Category Archives: Ministry

The Most Important Distinction in the American Church Today: The Next Underground Seminary

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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We are going to have back-to-back Underground Seminary meetings here in Tulsa (March 27 and April 6) and I am pumped!

What is Underground Seminary?

There are some things that don’t fit in courses I teach, or perhaps even in the seminary curriculum at all, that people preparing to lead in the local church need to wrestle with, think about, or just have someone tell them. There are also conversations that I want to have with people who are preparing to in the church that I think will be helpful to them and I don’t know where they would fit in specific classes.

In my role for Asbury Church, I’m still interested in shaping pastors. So, I have been working on optional, not-for-credit, opportunities that typically come alongside classes I am teaching for Asbury Theological Seminary. I’m calling these special events “Underground Seminary.”

Underground Seminary is for people preparing to lead in the church who are hungry to learn and grow. They want to gain as much wisdom and experience as they can from as many different places as possible as they are prepared and equipped to lead.

I’m most excited to work with people who know God has more for them and they are going after it. Underground Seminary is for these people.

Our next Underground Seminary meeting:

Rev. Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church’s senior pastor, will lead our next Underground Seminary. It will be focused on the ways dramatic changes in the broader culture have impacted the church and radically changed the context in which we seek to share the gospel. Andrew will share a diagnosis of the problem facing the church and point to solutions for a way forward.

I’ll let Andrew share more about what he wants to do in this workshop in his own words:

The most important thing for church leaders to know in 2025 is that we are living in what Aaron Renn has called “the negative world.”

Things are different these days. Over the last decade, American culture has changed in ways that have become more hostile to the church and the claims of Christ, the result of which is that a majority of those who hold the keys to power in American society—those in politics, media, and education—have a negative view of Christianity. In light of these changes, I believe that the most important distinction in the American church today is not in the ways we normally categorize the church. The most important distinction in the American church today is between those who recognize we live in “the negative world” and those who have not yet accepted this fact.

This distinction matters because it directly affects our strategies for carrying out the Great Commission. Our mission from Jesus has not changed, and our responsibility to evangelize cannot be avoided. But the strategies we employ to complete that mission need to be constantly shifting, depending on the cultural context. The problem we face today is that many of our strategies for evangelism were developed in and for a previous cultural context, one that was largely positive about Christianity and that saw the Christian faith either something good or at best neutral. But that culture is gone, and it’s time for new strategies. If we keep running our plays out of the old playbook, we are going to lose the game.

I want to talk frankly about how we can lead the church to not only survive in negative world but thrive.  I’m interested in talking to people who are hungry to make a difference and who are not satisfied to keep running plays out of an outmoded playbook.

Andrew is a brilliant strategic thinker about the local church and its role in the world. He has boldness and courage that I admire. He is willing to do the deep work it takes to get to clarity about hard things and big ideas. This is going to be a challenging and convicting conversation. And I think it is going to be a lot of fun. (If you want to know more about “Negative World” check out Aaron Renn’s book. The link is an Amazon affiliate link, which helps support my work.)

How to join us:

This Underground Seminary will be Sunday April 6th following worship Sunday morning. Lunch will be provided, and we will conclude by 3pm. In order to ensure that there is food and space for everyone, you need to RSVP if you would like to attend. We will send the location for the meeting to you after you RSVP by emailing Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu. Deadline to RSVP is March 28th. 

P.S. It is not too late to register for the March 27th Underground Seminary with Rodney Adams, which I’m playfully calling “What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary.” Details here.

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

Ending Well

10 Monday Mar 2025

Posted by in Life, Ministry

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I do not often struggle to keep my composure, but this Sunday March 2 was very emotional for me. 

I was blessed to return to Lamont, OK, for the first time in almost 17. I served as the pastor of the Methodist Church in Lamont from 2005-2008.

