Category Archives: Accountability

Craig Groeschel on the UMC

26 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Accountability, links, Ministry

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I have always been interested in the whispers I have heard within the Oklahoma Annual Conference about Craig Groeschel’s past connections to the United Methodist Church. I was so interested at one point that I attempted to contact him for an interview. For those of you who may not have heard of Craig Groeschel, he is the founding pastor of LifeChurch.tv, which is a church that began in Oklahoma and now has campuses throughout the United States.

One of the reasons I am interested in LifeChurch is because they seem to more effectively practice Wesleyan mutual support and accountability than the United Methodist Church does. I have a friend who was on staff at LifeChurch for awhile and I was fascinated to hear about how important of a role small groups (they call them Life Groups, I think) play for people involved in LifeChurch. My impression is that these groups are about more than going through a study, but they are about encouraging one another to move forward in their discipleship. At times I have wondered if the best example of a modern day equivalent of the early Methodist class meeting would be found not in a UM congregation, but at LifeChurch. (I want to admit this is simply speculation on my part, as I have never been to either a worship service – which they call an experience – or a Life Group.)

In any event, through conversations with my friend I have been very intrigued by the potential connection between LifeChurch’s effectiveness at sharing the gospel with unchurched people and their emphasis on Life Groups. This is one of the main things I wanted to ask Groeschel about. I was particularly curious if he had thoughts about whether something like Life Groups would work in the UMC today, or if – in his experience – he has seen institutional barriers to such a small group ministry.

This is a long winded way of saying that Craig Groeschel has written a series of blog posts this week about the UMC. In the first post he gives a glimpse of his own experience as a pastor in the UMC. While I am sure there is more to the story (I am sure Groeschel would freely admit this, as he does not at all suggest he is giving an exhausitve account of his experience in the UMC) Groeschel seems to me to try to talk about his experience with restraint and humility. I suspect United Methodists can learn much from Groeschel’s story… and I confess I still want to know more.

You can read Groeschel six part series on the UMC by following the links below:

Groeschel on the UMC #1

Groeschel on the UMC #2

Groeschel on the UMC #3

Groeschel on the UMC #4

Groeschel on the UMC #5

Groeschel on the UMC #6

Organizing from the Bottom Up

05 Monday Oct 2009

Posted by in Accountability, Book Review, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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In a book I am reading for one of my classes this semester, Inventing the “Great Awakening” by Frank Lambert I came across the following quotation:

“Beginning with a few Oxford students, Wesley embarked on a lifetime task of organizing Christians from the bottom up, banding small groups of Christians together in religious societies for the purpose of deepening their faith and then putting it into action through charities and evangelism” (85)

This sentence has stuck with me. I have not often thought about the pastor’s task being one of bottom up organization. But it seems to make quite a bit of sense. This also seems to be a way of agreeing with people who argue that it is too late for the UMC as an institution to return to Wesleyan practices, such as an equivalent of the class meeting. Lambert has given me an image that helps me to think about restoring an authentically Wesleyan approach to discipleship in the local church, and it is beautifully straightforward! If Lambert is right, one of the key roles of Wesleyan preachers and lay leaders was organizing Christians in small groups “for the purpose of deepening their faith and then putting it into action.”

In a sense, the beauty of early Methodism was that the weight of the institution was behind this. In other words, paradoxically, the idea to organize for the purpose of deepening faith that would lead to action came from the top down. The powers that be commanded a bottom down approach to discipleship!

Today the situation has changed. We live in a time of increasing bureaucratization of the UMC, and the institution does not demand this bottom up approach to discipleship. Yet, while the full weight of the institution may not be behind the necessity of small group formation, it is also not actively forbidding or hindering it. This means that every pastor or active lay person who wants to return to the riches of our Wesleyan heritage does not have to wait on the powers that be to give the green light. It also means that we should not use the behemoth that is the institutional UMC as an excuse for failing to organize Christians wherever we find ourselves in order to better position them to be transformed by the grace of God and practice their faith.

