• About Me

Kevin M. Watson

Kevin M. Watson

Category Archives: Ministry

It is time to start reopening churches #Covid-19

07 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

church, Covid-19, Reopening

I think I have wrestled with this post more than anything I have written here. I want you to know that before I say anything else because I have been trying very hard not to make things worse by speaking rashly or condemning others. Covid-19 is an unprecedented crisis in world history, at least in my lifetime. I believe everyone is doing the best that they can. And I believe that we are all under great pressure and strain. I have often been afraid, and I bet you have been too. In these kinds of moments, it can be virtually impossible to hear each other well, particularly in this kind of medium. (The pandemic has also been so politicized it seems to make it close to impossible to talk in a way that can be heard as something other than partisan talking points. I have done everything I can to avoid that here.) For what it is worth, I have done the best I can to be charitable and gentle. I have written this out of love and concern for the church, which I see as increasingly paralyzed by fear. And so, I have decided to risk saying something. And of course, I could be wrong about everything I’ve said here. We all have extremely limited vision at the moment. If you experience conviction as you read, I’ll leave that between you and the Holy Spirit.

We need to be more aggressive in reopening churches.

I appreciate that it is not prudent to return to large in person gatherings inside the church. But I think we are being far too complacent and content to limp along with the temporary solutions we cobbled together when the first wave of the pandemic hit.

The church seems paralyzed by a culture of fear and safety that is not from God.

It seems to me that the criteria for returning to in person gatherings of any form have shifted radically from the initial shutdown in March. Do you remember the reason we embraced radical new measures like social distancing and even shelter in place in the Spring? The rationale for flattening the curve was to prevent hospitals from being overrun, which would lead to people dying because they did not have access to an ICU room or a ventilator.

The goal now seems to be to prevent anyone from getting sick. Many of us are embracing severe restrictions to prevent the disease from spreading at all. This is well-intentioned at first glance, but impossible.

In some context the burden of proof seems to be even higher: a church must stay closed until they can guarantee that no one who is sick will be on church grounds. That is an unreasonable standard. If that is the goal, for example, why would you need any other protocols? Isn’t the reason we wear masks and social distance built on the assumption that sick people are in our midst, we just can’t know which ones of us are?

And so many churches are finding themselves in a cycle of announcing a target date for reopening, pushing it back, and then pushing it back again, and again. You get the point.

Churches should respond to the changing circumstances in their communities. This is wise and prudent. However, I see increasing fear and decreasing clarity about when church leaders would feel safe reopening in some way.

If a church cannot open in a week because there is a risk that someone who is sick will come to worship, when is it realistic that that level of risk will no longer be present? If church leaders intend to embrace that level of safety, they need to be honest and direct about it. And they also need to be honest and direct that this means churches will be asked to stay closed not only for a few more weeks, but likely for years.

To key leaders like bishops, district superintendents, and senior pastors, I understand why many of you remain concerned about churches reopening. I appreciate your desire to limit the spread of a highly contagious disease that has no treatment. I do not take this lightly and agree that it is a crucial concern, particularly for those who have high-risk factors for Covid-19.

And yet, it feels like many of you are more passionate about keeping the church closed than you are about them reopening. I have heard from many people across the connection who feel that the burden is on churches that want to reopen to prove that they can do so in a way that guarantees there will be no transmission, or even presence, of Covid-19.

My concern with that burden of proof is that just isn’t how pandemics work. The church needs you to be clear that you are ultimately passionately in favor of churches reopening. There will be times when the threshold of community spread in particular areas makes it imprudent for churches to gather. But we need you to do far more than discourage churches to reopen. We need you to actively encourage churches to fight to find creative ways to wisely and courageously gather. Wisdom and courage need not be in opposition to each other.

I would like to see bishops, district superintendents, and pastors in charge, shift from pressuring churches to stay closed to pressuring them to reopen in the best ways that they can.

Much of my concern comes from the feeling that we are drastically underestimating the essential need for public worship for those who are Christians and for those who have not yet received the gift of faith in Jesus.

Here is how my own denomination defines the local church:

“The local church provides the most significant arena through which disciple making occurs. It is a community of true believers under the Lordship of Christ. It is the redemptive fellowship in which the Word of God is preached by persons divinely called and the sacraments are duly administered according to Christ’s own appointment. Under the discipline of the Holy Spirit, the church exists for the maintenance of worship, the edification of believers, and the redemption of the world.” [The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2016 ¶201)

The United Methodist Church explicitly teaches that the local church exists to maintain worship. It needs to be stated unequivocally that the maintenance of public worship is not some optional side show that is nice when possible. It is at the very center of why the church exists at all.

I anticipate that some reading this will object, “but we have been maintaining worship throughout the pandemic.” First, there are many, many churches that are not able to maintain public worship right now because they have not had the ability to have video worship services either in advance or live. These churches are doing the best that they can. And I do not intend to condemn them. But we need to acknowledge that many parts of the church have not been maintaining worship at all for five months. This is devastating to the faithful and needs to be acknowledged explicitly and regularly by anyone who is convinced that the harm of reopening churches is greater than the good of fulfilling the reason the church exists.

Second, can we be honest that the vast majority of churches that have started online worship services during the pandemic fall far short of the in-person services we’d had before? The efforts to start these services were faithful and went above and beyond by all who have been involved in getting them up and running. But they are not close to an adequate replacement for in person worship.

Pastors and worship leaders: many faithful members of your churches will stick with you through this season because they love you and appreciate what you are doing. This has been exceptionally difficult. But many laity also find much of the experience of online worship to be frustrating and hard to follow. There are often a host of technological glitches that make the production quality very poor overall.

We need to be clear that online worship is not the future of the church.

Study Gnosticism, why it is a heresy, and why the body is an essential part of the Christian life and part of what needs to be saved. Corporate worship with bodies present matters. There are going to be seasons in the midst of a pandemic when it is impossible to responsibly gather corporately in the flesh. But we must not pretend that what we do in the midst of those times is as good as the physically gathered body. It just isn’t.

