry and the related attempts to evangelize our culture. From thirty thousand feet up, a call for accountability makes much more sense than the detractors might claim.

Our priorities remain the same. And while metrics may seem to take center stage, they are merely a supporting role — but a key role, nonetheless. Without accountability, our priorities will continue, in many places, into another decade of lip-service, posturing, and self-deception.

Related articles

• Common Logical Fallacies, Illustrated (neatorama.com)
• Major Questions at the Heart of Call to Action (ijoey.org)
• Should bishops have a full-time president? (umc.org)
• The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies (ilookchina.net)
• Debate grapples with restructuring (umc.org)
• We Your People, Ours the Journey: What’s wrong with this picture? (methoblog.com)

Newsweek's Latest Cover featuring Jesus Christ

“Christianity has been destroyed by politics, priests, and get-rich evangelists. Ignore them,” writes Andrew Sullivan in this week’s edition of Newsweek, “and embrace Him.”

If only it were that easy. My inner 5th-Grader (who also titled this article) wanted very much to say, “No duh.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. He’s asking a lot of the right questions. But he’s failing to understand the larger problem.

Sullivan has identified that there are people who are co-opting the Gospel message for their own benefit. Politicians of every stripe, evangelical power-hoarders, and clergy with serious problems who hide behind the cloisters of their denomination and continue the practices of their evils. He’s also left out magazine editors who call for a cover featuring Jesus, since it regularly boosts sales. But I digress.

Sullivan describes symptoms when he raises these misuses of the Gospel. And the symptoms appear to be as nasty as any of the other problems in the world. Institutional Churches are problematic. Again, not news.

Andrew Sullivan (Photo credit: Stuck in Customs)

The problem is similar to the one that Jefferson Bethke stumbled upon when he wrote his spoken word piece “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” Spanning the world on YouTube in just a few weeks, “Why I Hate Religion” became the topic of water-cooler conversation, dinner table discussion, and not just a few discourses from pulpits across the country and around the world, including my own.  As of this writing, the video has 20 million hits on YouTube alone.

Sullivan and Bethke have both ddiscovered an ancient and well-known problem of church. For the last 2000 years, the Church has been led by people trying, to some degree or another, to follow Jesus. But at the end of the day, we are all just people; human to the core and fallible as any cracked creation, flawed design, or willful children.

Sullivan does raise some interesting questions:

What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?

Indeed, these are questions asked  across the country on a weekly and even daily basis.  And these questions aren’t just asked at the water-cooler and the dinner table. These are questions asked by clergy of congregations across the country. These are questions discussed by denominational leaders. Mr. Sullivan seems to think that no one has thought of these questions to this point.

In short, Mr. Sullivan has painted all clergy and all politicians with the broadest brush in his box. By implication, we are either part of the problem or ignoring the problem. That’s a pretty harsh accusation to make. One could imagine that he is saying that we are better off without the Church.

And he has done so despite the fact that his ideas about the institutions are derived from his Irish Grandmother and her experience of Church, the writers of the books on theology he’s read (most likely a part of the Church), and his personal interactions with countless members of the Church in the course of a lifetime.

My point is not that Sullivan is ripping anyone off. My point is that we Christians are all the product of the Church in one way or another.  None of us have had a natural interaction with Jesus. My faith was transmitted through interactionswith the people of the Church.

If it were so easy for all of us to just abandon the Church and just follow Jesus, I’d be locking the doors myself.

But it is not. The Church isn’t the Bishops or a Pope. The Church isn’t the doctrinal documents. The Church isn’t even to be found in the meticulously examined Scriptures.

The Church is made up of people; people who are following Christ  and encouraging one another and transforming the world as best they can for the sake of the Gospel message. For all the misguided clergy and politicians in the world who are bending the Gospel to their own ends, there are thousands — millions — of believers who are quietly living their lives of faith and service.

I don’t claim to be a great leader. The only times I’ve ever been a good leader were the times that I chose to follow Jesus all the more closely.  Every church I’ve ever served, I’ve clearly taught them to check my work: If I’m not following Jesus, then they have no business following me.

But to follow Jesus on your one is to run the risk of placing yourself on the throne of your own heart. And the only one who belongs there is Christ. At least within the church, you find a place to examine your ideas and to challenge yourself.

With that in mind, I welcome Andrew Sullivan to the conversation, even if he doesn’t understand that some of us have a bit of a head start.

Related articles

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• Another “Follow Jesus, Forget the Church” Epic Fail (sethsoasis.wordpress.com)
• Hipster Jesus Here to Save Newsweek? (www.theatlanticwire.com)
• There’s a Baby in that Bathwater, Jeff (blog.ijoey.org)

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the 23rd president of Liberia, speaks to the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Call to Action proposal is getting support from across the United Methodist Church. With just a few more days before General Conference 2012 begins, people across the denomination are publishing their positions regarding this proposal focusing on restructuring the Agencies of our  Church.