In conversations with folks there, we realized that it was very close to exactly 20 years ago that I was seated for my first official appointment as a pastor. I was in my final year of seminary. I got married the summer before and we both knew we wanted to return to Oklahoma to serve. 

I flew to Tulsa, borrowed a car from my parents, and drove two hours to Lamont, OK. I served for three years in Lamont before I started working on my PhD.

I learned so much during those three years. And I made a ton of mistakes! Here are a few of them for your reading pleasure:

  • I accidentally set the church yard on fire when the basket holding a Tiki Torch burned through and fell onto the ground in the hottest part of summer. Praise God, someone noticed, acted quickly and got it put out. But, to my embarrassment, there was a very visible black burned area in the grass everyone had to walk by on their way into VBS the rest of the week.
  • I also preached a six-week sermon series I very creatively titled “Family Matters,” with weeks focusing on things I knew absolutely nothing about from first-hand experience like being a parent or grandparent. Of course, I shared wisdom about marriage from the literally months of experience I had as a husband! (Now, to be fair: I was trying to share wisdom from the Scriptures, not from my own experience. And I believe that preaching from your experience and not Scripture is one of the major mistakes a preacher can make. Nevertheless, that sermon series was probably a bit comical at best, and presumptuous or completely lacking in self-awareness at worst.)
  • And to take the cake, I didn’t see Ash Wednesday coming (I know… not that hard to figure out) and realized too late we didn’t have ashes. So, I attempted to make some by using ashes from someone’s fireplace that I mixed with water. (No idea why I didn’t google this.) It turns out that doing that can cause a chemical burn. Immediately after the service, people were talking about how it kind of burned and their foreheads were hot. Someone said, “I must be particularly sinful, because I feel like my head is on fire.” Eventually, it was clear that everyone needed to wipe the ashes off right away. One poor woman still had a red cross on her forehead on Easter Sunday.

Despite these embarrassing mistakes (and many others I won’t share for time and to protect the identities of the innocent), the people at Lamont Methodist loved me so well.

A current student of mine at the Asbury Theological Seminary Tulsa Extension Site is now the pastor of First Church of Lamont (now a Global Methodist Church). When he invited me to come back to preach, I joyfully accepted.

You don’t often have the opportunity to return to a place 17 years later and feel like you are stepping back into time with so much being as it was when you left. There were people missing, which was sad. I knew they wouldn’t be there, but I felt their absence. There were also new people. Boys and girls when I pastored in Lamont had become men and women. Many of them had married and had children.

The parsonage next door looked the same. The sanctuary, the fellowship hall, and the parlor all looked the same – in the best way. And there were so many people I immediately recognized. Seeing many of them brought tears of joy to me eyes.

When worship started, I was just overwhelmed with the kindness of the Lord and the generosity of these people to me. We sang songs I’ve sung in places where the Lord has blessed me since I left Lamont.

I felt so thankful for the church. Thankful that these people have been doing their part to hold ground through a difficult season. Thankful that they made hard and faithful choices. Thankful that they are still moving forward, aware that God is not done with them yet.

I think the main reason I struggled to keep my composure in worship was that the Lord showed me that we ended well in Lamont. I was able to grieve an ending in a way that felt healthy looking back. And the church blessed us and released us as we left. They gave us a lovely clock that we have hung on the wall in every place we’ve lived since. I was able to appreciate the gift the people of Lamont gave us with such a gracious end more now than I could understand then.

To be honest, I’m not sure I said much that was helpful to the folks in worship on Sunday. I hope they saw my emotions as a sign of my love and gratitude for them. And even more, I hope they were able to see that as a tiny reflection of the Father’s perfect love for them. 

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ – Jeremiah 29:11

What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary: An Invitation to Underground Seminary

06 Thursday Mar 2025

Posted by in Ministry, Teaching

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I have really enjoyed having my feet in both the church and the academy in my roles here in Tulsa. I am the Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theology Seminary, anchored at our Tulsa, OK Extension Site. I am also the Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. Though they share a connection to the legacy of Francis Asbury, the father of American Methodism, they are separate institutions.