I am also concerned that there is a failure to recognize the ways that people in our churches are fighting to be together and taking risks to do so. Are we noticing what is happening outside of our churches?

Parents are enrolling their children in sports leagues (despite the very public spread of Covid-19 in various attempts to return to professional sports).

Parents are enrolling their children in preschools, in many cases preschools run by churches that are otherwise closed.

[I will resist unpacking this further here, but church preschools reopening in closed churches is a stunning illustration of the present confusion.]

Private schools seem to mostly be reopening, though that is subject to change. Public schools are closed in some areas and opened in others. Many parents who were given a choice whether to send the children back to school want their kids to have in person instruction, though many others elected not to.

This list gets to a related concern: The formation of Christians for more than a generation seems to have produced Christians who believe that worship is not that big a deal. There is a crisis of faith (and I mean a crisis of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ in a basic way) when parents can be expected to consistently prioritize secular extra-curricular activities over worship and participation in the life of the church.

If extracurricular activities come back faster than the church brings back public worship, we will reinforce a serious and devastating confusion about what it means to be in Christ and what it looks like to be connected to the church.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person.

There are a host of bad outcomes that can come from not gathering. We may decide they are not sufficient to take on any additional risk of gathering together. But they are important enough they ought to be named and considered.

How do we balance the real risk that people will get sick if we reopen with the real risk that people will walk away from the church or lose their faith entirely if we don’t?

In a time when people are dying from a pandemic, the need to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not come to faith in Jesus needs to at least be considered along with concerns about safety.

I have seen the phrase “Do no harm” used many times in discussing closing churches and keeping them closed. United Methodists will recognize this as the tagline of the first “General Rule.” We need to consider the kinds of harm happening right now in a much broader way than only the concern to limit the spread of Covid-19 (and I hope we can all agree that everyone wants that).

How do we balance the concern that there could be harm if we open the church with the harm that comes from long-term isolation, depression, overdoses, and suicide?

Are we considering the deaths related to Covid-19 that have nothing to do with contracting the virus?

In the current climate it is a virtual guarantee that any church that can be connected to an outbreak will receive major negative media attention.

But what about all of the churches that have already resumed in person worship in various forms without major incident? How do we account for those churches and the good that has come each time they have faithful maintained worship?

It is perhaps too much to ask, but I would love to see bishops and other leaders come alongside churches and use their power and authority to encourage them and bless them. What if a bishop were to say to a pastor considering opening a church, “I trust you. You know your context and the conditions there better than I do. If you, as the pastor in charge, decide to reopen I will commit to pray for your success. And if there is an outbreak, I will stand with you and defend you in every way and in every place that I can.”

In the diminished trust in the current UM environment, I cannot imagine how encouraging that would be to a pastor to hear. And that would strike me as a powerful example of leadership in a basic way, not to mention the episcopal office.

It is quite discouraging to hear the number of clergy who cannot imagine such a scenario, and instead anticipate their bishop would make an example of them to press other churches to stay closed and to protect themselves from criticism.

I am not asking bishops to stop advocating and educating their conferences based on current realities and what they see. I am asking them to have much greater urgency about the church gathering together in some way in person. The space between a church being completely closed and meeting as it did back in February is enormous. There are infinite ways to not be completely closed to in person meetings without imprudently jumping straight into a 250 person indoors sanctuary service.

The church needs to be taking proactive steps to reopen. That may not mean meeting indoors. Indeed, in most of the U.S. I think it would be premature to begin meeting as we had before March. We need to be prudent and aware that there is a deadly pandemic in our midst.

But the fact that a church cannot have their normal 11 o’clock sanctuary service does not mean they have no other options. We need to do a much better job thinking outside the box. We can have outdoor worship services, which most health experts believe is safer than indoors. We can multiply the number of worship services and cap the number of attendees to follow recommended best practices.

There are a multitude of other options. It is time for leaders to lead out of the place we’ve been stuck for the past several months. The hard truth is that it appears the pandemic is going to be an unwelcomed presence in our midst quite a while longer.

We can’t be content with the new pandemic status quo any longer.

Here is an example of what I’m envisioning: After prayerful consideration, the leadership of a church near us (not United Methodist) decided it would be premature to return to normal worship in the building. They also refused to be complacent and recognized online only gatherings were spiritually malnourishing. So they began meeting on Wednesday evenings for a worship service outside in front of the church. And they encouraged small groups to meet together in person on Sunday morning to view the worship service together. These are creative ways to reconnect the Body of Christ and move in a positive, though measured direction.

At the end of the day, it may not be time for your church to open yet. I can live with that. I can even respect that. Really. You may need more time to plan for a wise and courageous reopening, that will be significantly different than it was in February.

And circumstances can change rapidly. We should respond rapidly to changing circumstances.

My concern here is that it feels to me like the church has pulled into a shell and it seems increasingly unlikely to come back out until there is a guarantee that everything will be ok. The problem is we are not going to get such a guarantee.

There are no paths without risk. This is an extremely challenging time. I yearn to see leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ take the right kinds of risks and make the right kinds of mistakes.

I understand that there are deep disagreements about how and when to best move forward. I am not trying to start a fight here or score cheap rhetorical points. I am for you and your churches. I want to encourage us to prayerfully seek God’s guidance and scratch and claw to reclaim as much of what we’ve lost as possible, because the local church exists for the maintenance of worship.

Come Holy Spirit. Not being able to worship together has been so hard. Guide, direct, and bless your church. Give us prudence and courage. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.


Kevin M. Watson is a professor at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He teaches, writes, and preaches to empower community, discipleship, and stewardship of our heritage. Click here to get future posts emailed to you.