Adam Hamilton (pastor of  the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas) has sent an open letter to the delegates of the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Florida.  The signatures had reached 454 as of this writing. I am signature 445.

Not everyone will be signing this document. Some are creating their own platforms aand issuing their own challenges and questions. One of these statements comes from the Wisconsin Annual Conference Delegation to General Conference.

First, let me say that I understand that reasonable people can disagree and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ can stand on opposite sides of an issue. I do find that some of the statements could be answered with a more generous read of the Call to Action. For example, the first statement reads:

Decisions about structure should be based on missional priorities and outcomes: form must follow function and it is currently unclear what outcomes the proposed structure would enable us to achieve more effectively.

I understand the need to establish missional priorities. The problem here is that our denomination is trying to do everything when the financial realities of ministry are changing in drastic ways. Now that we are having to pick and choose, or at least are facing that distinct reality, the real issue here is “What will we be funding now that our resources are limited?”

In my mind, the General Board efforts to reach people for Jesus Christ would be far better accomplished by an empowered laity.  This seems to be the thrust behind the merging of these several agencies. What isn’t as clear is the relationship between the theological stances taken by some of these agencies and the reasoning behind their diminishment.

As some of these agencies go away or are folded under the authority of other leaders, some of the more liberal social issues are less likely to be addressed. Few get the attention of local congregations, especially in some parts of the country. The reality of the situation is that if we leave the liberal social issue to the churches, then they will not be addressed at all.

This begs the question: If the local churches and pastors are not actively pursuing these in numbers that achieve critical mass, then why should agencies expect to be funded by these same individuals, churches, and pastors?

I can hear some of this question in this paragraph:

The absence of a spiritual center to the process of determining our future is troubling – we would encourage a greater emphasis on prayer, fasting, Christian conference, reflective discernment, and scriptural study.

A rural United Methodist Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are we suggesting that the Call to Action was not born out of the efforts of faithful disciples? Or is this a suggestion that the process requires more spirituality than the team can bring to bear? Perhaps it is because two studies were commissioned, leaving us with a secular and commercial taste in our mouths. I don’t fault my Trustees for getting good information from experts and then praying before they act on it.

If the call here is for more prayer, then so be it. But I have a problem with suggesting that the men and women on this team have left out the spiritual center. As long as we are casting doubts, one might ask if the center is simply not “of the spirit that some wish it to be.”

There is not a clear explanation of how the proposed cuts will truly benefit the church in the long-term, just an assumption that we can do more, better with less – we would like to see more strategy and less assumptions.

The idea isn’t to do more with less. The idea is to tear down the silos and start working across the denomination. One could make a good argument  that some agencies are acting with a near independent mandate, joining their voices with groups and organizations that support beliefs that are clearly contrary with United Methodist doctrine and principles.

Core questions of identity and purpose are being ignored in favor of structure, policies and image; the assumption seems to be that systemic change isn’t necessary as long as we can rearrange parts of the existing system – we would encourage a clarity about our identity and purpose guiding our decisions about what to keep and what to eliminate.

Perhaps this statement, more than any other, points back to the notion of identity and purpose I raised at the outset of this article. Whose identities and purposes are at stake with this restructuring?

Let’s do this by the numbers:

• A hierarchical, non-representative structure seems antithetical to the values and nature of The United Methodist Church – how we work must reflect who we truly are.

Agreed. It seems antithetical to assume that we need a black woman to represent black women or a Native American to represent Native Americans or a white man to represent white men. Why can’t a black woman represent me, a middle-aged white male? Is my culture so different that she cannot represent me?

• The issues of guaranteed appointment and ordination process are symptomatic of deeper dysfunction in our leadership credentialing and support system; creating conference level positions and a culture of call do not adequately address deeper issues – we must improve our processes of discernment and assessment rather than seek remedial solutions.

This is not an ‘either/or’ situation. There are numerous pastors who are difficult to appoint not because they are socially awkward or out of step, but because they are bearing doctrine that is faulty, skills that are atrocious, and professional ethics that are neither professional nor ethical.

I, for one, am willing to take the risk of operating without these institutional protections if it will move us closer to adequately meeting the spiritual needs of the churches that we are supplying.

• Our current trends toward counting – worship attendance, professions of faith, numbers of small groups, etc. – provide an unbalanced approach to evaluation and confuse size with health.  Qualitative metrics and holistic definitions of health and vitality are needed. Confusing “people who attend worship” with “disciples” is deeply problematic.

That’s why Call to Action contains plenty of room for the trained clergy to provide these definitions. Some are even defining new ways of providing this information that go well beyond numbers. Rev. Rebecca Clark has written eloquently on the subject of providing a narrative for the task of evaluating and measuring the success and faithfulness of the local congregation. I was not surprised to see that this was allowed for at the Vital Congregations website. They specifically ask for stories and narratives (look in the lower right hand corner: You can upload video or share an article or blog).

If there is some problem with our ability to define that at the local level, then the need to rescind guaranteed appointment is even greater than I thought.