I believe theological education is ultimately for the local church. A seminary should be evaluated based on its graduate’s ability to lead well in the local church. Other outcomes may be appropriate and valuable, but I cannot imagine anything being more central to the legacy of a seminary than the effectiveness of its alumni within the church.

There are some things that don’t fit in courses I teach, or perhaps even in the seminary curriculum at all, that people preparing to lead in the local church need to wrestle with, think about, or just have someone tell them. There are also conversations that I want to have with people who are preparing to be pastors that I think will be helpful to them and I don’t know where they would fit in specific classes.

In my role for Asbury Church, I’m still interested in shaping pastors. So, I have been working on optional, not-for-credit, opportunities for Asbury Theological Seminary students and others that I’m calling “Underground Seminary.”

Underground Seminary is for people preparing to lead in the church who are hungry to learn and grow. They want to gain everything they can from their seminary experience. Some students want to do the least they can to get the most credit possible. And that’s fine. There are seasons where that is appropriate. 

I’m most excited to work with people who know God has more for them and they are going after it. Underground Seminary is for these people.

Our next Underground Seminary meeting is focused on practical details of running a church that they don’t teach you in seminary. It is March 27th from 12-3pm at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. 

Pastors often joke about the things they didn’t teach you in seminary. These are often very practical hands-on aspects of running the life of a church. And that is what this Underground Seminary will focus on: what they don’t teach you in seminary.

Rodney Adams, the Executive Director of Asbury Church, will lead this. And it will focus on strategy, culture, and operations in the day to day running of a church. I have had several conversations about this workshop with Rodney and I believe every church leader would benefit from what Rodney has to share.

In case you don’t already know Rodney, here is why you should want to learn from him:

  • Rodney is a former United States Marine Corps officer. 
  • He worked for a season at a top global investment bank.
  • He has owned and operated his own business.
  • And, most importantly for this discussion, he is currently the Executive Director of Asbury Church.

Asbury is a large church that has 2,500 people in person in weekly worship. In his role, Rodney oversees:

  • 80 full time staff and 60+ part time staff
  • $12.5 million annual budget
  • $12 million foundation
  • 300,000 square foot facilities

Put simply: Rodney know how to run a large church with excellence.

At a personal level, I have never been around an organizational thinker and leader like Rodney. Working with him is fun because I get to see how ideas are actually brought to life. I have an easier time thinking of a thing that would be fun to do in theory. Rodney has great ideas. And he is the person who can take a dream and figure out the steps to make it reality. And, just as important, he can help you realize that an idea won’t work and save time, energy, and frustration.

The goal of Underground Seminary is to bring people hungry for excellence together for content that will equip and prepare them to lead in the church.

This one is going to be fun! 

How to join us:

Lunch will be provided at the beginning of our time together. In order to ensure that there is food and space for everyone, you need to RSVP if you would like to attend. We will send the location for the meeting to you after you RSVP by emailing Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu. Deadline to RSVP is March 20th. 

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

Raising Up Next-Gen Church Leaders

21 Friday Feb 2025

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry, Teaching

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I’m trying to think more clearly about how to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. It seems clear to me that things are shifting and changing, sometimes dramatically. Institutions are changing and sometimes failing. Key leaders are leaving the scene, sometimes because they have retired or died, and other times because a moral failing has been exposed.

I don’t have it figured out yet. But I want to start talking about it more.

My writing often comes from a burden to figure out what I think about something and then try to communicate it as clearly as I can. I think some of my best writing comes when there are two things working in me:

First, I notice that I am working over a problem in my mind and am working hard to get clear about what I think is at stake (something that seems important and complicated or confusing).

Second, I notice a sense of pressure to not talk about it. This is usually unspoken and intuitive on my part. This means I could be wrong, or I could be seeing things. The pressure to not talk about it can either be because it seems like everyone views something as settled, while I have questions or concerns. Or, silence could come from the sense that speaking out could be problematic in terms of upsetting people in power.