I have closed comments on this post because I do not intend to start a fight or encourage people who agree or disagree to fire off a quick response that has more heat than light. You’re welcome to contact me directly here. I read all comments I receive, though I am not able to respond to all of them.

 

God’s Inclusive Love Excludes Sin

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Holiness, Ministry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

exclusion, God, holiness, inclusion, sin

Do you ever read something and find yourself actually nodding your head in agreement, or responding to the author out loud? My friends and family will be relieved to know that I very rarely do this. Last night, however, I would have responded out loud when I read James Bryan Smith’s chapter “God is Holy” in The Good and Beautiful God. The only reason I didn’t was because I was reading the book while giving an exam and my students would have shushed me.

As I read this chapter, I found myself wishing that I could have every single Christian read it. The piece is excellent, not because it is new or edgy, but because it states basic Christian truth with profound clarity.

In the previous chapter, “God Is Love,” Smith emphasizes the scandal of God’s grace. God loves sinners “as they are, and not as they should be” (98). He further argues that it is not sin but self-righteousness that separates us from God (102). The chapter does a great job of emphasizing the good news that God’s love for us is constant, whether we are worthy of it or not. And this applies to everyone. (By the way, I highly recommend the entire book, as well as the other two books in the series.)

In the next chapter, Smith addresses a misunderstanding of the truth that God is love, and loves sinners with reckless extravagance: “God does not care about our sin” (116). Smith writes, “In our day you are just as likely to hear a person tell you that their god is a cosmic, benevolent spirit who never judges, does not punish sin and sends no one to hell. This ‘teddy bear’ god has become a very fashionable alternative to the wrathful god of days gone by” (116). The problem is that “the cushy, fuzzy god is neither biblical nor truly loving.” Here, Smith cites H. Richard Niebuhr’s well-worn phrase from The Kingdom of God in America, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

Smith then points to some of the inadequate theologies that follow from a desire to avoid a wrathful God. I will let one of the most piercing passages in the chapter speak for itself:

Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) did not like the notion of a wrathful God. Ritschl concluded, ‘The concept of God’s wrath has no religious value for the Christian.’ So he reinterpreted the meaning of wrath. Wrath is the logical consequence of God’s absence, and not God’s attitude toward sin and evil. A lot of people liked this because it depicted a god who is above getting angry. This passive-aggressive god just gets quiet. (119)

We need God to care about sin and evil. If God simply becomes distant, then we are hopeless when faced with the enormity of sin and death.

The basic argument that Smith makes is that our understanding of both God’s love and God’s wrath are primarily derived from the most emotive and irrational connotations that these words have. For Smith, God’s love is more like a parent’s love toward a child than a teenager’s infatuation with a peer. And “in the same way that God’s love is not a silly, sappy feeling but rather a consistent desire for the good of his people, so also the wrath of God is not a crazed rage but rather a consistent opposition to sin and evil” (120).

Smith repeatedly emphasizes in the chapter that God is both “kind and severe. We cannot have one without the other” and that this is “very good news” (118). It is good news because God loves us so much that he is completely opposed to anything that harms God’s beloved people. God loves us without condition, but hates sin because sin threatens and eventually brings our destruction.

He makes an important distinction between God’s love and wrath. “Wrath is not something that God is but something that God does. While it is correct to say that God is holy, it is not correct to say that God is wrathful… Holiness is God’s essence… Wrath is what humans experience when they reject God. And it is a necessary part of God’s love” (123).

Smith suggests that we should not want a god who says, “‘It’s cool. Don’t sweat it. Everybody sins, just do it without the guilt, dude. Guilt stinks. Just have a good time!’ This god does not love me. Being soft on sin is not loving, because sin destroys. I want a God who hates anything that hurts me. Hate is a strong word, but a good one. Because the true God not only hates what destroys me (sin and alientation) but also has taken steps to destroy my destroyer, I love him” (125).

Finally, Smith brings his conversation back to the beginning – God’s unconditional love for us. He considered a conversation he had with a woman who heard a sermon he preached on God’s scandalous, unconditional love for us exactly as we are right now and she understood his sermon to mean that sin did not matter and she could simply continuing sinning without feeling guilty. Here is how Smith concludes the chapter:

It occurred to me that perhaps she needed first to hear that she was loved unconditionally before she could address the issue of sin. This is counterintuitive, but I believe it is right. We assume that wrath comes before grace, but that is not the biblical way. God’s first and last word is always grace. Until we have been assured that we are loved and forgiven, it is impossible to address our sinfulness correctly. We will operate out of our own resources, trying to get God to like us by our own efforts to change. God’s first word is always grace, as Barth said. Only then can we begin to understand God’s holiness, and ours. (127)

This is the gospel! Our efforts to change are not enough and can never secure God’s approval. But the good news is that God already loves us. God already offers us forgiveness, healing, and redemption.

Appreciating the relationship between God’s unconditional love and God’s utter opposition to all that harms us is essential for all Christians. It seems to me that United Methodists are currently failing to adequately maintain both sides of this good news. It is not sufficiently Christian to be in favor of either a god whose inclusive love is incapable of excluding sin and evil or a god whose holiness leads people to live in shame.

I’m not sure that these actually represent the positions of any significant groups of United Methodists. Rather, this is how United Methodists (and many other Christians) misrepresent each other’s positions. One side accuses the other of failing to offer the world a God whose love is radically inclusive of all people and is not full of anger and judgment. Another side accuses the other of failing to offer the world a God who has standards for right and wrong actions and attitudes.

I do occasionally hear these views expressed by students and pastors. Much more frequently I hear people simply talking past each other. In general, I think if you pressed people on both sides of the theological spectrum, you would find that most believe that God loves creation, and particularly those created in the divine image, with reckless abandon, perfectly. And I think most people believe that God wants to free us from the things that bind us to the ways of sin and death. The disagreement is about whether particular actions, ideas, or attitudes constitute sin.

