For those that are interested in preaching, I just published an article on Cokesbury's "Worship Connection" site describing a collaborative preaching method I use in my congregation in Clarksville. If the link above doesn't work, paste this into your browser: http://www.worshipconnection.cokesbury.com/content.aspx?dyn=1604
Companions,
At GBOD we've created a space for folks to share their prayers for the people of Myanmar/Burma whose lives have been devastated or destroyed by Cyclone Nargis over the weekend, and we've now repurposed and expanded that space to include prayer with and for those victims and those seeking to recover from the earthquake in China. You may find it by clicking the title link above or by clicking here.
To add your prayers, you'll need to register. We're doing this to avoid comment spam-- not to harvest your email addresses, I assure you.
May the power of God's saving love sustain us all.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
I'm doing some daily blog commentary on General Conference. My latest post regarding the cell phone gift issue has generated some heat, apparently. Feel free to check it out on "The Truth As Best I Know It".
Part 1 of ?
Okay, now that the long series of 21 ponderings on the questions, vision pathways, and focus areas that may be likely to shape the future of the denominational structures of the UMC has come to a close, what's left to write about?
Well, a good bit, I think.
Along the way of thinking and talking with some of you during the 21-part series (and, by the way, since this is a blog, all 21 parts are still out there and you can comment on any of them anytime you like!), several other basic issues came up (and I invite you to raise others) that may call for some serious re-thinking and re-working as we re-emerge into a more missional Methodism in our own contexts in the days ahead.
Here are just a few...
Ordination-- what's it for, who needs it, and why-- in a missional Methodist context?
Membership-- where does it belong, really? And why?
Clergy Itineracy-- what WAS it for, what's become of it, and in what kinds of contexts does it still make sense (and not!)
Sacraments-- where do these belong, not belong, and how and why?
Organizational Capacity-- for both the missional/discipleship structures AND the congregational/denominational structures-- who is best at doing what and what does it take for each to do that?
Getting paid-- by whom, and for what?
Who has what "rights" in a missional context? And why does that matter (or not!)?
If local matters most, where do trans-local and global connect?
Do we really HAVE to build discipleship structures ALONGSIDE rather than primarily WITHIN the congregational format?
What about Sunday School?
What about the role of children in the life of a missional Christian community and their formation and deployment as missionaries?
Whither "confirmation?"
Who holds missional/discipleship groups accountable to one another? Congregations? A network among missional groups?
Do worship experiences in a missional group "count" for a given week/period of time, or does only congregation-based worship count, or both, or what?
Before I begin on any of these, though-- I'm interested in hearing what you might add to this list of missional Methodist meta-questions.
And in the meantime-- I'm in Fort Worth getting ready for assisting all the worship events we do at General Conference-- so do pray for us down here!
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Part 21 of 21...
Focus Area 4:
Stamping out killer diseases by improving health globally. Conditions of poverty cause illness and death. The lack of access to doctors, nurses, medications and appropriate facilities is deadly, especially among those who live in conditions of poverty. But the diseases of poverty are not inevitable. We believe the people of The United Methodist Church can play a significant role in educating others about diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and treating and preventing their devastating effects.
As with the previous focus area about engaging in ministry with the poor, it's hard to say much more than a hearty Amen!
The target sought for the reduction of malaria in partnership with others who are working on this is very ambitious-- a reduction of 66% in death from malaria in just a few years.
That's huge. Malaria remains one of the leading killers of people in the world. It doesn't need to be. It can be treated if caught in time, and it can be prevented from happening in the first place through simple measures such as nets around bedding (the Nothing but Nets campaign that the UMC has joined with many other global partners) or more permanent fixes like ensuring safe water supplies and good drainage that would reduce the number and reproduction rate of disease carrying mosquitos.
Donate Now! You can do it here, and even have the record linked to your UM congregation.
While I served as Director of Community Impact with United Way of Madison County in Anderson, IN (2002-2005), I also became a member of the local chapter of Rotary, International. In case you're not aware of it, Rotary took on a major health initiative itself-- to rid the world of polio.
And its 1.2 million members around the world have largely succeeded. Less than 2000 cases were reported worldwide in 2007. That's down from over 1000 new cases per day reported in 1988, when Rotary began their focused work. (Source).
Part of the genius of Rotary's plan was the fact that it already had chapters in many countries around the world where polio was still an issue. A significant portion of the dues and meal costs for each meeting, paid by every member, went to this cause. And its members had relationships with business and other leaders locally and internationally who were glad to help in a variety of ways-- supplying funds for vaccine, transportation to get it where it needed to go, people to supervise operations on the ground with the support of governments and local NGOs and health agencies.
Rotary is a network of small to large groups, all contributing not just at their group meetings, but by their additional networks of relationships, to see this mission-- eradicating polio-- to its conclusion. I have every reason to believe they'll get it done. And soon.
With all the talk going on in many quarters about how the UMC is dying, we may sometimes forget that we still have about 35,000 "branch offices" in the US, and thousands more in other countries. Through our larger networks in the World Methodist Federation, we're in many, many nations on the planet. Through our ecumenical networks-- which take in nearly all of Christianity, we have networks that include relationships with people in every nation on earth.
One of the things I really appreciate about this focus area is how it absolutely gets this. It does not say that the AGENCIES of the denomination will do this FOR United Methodists. It says "the people of the United Methodist Church" can educate and work with others to get this job done-- to educate others and treat and radically reduce the conditions that make malaria the killer it still, and unnecessarily, is. And it pledges us-- the people of the UMC-- to work on radically reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other such diseases as well.
If we really can pull off such focused work-- probably led though not solely brokered by our General Agencies-- this could be great good news to the poor. It would be, to use the words of the Great Thanksgiving from our Word and Table I, an example of the church being part of announcing "that the time had come when [God] would save [God's] people."
But let's just keep remembering how this works. It's the distributed chapters, the networks that the people that compose them can activate, PLUS whatever centralized leadership there may be.
Rotary has not by any means accomplished their incredible work to eliminate polio just themselves. They can take credit for deploying their chapters and the networks that members of their chapters have to get it done-- and they can credit their own leadership for keeping their own networks focused on attaining this goal. But they can't take credit for doing it all themselves. And they don't.
