In response to my previous post, Rick Mang offers wise advice.

Will,

May I offer an unsolicited FYI / consideration for your thought . . .

The next time you meet with your BOM, each member will no doubt have copies of the comments you have “publicly” posted/shared on your blog for any and everybody to read.

Some will have read into your “public comments” many different things, most which you probably never intended to communicate.

Some may even take your “public comments” as an attack on their characters.

When you meet next with your BOM, keeps these things in mind.

There’s a lot of truth in what he says.  The prof in my preaching class reminded us of the old cliche “Every Sunday three sermons are preached: the one you meant to preach, the one you actually preached, and the one the hearer heard.”  In fact, if there are 100 congregants present, 100 different sermons may have been heard.  That’s good advice for me to keep in mind during the course of this conversation, and I thank you for it, Rick.  It is especially important for me to remember as I can have a darkly sarcastic sense of humor at times.  (Of course, I have also been told by excellent pastors that “if you aren’t ticking someone off, you aren’t saying anything.”)

I am clearly not the only person who believes that the board made the wrong decision.  Other members of my ordination class have communicated that they have no problem being required to take CPE but that making me take it is superfluous.  They haven’t just communicated it to me, some have stated it publicly as well, and some have communicated it to the Bishop.

My intent is not to engage in board-bashing.  If that’s how I have come across, I honestly repent.

I do, however, believe that human brokenness as well as systemic brokenness inevitably cause us all to lose focus on what’s really important – you, me, bishops, boards, churches, preachers, all of us.  We all fall shy of the mark.  What I do intend is for the United Methodist world to engage in critical reflection upon the process itself.  At every available turn we must ask ourselves tough and important questions:

• Is the process achieving the desired result and bearing good fruit? I think we all agree that the process has become unnecessarily long, convoluted, demanding and difficult.  Have these complications produced lower rates of clergy malfeasance and higher rates of clergy effectiveness?  Has all of this testing, conversation and process helped our boards to ordain the good ones and rule out the bad ones?
• Are our churches better served by the process? One reality of the situation is that lots of Provisional Elders will be appointed to churches for 2-3 years, then moved upon ordination.  Are there certain churches in our denomination who can understand part of their mission as preparing pastors for ordination and then letting them go?  Or do we run the risk of hurting those churches by moving their pastors about the time the relationship grows strong?  Are churches who receive Elders who have survived the process receiving pastors who have been better prepared, energized and empowered for effective ministry and mission in their communities?  Do we run the risk of sending them Elders who have been made tired, burned out and cynical by the process?
• Are we serving Jesus Christ, the local church, the Annual Conference, and our pastors faithfully by engaging in this process? Do the steps along the way help the United Methodist Church to fulfill our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?  Or have we placed too much faith in the process itself and each of its steps?
• Are we carrying out the process in a righteous and just manner? Are we engaging our candidates in each step of the process in order to further develop their gifts and graces?  Are we imposing certain rules simply because “those are the rules and that’s just the way it is?”  Have we ever enforced rules because we have an axe to grind?
• Is the process theologically sound? At least in the time that I’ve been paying attention there has been a growing emphasis on psychology in the church.  Effective pastoral care is essential in our local churches, and it is sound to take steps to make sure our pastors are adequately prepared to provide it.  This last point is the one I want to expound upon.

Yesterday I imagined myself answering the question, “why are you not a counselor anymore?”

My first response was that while I was a good clinician, counseling just wasn’t where my heart is.  Working as a counselor was not where my joy met the world’s needs.  My heart is in the church.  I witnessed my home church, under very effective leadership, transformed from a dying church in a dying town to a living, loving, thriving community of worship and fellowship against all odds.  I was a first-hand witness to what I will name a resurrection.  I found myself called into deeper and deeper expressions of ministry, piety and leadership.  In that setting I was instilled with a deep sense of hope for my own life, hope for the future of the UMC, and hope for the world.  I found my heart.  Sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