The problem is not that one side is in favor of sin in order to be more inclusive, while the other side is in favor of exclusion in order to protect God’s holiness or our own. The problem is that neither side does a good enough job of emphasizing both God’s radical love for broken, hurting, and sinful people as well as God’s complete rejection and opposition to sin and evil, whether it is expressed through outward actions or inner dispositions, or individually or structurally.

1 John, to give an example from Scripture, only makes sense when we hold both God’s inclusive love together with God’s complete rejection of sin:

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
– 1 John 1:5-2:2

God’s love towards each one of us is unconditional. Have you allowed that truth to sink into every corner or your life, or are you still trying to clean yourself up for God, to earn your acceptance? Are you willing to be desperately dependent on God’s grace and not your own goodness?

God hates sin because God loves us. Are you allowing God’s grace to free you from everything that keeps you from the life for which you were created? Will you allow the amazing grace of God to forgive you of the ways you have sinned and are sinful? Will you allow God to break the power of those canceled sins?

God is holy. God refuses to make compromises with sin and death. And God is able to make us holy. The offer of holiness is not a threat. It is a precious promise.

What Is the Purpose of Seminary?

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Ministry

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

M.Div., Ministry, ordination, Seminary, Theological Education

Seminary did nothing to prepare me for ministry in a post-Christian context.

This comment, which was an aside in a conversation I had with a pastor today, has gnawed at me all day. Several hours after the conversation, I tweeted:

Pastor who graduated from a UM seminary: "Seminary did nothing to prepare me for ministry in a post-Christian context." Thoughts?

— Kevin M. Watson (@kevinwatson) January 29, 2014

The response was slow at first, but gathered momentum throughout the day and into the evening. (In hindsight, I really wish a hashtag had been created to help track the conversation. It has gone in several different directions and is difficult to trace now.)

Here are the main things I heard in the conversation: Some people are happy with their seminary experience and feel that it prepared them well for ministry in a post-Christian context. Others were frustrated with their seminary education and felt that it did not prepare them adequately for basic pastoral ministry. But what stuck with me the most was a general confusion about the purpose of seminary. One person tweeted: “I have heard more than once that it is not a theological school’s job to prepare people for ministry.”

This raises several questions for me: What is ministry? How ought one be prepared for it? If a theological school is not focused on preparing people for ministry, what is the purpose of a seminary education? And why would it be required for ordination? To what extent should the church and academy be connected to one another?

My hope in this post, then, is to continue the conversation with a broader audience and without the 140 character limit.

What do you think the purpose of a seminary education ought to be?

For those of you who have attended or are attending seminary, what are your thoughts about how well it prepared you for ministry?

To what extent should the church and academy be related or interdependent?

Now Available: The Class Meeting

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Accountability, Christian Living, Class Meetings, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

21st Century Class Meeting, books, class meeting, Methodism, small groups, Wesley

Life has been hectic the last month and a half! My thoughts recently turned to this blog and I realized that I had not announced here that The Class Meeting: Reclaiming a Forgotten (and Essential) Small Group Experience is now available. The book can be purchased in print directly from Seedbed at the previous link. (It is only available in print directly from Seedbed.) It can also be purchased electronically through a variety of e-formats, including Amazon Kindle. This link will take you directly to Amazon’s Kindle listing for the book.

Seedbed has created a page for the book that has much more information: http://classmeeting.seedbed.com/

Seedbed has also included a page that contains links to reviews written online: http://classmeeting.seedbed.com/reviews/

My previous post included several of the advanced reviews that the book received.

Finally, I wrote a post for Seedbed.com that was published on the day the book was released. I also did a video interview that they published. You can view the post here and the interview here.

I am encouraged and grateful for the enthusiasm I am seeing for reclaiming the Wesleyan class meeting. Thank you for your support!

Can Francis Asbury Help You Be a More Effective Communicator (Part 4)

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

communication, discipline, effective communication, Francis Asbury, organization

In his exceptional biography of Francis Asbury, John Wigger describes the characteristics that made the father of American Methodism an effective communicator. These four traits were:

    1. legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversion experience.

    2. ability to connect with ordinary people.

    3. ability to understand and use popular culture.

    4. organization of the Methodist church.

This is the final post in a four-part series that considers each of the traits that made Asbury an effective leader. I will also consider whether these traits are relevant for contemporary church leaders. (You can view the previous posts by clicking the traits listed above.)

The fourth trait that made Asbury an effective communicator was his organization of the Methodist church (8). According to his biographer, Asbury was “a brilliant administrator and a keen judge of human motivations” (8). As Asbury travelled constantly, he also paid careful attention to a variety of administrative details related to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Wigger further describes the significance of this aspect of Asbury’s leadership:

The system Asbury crafted made it possible to keep tabs on thousands of preachers and lay workers. Under his leadership, American Methodists anticipated the development of modern managerial styles. No merchant of the early nineteenth century could match Asbury’s nationwide network of class leaders, circuit stewards, book stewards, exhorters, local preachers, circuit riders, and presiding elders, or the movement’s system of class meetings, circuit preaching, quarterly meetings, annual conferences, and quadrennial general conferences, all churning out detailed statistical reports to be consolidated and published on a regular basis (8).

Wigger also highlights the importance of intinerant (travelling) preachers for his system. Interestingly, maintaing this system was also one of the major challenges of Asbury’s career. He fought to maintain it; however, because he was convinced of its significance for the success of American Methodism.

A “less obvious, but equally important” part of Asbury’s systemt was the “necessity of a culture of discipline.” Here, the early Methodist class meeting is discussed, including Asbury’s continuation of the requirement that in order to be a member one had to participate in a weekly class meeting.

Finally, Asbury realized his own limitations and delegated authority to others. He did this at a variety of levels, the most visible being traveling preachers and class leaders.