Right now, the basic units of UMC networks are congregations. Unlike Rotary chapters, most of our congregations do not have a sharp focus on what they want to accomplish. (No, I'm not going all "purpose-driven" here). Most of them DO donate the the work of the General Agencies and the Annual Conference, and many of them include a good number of folks who would no doubt love to be involved in a project as big and ambitious and transformational as this one. But as structures themselves, that culture of "let's really get this done" may not be in place in most of our congregations.
But it would be in place, for sure, in renewed Methodist missional groups alongside congregations. Early Methodism had within it a very sharp focus on being accountable to each other and to God to make sure that prisoners and the sick were visited and cared for, that social ills (such as the rapid rise of alcoholism with the advent of cheap gin in England in the early Industrial Age) were addressed, and that social evils (such as slavery and the slave trade) would be stopped. They didn't do these things alone, either. But they were able to deploy their networks of class meetings and societies alongside other organizations and organizers-- religious and "secular"-- to get it done.
But let us remember again that our calling is not only to bring this good news of elimination of such killer diseases. Just like we can (and often do) see "the poor" as "objects" for "us" to change, so also we may see the people who are being killed by such diseases as malaria as either victims or potential victims primarily. That's not an entirely bad perspective to bring-- that is part of the reality, and we have to take that seriously. But just ending malaria for folks who may have succumbed to it before we got involved must not be the end or even the goal of our involvement.
If it is, we're missing a significant part of the heartbeat of God's mission-- in the words of Ephesians, "to make one new humanity in place of the two."
The problem with malaria or HIV/AIDS from our angle as Christians isn't simply or only that it kills people. It's that by doing that, it both reveals and perpetuates the lack of community we experience in the world. It sustains a permanent underclass in the "under-continents." In Trinitarian terms, it commits Arianism-- ontologically subordinating one part of humanity in the two-thirds world to another, just as Arius proposed that Jesus/Son/Word was ontologically subordinate to the Father.
No, what we are invited into as those who hear, are baptized, and seek to follow the way of Jesus is not some project to fix everyone else who is deemed inferior in some way. It is rather to enter into the eternal Love of the Divine Life in the God we know as Three in One. It is to enter and be transformed by the Love that calls the universe into being, moves in all hearts and all things, and restores the world. It is to enter into the Divine Community of ceaseless giving and receiving of Love from Father to Son to Spirit and back again and round and round. It is to join the Primal Dance, the Eternal Perichoresis of Love.
Living and fed by that Community, we learn and see the possibilities for such community with all around us, and especially the poor and those who suffer. We see suffering not to turn away from it, neither to overlook it, nor simply to remove it, but to remember that this is our sister, this is our brother, and in love to do all love can do with her or him and pray for what is beyond our capacity. And we keep doing this with these sisters and brothers, even after what may have been our first act of love-- perhaps curing or preventing a disease, or offering safe water-- is complete. And they, in the Eternal Perichoresis of God's love, will continue to do the same with us.
Not "fix it, chalk up the brownie points, and move on to the next thing."
No-- love, love to the uttermost, perhaps in part by fixing such things as we can, deploying whatever networks and resources we ourselves may have or can encourage others to use-- but then more love, more giving and receiving of love.
Always, always, eternally, Love.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Part 20 of 21...
Focus Area 3:
Engaging in ministry with the poor. As an expression of our discipleship, United Methodists seek to alleviate conditions that undermine quality of life and limit the opportunity to flourish as we believe God intends for all. As with John Wesley, we seek to change conditions that are unjust, alienating and disempowering. We engage in ministry with the poor, and in this, we especially want to reach out to and protect children.
There is perhaps little more to say to this focus area for General Agency investment and focused work than, Amen!
Well, maybe a little more.
There's more to engaging in ministry with the poor than addressing what's wrong. In the midst of all the things we do, of course we must address those things, too. But if the entire approach we take in ministry with the poor at any level-- from international efforts to end child labor and prostitution to much more street level efforts to make sure kids coming home from school have safe places to be and food to eat-- is only or even primarily about addressing what's wrong, and from "our" angle (that is, from the angle of those who understand themselves as being "not poor"), there may be a lot of God's mission we may be missing.
Don't get me wrong. We need to do all those things and more. We pledge ourselves in baptism to resist evil, injustice and oppression in every form they present themselves. This focus area can provide General Agency leadership to help all of us live that out in many ways. And that's all good.
But let's not forget that the same Jesus who leads all of us to battle oppression also said, as Luke's gospel records, "Blessed are you who are poor." He did not add there, as we have it recorded in Matthew, "in spirit." Nor did he add to those simple words something like "when the wealthy give them good things," or even "by and by." No. In Luke the words of Jesus are "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
Not later. Not by and by. Now. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
If we want to see the kingdom of God, then, we need to look for it with and among the poor.
These were, after all, perhaps the bulk of the people to whom Jesus spoke these words. Luke 6 describes a large crowd scene, with lots of disciples all over the place, and many sick and demon-possessed people gathering in to be healed and delivered by Jesus.
There was no health insurance plan in Israel. If you were sick, physically or psychically, you probably couldn't work. If you couldn't work, you probably couldn't eat. And many, many people depended on working every day to get the "day's wage" to put the food on their table that night.
These were the poor. These were among those who suffer from what we today call "extreme poverty." Jesus turned to disciples, some of whom lived in such poverty, too, and said, "Blessed are you who are poor. Yours is the kingdom of God."
So it's not enough to look at the poor and the problems that face them (do you hear the objectification in all of this!). We are called to do that, too. We are anointed by the same Spirit who anointed Jesus to bring good news to the poor. So yes, we do that.
But we are invited to do much more. We are invited to connect directly and personally with the poor and see the face of God and the working of God's kingdom, already at work, even before "we" woke up to our calling to be among the poor and bring them good news.
I don't know about you, but my observation is that we who are not poor have done a pretty good job of insulating ourselves from ever encountering people who are poor very frequently. Often, when we want to do something "for the poor," we do that by creating institutions or programs or funding other people to do something for them. Doing that ensures we may not meet them. Maybe the person or persons we pay to handle what we want to do will meet them. But probably not us. Not personally.