But I am also a pastor not a counselor for a much deeper reason than that.  Counseling and therapy are self-improvement programs.  They can work wonders in that arena.  I’ve seen that from both sides of the couch, so to speak.  But the church is not a self-improvement program, no matter how deeply we may have convinced ourselves it is.  The church is a world-transformation program.  Our personal redemption comes primarily in the service of God’s vision of this world made other.  Certainly we are redeemed because we are loved deeply and passionately by God.  Certainly God believes that our individual lives matter.  But God’s ultimate concern is for all of creation.  We are saved, redeemed and made whole not so that we can feel better about ourselves or overcome our personal weaknesses, but so that we can get on board with God’s mission in our communities and God’s world.  We are given grace that we may embody grace to the world.  We are given mercy that we may embody mercy to the world.  We are given redemption that we may proclaim God’s offer of redemption to all.  Sanctifying grace benefits us personally, but it does so in order that we may share the grace we have been given for the transformation of the world.

Teaching self-esteem and unconditional self-acceptance?  Teaching coping strategies and problem-solving?  Helping people overcome fears, depression, anxiety, personal weaknesses and grief?  I’ve got lots of training and experience in that.  Retraining me in those things is, in my view, a step backward.  I’m interested in taking that next step, helping to usher in the reign of God where justice and mercy and grace abound.

Are we helping pastors do that?

By aiming to speak truth to power I am claiming a prophetic voice, but I do so humbly with great fear and trembling.  I am not arrogant enought to consider myself a prophet or hero in any grandiose sense of the term.

When I first published my post about the Board of Ordained Ministry as a stumbling block, I did not know what to expect.  Did I just throw my hopes of ordination to the wind?  Did I speak a truth that needed to be spoken?  Did I write a post no more or less consequential than one of my goofy Friday Five or Blue Mondays?  Maybe all of the above?

What I have discovered in the time since then is that my voice, while certainly wild and intentionally prophetic, is not lone.  The comments and pingbacks to the original post have been numerous, and while I don’t have the readership of Zeray John or other higher-profile bloggers, I have created a stir.  And that stir has been overwhelmingly positive.

My closest friends in my ordination class are lending support to me both privately and publicly.  Some are sending letters of support to our Bishop. My buddy Robb posted a response on his own site.

One friend writes:

Will,

I think it was gracious of you to send your blog to the Bishop.  No one wants to be blind-sided.  I realize that you wrote it out of frustration and anger, but when you consider the way you have been treated, it’s really very civilized in tone…. Know you are loved and cared for and that God is making a way before you.

I was so sorry to hear of the stumbling block the BOM has placed in front of you…. I share your frustration.  I am sorry for my own contribution to these institutional sins, whether by commission or omission.  I am holding you in my prayers.

The Greek word skandalon is usually translated in the New Testament as “stumbling block,” but according to Fred Danker (the D in BDAG) it might be better translated as the trigger of a trap – the part that sets the trapping mechanism in motion.

There has been an awful lot of debate about the ordination process in the United Methodist Church.  Of course, some of that was due to General Conference this past year, but where two or more United Methodist pastors gather the conversation is there also.  And to a person everyone I have spoken with is frustrated with it.  The process is seen as cumbersome, ineffective, inefficient, run by the “old boy network,” and downright nightmarish.  True tales are told of disillusionment (see John the former Methodist) as well as divorce and other serious familial problems, financial burdens, as well as burnout, depression and lingering anger and resentment. Nobody gets through it without some grievances and scars.

Here’s my grievance.  I have thought and prayed long and hard about whether to go public with it, but I have decided that if the board stands by their decision they should have no problem with it being known.

I am a therapist, or at least I used to be.  My Bachelor’s degree is in Psychology, my first Master’s degree is in Rehabilitation Counseling.  I have a decade of counseling and therapy experience.  I have spent countless billable hours in session with persons who suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, histories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, chronic and acute suicidal behaviors, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, ADHD, complicated grief, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and more.  I have specialized training from the Albert Ellis Institute for Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy.  I’ve worked in inpatient facilities, outpatient facilities, schools and homes.  I was a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the state of Illinois.