Asbury was an effective communicator because he instilled a culture of discipline in Methodism that allowed for a sense of cohesiveness throughout a rapidly growing church, and also ensured that membership in the newly constituted Methodist Episcopal Church actually meant something.

Would this characteristic be significant for contemporary church leadership?

Absolutely! In fact, of the four traits that Wigger identifies, I think this might be the most pressing need in twenty-first century American Christianity.

United Methodism puts a significant amount of time, energy, and resources into administrative functions and details. When I was the pastor of a local church, for example, I remember being almost overwhelmed by the number of reports I had to submit throughout the year. This was sometimes a frustrating experience because the reason for the reports was not always explained to me, and it wasn’t usually inherently obvious.

Contemporary United Methodism also has an array of boards and agencies that engage a wide variety of aspects of Christian ministry.

Outwardly, when one compares the structures of Asbury’s Methodism and the structures of contemporary United Methodism, there is quite a bit that looks similar. There is, however, one major change. The purpose of Asbury’s administrative work was to keep the Methodism movement going in the same direction, to cause there to be a recognizable unity among the “people called Methodists.” Oversight in early American Methodism played an important function because there was clarity about what the goals of Methodism (individually: justification by faith in Christ, the new birth, followed by holiness of heart and life; corporately: spreading scriptural holiness). In the contemporary context, I fear we have kept a passion for counting attendance, members, etc., without the common sense of purpose that originally made these things valuable.

My sense is that this aspect of Asbury’s leadership style would be most easily appropriated by local church pastors. At the level of the local church, someone can cast vision, delegate authority and responsibilities, and articulate expectations for those involved in the life of the church (and hold people accountable for meeting those expectations).

So what do you think? Is being an excellent organizer and administrator important for leaders in the church today? If so, how have you seen this done well? And, since this post concludes this series, what quality or characteristic would you add to being an effective communicator that Wigger did not discuss?

Going from preachin’ to meddlin’: In your own sphere of influence, do you pay attention to the details of how an idea can actually come to reality? Does your church hold members accountable for keeping their membership vows in any meaningful way? If not, what are the implications of people making promises to God in the presence of the entire church and not keeping them?

If you have enjoyed this series, be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss future posts. You can subscribe via e-mail by clicking here or via reader by clicking here.

Can Francis Asbury Help You Become a More Effective Communicator? (Part 3)

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

communication, effective communication, Francis Asbury, popular culture

In his exceptional biography of Francis Asbury, John Wigger describes the characteristics that made the father of American Methodism an effective communicator. These four traits were:

    1. legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversion experience.

    2. ability to connect with ordinary people.

    3. ability to understand and use popular culture.

    4. organization of the Methodist church.

This is the third post in a four-part series that considers each of the traits that made Asbury an effective leader. I will also consider whether these traits are relevant for contemporary church leaders. (You can view the previous posts by clicking the traits listed above.)

The third trait that made Asbury an effective communicator was his understanding and use of popular culture (7). If the second aspect of what made Asbury an effective communicator marked a difference between he and John Wesley, this is a trait that Asbury and Wesley shared. Wigger described the way this trait function for Asbury, particularly with regard to his relationship between John Wesley and Americans:

Asbury acted as a mediator between Wesley and common Americans. Wesley and Asbury came from significantly different backgrounds, but they shared a realization that the dominant religious institutions of their day were failing to reach most people. The great question they both addressed was how to make the gospel relevant in their time and place. The audience was never far from their minds (7).

One of the major challenges Asbury faced as a mediator between Wesley and the average American was which parts of popular American culture to embrace and which parts to reject. Asbury embraced the revivalistic atmosphere that was inseparable from early nineteenth-century camp meetings. As a result, American Methodism embraced the camp meeting early on, while many other denominations hesitated. Asbury initially took a firm stand against American Methodists holding slaves. However, he ultimately compromised on this stand.

The camp meeting and American slavery show the tension in engaging popular culture. Wigger ultimately argues that “this mediating impulse, transmitted from Wesley through Asbury, became a trademark of American Methodism” (7). It was certainly not without complication, but it is one of the reasons American Methodism grew exponentially during the decades that Asbury was the bishop of the newly created Methodist Episcopal Church.

Would this characteristic be significant for contemporary church leadership?

Yes, but the same tensions alluded to above are an unavoidable part of any engagement with popular culture. Wigger’s discussion of the broader implications of religious movements engaging the surrounding culture provides a helpful framework for thinking about the contemporary relevance of this aspect of Asbury’s leadership style:

All religious movements interact with the prevailing culture of their adherents. Popular religous movements like early American Methodism exist in a tension between religious values and the values of the dominant culture, alternately challenging and embracing the larger culture around them. To either completely accept or reject the larger culture is to cease to be either religious on the one hand, or popular on the other. Leaders like Asbury understand this tension and work within it (7).

Early American Methodism provides a fascinating example of a Christian tradition both changing the culture and being changed by it. Among other things, this example ought to chasten religious leaders or institutions that talk about cultural engagement in overly static or one-directional ways. If a person or institution succeeds in understanding and using popular culture, they will almost certainly be changed by that culture.

The very fear of being “converted” by popular culture has led some to avoid engaging popular culture at all. To use Wigger’s phrase, this is to cease to be popular. Wesley and Asbury were both unapologetically in favor of gathering a large audience.

The desire to be relevant (or sometimes for contemporary American Methodism to be popular once again) has led some to embrace popular culture with no hesitation. To the extent that this has happened in American Methodism, I think it is at least in part because there was a time that being American and being Methodist were nearly synonymous. Contemporary American Methodists who feel this temptation would do well to heed Wigger’s warning that to completely accept the larger culture is to cease to be religious, or more importantly, Christian.

Wigger argues that the success of any religious movement “hinges on maintaining contact with the culture around them” (7). I think he is right. The Church needs leaders who know Jesus, are committed to practicing their faith in consistent daily ways, can connect with ordinary people, and understand the culture around them and who seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance for how to best engage that culture.