Here are two examples of writing that has come from this:

1. I urged churches to start reopening five months into the Covid-19 pandemic. 

2. I expressed my concerns with the proposal of United Methodist bishops to make affirmation or prohibition of same sex marriage dependent on the surrounding dominant culture. 

Neither of those posts are perfect. In rereading them today, I would say things differently in both. But they both helped me think more clearly about matters that were very important to me (and to the church I was part of) when I wrote them. I am proud of them because I believe the Lord used them to help people think more clearly and make hard decisions during very challenging circumstances.

If you aren’t familiar with my writing, these will give you a sense of it. I hope they show my commitment to telling the truth. Of course, I also make mistakes. One of things I think I have often done well is move a conversation forward and bring clarity where it has gotten bogged down or stuck.

So, I’ve been thinking about raising up the next generation of leaders for Jesus’s church.  I’ve been thinking about this longer than I usually think about the kinds of things I write about here. And to my own frustration, I don’t feel like I’ve made as much progress as I usually would have by this point.

I want to articulate why I think this it is hard. It is important to work to understand the moment in which we find ourselves. And I want to begin by naming two models that have been used to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. I want to suggest that people in my networks have almost completely missed the importance of the second model. But first, why is this so hard to think through?

The church in the United States is experiencing major challenges due to massive shifts in the culture, academy, and the church herself.

Aaron Renn does a great job talking about the changes in the dominant culture and how it impacts the church. Check out his book Life in the Negative World [Affiliate link]. I also follow his work at aaronrenn.com.

The academy is also undergoing massive change, which includes theological education (the seminaries where pastors are trained). This would be another post, so I won’t unpack this further right now.

And finally, the church herself is undergoing dramatic change. I think most of the changes in the church come from the influence of the first two. Many large non-denominational and congregational churches have also been impacted by the fall from grace of senior leaders of these churches. This has happened enough over the past few years, many feel uneasy in these kinds of churches, even if their own local church has not been directly impacted.

Here is an image I have used to describe what I think is happening:

Tectonic plates are shifting in the culture. When tectonic plates shift, there are earthquakes. There is rumbling. There is shaking. Often major edifices are damaged or even collapse when tectonic plates shift.

I think we are seeing this kind of major disruption and change in the church today.

There have been (at least) two major models for raising up leaders for the church.

I’m sure much more nuance could be added here, so feel free to fill this out in your own thinking or experience. The point here is to get some things in place in order to move forward.

My own experience was largely with the first model. I will call it the ecclesial bureaucracy model. I’ll use my experience to explain it:

I received a calling to ordained ministry through a short-term mission trip to Mexico when I was a junior in college. One short week changed my life in so many ways. By the end of the week, I had a deep sense that there was nothing more fulfilling I could do than give my life in service to the church, by the grace of God. I remember time and time again being stunned by how joyful it was to serve the Lord through the church.

I knew nothing. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

But there were also a lot of things that were clear and decisions I didn’t really have to make. I was a United Methodist and didn’t question whether I should pursue ordination in the UMC or not.

The blessing of this was that the path forward was clear. The obvious next step was to attend seminary after I graduated from college. I began having conversations with the senior pastor of the church I was attending, who was generous with his time and wisdom. I formally applied to become a “certified candidate” during my first year of seminary.

I did not have a long-term relationship with the same local church throughout my time in the ordination process. I moved quite a bit from my freshman year of high school through seminary.

So to summarize: Once I felt a calling to ministry, I basically got on a moving walkway where the next step was fairly clear. And if I was approved for ordination by denominational authorities, I would also be appointed to pastor in a local church. If approved for ordination, I would, literally, be guaranteed an appointment (a pastoral position in a local church).