And we've done a pretty good job, too, of convincing ourselves that "we're" okay and that "they're" not ultimately, because they are poor. But we have the power to fix that, to make them better, maybe even almost as good as us. Maybe even more than almost.
But listen to Jesus, again. Blessed are you who are poor. He's not talking about the poor. He's talking to people who are poor. This is an I-thou relationship.
Both those who were poor and those who were not were privileged to hear or overhear him say these words. To the poor, he said "Yours is the kingdom of God." To the rest, he said, in effect "Watch me-- and do likewise."
And he also said, just a few verses later, "Woe to you who are rich now. That's all the consolation you'll ever receive."
Note: This is I-thou, also! He's not blowing off "the rich" or talking about them. He addresses them with the same steady gaze. And so he says to the poor who observe him talking to the rich, "Watch me-- and do likewise."
Jesus invites us all, all who want to be his disciples, that is, to watch and listen to him, and to do and say as he has done. Jesus invites us to watch and listen to and with the poor, not just for signs affirming to us their poverty. The poor have something to give those of us who are not poor, something to show us, something to help us see. The poor have the kingdom of God happening in their midst.
I'm grateful for what appear in this focus area to be commitments to challenging and overturning systemic injustice embedded in institutions and the patterns of institutional relationships. We all need to and can play at that level.
I'm grateful for the commitments here to reach out to children and protect them-- perhaps a set of more local initiatives that congregations and community groups can engage.
But let's keep this just as personal as Jesus did, too. And let's keep this as intimately relational as John Wesley insisted the early Methodists keep it as they were living and holding each other accountable for Rule 2 in the class meetings-- by ourselves visiting the sick, prisoners, and poor people, and offering not just things or advice, but our gaze and God's blessing-- Christ in us. And in the exchange, perhaps, if we are willing, we may see and experience the kingdom of God with them.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Part 19 of 21...
Focus Area 1: Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world.
For more on focus areas in general, see the previous post on Focus Areas and Focus Area 2.
This focus area is further described by the Connectional Table as follows:
The church must recruit young people for ministry and provide them with the skills necessary to be effective in this new time of opportunity. That includes women and people of color the world over. Similarly, we must offer leadership training for lay people who are in ministry in countless ways.
This Focus Area is one place where the Connectional Table is seeking to respond to the challenge posed by Lovett Weems's research that has noted that United Methodists have the second lowest rate of ordained elders (or their equivalent) under the age of 35 of any mainline denomination in the US at 4.69% in 2005, which is a precipitous fall from 15.05% in 1985. (Only The Episcopal Church has a lower rate of younger ordained priests at 4.10% in 2006). This corresponds somewhat, too, to Weems's challenges in his Provocative Proposals, where he wondered aloud whether perhaps a major metric for the denomination to try to track and improve over the next decade might be professions of faith among people of color, asked if we were really serious about being a global church, and were thus ready to structure ourselves accordingly, and if we were willing to work at issues that both eliminate the endangered species status of younger clergy AND focus more on fostering good clergy leadership than continuing to allow poor leadership to go unchecked.
The issue in all of these questions and the whole first section of this focus area is clergy leadership.
That's not a bad thing to gain greater focus upon. Congregations do need trained and effective clergy leaders of all adult ages, not just older clergy.
The issue is not just recruitment, of course. It's also helping younger persons and other persons who have fewer financial means to get through the financial and other costs of the process leading to ordination, a process that has lengthened, increased in cost, and that has fewer places where it can occur since the Disciplinary changes in 1996 and the continuing reduction of seminaries approved by the University Senate. And more that that, finding appropriate appointments for these younger leaders to serve both as they are preparing and as they are beginning their full-time work as commissioned and ordained elders.
An appropriate appointment for a younger leader may not be as a solo pastor. And it is almost certainly not as the solo pastor of a several point charge of several small and struggling congregations of people of primarily older generations and a vastly different cultural background.
And, if part of the hope for these younger leaders is that they will be effective at helping to reach younger people, then an appropriate appointment might be to places where younger people actually live. Current demographics in the US would identify those places to be far more likely in or near large urban areas, and far less likely to be in small towns or rural areas.
Appointments are not issues that this focus area-- which represents the intentional work of the General Agencies of the UMC-- can fix directly. This is something for bishops and cabinets to work on, and to convince their Boards of Ordained Ministry (which are actually very independent from conference to conference) to follow suit in how they work to support rather than hinder the process of ordination for younger and less financially well-off candidates.
But I digress a bit...
Let me say first WHY this is important. It's because though congregations are not a sufficient form or venue for missional disciple-making, they are necessary. If we don't have strong leadership in the congregational format, that weakens the capacity of Methodist missional groups that may come alongside them to be maximally effective as well. Put in other words, the institution matters, too-- not just the movement. The movement without the institution has no center. The institution without the movement lacks vital piety. It's always both. That this area addresses the institution is no weakness, but rather a form of clarity about one place where such focus needs to be placed-- on the clergy leadership of local congregations.
It is likely to be the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry that will provide the lion's share of the general agency leadership and investment toward supporting this focus area. Others will no doubt assist where they can and should (GBGM, for example, in a number of settings outside the US). The decline in the number of younger ordained elders and the awareness of the deep giftedness and possible calling of all people in all places where United Methodists form congregations are solid reasons to pursue this focus area with diligence and generosity.
But not to the exclusion of the third sentence of it.
Similarly, we must offer leadership training for lay people who are in ministry in countless ways.
I do not read this as an afterthought, even if its rationale is less detailed than that given for a focus on ordained clergy leadership. Rather, I read it as the very heart of our task as missional Christians. Elders serve the work of the kingdom of God in the church in a few specific ways that primarily support the congregational format of Christianity. The rest of us do this missional work in literally countless ways.
I've seen the word "countless" used in such contexts as a sort of a throwaway compliment. "Yes, they do countless things," we say. What we sometimes means in saying that, though, is that we're not really sure what all they do, but whatever they're doing, we're glad they're doing it. At the same time, that means we're not all that invested in coming to understand what those "countless" things are. So we'll make sure we train them to do something-- maybe something we can create another program for or a position in the church (like committees and the like).