In other words, Lambert’s image of bottom up discipleship is a hopeful one for me, because it suggests that the only thing keeping people at the local church level from experiencing the blessing of “watching over one another in love” is a failure of people at the level of the local church to do it. And while that is not an insignificant obstacle, it certainly seems to be a far smaller one than trying to change everything that is wrong with the UMC – broadly speaking – before actually turning our attention to the people that are coming to our churches, seeking to live faithfully and experience the fullness of life in Christ.

What do you think? Is the idea of a bottom up approach to discipleship promising for the contemporary UMC?

Fellowship

14 Tuesday Jul 2009

Posted by in Accountability, Life

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Last night I was blessed to experience the kind of fellowship that my soul yearns for and rejoices in when I experience it.

A good friend from seminary sent me an unexpected text message yesterday morning letting me know that he would be coming through Dallas on his way back from a mission trip to Shreveport, LA. The group he was traveling with would be in the Galleria (a mall) for an hour and a half. We had not had an in-depth conversation in a few years, as far as I can recall. But within a few moments, I was reminded that there are some friends with whom you just pick up where you left off. The passage of time does not seem to harm the strength of the friendship.

Last night I experienced the best of Christian fellowship. I was a participant in a conversation where we shared our deepest dreams and hopes, where we questioned and encouraged each other, and where we exhorted one another to seek God through the peaks and valleys of life. As I was driving home last night, I was aware of how blessed I am to have these kinds of friendships and how important they are to my growth as a follower of Christ.

So thank you Andrew for the gift of friendship and fellowship. Thank you for being a means of grace to me. I pray that God will bring us together again sooner, rather than later.

I Forgot to Mention… and a Link to a Good Post

22 Wednesday Apr 2009

Posted by in Accountability, Book Review, links

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In my post about Wesleyan essentials, I mentioned that one Wesleyan essential is the doctrine of Christian perfection, or entire sanctification. I should have mentioned that Steve Manskar (who blogs at Accountable Discipleship) has published an excellent book A Perfect Love: Understanding John Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfectionwhich is an updated version of Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection, with notes and questions. It is an excellent resource which makes what Wesley did, and did not, mean by Christian perfection accessible.

Second, Craig Adams has written a worthwhile post on key things to think about regarding Wesleyan renewal.

Virtual Accountability

07 Thursday Feb 2008

Posted by in Accountability, Ministry

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In a previous post, I included John Wesley’s “Rules of the Band Societies.” The post ended up starting a conversation about online accountability, or “virtual” accountability. The conversation went in several different directions, but the conversation particularly stuck with Bart and he ultimately decided to start a blog that would be dedicated as a place where people could check in daily and post their successes, challenges, and requests for prayer.

I am going to participate in this group, and I would like to invite you to consider whether you would like to be involved too. I am excited about this because my interest in the blogosphere is above all else in whether this is a platform that can be used to encourage people to grow in their faith. I think an accountability blog would be a great place to first, be held personally accountable and second, to learn what works and what can be improved for online accountability.

If you are interested, check out the blog Bart created. Bart and I are the only two involved at this point. We would welcome your feedback and suggestions on how this would work better.

Here are some thoughts I have initially:

  • the blog would multiply every time 9 people became involved. As soon as the 9th person joined, the blog would split into 4 and 5. Someone already in the group would agree to start and maintain the new blog. They would all use the same format, so starting it would be very easy.
  • we would create a page with some basic information about each person in the group as a starting point for getting to know each other with each person’s email address so that we can check in if someone drops out for a few days.
  • participants lift up what they want to be accountable for, it is not the other members job to try to root things out. we trust each other to be open as we feel led to be open about the room we have for growth.
  • i haven’t mentioned this to Bart, but i would like to see covenanting to read Scripture daily and pray for group members be a basic commitment that we make for being a part of the group.

I anticipate that this will be fairly organic at first. We will evolve and improve things as we benefit from the collective wisdom of the folks who would like to participate.

How do you think this could be improved? Would you like to participate? (Even if you are not planning on participating, your feedback on what is good and what could be better about this idea would be greatly appreciated.)