Then I discerned a call to the ordained ministry.  I gave all that up and entered the candidacy process.

I have incurred tremendous debt and uprooted my family to attend seminary.  In the middle of seminary my family moved again so that I could serve a student appointment.  We moved a third time when I graduated for my commissioning appointment.  I have attended the required Residence in Ministry sessions in which I have sat through lectures (some for a second or third time) that were often boring or ill-prepared.  And I have gladly accepted the itinerant system of pastoral appointment.  I attended Sexual Ethics and Boundary training twice: once on campus at Eden after being informed by the Conference that said training was acceptable, and once at IGRC headquarters after they rescinded their word without even informing us.  We were given nasty letters threatening action if we did not attend the next upcoming workshop.  I once was informed that the Board of Ordained Ministry lost my psychological evaluation.  (Yeah, all that confidential information?  Not safeguarded at all.)

Residence in Ministry, which takes precious time away from both my family and my pastoral ministry, has been a complete waste of time.  Nothing we have done truly addressed the process of ordination.  Nothing.  Mostly it has served as a platform for advertising workshops and denominational programming.  Heck, they even changed their minds at the last minute on which book of the Bible our ordination sermons and Bible Study had to cover.  We were never taught how to  fill out Charge Conference forms, annual statistical reports, or any of the stuff we get in trouble if we don’t do.  We never worked on the ordination questions, never discussed models of writing the Bible Study.  But we did sit through lectures encouraging us to attend the Upper Room’s Academy for Spiritual Formation and the Congregational Development Leadership Institute.  We did case studies and book reviews as though we hadn’t gotten enough of that in seminary.  We handled family emergencies by phone because of the threat that if we missed any of this essential stuff our ordination would be pushed back a year.

Because of my extensive experience as a professional clinician I was encouraged by a member of the board to apply for a waiver of the CPE requirement.  I did.  I was shot down twice.  To a person, every board member I have spoken to privately has agreed that my experience should qualify.  Since my clinical career I have received a quality theological education and integrated my experiences, psychology and theology into pastoral ministry.  But since my clinical experience all took place before theological education rather than afterward the board has decided that I need CPE before I can be ordained an Elder.  Seems redundant to me.

And therein lies the problem.  As I see it, the United Methodist Church is so wrapped up in maintaining the system and its procedures that we have forgotten about the people whom the system is supposed to serve.  The Board of Ordained Ministry has not created a pathway to ordination, it has created an obstacle course. A skandalon.

And when we serve systems and processes rather than people, we have a problem.

Someone once described two kinds of reformation:  cleaning out the fridge by taking out what’s gone bad, and cleaning out the fridge by taking everything out and putting back only what’s good and will be eaten.  In the United Methodist Church we have rearranged the magnets on the door and called it reform.  Probably because we’re afraid that if we open the door what we find will stink.

The mission statement of the IGRC Board of Ordained Ministry reads like this:

“The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” (Matthew 28: 19-20) The annual conference is to make disciples for Jesus Christ by equipping its local churches for ministry and by providing a connection for ministry beyond the local church; all to the glory of God. The Conference Board of Ordained Ministry is charged with coordinating much of the formation and continuing formation of the spiritual leaders who are licensed, consecrated, commissioned, or ordained for the ministry within the Illinois Great Rivers Conference.”

Shouldn’t that continuing formation take into account where I have been and how I have been formed prior to candidacy?  Do they review that mission statement when they meet?  Do they remind themselves that their job is to guide people through the process, not to impose the process onto the people?

So I submit myself to the process.  I will bite the dang bullet and do CPE regardless of the toll it will take on my ministry, my family and my wallet.  The clinician will receive another clinical education.  I will smile politely whenever someone tells me (as they do frequently when they find out I was a counselor) “your previous experience really prepared you in a unique way for ministry!”  I will bite my tongue rather than say, “Well, the Board doesn’t see it that way.”  I will do my best not to be angry and cynical and bitter.