Yes, this statement could imply all of that. I'm choosing not to let it do so for me, and I'm hoping you will choose not to let it do so for yourself or others.
The reality, the simple reality, is that if we each take ALL of our own missional contexts seriously, and diligently find ways to act as growing missionaries in all of them-- and to do that we'll have to have the support of a small group that breathes communitas and is sold out to the way of Jesus, something most congregational formats won't be prepared to provide or support well--then, yes, those ministries could indeed become countless.
Let's do the math on this.
If, as Wayne Schwab contends, we all live constantly in perhaps 6 missional contexts, in ADDITION to a local congregation, and we are in a missional/accountable discipleship group of perhaps 6 people-- that's up to 36 contexts just there (unless, that is, we all live and work in exactly the same places all the time!). That's 36 contexts, not 36 ministries. Each of these contexts may offer opportunities for each individual to engage in a good number of ministries, every day, both through organic relationships and through intentional actions. Let's put that number at 3 just to be conservative. So six people now have the opportunity to engage in 108 ministries. Every day.
Now scale that up to a few million people who call themselves United Methodist. Let's call it six million for the sake of similar round numbers. Let's say we have 1 million little groups of 6, sold out to Jesus, living communitas themselves, while also connected to a congregation. 36 million contexts. 108 million ministry opportunities. Every day. Multiply that by the days in a year. That's 39,420,000,000-- yes, over 39 BILLION, with a B.
That's pretty close to what I'd legitimately call countless. And that's not counting more organized opportunities these people may pursue with each other or through other networks.
You think we're going to create any sort of monolithic, one size fits all national training program that can possibly "equip" people for 108 million ministry opportunities every day? Something that you can purchase and run as a program in your congregation?
I don't. For lots of reasons.
But I know God can equip all these people and all this ministry, and much, much more. Indeed, God has done so. The witness is that we're here, all these generations later. The witness is that the good news continues to spread and form people to be missionaries in every nation on this planet.
And I believe you can. I am convinced the network can. Or to use John Wesley's term-- I believe the connexion can-- when it's about connection and not so much about control. And I think general agencies working to live out this Focus Area can be a valuable part of it. Not as any sort of monolithic program, but rather as cheerleaders and partners and as creators or hosts of platforms or hubs for webs of relationships among missional groups and congregations and communities-- some with the label United Methodist and perhaps many more not bearing that name-- but serving as bona fide learning and teaching partners with us.
Yes, we need leadership training for all the baptized-- including some who will serve primarily within the missional context of the congregational format and other para-congregational formats such as agencies or as District Superintendents or conference staff.
But more than this we need training-- probably more from experienced people who live this way where we already live, or close enough by for us to meet and learn from-- in the ways of communitas, and in the disciplines of being missionaries, wherever we are, wherever the Spirit blows us.
But above all of that, we need not training, but conversion.
What we really all need, most of all, is to be sold out to Jesus-- and so to seek God's kingdom and justice, following him wherever he leads, going in his name wherever he has sent us.
Even so...
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Part 18 of 21...
10 Provocative Questions
7 Vision Pathways
and now...
4 Focus Areas...
The latest language for these four focus areas, developed by the Connectional Table, is:
Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world
Creating new places for new people by starting congregations and renewing existing ones
Engaging in ministry with the poor
Stamping out killer diseases by improving health globally
Or, to put it in a bit of shorthand:
1) Leadership development
2) New church starts and revitalizations
3) Ministry with the poor
4) Global Health Initiative
But before we get to the conversation about these focus areas individually, first a word about what they are.
These four areas represent the four major priorities for work that the General Agencies of the UMC are committing themselves to do at least for the coming quadrennium. The budgets that will be presented to the upcoming General Conference will reflect how general agency work is being done in each of these four areas, primarily. (Certainly, work falling outside of these four is done and may continue to be done, as well). And the organizational life of each of the General Agencies is likely to be reformed to align more closely with these areas than it currently does. It may be less the budget, and more the re-alignments within agencies and partnerships to accomplish work in these areas across agencies, that will, institutionally, represent how these areas actually become means of focus for work they do.
But let me make this clear. The focus areas are instruments of change and organization for the general agency level of the United Methodist Church. The UMC is NOT its general agencies. The UMC has general agencies, but it is not the same as those agencies. Neither is the UMC its conferences-- which actually receive far more money, collectively, than the general agencies do. Neither is the UMC its congregations, which actually receive and distribute far more money than its conferences and general agencies combined.
I say that to say this. Often, local congregations take the view that they are at the least important part of the UM connection-- that they HAVE to have direction from annual conferences who in turn HAVE to have direction from General Conference and General Agencies to get anything done. This happens because we tend to equate power and importance with the size of budgets. The General Conference budget is far larger than that of any annual conference. And the annual conference budget is far larger (usually) than that of any congregation in it. Therefore, looked at that way, congregations tend to feel like they don't have much "pocketbook power." Individually they don't, relatively speaking. Collectively, they have by far the most power there is. That is, if the power equation relates to total dollars available.
And I say that to say this. As valuable as the work of the general agency level of any denomination may be, it pales in comparison with the importance of the distributed effect of congregations and missional groups at the local level across the US and the world-- wherever United Methodists happen to be.
In short, don't overestimate the power of centralized agencies. And don't underestimate the power of God happening in, around, and through the missional settings in which you as individual Christians, missional groups, and United Methodist congregations may find yourselves. Agencies developing more focused efforts to work together for big outcomes is a great thing-- but it's not the most important answer to a missional turnaround for the people called United Methodists.
That said, now that we are likely to have these four focus areas at the general agency level, and the four focus areas are likely to have a significant impact (though potentially not by any means the most significant impact) on how we engage mission at every level, the question for us at every other level-- especially congregations and missional groups-- is this: How can we leverage the vision and institutional power that will adhere around each of these areas to accomplish what God's mission is calling us to be and do locally-- where we concretely are, where we concretely are being called by Christ and driven by the Spirit to be, and where we are being sent in the name and power of the Triune God?