[Note: I think Wigger’s description of culture could be a bit more nuanced. The idea that there is a popular culture (as opposed to a more complicated network of cultures that intersect in a variety of ways) that a community of faith decides to engage or not engage is a bit too straightforward.]

So what do you think? In order to be effective, does a leader in the church need to understand and use popular culture? Why or why not? How have you seen church leaders do this well? How do you think it could be done better?

Going from preachin’ to meddlin’: My guess is that most people tend towards one of the extremes Wigger discusses, either embracing or rejecting popular culture uncritically. Do you tend to embrace or reject popular culture? How might you be able to engage popular culture more faithfully for the glory of God?

If you are enjoying this series, be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss the next post. You can subscribe via e-mail by clicking here or via reader by clicking here.

Can Francis Asbury Help You Be a More Effective Communicator? (Part 2)

12 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

caring for others, effective communication, Francis Asbury, listening

In his exceptional biography of Francis Asbury, John Wigger describes the characteristics that made the father of American Methodism an effective communicator. These four traits were:

    1. legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversion experience.

    2. ability to connect with ordinary people

    3. ability to understand and use popular culture.

    4. organization of the Methodist church.

This is the second post in a four-part series that considers each of the traits that made Asbury an effective leader. I will also consider whether these traits are relevant for contemporary church leaders. (You can view the previous post by clicking the first trait listed above.)

The second trait that made Asbury an effective communicator was, “his ability to connect with ordinary people” (6). John Wesley was not known for this characteristic. In fact, there are a few examples where Wesley’s interactions with people are shockingly insensitive. Asbury, however, was gifted at connecting with people he met throughout his travels, building relationships with them even during short stays.

My favorite part of this aspect of Asbury’s personality is that he was known for having a good sense of humor in a time when “Methodists didn’t generally consider joking and laughter compatible with religion” (Wigger, 6). Even better, Asbury’s sense of humor was self-effacing. Here is one particular story that Wigger relates that also shows that Asbury did not take himself too seriously:

Once, when Asbury was nearly sixty and had been a bishop for nearly two decades, he and the ‘venerable, portly’ preacher Benjaming Bidlack came to the home of a ‘respectable Methodist’ in the Genessee District of upstate New York. Seeing Asbury riding in front, the man mistook him for an assisstant and ordered him to dismount and open the gate for the bishop. Bidlack played along, and as he passed by, Asbury bowed low, offering to see to the bishop’s horse and bags. When their host realized his mistake, he was ‘mortified’ until he saw how much Asbury enjoyed the joke (6).

The way that Wigger concludes his summary of this second aspect of what made Asbury an effective communicator is particularly intriguing: “People found Asbury approachable and willing to listen to their concerns more than they found him full of inspiring ideas” (7).

Asbury was an effective communicator and leader, then, because he was able to connect with people. He could make them laugh. He could even enjoy a good laugh at his own expense. People listened to him because they liked him, largely because they sensed that he liked them.

Would this characteristic be significant for contemporary church leadership?

Of course!

People will rarely follow someone they do not like or they do not believe likes them. And leaders in the contemporary church will be far more successful in leading if they are able to relate to the people in the churches to which they have been sent to provide leadership.

Here are a few quick thoughts on how church leaders can connect with ordinary people:

1. For those who are seminary, stay in contact with “normal people” (whatever that means!). Seminary is great, but it can also unintentionally become a kind of bubble, where you forget that most people would not be interested in having a three hour conversation about various theories of the atonement, the difference between imputed vs. imparted righteousness, etc. My point is not that these things are bad. In fact, they are essentially to a seminary education. But seminary can unintentionally deform you from being able to relate to the “people in the pews.” And if people who are attending seminary because they have been called to local church ministry can no longer relate to the people they will be serving when the graduate, well, that is a problem.

2. Spend time with people on their turf. When I was pastoring a church in rural Oklahoma, a significant number of men from the church would meet for coffee every morning at the co-op. Driving up to a grain elevator, walking into a room with fertilizer bags, horse troughs, and hundreds of tools I had never seen before was initially a jarring experience! But I learned to love that time. I learned more about those men sitting on folding chairs around that plastic table than I ever did within the walls of the church. I also laughed more there than any other place in that town. They are precious memories! And looking back, I am amazed at the hospitality that these men showed in welcoming me into their favorite place to spend time together.

3. Relax and don’t have an agenda. Just spend time with people because they have been created in the image of almighty God. Listen to them. Hear what they are trying to tell you. If you do this, you will be invited into people’s lives in incredible ways.

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Leaders always win when they laugh at themselves. And they win when they share credit and build up other people.

5. Remember that more often than not people want to know whether you care and whether you can be trusted. This is a hard one for me. My instinct is to try to bowl people over by my ideas, by content. But Asbury’s example reminds us that before people can hear our ideas, they first need us to hear them – really hear them.

So what do you think? How important do you think it is for leaders in the church to be able to relate well to other people? What would you add to my list of ways that church leaders can better relate to others?

Going from preachin’ to meddlin’: This post assumes that Christian leaders do genuinely love the people God has sent them to serve. I have been surprised at how often I have encountered pastors who are not good at listening at all. It is an area where I can always find room for growth myself. Are you a good listener? Do you habitually, maybe without even realizing it, interrupt people? Before you try to get others to hear you, how can you learn to better hear them?

If you are enjoying this series, be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss the next two posts. You can subscribe via e-mail by clicking here or via reader by clicking here.

Can Francis Asbury help you be a more effective communicator?

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

effective communication, Francis Asbury, piety

In his exceptional biography of Francis Asbury, John Wigger describes the characteristics that made the father of American Methodism an effective communicator. These four traits were:

    1. legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversion experience.

    2. ability to connect with ordinary people

    3. ability to understand and use popular culture.

    4. organization of the Methodist church.