• “Discipleship” is lifted as our focus and goal, yet most of the recommendations do nothing to help define what we mean by discipleship or how the changes will equip our congregations to create sustainable and effective systems for disciple-cultivation.

Why do we need a new definition? Call to Action isn’t designed to redefine discipleship. Call to Action bears as its primary purpose the goal of removing extraneous and redundant efforts to do the ministry and be the Church that we have built up over decades. Local congregations are more than equipped. They need leadership in DOING the ministry, not surrogates and professionals who will do it for them. That is not the vision of the Kingdom that Jesus brought to us.

I would prefer to fail for lack of training and resources than to pay someone to do ministry for me. The questions asked by this delegation indicate a lack of faith that the local churches can accomplish viable ministry on a regional or national level, even if they are functioning connectionally. That may well be.

The alternative is to continue to extract funds from local churches for Agencies that no longer adequately, and some might say, faithfully,  represent the local churches.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Bishop Joe Pennel has raised some excellent questions in a recent post at the UMPortal.  He indicates that we are not focusing on the right things with Call to Action in the United Methodist Church. He writes:

I cannot prove it but I am of the opinion that congregations that focus on growing in compassion, forgiveness, mercy, kindness and justice have a stronger and more authentic commitment to social witness than those that are not so concerned.

All due respect to the Bishop, but he misses the point by making it. Call to Action creates a structure that more effectively promotes these behaviors at the local church level. Local churches are more likely to get busy if they realize that a national or international agency isn’t doing it for them. I believe that Call to Action will promote local ministry.

The problem is not in our expectations. The problem is in the ability for our local congregations to deliver it. Again, Bishop Pennel makes the case:

When I got back to my office I looked at the calendar of activities for the week and not one had anything to do with learning, experiencing or keeping the spiritual disciplines. How can believers grow in the fruits of the spirit if spiritual practice is neglected?

Call to Action is asking for small group and mission dollar accountability. Unless churches are allowing counting bike clubs and knitting groups among their small groups, the very point of these groups is devotion, worship, mercy, compassion, justice, and love.

The Call to Action Initiative is about expecting more from our churches. It is about numbers and goals, yes, but those numbers represent people. There is no reason for the CTA to replace a seminary education, or a course of study education. If the pastors cannot lead the congregations to set goals and implement the faithful ministry to achieve them, then we should also get rid of Guaranteed Appointment and start raising up leaders who can faithfully transmit the gospel message without squelching the movement of the Spirit.

Churches should be interested in far more than the simple facts and figures. Real ministry must be associated with the statistics that the Call to Action: Vital Congregations program is calling for. My colleague in Vermont, Rev. Rebecca Girrell Clark has written a wonderful piece about the inadequacy of the statistics to tell the stories of our ministries.  I agree with her that our reports are stale and leave out the heart of our ministry without the narratives and testimonials of hands-on ministry. But I also think that there are many clergy and not a few laity who stand up year after year at Charge Conference and tell passionate stories about ministry and changed lives while their numbers dwindle and their finances fail.

There are no success stories in Christian churches. There are only redemption stories. That means that our stories must involve the redemption of hearts and minds — “real, live people” to reuse a tired phrase. And we should require our redemption stories to be tested. Call to Action merely demands a simple test: Does our work bear fruit in ways beyond the heart-warming stories.

There must be narratives of ministry that creates moments during which “hearts are strangely warmed.” But that is not the extent of our collective calling. We must redeem more than hearts. We must redeem minds. We must redeem finances. We must redeem actions. And we must redeem the world around us.

Somehow, folks have gotten the notion that Call to Action is trying to replace our Wesleyan theology with some kind of accounting system. Didn’t Wesley himself demand reports from his class leaders? Didn’t he hold his colleagues in loving, albeit sometimes harsh accountability? This bone dry administrative initiative, ironically enough,  is actually trying to restore our Wesleyan structure so that we can more effectively promote our Wesleyan theology. I’ve already written extensively about the subtle goal of CTA to remove the dollars and other resources from some profoundly non-Wesleyan Agencies.

Hear me carefully on this: Not all agencies are bad. Some are still getting the job done. Others are theologically out of step. Still others are outdated and need to be restructured to reach a new generation — or three.

To quote a friend of mine, “I don’t know where we got the agency structures, but they surely were never meant to replace the effective ministry of the local church.”

The premise, for many, behind keeping the current agencies is that the churches cannot be trusted to do ministry. If that is the case, we should close them all and start over. But we should not continue to use the local churches as a cash farm system for Agency ministry.

The Call to Action is the “what” in what is needed for local churches, Districts, and Conferences to take up the mantle. And Bishop Joe Pennell has very eloquently described the “how.” And in pointing out the inadequacies of some churches to accomplish this, he has also illuminated the “why.”

Related articles

• Open letter urges restructure support (umc.org)
• Major Questions at the Heart of Call to Action (ijoey.org)
• #GC2012 COMMENTARY: Separating truths, myths about Call to Action (barefootpreachr.org)
• Agency Q?A: United Methodist Men (umc.org)