Or, in short-- what's in it for our missional future, where we are?
I'm taking these a bit out of order, starting with #2, since it's probably the more signficant new effort of its kind than #1.
Focus Area 2: New places for new people-- new church starts and revitalizations
I've already commented on both of these issues, which combine paths 1 and 2 of the Vision Pathways, here and here. There, I talked about them more or less in the abstract-- since the vision pathways themselves are intended as guideposts more than organizing principles that will be directly embodied in institutions. So here (and in subsequent posts in this series) I want to comment particularly on what will be or may be attempted institutionally by general agencies and how we might most helpfully relate to or use that toward missional ends locally.
New places for new people means a new, more intentional focus of money and resources to plant over 600 new congregations in the next decade, or less. This means there may be substantially more money available to Annual Conferences to start new churches. Annual Conferences may be more likely to be creating full-time staff positions to coordinate new church starts. It also means they may be designating more money in their budgets-- or asking more money from districts or other clusters of congregations-- to make the startup of new congregations financially possible. It also means that there may be a significantly ramped up focus on training and recruiting pastors to be planters for new congregations.
That could sound like a trickle-down to local congregations, or to you, to pay for other people to start new congregations.
Turn the hose around. And don't just trickle. Spray.
Give very generously to this work. But not just whatever little trickle may be asked of you. Do more. Do much more. And start doing it yourselves.
Consider this an invitation to take the larger concept of "new places for new people" seriously, and not think only inside the congregational box, and the usual permission systems that expect you to wait and see what you get to support doing what they tell you they want you to do. Start a missional community that is discipling folks and deploying them in mission. Keep it connected to a local congregation. And ask for the money you may need to expand this or keep it sustainable. Create the "ask" pool before dollars get "apportioned" out-- and prepare your case to do so, starting now.
But if enough of you start doing this sort of thing-- actually creating these spaces with and for new people, on your own-- not waiting around for someone at a "higher" level to tell you you are allowed to do it if you follow their way-- my strong hunch is that your collective voices will be hard to ignore when your flood of giving and asking comes.
Note-- I'm NOT talking about "arbitrarily" starting new congregations. That's actually a chargeable offense for clergy. Don't go there. Don't go anywhere close to there. I'm talking about missional groups that come alongside and stay connected with congregations-- existing ones and new ones that may be started in your conference. I'm talking about groups of vitalized Christians that are, by their activity and connection with the Spirit, also revitalizing (as a side effect) the congregations of which they may be a part. In short, I'm talking about early Methodism, revived where you are.
Do this. Get these groups going. Create new places for new people-- by coming alongside people in God's mission. Create a track record of missional effectiveness. Ask for the Focus Area I dollars as they become available. Lots of you do this. And lots of you ask.
The worst anyone can say is no.
If they do, don't stop giving. Give more. Outdo others in your generosity. Keep multiplying ministry with more and more people where you are. Offer ministry WITH-- not at. Join WITH God's mission, in all its forms, not limited to getting more numbers into the congregational format. Follow Jesus and actively teach others how to do the same.
Keep YOUR focus on mission and ministry where you are and where you are being sent by the Spirit as you follow Jesus, worship God in spirit and truth (with an existing or even a brand new congregation!) and live the Love that is and lives in the unity of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Part 17 of 21...
Eliminate poverty in community with the poor
As someone who has worked fairly extensively both through church structures and with community-based organizations with people who are poor in Indiana, I can only say "Amen, sisters and brothers! Preach it!" when I see these words and hear them spoken.
And then I want to go around and shake people and say, "Are you even listening to what you just said?"
(I'm not referring to bishops here. I'm pretty consistently hearing them get this right... especially our bishops from the Global South.)
Eliminating poverty in COMMUNITY with the poor implies some very concrete changes in how "we" usually think about people who are poor.
Starting with that very phrase-- "WE thinking ABOUT people who are poor." There is a social distance implied in the very formulation, a social distance that is very real in the US, and perhaps less real in other contexts. Most United Methodists in the US are "middle class" and up. "We" are not poor by US standards, and by world standards "we" are extravagantly wealthy. "We" continue to live in our congregations with the reality that in many, many cases, the poor are NOT among "us."
(Of course there are exceptions! Many exceptions! I'm talking about what our statistics in the US reveal to be the norm, however).
This reality is what gave rise to the social gospel movement in the early 20th century in the US. Folks like Walter Rauschenbusch, an American Baptist pastor serving in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City, looked at his congregation, then looked at the people actually living in the area, and noticed that the people living there weren't in his church. He investigated further, and discovered they weren't in nearly any Protestant churches. And he investigated a little further yet and found they weren't all that often to be found in many Roman Catholic congregations, either-- though the rate of participation there was substantially higher than in Protestant settings. (In those days, however, one might conclude that this was because many of the poor were immigrants who came from predominantly Roman Catholic cultures in Europe).
If we refocus what we preach inside the church, Rauschenbusch and these leaders said, and work at addressing social policy so that we improve the lives of these people-- or he would put it more bluntly in A Theology for the Social Gospel, if we would actually reclaim biblical and Christian theology focusing on the here and now rather than the pie in the sky by and by pabulum we had passed off onto so many of our congregations, we'd be more faithful to Jesus AND we might just see more of "them" in "church" with "us."
I don't entirely disagree with Rauschenbusch on any of those points. But what happened as a response to his work and that of many others in the larger social gospel movement was, to a large degree, a continuation and even a deepening to some degree of the distance between "us" and the "poor." Yes, "we" were doing more FOR them. And we could congratulate ourselves for advocating for them to change policies to improve "their" lives. (And don't get me wrong-- those were good and faithful responses!). But the basic" us-them" distance still was not being effectively addressed. We were still caught in our classist assumptions-- including especially that "they" were basically deficient and "we" were basically sufficient. We were not really in community WITH the poor. We were in community FOR them, at times-- but often, quite frankly, "AT" them.