I think there are strengths and weaknesses of this model. And they could be done better or worse than it was done in the UMC when I went through the process. When I was teaching United Methodist polity, I used to tell students that the number one value of the UMC ordination process appeared to me to be persistence. If you kept going, you would almost certainly be ordained. 

(This was most evident to me when someone in the conference I was ordained in clearly revealed that they did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They were not discontinued or removed from the process at that point. They were deferred and had to rewrite and repeat the interview process the next year. They were then approved and ordained. Is it more likely this person’s views on the bodily resurrection of Jesus changed, or that they found a more acceptable way to present (or cover up) their heretical views?)

The second model I’ll call the apprenticeship model. It was not my experience, so I can’t give as much detail. I think this approach is most common in non-denominational and congregational church polities. For this reason, I also suspect it is less uniform and more organic and relational.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. A person is raised up for leadership in the church by someone who is recognized as an excellent leader in the church. Preparation for ministry comes by being invited to get closer to the senior leader with behind-the-scenes access. Over time, they are given opportunities to lead with the senior leader’s oversight and feedback. And eventually, they are released to lead on their own, though likely with continued oversight or spiritual covering.

Sometimes a person in this system will replace the senior leader when they step down. Depending on the system, they might move to a different context taking on significant leadership responsibilities.

This model is highly relational. The person who is being raised up for leadership in the church spends significant time with the person who is discipling, mentoring, or apprenticing them. It is inefficient in the sense that it requires proximity and a lot of time together. It is also driven by the needs of the person being raised up and so is very contextual and responsive to where they are and how they need to grow. It is also inefficient because one person cannot have this kind of relationship with an unlimited number of people.

Another way to think of this model is to think of Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism and other relational discipleship making tools. These are usually focused on discipleship as the goal for all who come to faith in Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that those who are raised up to lead in these kinds of contexts continue to be raised up to lead in this way.

I suspect that very often a sense of calling to lead in the church comes within the context of these discipling relationships.

During the season when I first began to feel a tug to rethink some of my assumptions about how to best raise up leaders for the church, I started getting to know a non-denominational church near where I lived. The folks in this church were very gracious to me and the senior pastor met with me. I wanted to ask him two questions in particular:

How did you get to be in your position? I remember the answer, though it was more fleshed out than just this, because I had heard it from others in the same church family: I lived in Buddy’s basement. 

In other words, the founding pastor invited him to come closer, literally into his home, for a season. And he poured into him and raised him up.

The second question was: Is there anything that I do that can help you and those you are raising up? We developed a degree at Asbury Theological Seminary that came directly out of my conversations with this pastor and the pastor of another large non-denominational church at another place I taught. (Send me an email [scroll down] if you want to know more about it.)

I think both models would be improved by the other.

Non-denominational and congregational churches that don’t require any formal education outside of themselves make themselves vulnerable.

Large denominations that have heavily bureaucratic ordination processes have greater risk in my view.

My working hypothesis is that the most effective pastors in the United States at present came up through more of the apprenticeship model than the ecclesial bureaucracy model. My experience is that almost all of them end up pursuing a seminary education, but it usually comes after they have been leading in meaningful ways in the local church.

So, Now What?

For most established leaders reading this, the action step is most likely to look for people to bring in closer to walk with you and build them up. One of the problems with bureaucratic approaches to ordination is that they are so depersonalized. People don’t grow in self-awareness because the kind of one-on-one conversations that happen in an apprenticeship don’t happen nearly as often.

Here is what I am seeing: I believe the church, particularly healthy large congregations with stable leadership and deep roots, is only going to be more important going forward for the work of raising up leaders for the church. All churches are important in this work. The local church is the ordinary context for hearing a calling to ministry. I think larger churches just have the capacity and the resources to invest in the next generation for their own sake.

I think large churches will develop coaching trees like Nick Saban did at Alabama. People will serve for a season in these churches and experience accelerated growth in a host of ways in these contexts. Some, who can joyfully stay long-term in an associate type of role, will stay for decades. But most will serve for a season, be built up, equipped, and sent out to lead with excellence.