I hope to be ordained as an Elder in the United Methodist Church.  And I hope to be named to the Board of Ordained Ministry and perhaps to General Conference.  I smell what’s happening in the fridge.  And I want to clean it out.

Taking a page from Tripp Fuller, a Baptist blogger with whom I agree more often than not, I’m going to make some New Year’s resolutions.  Tripp’s ideas are good ones so I’m going to modify them for myself in order to be conversant with his blog and intentional about my own.

First, the personal resolution: exercise.  I’ve lost a ton of weight but I really need to get into shape.  Not because I want to look good, but because I have low HDL cholesterol – which is a risk factor for heart problems.  I really need to build some muscle mass and bring that HDL up – and exercise is really the only reliable way.

Second, the Church resolution: EPIC preaching.   When I preached on Mary and Joseph presenting baby Jesus in the temple, I focused on Simeon’s words, “for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples…”  I was struck with the image of a Japanese hibachi restaurant where the food is prepared in the presence of all who sit around it, and that a true worship experience is to sense God’s salvation cooked up in the presence of the people.  I want our worship to be more Experiential, Participatory, Image-rich, and Connective (to borrow Len Sweet’s formula, which is a good one).

And finally, the Blog resolutions.  Tripp lists these four ideas, which I think are good ones:

1. Question of the Year: What is Religion?
2. Gospel of the Year: Matthew
3. Theologian of the Year: Paul Tillich
4. Doctrine of the Year: Ecclesiology

So here’s my list:

1. Question of the Year: What is Worship?
2. Gospel of the Year: Matthew (hey, it’s Year B!)
3. Theologian of the Year: John Cobb (I’ve got some Cobb I haven’t read, and this should be good motivation).
4. Doctrine of the Year: the Trinity

So if I post, like Tripp, on each of those four questions twenty times in 2009 I should have eighty worthwhile blog posts.

Hopefully I can get around to adapting 12 songs  (or even collections of verses) by the Wesleys with new original music.  One per month should be doable.

And maybe I will succeed with RPM ‘09 (I failed in “08, but I got a couple of good songs out of it!) Oh crap, that’s in like a month!

I’ll continue playing Friday Five games and blogging about good CDs and musical discoveries.

I’m not talking about the John Lee Hooker album (which is GREAT, by the way).  No, I’m talking about spiritual gifts.

As part of our most recent Residence in Ministry retreat we were required to read the book Equipped for Every Good Work by Dan Dick and Barbara Miller.  Having read Dan Dick’s excellent Vital Signs, I was intrigued at the prospect of a spiritual gifts assessment from a United Methodist perspective.  The results were surprising to me.

First, the book was better than I expected it to be.  I almost expected a spiritual gifts book to be cheesy in some ways (and in some ways it was).  But in other ways it was an exercise in self-awareness and perspective, and it gave me strategies for leadership in the local congregation.

Second, my highest score – and one that came as a big suprise to me – was in healing.  It wasn’t just my high score, it was one mere point from the highest possible score.  I’m not sure I would have ever considered myself a healer, at least not as my primary spiritual gift.  I don’t know what I expected it to be, but healing wasn’t my first idea.  Of course, my second highest score was in miracles and I sure didn’t expect that one either.  

If I were to describe my gifts and graces on my own, healer and miracle worker aren’t the first things that come to mind.  But let’s look more closely at how Dick and Miller describe them.  These descriptions are from the handouts available at the book’s website (which makes using the book with a congregation exceptionally easy).

 

Healing—the gift of conducting God’s healing powers into the lives of God’s people. Physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological healing are all ways that healers manifest this gift. Healers are prayerful, and they help people understand that healing is in the hands of God. Often their task is to bring about such understanding more than it is to simply erase negative symptoms. Some of the most powerful healers display some of the most heartbreaking afflictions themselves.

 

I have described myself on this blog before as a Wesleyan theologian with Process leanings, which makes sense in this context.  One of my pastor friends puts it this way: “if you pray, and you expect God to do something about your prayers, then you are a process theologian to some extent.”  I think that’s right.  I believe God’s will is ultimately done, but that God really does hear our prayers and responds to them in real time.  Sometimes God changes our circumstances, but more often God changes the pray-er.  And sometimes God just says, “No.  Not right now.”  I believe very strongly in a responsive, relational God.  