John Wesley showed us a more excellent way. He consistently asked Methodist individuals seeking his spiritual counsel and the society meetings he visited how they were doing at getting to know and serve WITH poor people-- people in prisons, people who were sick, people who lacked food, safe shelter, or healthy living conditions. At the root of how Rule 2 was lived out was this basic expectation that it wasn't just the "poor" who needed "us" to "help" "them"-- we needed each other, and we ALL had gifts to offer.
That's a reality that most of us don't learn in the abstract-- or at least don't learn well. Wesley didn't consider it enough for Methodist class meetings or societies to create and administer a charitable fund so that they could deputize a few people to "take care of" the poor. No. He insisted that every Methodist get to know poor people, personally. Practical, face to face community.
That wasn't likely to have much opportunity to occur in weekly worship in the Church of England in the 18th century. Nor in Protestant worship in the early 20th. Nor in worship settings per se nearly anywhere.
There are good reasons for this. Perhaps most basic among these is time. Worship is a short period of time in a whole week. And the time that's there is pretty well programmed to accomplish things other than face to face community per se. And that's fine, really. Worship is a concrete act with its own purposes. At its best, it presupposes that there already IS some sort of community occurring among those who gather at some level. So it's not structured so much to create that community (though it also does to a degree) as to reflect it and direct its energy toward God.
And that's fine, too-- IF that community actually exists in real, tangible, face to face ways.
And there's the problem. It often doesn't. And the congregational format can do relatively little and often DOES do little to help it to do so.
Why? The congregational format, while it is public and inclusive, because of its very public nature can also become easily captive to the classist assumptions of its surrounding public. What is "appropriate" for worship often gets defined by the values of the dominant culture within it or around it. That's not entirely bad-- it can allow for every culture to have some genuine opportunity to express itself in community and in worship in its particular way-- looking across all kinds of congregations. But it's less than the fullness of our calling-- which is indeed to BE one body in Christ, not just to THINK we are.
Early Methodism was providing a venue where some of the rich, the poor, and those in between were not left to their default classist assumptions, but were expected to meet each other, to serve each other, to speak with and for each other-- in short, to be that concrete trans-class community God has birthed us to be in baptism, leads us to be in Jesus, and continually urges and empowers us to be in the Spirit.
Nat Nkosi was a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary while I was there in the late 1980s. He was an African from South Africa. And he was a prophet. He found Louisville to be a very challenging place to live. At the time, the demographics were incredibly clear. White people and wealthier non-white people all lived pretty much east of downtown, and non-white people and poor people all lived pretty much west of downtown. He had a simple solution that he offered regularly in all sorts of class and extra-curricular settings. White people need to move into non-white neighborhoods-- not to take them over, not even to fix them per se, but to form community with the people there. Then, together, in community, when real community existed this way, all sorts of power for improvement would emerge.
He was not talking about gentrification. He was not talking about white people moving en mass and dislocating non-white people and poor people. (We've all seen that happen, again and again!). He was talking about a process for helping people eliminate poverty by forming real, everyday, face to face community WITH the poor.
Get to know folks, really know them. Learn to see what they have to offer, not just what they need. Learn to respect the dignity of every person-- poor and non-poor. Don't let this be abstract. Dont forget about doing things FOR and ADVOCATING FOR the poor, too. But don't stop there. Be in community with the poor-- wherever you are. And if you need to move somewhere else to do that, well...
Mr. Wesley did not hesitate to tell lots of those who wrote to him about their spiritual condition that the first thing they needed to do may not be to pray more or study scripture more-- it would be to get themselves into the jails and prisons and hospitals, and get to know folks there-- not just the guards, but the people being held there. See Christ at work there. Help others see Christ at work there. Love them. Let them love them back. Show them Christ.
Early Methodism was doing this, alongside existing congregations of many denominations. A new, emerging, missional Methodism today, alongside existing congregations, would have the opportunity to offer the same.
Eliminate poverty... yes. But we won't do that well-- and here I mean ALL of us, not just the "usual suspects" (middle class and up)-- WE won't eliminate poverty well unless and until our "we" includes (not just makes clients out of ) and honors (not sentimentalizes) the poor-- the real poor, actual people we know or get to know.
And when our "we" begins moving in that direction-- just watch all the good news the Spirit begins to unleash!
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Hi Friends,
Well as I have been in conversation with many of you, you know that I have been working for about two years to be appointed to a new church start that would fall into an "emerging" setting. Well I received word that that appointment wont happen this year but that there is an intentional effort to cultivate "mother" congregations this year to not only give birth to the dream of a congregation God has given me, but give birth to others as well in our conf.
I am dissapointed that I will be waiting another year (this journey has been long for me) and am not excited about serving a middle sized middle class traditional church for another year. But I am excited that there seems to be a culture shift in the PNW conf. around being missional and viewing ourselves as "sent" people. I am also excited that there is a very intentional program developed and moving to create new congregations. So I'll keep serving God where I am and preaching and living "Love God, and love everybody else"
I'd appreciate your prayers as I keep holding this banner up of new church starts and emerging communities within the conference, and my own sanity :-)
Have a wonderful Easter friends!
Mark
PS: the picture has nothing to do with my post - it is just my favorite Easter cartoon :-)
Part 16 of 21...
"End racism as we authentically expand racial/ethnic ministries..."
Today is a good day to write about this vision pathway. With race very much in the news, and with a significant speech today from one of the candidates for US President on this very topic, the US may be primed for this conversation just now. We are fully aware of the "elephant in the room." It has been named. And the challenge has been put before all of us to find a way through it together-- a way that neither keeps us stuck in past behaviors and resentments, nor allows us to act as if there is nothing more to talk about. There is still much more to talk about-- and we need to talk about it together as a nation.
And for United Methodists, even more as a church.
I am grateful for the work of several bishops, endorsed by the Council as a whole, to ensure that any final articulation of the vision pathways would not act as if some kind of head-on and consistent address of institutional forms of racism were not at the heart of a vision for a more faithful future for our church. We can't not talk about this.
The question is how not only to talk about it, but actually to act in ways that end the power of institutional racism (in the US-- some of our African bishops helpfully remind that this would be understood perhaps more as tribalism in their contexts) and its sapping of the mission of the people called Christians.