Over the next four posts, I will consider each of these traits that made Asbury an effective leader. I will also consider whether these traits are relevant for contemporary church leaders.

The first trait that made Asbury an effective communicator was, in Wigger’s words, “his legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversion experience” (5). Like John Wesley, Francis Asbury was nearly obsessed with growing in love of God and neighbor.

Asbury was also constantly traveling from one place to another, staying with thousands of different people over the course of his life. As a result, he had virtually no privacy at all. As his biographer puts it, “It is all the more revealing, then, that the closer people got to him, the more they tended to respect the integrity of his faith” (5) Even those with whom he had the deepest disagreements still recognized the sincerity and depth of his faith in Christ.

Asbury was an effective communicator and leader, then, because people could see that he was really “walking the walk.” People often listened to him because they knew he was a man who spent time in prayer and searching the Scriptures.

Would this characteristic be significant for contemporary church leadership?

I think it would be. And it would be significant for helping build relationships with non-Christians, not just leading other Christians. Over the last past decade, there has been quite a bit of conversation about the perception by non-Christians that Christians are hypocrites. (I’m thinking of unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, for example.) The earnestness and sincerity of a Christian leader who had “legendary piety and perseverance, rooted in a classical evangelical conversation experience” might help them gain credibility with non-Christians who are wary that Christian leaders are selling something that they don’t use themselves.

The words of Jesus in Matthew, on the other hand, provide a reasons for caution. In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns those who are pursuing righteousness, to “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ in front of others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matt 6:1).

Asbury’s piety was visible because he basically had no private life. But today, privacy is such a high value that even people who travel frequently to speak in churches and at conferences rarely stay with families from the group that is hosting them.

A piety that is showy and boastful will not bring credibility. Nevertheless, it is important that Christian leaders “practice what they preach.” And Methodists should emphasize the importance of regular practice of the means of grace (prayer, searching the Scriptures, receiving communion, fasting, etc.).

So what do you think? Will a faith that is visible through basic practices in someone’s life tend to lead others to have a higher esteem for that person’s faith? And if so, how can Christian leaders appropriately make their own practice of their faith more visible or public?

Going from preachin’ to meddlin’: This post assumes that Christian leaders are spending both quality and quantity time in prayer, searching the Scriptures, etc. But this is not necessarily a safe assumption. Are you spending consistent and meaningful time with God?

What Does the Bible Say about Sanctification?

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Holiness, Ministry

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Bible, holiness, Sanctification, Scripture

When I teach Wesleyan theology, I usually ask how many people have heard a sermon on sanctification. I have rarely had a student raise their hand. The lack of preaching on sanctification, or holiness, may lead some to assume that the Bible doesn’t say much about the topic. But that is not the case!

photo courtesy of yahwehistruth.com

Here are ten passages (in no particular order) from Scripture that relate to sanctification or holiness:

1. Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13-16)

2. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

3. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

4. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:17-19)

5. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

6. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

7. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. (Titus 2:11-12)

8. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

9. Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the LORD your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the LORD, who makes you holy. (Leviticus 20:7)

10. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

And a bonus passage that I couldn’t leave out:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-11)

This is by no means a comprehensive list. There are many more passages on holiness in Christian Scripture. But these passage say a lot about the importance of sanctification for Christianity.

Have you heard a someone preach on holiness, sanctification, or even entire sanctification? What is your favorite Scripture passage on sanctification? And by all means, include passages on sanctification that I left out in the comments below!

Sin and the Christian life: A response to Rachel Held Evans

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry

≈ 49 Comments

Tags

go and sin no more, holiness, Rachel Held Evans, sin

In a recent blog post, popular writer and blogger Rachel Held Evans addressed the relationship of sin to the lives of Christians. Before I summarize my understanding of her argument, and why I disagree with her, I want to say that I really appreciate Rachel’s demeanor online. From my reading of her writing she is a good model of a Christian blogging and using social media. She avoids sarcasm, mischaracterizing positions she disagrees with to score cheap points, or writing misleading or inaccurate things simply to get hits. Rachel Held Evans is a gifted writer who comes across as doing the best that she can to fairly represent the various perspectives that she engages in her writing. I will do my best to accurately represent her position and to respond to her with charity and fairness. Ultimately, my concern is not to get in an argument with Rachel, but to articulate why holiness matters and is an essential part of the Christian life.

I think the best entry into the main argument of her post is the very beginning. She wrote:

How’s that working out for you?

The “go and sin no more” thing?

Because it’s not going so well for me.

I’ve known Jesus for as long as I’ve known my name, and still I use other people like capital to advance my own interest, still I gossip to make myself feel important, still I curse my brothers and sisters in one breath and sing praise songs in the next, still I sit in church with arms folded and cynicism coursing through my bloodstream, still I talk a big game about caring for the poor without doing much to change my own habits, still I indulge in food I’m not hungry for and jewelry I don’t need, still I obsess over what people say about me on the internet, still I forget my own privilege, still I talk more than I listen and complain more than I thank, still I commit acts of evil, still I make a great commenter on Christianity and a lousy practitioner of it.

But Jesus pours out his mercy, staying the hand of my accusers again and again and again. I go, stepping over scattered stones, forgiven, grateful, and free.

I go, but I do not sin no more.

In the post, she primarily interacts with the story of the woman caught in adultery from the Gospel of John (8:1-11). Here is what strikes me as her key interpretation of this passage:

It’s one of just two times in his recorded ministry that Jesus said this – “go and sin no more” – and I don’t believe for a second he expected this woman to do such a thing… at least not forever, at least not for good.

And the application of the story seems to primarily be that the woman will learn not to pick up a stone to throw at someone else the next time they commit a sin. She concludes by saying that “We’ve missed the point when we turn this story into a stone.”

The article is well worth reading in its entirety.

