The article, On Saving The Church, continues the topic I wrote about earlier, the church returning to its first call. Van Meter seems to take a look at the church not from the perspective of criticizing or revising the theology, but instead looking at the application of the ministry of the church. Through the use of stories of his dreams, he looks at how many people feel the need to change the UMC, whether this change would be to return to where we once were or to move into a new direction, and who it is that really needs to change.
His first dream involves being killed by a meteor in Mexico at a baseball game.
quote:Many United Methodist believe that the church is not where it should be. That it is not focused on areas it should be. That it doesn't meet the needs of today's people. This is often expressed by young people in the church. Often times we see with young people in America that the desired correction is often a liberal direction, something I am against and I feel is a corruption of Wesley's teaching. But with some areas, such as the UMC in Africa, the push is for a much more conservative church.
The pressure to save the UMC is internal. It originates in a more or less pure love for the church, something that many young and youngish adults feel.
quote:This goes right along with what we looked at in the last post, Return to Where you Once Were, that the church has become like our society, individualistic and that has led to it being irrelevant.
We want to save our Mother Church from a steep decline into self-absorption and irrelevance.
quote:The UMC has done a lot of PR work to revitalize the church. The most prominent being Open Mind, Open Hearts, Open Doors. The church has sponsored plenty of seminars for pastors and lay leaders to learn how to evolve their church. But this has not affected the majority of United Methodists, the people that sit in the pews.
The problem is that it’s hard to convince Mother Church that she needs our help. The problem is that it’s hard to convince Mother Church that she needs our help. After all, haven’t we just adopted Four Areas of Focus that will get us outside of ourselves and into the world? Aren’t we buzzing about faithful practices that will revitalize our congregations? Aren’t we launching a superior quality ad campaign?
Yes, yes and yes. Those things aren’t the problem.
The problem is that while these things give church insiders something to rally around, they’ve had little impact on most folks who populate Sunday morning worship or Wednesday night council meetings.
Van Meter ends this section with the comment
quote:
It’s like trying to block a meteor with a parasol.
His second dream involves waking up at night and hearing footsteps outside his kids' room. He sits up and see a robot that shoots him in the head.
He talks about taking his children to church and them learning what the United Methodist church is and why church is important. But he knows that they will value church for reasons different than he, just as he values church for reasons different than his parents.
He raises a very good question.
quote:If we are to revitalize the church, are we doing it to hold on to what we are or to allow it to evolve into the future? Do we work to help the church be what we think it should be or look to those who are our future and move in a direction they are longing for and not worry about looking like the Methodists of the past?
Do I try to save the United Methodist Church as I know and love it, in hopes that they’ll learn to love it in time? Do I continue to put decorations in the windows and create new hymnals for United Methodists in the U.S. while the culture as a whole moves further and further away from my church?
Or do I try to clear the lot for my kids? Do I tear down so that they can start building again with their unique vision and gifts? Do I resource them so that they can create a new church that flows naturally from the world they are a part of, even though I know already that I won’t completely understand that world?
Can we do both?
He ends this segment with
quote:
Does wanting to save my church mean that I should fight to keep her young, or let her die and trust in the hope of resurrection?
His third dream is being a kid who sees a beetle that flips over on its back. He picks up the beetle and sets it back on its feet so that it does not die. He asks
quote:Who really needs to be helped?
Am I the boy, and my church the bug? Or is it the other way around?
No comments:
Post a Comment