jvoorhees's blog

Dan Dick’s post today, “Caught on the Horns of an Ethical Dilemma,” shares a troubling conversation that Dan had with several pastors at the recent School for Congregational Development. The article talks about the ease with which these pastors believed that lying was an acceptable ministerial practice in the right circumstances. This was not only about maintaining confidentialities, but also such things as soft peddling difficult questions of theology and faith.

He writes:

These are just some of the topics we discussed and the reasons given to defend pastoral lying.  Yet, to me the whole discussion is a bit surreal.  What happened to let your “yes” be “yes,” and your “no” be “no?”  What happened to speaking the truth in love?  What happened to just about everything Jesus and Paul ever said?  When did lying become a spiritual gift?  Like Jesus before Pilate, the question is raised once more, “What is truth?”  Certainly there are times for discretion.  Truly, there are sensitive issues.  Indeed, we need confidentiality.  But none of these demands that we lie.

Take a minute to read Dan’s full post and then let us know what you think about Dan’s points. Are there times when not telling the truth is acceptable in ministerial practice? What do we gain or lose if this is the norm for Christian life? Is the unwillingness to tell the truth part of what is driving persons away from the church in general?

“Wesley believed in a form of social networking before there was new media,” said Rev. Larry Hollon, the general secretary of communications for the United Methodist Church. “He’d have small groups meeting face to face, studying the Bible, interacting with each other and studying with each other. His understanding of networking, applying his concern for individual support and sustainability, makes him very relevant.”

The Wesleyan world of social networking | Shift.

What do you think? Was Wesley ahead of his time in networking, or is this simply an chance to spin Wesley in a new way?

With the $20 million the UMC invested in this effort, I'm kind of surprised that it didn't include some kind of copyright protection for the slogan. But, then again, it's more than just the United Methodist type of Church that needs to be rethought, isn't it? And if it reaches new people (or, in this case, people who have been involved previously and drifted away), it's definitely worth considering, regardless of which organization is behind the effort.

United Methodist Reporter Blog: Rethink trademarking?.

The Rules of the United Societies speak not at all of holding proper doctrines. The Holy Club’s self-examination included not a question about doctrine. At the band meetings, Christians were not asked whether they held any improper doctrines since the last meeting.

What we have here is a failure to indoctrinate « John Meunier's blog.

Our world is broken and in deep need of healing and help.  Most of the issues that divide and sometimes destroy our local congregations are truly insignificant — worship styles, leadership styles, preaching styles, and other selfish demands.  Oh, certainly these are symptomatic of deeper issues, but we never get to the deeper issues.  We often can’t get to the important stuff, because we are bogged down by the selfish, narrow-minded, and insignificant issues of the nominally Christian.  Cranky Christians rule the roost.  We can’t deal with truly important issues because we are divided over such earth shattering disagreements such as music styles, copier contracts, and the way the pastor chooses to dress. 

-Dan Dick at United Methodeviations

In the absence of any clear sense of shared values, clergy are left to work things out for themselves. And there is not standard by which we can say whether Pastor X is advancing the mission of the UMC or hurting it. Couple this with queasiness about numbers and don’t we create a system in which it is hard to know what is expected and even harder to spot those who meet expectations.

Do we know a bad pastor when we see one? « John Meunier's blog.

This past week, the Tennessee Annual Conference where I serve engaged in debate and voted on the proposed constitutional amendments for the United Methodist Church. There were few surprises, both in the nature of the debate or in the actual outcome of the vote given our location in the Southeast. However, as I listened to the debate and considered how I would vote (as a person dedicated to full inclusion of all truly seeking after God) I found myself moving to a different line of thinking from much of what I was hearing from my colleagues.

Here is my concern. The impetus behind the change in the constitution was a horribly flawed ruling by the Judicial Council on who is eligible to be a member of the United Methodist Church. The flaw in the ruling was the determination that the pastor is the sole determiner of these eligibility requirements, and thus can choose on their own to exclude certain classes of persons not explicitly mentioned in our statements of inclusion in the constitution. In response, Amendment 1 was created, removing any means of interpreting that some persons are not eligible for membership in our church, thus (in the minds of the makers of the amendment) forcing pastors to welcome all people.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t truly address the core problem of the Judicial Council ruling – the issue of pastoral authority in regards to membership. Yes, pastors theoretically will have to welcome all, but the passage still has pastors doing the interpretive work of what that means, and those who are determined to exclude gays and lesbians (the core group being addressed in this amendment) will continue to find ways to do so.

My fear in painting with such a broad legislative brush that doesn’t address the core issue is that it doesn’t engage in the real conversation needed on the meaning of membership in a post-modern / post-colonial world, nor the issue of appropriate boundaries. Even though I disagree with many of those on the conservative side about inclusion of homosexuals in the church, they raise important points about the nature of who IS eligible for inclusion in the covenant community of membership. Are there classes of persons who fall outside the realm of membership (not outside the realm of God’s grace and love, which is offered and given to ALL)? Why do we exclude some and not seem to take seriously the failure of most current members to keep their vows? And, as David Lowes Watson shared at our annual conference, why are homosexuals excluded and not divorcees, given that Jesus talked much more about divorce than homosexuality?

Being “open to all” is great in theory, but it also raises issues as well. Should openly racist and sexist persons be allowed to be a part of a covenant community which lifts up diversity and openness as a key value? And if so, how then do we deal with what we claim to be their sin?

The problem with board legislative brushes is that they fail to recognize the complexity of the world we live in. Whether on the left or the right, the absolutes we create always seem to be challenged by exceptions to the rule. That is, after all, why we have a Book of Discipline with hundreds of provisions. They are a recognition of the realities of life, an acknowledgment that we do the best we can to live out an ideal, but that life is much more complicated than our idealistic dreams.

Hear me . . . God’s grace is open and available to all. God loves all persons. We are God’s precious children, created in God’s image, and deeply loved. That we should all affirm and raise up as a source of life and hope to the world.

But membership in the United Methodist Church is not about God’s grace. It is about an affiliation in a covenant community seeking to live a certain way of life. All communities, whether a Benedictine monastery or a local neighborhood, have boundaries to define a particular identity. What we must do is have better conversation on the nature of those boundaries, for without that conversation, our legislative fits and starts are doomed to fail.

For the past several years, my family and I have made the trek to the North Carolina mountains to the Methodist Mecca at Lake Junaluska to participate in the Upper Room's Soulfeast event. Last year I had the privilege to lead some workshops and this year Beth Richardson and I will be leading all the worship sessions at this great event.

Soulfeast is an excellent opportunity for persons of all ages to gather and think about how they are formed spiritually. This year there will be programming for children, youth, young adults, and those of us creeping into maturity. I want to share this experience with you and am talking with the Upper Room folks about a MethoBlog premium, such as a discount on registration or a free book offer. I will also be offering a workshop on blogging as a spiritual practice, and would love to have you share in that session. So, click on link above to find out more about the event (featuring South Africa's Trevor Hudson).

UPDATE:  Hey everybody, the Upper Room is willing to give MethoBloggers a discount on registration. At the bottom of the registration page is a box titled "Enter Staff Code." If you will enter "MethoBlog" into that box you will get $10 off on your registration.

You may have never known we were gone, but we were having some severe technical difficulties last night. Thanks to some work by our ISP everything seems back to normal for our conversation about the United Methodist Church.

The West Ohio Conference has put together a good page with a PDF outlining pros and cons related to the constitutional amendments. Visit http://www.2009annualconference.org/content/proposed-constitutional-amendments for more information.

A tip of the ole’ hat to Betsey Heavner at GBOD for this link.