It also makes sense that my two careers – mental health counseling and pastoral ministry – merge at healing.  I believe both are healing professions.  And in my life as a therapist I was a Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapist, a disciple of Albert Ellis.  This makes sense if I am gifted as a healer, because REBT adds technique and method to my natural empathic abilities.  

A lot of my theology revolves around healing in one way or another.  I often articulate the doctrine of depravity as an expression of our inherent brokenness rather than sinfulness, corruptibility, or badness. Wesley often described original sin as sickness or disease, and Christ as the healer or the cure.  I work hard to articulate that healing takes many forms – including death which is the ultimate healing, our full incorporation into the life of God.   

Miracles—the gift of an ability to operate at a spiritual level that recognizes the miraculous work of God in the world. Miracle workers invoke God’s power to accomplish that which appears impossible or impractical by worldly standards. Miracle workers remind us of the extraordinary nature of the ordinary world, thereby increasing faithfulness and trust in God. Miracle workers pray for God to work in the lives of others, and they feel no sense of surprise when their prayers are answered.

Our worship bulletin has one scripture quote printed across the bottom every week.  It’s Mark 10:27 “With God all things are possible.”  So maybe that one makes sense too.

News reports, including those within the denomination, tell us that the church is dying.  I refuse to believe it.  It’s not denial.  I believe that to write the church’s obituary before we are dead is to deny the power of God to renew, reform and vitalize the church.  In other words, I believe that if you are focused on the numbers and the statistics and you see a bleak future for the church, then you are the one who is in denial.  When our little local church has improved our weekly attendance from 25-30 to 35-40 (and sometimes more) since I’ve been here I am not surprised.  I won’t be surprised when our numbers jump even higher.  God has a future for our churches if we pray, if we work hard, and if we are intentional about making disciples (first of ourselves, then of others).  Maybe I am a miracle person.

One thing I could have predicted is that I am not a director-administrator.  I do know enough about myself to know that.  So it is my challenge in each church I serve to find people who are gifted as director-administrator-organizers who can help me lead more effectively.  All in all, I learned a lot more than I expected from a relatively simple study.

Wayne City, Illinois is the Soybean Capital of Southern Illinois and I happen to pastor the United Methodist Church there.  This year our church was honored to host the community Church Night in association with the Wayne City “Bean Days” festival.  Representatives from several local churches brought special music, sketches, readings and prayers.  It was wonderful.  I played and sang a version of “Over My Head” inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Fairfield Four (featuring backing vocals by the All-Willie-Deuel-Male-Voice-Choir) and led congregational singing.

The Wayne City area has more talent than one could imagine in such a small, rural area but there are singers who are simply note-perfect.  There was a great blend of traditional, gospel, and contemporary music.

I closed the service by playing a version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the ukulele (I ain’t exactly Jake Shimabukuro, but I ain’t bad either).  Got lots of positive feedback on that one, especially from the visiting youth.  I’m sure there might be some older folks grumbling about playing a Beatles song in church, but hey – it was only instrumental, and I did frame it theologically.  (God can make big things from small things just like some can make big music with small instruments).  And I really felt good about the way I played it, which is rare for me.  Self-confidence is an issue.

(Up next, I’m working on learning an arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner to hopefully play at some basketball games this winter).

And the great part – after I preached a five-part series on Bishop Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, the church decided to have coffee, cookies, and punch in the fellowship hall after the service.  No one who hosted Church Night had done that before, and a couple of ladies in the church wouldn’t take “we’ve never done it that way before” for an answer.  Yee-haaaw!  It actually gave us time to meet the visitors from other churches!  By jove, I think they’re getting it!

Also this week my son played his final grade school baseball game.  He went two-for-three with a single and a double (he bats lefty and he turned on a couple of low-inside pitches, firing the single down the first base line over the first baseman’s head, and the double over the right fielder’s head).  He also made a spectacular catch from behind the plate (he’s the catcher).  The team lost but played well.

And here’s the great part- playing in competitive sports has been really good for him.  His level of “mental toughness” has really gone up recently and he is much better able to deal with losses and personal mistakes than before.  He’s learned not to beat himself up over striking out or letting a run score, and he’s learned to take advice from people who can coach and mentor him in order to make improvements to his game.  Afterward he said, “Dad, I used to think that there was no such thing as a loss that felt good, but our team played really well.  I’m happy with how we played even though we lost.”  Big life lesson there for both son and father.

My daughter is now 16 so we don’t see much of her anymore.  After cheerleading practice she helps the coach with the grade school cheerleaders, then sometimes goes to the Burrito Shack (a local restaurant) afterward.  She comes in at almost 10:00 unless she has homework.  Last night she sat on the couch between my wife and me and fell asleep there.  It was nice.  I cherish little moments like that one.

Well, back to work.

On the inside of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s box set there is a quote from Jimmie Vaughan.  He says, “The world misses his music, but I miss my brother.”

This morning it is with a heavy heart that I report the loss of my favorite source of worship graphics, Don Silva of SundayGraphx.  As a graphic artist he just got it.  His powerpoint backgrounds integrate the colors of the liturgical season, art appropriate to the lectionary reading, and non-busy space for text.  His bulletin covers (always in greyscale, great for those of us who use photocopiers!) were always perfect.

The ministry he provided through his blog was a wonderful testimony, a grand use of God-given talent that gave us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God in our midst.

Don died August 27, 2008 due to complications from severe pneumonia.

I miss his art.  But there’s a family, a congregation, and a circle of friends who really miss Don.  My prayers go out to them.

Not that we’re mini-Methobloggers, we aren’t.  The mini describes the meetup, not the dudes.  Anyway I got to spend a great lunch with fellow Methoblogger, tech geek and all-around troublemaker Gavin Richardson.  We ate at the Macaroni Grill in the Opry Mills Mall.

Troublemakers

Gavin was slightly distracted because one of his youthies was across the room at the restaurant and I was slightly distracted by everything else (I have AD/HD for real, and shopping malls can be a real source of overstimulation and constant distraction).

(What’s that green schmutz on my forehead?  It’s just bad pixels in the cheezy cameraphone shot, not some sort of alien fluorescent guacamole.)

We talked about blogging, church life, married life, cellphones (he can’t seem to get used to the touch screen on his phone) and all kinds of random stuff.  We hit on theology and looked at Christian books in the Barnes & Noble together.

And it’s true – he does bear a striking physical resemblance to Jack Black.  Facial expressions, sense of humor,  body language – it’s all there.  I also have been compared to Jack Black, especially from his roles in School of Rock and High Fidelity (I too am a rock snob, a guitarist and singer).

It was a great time of fun and fellowship.  I hope to meet up with him again next time I’m in Nashville, or the next time we happen to travel to the same spot.

Andy Bryan reflects on that question over on his (always thought-provoking) blog Enter the Rainbow.  It’s a question I also pondered as I read a little anecdote in F. Belton Joyner’s Being Methodist in the Bible Belt.  Joyner writes of overhearing a conversation in a restaurant and being able to tell that the conversants were Mormons, first because they declined coffee then from a few key words in their vocabularies.

So if an astute observer were listening in on a conversation how would s/he know we were United Methodist? Sure we have a few key words that would give us away.

• Itineracy / itinerancy
• Connectionalism
• Prevenient
• Wesley
• Sola Hymnala
• Covered Dish

But seriously, what makes us distinctive?  I know of a church in the nearby area that has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years, and my wife knows several people who attend there.  In fact, her sister and her husband used to attend there when they lived in that town.  They all tell the same story – they left their home churches because the sermons left them feeling beaten up: you are a sinner, you need to repent, God hates sin, you’re not doing enough, etc.  They found a home in a church that preached one simple message and got it right:

Grace.