One more thing about the statement. It appears to me that the bishops do NOT intend to limit the work around ending institutional racism ONLY to cases relating to the expansion of "racial/ethnic" ministries. They really do understand (and want us to understand) that ending racism is something we will continue to work at in and through all the vision pathways, including perhaps especially this one as a hallmark.
Racism is prejudice with power. It's more than feelings of discomfort with people of a different ethnic or cultural background. It's more than acts of discrimination. It's the whole system of relationships that allows and indeed privileges such feelings and enables such acts of discrimination to continue without serious challenge and perhaps without consequence for those who perpetrate them. Racism as such will not be dismantled only by individual actions. It will take a sea of such individual actions, plus deliberate, intentional efforts at the policy level to ensure that wherever racism continues to function, its capacity to do so is challenged and eventually (sooner rather than later, as we work and pray) terminated.
There is no room for racism in the body of Christ.
Well-- of course, in fact, we give it "plenty good room." We need to stop doing this in every way we can.
Several fairly random thoughts along that path...
1) The example of Koinonia in South Africa. As Apartheid was beginning to be challenged not only within South Africa, but outside it as well, a number of Christians, African and Afrikaans, decided they needed to start acting to end Apartheid in the hearts of people even before it was ended as policy. I had the privilege to meet one of these folks, a man named Ivor Jenkins. Their strategy was simple, but somewhat risky. They would make it a point to gather together for a meal in each other's homes on the opposite sides of Johannesburg one night a month.
That probably doesn't sound so radical to most of us. But it was huge. It was illegal, you see. There were strict curfews. Black South Africans were not supposed to be found in white areas of the towns and cities after a certain hour of the evening. To do so was to risk arrest and possibly worse. And few white persons would want to be found on the black sides of the towns after that hour, either.
Except for these people-- Christians determined to end the Apartheid in their hearts and the hearts of those around them. Eating together, and taking the time and sharing the stories of their lives around that simple act was their way. They called this movement, which spread widely among Christians in South Africa, "Koinonia"-- which they pronounced Kee-NO-nya-- the Greek word for fellowship-- common humanity shared with one another.
The nation in which they lived made them two people. It would soon-- they were all convinced it was only a matter of time-- make them legally one people. They wanted to incarnate that oneness that the law would later require-- so that when the law did require it, they could teach others how they could share the same goodness they had come to know in this simple practice.
Koinonia is a reminder to me that incarnation matters, perhaps even more than policy, when all is said and done. We don't need to wait for policies of the United States or the United Methodist Church to change before we live out the unity that is already ours in Christ, who is making of the broken humanity one new humanity in him. We can practice, or rather live into, that new humanity with our neighbors of many cultures and races here and now-- if we will, and if they are willing to allow us to serve them and our larger communities in this way.
2) Early Methodism knew this. The class meetings were not segregated by ethnicity-- at least not at first. Neither were the societies. And even, early on after we were made a church, neither were the congregations. Segregation was a practice white Methodists grew into, not one they initially inherited. Most of us know the sad story of Old St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadephia-- which is still around to this day-- the congregation where African Methodists found themselves more and more pushed off to the sides and then to the balconies for worship and even for prayer, so that Absalom Jones (who left to become an Episcopal priest) and Richard Allen (who left to found Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church) and other Methodists of African descent found no home there after long.
3) The AME, AME-Zion, and CME churches, among others who split off or launched away from these in the 19th century holiness movement and the early 20th century Pentecostal movement are the living sign of institutional racism at the heart of white Methodism in the US. AME and AMEZ have now even left the table of the ecumenical effort called Churches Uniting in Christ for this very reason-- that issues they bring from their heritage and their perspective are viewed as inferior or not worthy of equal notice by the majority white/Euro traditions who also gather at that table. Their witness calls to the rest of us that there is still not enough room for their understandings and practiced to be heard, respected, and shared.
4) I have to ask this. Why are we still in the same breath we call for the ending of institutional racism calling ministry with non-Euro descended populations "racial/ethnic"? Doesn't doing so implicitly presume that THOSE people fit into that category, but WE, who are "normal" (or at least majority culture) do not? Does continuing this labelling-- and the fairly separatist ways we actually fund these ministries as a denomination-- help or hinder the cause of ending institutional racism?
5) Expanding racial/ethnic ministries--- or as I might suggest we retranslate it, expanding ministries with people of all nations, cultures and heritages wherever we encounter them-- is very much on the right track, though. That is, so long as our effort here isn't a kind of colonization of THEM into US (so WE can count THEM in OUR stats), but rather an instantiation, an incarnation of the gospel among us all (them AND us, if we have to use the possibly oppositional terms).
The UMC IS a global church-- including here in the United States, where all the nations come. Expanding ministries that help us realize this may have the salutary effect of helping all of us also realize the many missional contexts in which we all find ourselves all the time (see http://www.membermission.org), and may also help us all think much more clearly about the basic calling of Jesus that all of us who follow him act as missionaries in his name wherever we are-- sent as signs of his mission happening, sent to live this out in community, the real communities in which we find ourselves, and the real communities to which we may also be called to go beyond our "natural" networks.
If we approach this pathway, this missional work, compassionately-- practicing deep hospitality with and among all whom we encounter-- rather than "industrially"-- practicing consumerist, marketing principles, for example, which in the end are often forms of colonialism and racism in more friendly guises-- we may find God ending the racism in our hearts and lives, and not only in our policies and personnel practices. We will need some of the latter, too-- though I would hope in a far more effective form than the ones we have now which can seem to be just as outrageously focused on race and ethnicity rather than God-breathed passion and giftedness as the ones we're hoping these help us escape. It's always both-and.
But let's lead with our hands and our hearts. And let's start leading, now.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
I have recently been appointed to a fairly large congregation, and will lead two of five services in a "Starbucksy" type worship environment. Now, after reading about emergent for several years, God is challenging me to actually do it, and the people are receptive. Trouble is, now I'm realizing how little I know. I know this is like nailing Jello to the wall, but does any body have any concrete resources for the current trends in structuring emergent worship? I'm trying to get to Denver, but am not sure If Iwill be able to make it.