I think Rachel gets several things right. I really appreciate her humility and honesty in admitting that she is an imperfect person who needs Jesus and his mercy. And for that matter, I really appreciate the way her faith and relationship with Jesus come through so clearly. I like that the post is incomprehensible without Jesus. And I agree with her that we miss the point of the story if we “turn it into a stone,” to repeat the beautiful phrase she concludes her post with. And perhaps most importantly, I think this is one of the best articulations of the impossibility of Christians living the kind of life Jesus calls them to live that I have recently come across. It is a beautiful articulation of the dominant American Christian belief that sin is inevitable.

I, however, strongly disagree with her post for a number of reasons.

First, Rachel appears to me to make sin necessary because she finds that she regularly sins. But she provides no reason for why it follows that because I often commit various sins; therefore, I must sin – that it is necessary and inevitable for Christians to sin.

I don’t believe it does follow. This is one of the reasons I cringe at the way that experience is used in contemporary popular Christian discourse. Christians too often survey their own experience, their preferences, their habits, or the people they know and whether they seem sincere. They then read those experiences back into the gospel. And so our experiences come to norm the gospel; the gospel does not have authority over our lives and experiences.

The consequences of such a move are disastrous for Christian discipleship, which insists that Jesus is lord and not us.

I want to be sure that I am not misunderstood here. I am in no way trying to throw Rachel’s honesty about her own struggle with sin in her face. I also struggle with sin. My own list of sins would be long and at least as devastating. I have a lot of room to grow. And I am in no position to throw stones at her or anyone else.

Second, it does not follow, however, that because we are both failing to currently live lives free from sin that sin is necessary or inevitable for Christians. This analysis doesn’t even make sense outside of the particularities of Christian living. It would strike me as ridiculous, and my guess is it would seem ridiculous to Rachel as well, if, instead of critiquing the idea of ceasing to sin, she had written a post defending the use of grammatical errors in published writing. The fact that people do often make mistakes in writing does not make that the norm for good writing. It is a failure and we can and should do better. Rachel exemplifies this in her own writing, as it is consistently of excellent quality.

As the well-worn cliche goes, “practice makes perfect.”

Related to this, to make an argument that sin is necessary for those who are “in Christ” would require a much more thorough survey of the writings of the New Testament. Rachel seems to have a hermeneutic of suspicion or at least skepticism towards the teachings of Jesus that is suspect. I am not sure Jesus saying, “Go and sin no more” is on the same level as Jesus saying to pluck out your right eye or cut off your hand if they cause you to sin. And even here, Jesus seems to be using hyperbole to emphasize the incompatibility of sin with the holiness of God.

Rachel’s analysis is not able to wrestle with the strong and repeated calls for followers of Jesus Christ to grow in holiness, not by their own inherent awesomeness – but by the grace and power of God.

Finally, and most importantly, I think Rachel unintentionally offered her audience cheap grace and not the audacious, ridiculous, almost unbelievably amazing grace that is offered to every person created in the image of God. The hope that Christians can have, on Rachel’s account, it seems to me is to not be condemned even though they are unfaithful. And to learn to not condemn others when they are unfaithful.

And yet, I find even Rachel’s own account confusing. One of the most potent lines of the piece is “I go, stepping over scattered stones, forgiven, grateful, and free.”

But she isn’t free, not really. Because she believes she will inevitably continue being a “lousy practitioner” of Christianity.

This is not the fullness of the gospel. The gospel proclaims that Jesus was the Son of God, he was crucified, died, and raised again on the third day. Jesus faced the very worse that sin and death could do. He entered fully into the reality of death. And he conquered sin, even the grave!

On this side of the resurrection, Christians have no basis for saying that sin is necessary. Christians have no basis for saying that sin is inevitable. On what grounds is it necessary for those who have been forgiven of their sins and been given new life by the grace of God to continue doing things that put distance between themselves and God? Does it happen? Yes. Does it happen a lot? Sadly, yes. Does this mean that it is God’s will? No. Does it mean that it has to happen? No.

In the list of sins that Rachel included in her post, which ones are unavoidable? Does she really believe that God’s grace has not given her any power over the discrepancy in her life between talking about caring for the poor and actually caring for the poor? Think about actual sins that you have committed. Do you really believe that in the moment that you committed them that you were powerless to do anything else?

When I look back on selfish actions in my own life, it is always clear to me that these actions were avoidable. They were bad decisions that I made. Decisions that make Jesus weep.

Here is what it comes down to: Which do you believe is more powerful: sin or God? If you believe that people are not able to “go and sin no more,” then you believe that sin is more powerful than God. If you believe that God is more powerful than sin, which I think is the conclusion Christians must come to, then you may need to take a closer look at the reflexive excusing of the reality of sin in the lives of those who have taken on the name of Christ that is prevalent in contemporary American Christianity.

Christians are able to stop sinning, not because of their own goodness, but because of the grace and power of God. It isn’t something that we can do for ourselves, but it is something that God is able and willing to do in us and for us.

Rachel is right. Jesus does pour out his mercy, he does stay the hand of our accusers. And by grace, we are forgiven. And by grace through faith, we can be free. Really free. Christians believe in the one, to use the beautiful lyrics of Charles Wesley, who “breaks the power of cancelled sin, sets the prisoner free.”

Rachel has offered her audience part of the gospel, forgiveness of our sins by faith in Christ. But she has withheld the other part, which is at least as good of news: we are not only forgiven, but the power that sin had on us has been broken. She has mistakenly put forgiveness and holiness in tension with each other. Jesus offers us both forgiveness and the freedom to live faithfully.

We do not free ourselves. Those who are in Christ are set free.

And Jesus says to those he has released, “Go and sin no more.”

Kevin M. Watson is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology & Wesleyan Studies at Seattle Pacific University. You can keep up with this blog on twitter @kevinwatson or on facebook at Vital Piety.

← Older posts

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Kevin M. Watson
    • Join 352 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kevin M. Watson
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar