jvoorhees's blog

A prayer from our friend Ken Carter:

A Prayer for the United States Presidential Election

Creator of us all:
you are the source of every blessing,
the judge of every nation and the hope of earth and heaven:

We pray to you on the eve of this important and historic election.

We call to mind the best that is within us:
That we live under God,
that we are indivisible,
that liberty and justice extend to all.

We acknowledge the sin that runs through our history as a nation:
The displacement of native peoples,
racial injustice, economic inequity, regional separation.

And yet we profess a deep and abiding gratitude
for the goodness of ordinary people who have made sacrifices,
who have sought opportunities,
who have journeyed to this land as immigrants
strengthening its promise in successive generations,
who have found freedom on these shores,
and defended this freedom at tremendous cost.

Be with us in the days that are near.
Remind us that your ways are not our ways,
that your power and might transcend the plans of every nation,
that you are not mocked.

Let those who follow your Son Jesus Christ
be a peaceable people in the midst of division.

Send your Spirit of peace,
justice and freedom upon us,
break down the walls of political partisanship, and make us one.

Give us wisdom to walk in your ways,
courage to speak in your name,
and humility to trust in your providence.

Amen.

I regularly get questions about how to insert the "official" MethoBlogRoll in other sites so that it automatically updates. The easiest way is to click on the MethoResources tab above and copy the code listed there in your template. We've created widgets in the past, but actually this seems to be the best option for most folks.

I confess that I don't read every comment left on this site. For that matter, we've grown so big that it is tough to weed through the posts from all of you that pass through these electronic walls on the way to the broader MethoWorld. There simply isn't enough time to police everything (unless y'all start wanting to make large donations to turn this into a full time gig! ), so I trust folks to help police our conversations here along the way.

Luckily y'all do a good job of keeping on top of things, so I learned today of a comment thread that had nothing to do with the original post which made some unfounded comments about a Bishop in the United Methodist Church. These accusations were unsubstantiated and inflammatory, and after reading through them I have deleted them as outside the proper conduct for this site.

Certainly, the need for accountability is always present in our church, and is in fact part of our Wesleyan heritage. The early Methodists gathered for mutual accountability, and the conferencing of Christians about faith and practice is a means of grace.

However, Methodist accountability is always offered with love and gentleness. Yes, someone may have sinned against us and they need to be held accountable. But we have to ask if our conduct in responding to those issues above reproach. Are our attempts at accountability tempered by the fruits of the Spirit? Are we seeking unity and reconciliation, or are we simply lashing out wildly with little concern for the soul of the other?

We must always keep those questions in mind as we talk together here at the MethoBlog. There is little doubt that we will have differences of opinion over theology and practice, with differing interpretations of scripture, tradition, and experience. However our belief in the "rightness" of our opinions doesn't absolve us from the call to sacrificial love that is at the center of Christian faith.

To paraphrase Thumper in Bambi, "If you can't say it with the love of Christ, then don't say it at all..."

That is the guiding principle for conversations here. So the next time you feel inclined to flame someone (and yes, I have been guilty of this in the past as well) know that you will likely have your comment removed.

A minister of nearly 25 years at the church I grew up in resigned suddenly. A check of the church computers revealed hardcore pornography. When approached, he confessed, saying it has been a struggle of his since he was young.

SundaySchoolThoughts: PORNOGRAPHY IN THE CHURCH PART 1.

I’ve had the opportunity to preview a couple of articles in this series and it’s an important conversation in the life of the church. Make sure to check it out.

It seems like its been a while sine Allan Bevere has produced a UM Blog Weekly Roundup, so it's good that a new one is up.

Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup

We here at the MethoBlog are always happy when folks help to pay the bills. We want to welcome www.fivepractices.org as our new sponsor. Take a moment to click on the banner to let them know how much you appreciate their support of this site.

Are you producing a podcast that is “metho” related? We want to get a list together of all the Methodist/Wesleyan related podcasts to feature on a special “network” area here at the MethoBlog. If you are currently pulling something together on a regular basis, please e-mail me with the information on your podcast at jay@jvoorhees.net.

Last night I had the chance to attend an author’s reception sponsored by Upper Room Books, Fresh Air Books, and Discipleship Resources. During the event, George Donnigian shared that DR has a new book coming out titled “Mainline or Methodist” (I can’t remember the author). The driving premise of the book suggests that the decline of the Methodist movement began not with the merger in 1967, but when Bishop Matthew Simpson became a central part of Abe Lincoln’s inner circle, thus leading to Methodism becoming mainstream.

Is it possible to move back from mainline to “Methodist?” What would it mean for our communion to become a radical, fringe movement? Isn’t part of our problem the desire to remain a mainstream power rather than truly becoming a movement that is belittled by those in power? What is your take on the notion that we can either be mainline or that we can be Methodist?

On Wednesday, I shared some random thoughts about mission statements, suggesting that perhaps they weren’t all they were thought to be. This came after five years of searching for a mission statement for our congregation and struggling to find one.

On Thursday night, I met with our Church Council and one of the items for consideration was discerning our mission statement, based on previous conversation. In 45 minutes we walked out of the meeting with a statement that was agreed upon by consensus as reflective of who we are and providing guidance for our work together.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to cover myself with sackcloth and ashes as one of little faith.

I STILL believe that we have to hold in tension the lesson from Abraham that we can’t overly plan out where we are going, for we never know where God is leading us, and the need for a common mission that helps our ministries be efficient and effective. However, it is just like God that when we start to lean one way, God turns the tables and we wander about confused again.

Our leaders recognize that a mission statement is only valuable if the entire congregation can own it, and we are choosing to live into it for a season and then work at seeing if others can own it.

What did we come up with? Nothing too original:

The Antioch United Methodist Church is dedicated to learning how to love God, loving our neighbors, and living in the way of Jesus, for the transformation of our community.

Maybe, just maybe, we mean it.

Like many pastors of my generation, I have struggled with leading the congregations that I have served toward a coherent statement of our vision and mission.

Our forebears in ministry, those are have retired or are nearing the end of their tenure, didn’t have that pressure on their plate. The mission and vision were clear — to bring people to Christ while also marrying, burying, and conducting the business of the church. That task of pastoring was primarily about maintaining relationships, hoping and praying that those relationships would be enough to get the congregation to move forward in some sort of fashion. If there was a mission statement at all, it was found in the name of the congregation: “The Church of All Nations,” “Grace UMC,” or “Miller’s Chapel.”

With the rise of church growth consulting, modern models of church leadership taken from the business, and the trend of Protestantism since the time of Charles Finney to systematize revival, arose the insistence by many that congregations needed a concise and clear vision and mission to drive their ministry forward. These vision and mission statements would be derived through a variety of means, from coming down from on high from a visionary pastor, or arising from the grass roots through a variety of listening and discernment sessions.

As one who wants to see my congregations grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ as well as numerically, I too believed and still believe to some extent that any community needs a statement of mission and vision around which the group can coalesce. In every church that I have served, I have worked to get the church leaders to either take ownership of mission statements already in existence, or to craft a new statement of vision and mission for the congregation. And, in every church that I have served I have found it tough going.

The problem may be as much me as anything going on in these congregations. As one who favors the grassroots approach to ministry, I have wanted these statements to arise out of the congregation. However, the modern congregation has so many different agendas (thus the need for a mission statement) that getting even a majority to agree on the mission and vision of the church can be tough, and gaining consensus becomes even more difficult. This is even true at the Church Council level, with folks pulled in many directions about who we are and what God is calling us to do.

Adam Hamilton, a proponent of these statements, has suggested that United Methodists all already have our mission statement determined for us in the call to “make disciples for the transformation of the world.” I agree, but that statement is so broad as to be useless. Everyone would agree that we are engaged in the work of making disciples so that the world will be a better place, but translating that into a ministry evaluation tool with much meat on it gets tougher.

Perhaps part of my problem is that I am coming to a point in my ministry where I am wondering if we aren’t just spinning our wheels in trying to come up with these things when instead we simply need to go and let God guide us on the way. In a very real sense, I am becoming an advocate for the Abrahamic model of mission statements.

What is that model, you may be asking. Well remember the call of Abraham.

God: Abe, I want you to leave your home to go to a place that I will show you, and so that you can be a blessing to the world.

Abe: Where is that place God?

God: I’ll show you when you get there.

What would it mean to the modern congregation to throw out the mission statement and admit that none of us really knows where we are headed, but that we are simply going to faithfully follow God to a place that we don’t know about yet? This isn’t about sitting back and doing nothing while we wait for God to come through. Rather, this understands that we are probably going to drift all over the place in carrying out our ministry, with the understanding that God’s process of ambiguity is as important to our faith journey as the destination.

Maybe our mission is to simply sing: “Where He leads me, I will follow.”

For some, that may indeed be enough.

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