Humbly,
Dave
Part 15 of 21...
Reaching and transforming the lives of the new generation of children
In a number of regards, this vision pathway is an extension of the Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty. There appear to me to be at least two important differences between the existing Initiative and what this Pathway envisions.
1) The focus of the Initiative was particularly on children living in poverty in every place where the United Methodist Church is in ministry.
The focus of this Vision Pathway is less specific-- focusing on children more broadly rather than on children in poverty.
2) The hope of the Initiative was to reshape the nature of the United Methodist Church so that it would become a clearer sign and manifestation of the "Beloved Community" with children in poverty at the center.
The transformation that appears to be intended in Path 5 is more about congregations reaching out to include children and to change the lives of children.
What might some of the implications of this Vision Pathway and perhaps the fading of the Initiative be for a UM Missional Future?
Let me suggest a few. I hope you may critique these and add others.
1) Focusing on children in general COULD help us do either of two things:
a) Reach more children "like us"-- If we're focusing on "new generations," the default tendency will be to focus on folks like us. These are the people we know and the people we have most of our mutual relationships with. We may be tempted to try to evaluate our efforts to achieve this vision pathway by how many children we can claim to have added to the rolls or ministry programs of our congregations, and call that progress. What we know about the demographics of the UMC in the US is that the majority of our constituencies (those who attend out churches) are not among the poor.
Reaching more children "like us," if we're genuinely reaching them, is not an entirely bad thing. It is substantially less, however, than Jesus calls us to do.
b) Maybe move into more of a partnership relationship with children and communities rather than a "meeting needs" or "expert-client" kind of relationship. We may be more ready to acknowledge and embrace the giftedness of those like us than of those with whom we do not yet have real relationships. Perhaps, over time, this may help us see the value of relationships with all children, including children living in poverty, and to approach them as gifted people in their own right, and not merely as those "at risk" or with "special needs."
2) Defocus on trying to fix the denomination first, while focusing instead on two other things:
a) Sending people out from congregations and communities to be in ministry with children-- and then aligning institutional structures to support what emerges from these efforts (This appears to be what the Initiative had hoped might happen)
b) Engaging children in ministry-- becoming aware of the gifts and passion of children, not as simply the objects of ministry by adults, but as missionaries in their own right in the contexts where they can be in mission
3) Recognize that children are ALWAYS with us, that the generations in our missional contexts are always multiple wherever we are. This is at least an angle I would hope we would find a way to get into the conversation.
Simply "reaching and transforming the lives of a new generation of children" can sound more like a focus on institutional preservation (we need more youth and kids around here if we're not going to die out in 30 years) than an awareness of our missional reality (that children are all around us). Putting this in terms of "a new generation" can sound a lot like "generational theory" assumptions-- which are terribly problematic as a basis for generalizing to children generally, much less to children in a given place, culture, and social location in that place. I would trust that we're not trying to reach children just to preserve "ourselves" (which already would assume that "we" do not include "them"). And I'd like to presume that we're not making the sort of specious claims to know what children of any given "generational cohort" across the US or across the world are like to come up with the tool and strategies to "target" them.
These are just three possibilities I see. What are you seeing?
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
In several of the more recent posts in the series, "A Missional UM Future," I've noted that in general terms the congregational format of Christian community is fairly incompatible with the level of trust and the depth of "communitas" (as Alan Hirsch uses the term) to form disciples well or send them into mission with some hope of good returns.
This weekend, I've met an exception-- a congregation that IS making and sending disciples, and against some pretty high odds. Siemers-Fulton Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf, or, more simply, Christ Deaf Church, in Baltimore, MD, is that congregation.
I've never met a more connected, deeper community in a congregation anywhere. This congregation is literally saving people's lives-- transforming them, providing a venue for deep celebration in worship and real-life fairly constant connections (in all kinds of ways) not only to their pastors but to each other.
How is this possible? Actually, because they're not an exception. Their community IS communitas. They share at least one common ordeal-- being deaf in a hearing world (some are blind and face other challenges as well)-- but with a common commitment to being in ministry in the name of Jesus Christ with all they can.
Christ Church of the Deaf has not contrived its communitas. It simply lives it. Powerfully. Together and individually.
And it fits perhaps none of the typical stereotypes of an "emerging" church-- or even a "contemporary" church. There is no praise band-- but there is a deaf choir that sings with their hands and bodies. There is no PowerPoint-- but there is a video camera that functions as the "amplifier" -- by enlarging the image of the movements of the presider so those who maybe can't see them in person can get them in a larger format. And there is someone who voices the ASL for those who do not understand ASL (myself included!), and someone else who types up everything being said for viewing on a large TV (yes-- TV-- and it's even a CRT-- not even plasma!). They sing hymns. They celebrate Holy Communion straight from the liturgy of the 1989 hymnal-- but not by reading it with spoken words, but by enacting it in ASL with their bodies. Way more multi-sensory in every way than most congregations, even though at least one of the senses is inaccessible to the majority of folks there. Certainly more kinetic. Ages are all over the map. And its the most diverse congregation in terms of ethnic background and national background I've ever worshipped with.
Communitas. In a congregation. But a congregation in which their communitas PRECEDES their congregational format. They care for each other interpersonally first. And when they gather as congregation, it's a celebration of all the ways they are already communitas.
I don't believe anything like this is close to replicable in the average congregation. Sure-- a lot of the technologies they use could be repeated, and maybe they'd help a little in hearing congregations. But that would be missing the point. Sort of like adding "typical" emerging doo-dads and gee-whiz techniques to a worship event at an attractional congregation doesn't replicate what a truly emerging missional church, living out its mDNA, can actually do. To borrow a phrase from John Houseman describing the sound of an electronic organ that was digitally mastered from a variety of original pipe organs in the movie "A Christmas without Snow"-- "It is a good imitation of a great sound." But in the end, it's the great sound that's needed. This deaf congregation in Baltimore hears that great sound and reproduces it faithfully.
May we all find or find the willingness to find such communitas in or alongside our churches-- even when it may not be possible or reasonable to think it can be expressed as part of our current congregational formats.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