Everyone who left a Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, or other church to attend this one will tell you that they didn’t really understand grace until they attended there.

This is not to say that the statements above aren’t true – they are.  We are sinners who need to repent.  We are not doing enough.  We are not good enough.  God does hate sin.  But that’s only half the message.  The other half is that God’s grace is bigger than that.  We are sinners, but God loves us anyway.  We aren’t doing enough but God loves us anyway.

That church succeeded where other churches in town failed by forming a central identity – they’re the grace church.  That’s not their name, it’s just who they are.

Are we Methodists missing the boat here?  Are we so busy preaching about the evils of this world, condemning the correct sins, supporting the right missions, getting things done, that we have forgotten to preach the essential grace-fullness of God and the prevenient nature of that grace?  That salvation is a process, a journey and a way of life rather than a one-time event that happened one evening at church camp?  Are we willing to loosen our grips on our personal theological agendas (running the gays out, running the conservatives out, running the liquor stores out, boycotting chain stores) long enough to embrace our identity as those who now recognize God’s grace at work in our lives before we were aware of it?

I believe with my whole heart that Methodism should look, smell, sound, taste and feel like prevenient grace.  Therein lies who we are.

I really like reading Will Willimon’s blog.  (Is it okay to call him Will, or should I refer to him as Bishop?  I get the sense from his writings that he might prefer to be called by name). I tend to like his books as well.  In my biblical theology class we were required to read Resident Aliens and to engage its peculiar take on eschatology: that the end has already happened and the world as we once knew it is gone for good.  I found that to be a refreshing if challenging break from the Left Behind / dispensational theology of contemporary Christian culture (with which I disagree) and Johannine realized eschatology.  But I digress.

This morning Bishop Will really hit a home run.  As he reflected on the revitalization of older churches (a personal passion of mine), he dropped this bomb:

Warning: Dick Freeman, Thomas Muhumba, and Dale Cohen would have me add: No existing, older churches can be revitalized without risk, commitment, and a determination to be faithful to the mission of Christ no matter what.

If your church is in decline and not growing, it is because your congregation has decided to die rather than to live (alas, there is no in between when it comes to churches).

That last sentence just slays me.  It is prophetic and true.  It stirs up strongly mixed feelings.  I wanted to jump up and shout AMEN! and I wanted to squirm.

As a pastor my first instinct is to point out how that statement is easier to make from the Bishop’s position, or from academia.  It’s easier for a bishop or a professor to say that to a bunch of pastors than it is for a pastor to say to her dying congregation.

And yet, a pastor began the process of saving my home church by saying pretty much the same thing.  At a church council meeting Red Andricks said, “I wasn’t sent here to hold this church’s hand while you die.  If that’s all this church wants from me I will call the bishop and move on.”

Harsh, angry, prophetic words.  It reminds me of a sign that a counselor friend used to keep above her desk.  It read, “The truth will set you free.  But first it will PISS YOU OFF!”

(Truer words have never been spoken.  If you want to make someone angry tell lies about them, but if you want to make them REALLY angry tell the truth about them!)

And the church was not happy with Red’s words, primarily because they were true.  But Red’s leadership prompted serious growth in that church.  In a dying southern Illinois town that church grew from around 50 every Sunday to nearly 200 in a matter of a few years.  Maybe not the most stunning numbers to all of you, but when 200 is ten percent of the town’s population and too many jobs have moved away (and too many high school graduates follow), it’s absolutely astounding.  The church is not only a grown entity in terms of numbers but also in their religious commitment, community service and mission, spiritual growth, and priesthood of all believers.  They grew because they decided to do it right.

And because they decided not to die.

I wrestle with the Bishop’s words this morning because I need the spine to say them myself.  It is hard as an itinerant preacher who finds himself potentially serving congregations who decided to die 30 or 40 years ago.  But sometimes the doctor has to say, “this is going to hurt, but I have to do it before you can heal.”  Maybe pastors have to claim the prophetic voice that can say, “this truth is going to piss you off, but it’s going to set you free.”