And I have a feeling this will be less dependent on denominational affiliation than it has ever been in the history of Christianity in the United States.

This vision excites me because Asbury Church (where I am) is the kind of church that can do an excellent job of apprenticing people to be excellent leaders.

Asbury is a conservative evangelical church from the Wesleyan theological heritage that averages about 2,500 in person in weekly worship at one campus. At Asbury, intentional and strategic attention is given to the culture of the church. Asbury not only has a great culture, but the senior leaders can tell you why they are doing what they are doing and how to work to set, shift, or move culture. This is so important! And there is a clear emphasis on discipleship. As with our work to build and maintain a great culture, the church can articulate a coherent vision for how we make disciples.

And one of the most unique things about Asbury Church, within the context of this post, is that Asbury has a passion for education. Asbury hosts the Asbury Theological Seminary Tulsa Extension Site on its campus. So, a person preparing to become a pastor could come to Asbury Church and be in seminary here at the same time.

Asbury Church’s commitment to education is also evident in its decision to launch Asbury Classical School this year.

One of the saddest things to me about my time in theological education has been seeing the negative impact a seminary tends to have on local churches in the immediate geographical area of the seminary. At a previous institution, someone commented on the “dead zone” that surrounded the seminary. 

What a gift that I get to teach at a seminary whose mission and values I agree with at a church I am proud to be part of and that I am confident will bless my students.

If you, or someone you know, is wrestling with a calling to ministry, I would love to connect with you. Maybe you should move to Tulsa and see for yourself. I am learning more and more that proximity and time within a relational atmosphere are crucial to raising up the next generation of leaders for the church.

I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.

My Wesleyan Discipleship Class and What God Is Doing in Tulsa

15 Wednesday Jan 2025

Posted by in Class Meetings, Life, Ministry

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For the first time in my career as a seminary professor, I have had to be concerned about whether the classroom would fit all the students who were signing up to take my class. For the first time, I have had to tell people who wanted to take vacation time off work and pay their own way to travel to Tulsa just to sit in on the class as auditors (which means they get no academic credit!) that I could not let them in the class. 

Oh, and this class is just an elective. 

What is happening?!

A few years ago, I taught a class that was unlike any other I had taught. I have had a handful of great experiences as a seminary professor. But this class was different.

If you had asked me when I was teaching Methodist History at Candler School of Theology, for example, to describe the best class I’d taught, I would have talked about feeling like the students really “got it.” They left the class with a mastery of the key concepts and ideas I wanted them to receive. They were engaged and genuinely interested in the material. And having a better understanding of the meaning of Methodism, they had a deeper commitment to working, by the grace of God, to renew the Wesleyan theological tradition.

And yet, I often felt like something was missing. Or maybe better, it felt like something hadn’t quite come into alignment in terms of what I was trying to do overall.

In the Fall of 2022, I had the opportunity to teach a course that, at the time, I would have said was the best class I had ever taught. But it also occurred during the most painful and confusing time of my life.

On the one hand, I had certainty during the class that exactly what I was wanting to see happen was happening in my students during the class. As a teacher, you don’t always know what is happening with your students. But sometimes you do. Sometimes it is not awesome. And you know it. And sometimes you know that your students are experiencing exactly what you are hoping they experience. And that is so awesome you can’t really appreciate it until it happens, or at least I didn’t know it could be that good until it was.

On the other hand, I found out in the last half of the semester that I had not been selected for a position I had applied for and, as a result, I was being terminated at the end of the semester.

The class was a great experience for me. I loved those students so much. I was thankful I got to finish this class and the other one I was teaching. It was also one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve ever done.

I walked through it the best I could. I’m sure I made mistakes. I am so thankful for the healing that has happened and continues to happen.

One thing that was really challenging was the sense that I had finally figured something out. It felt like magic in the classroom. And I was gutted that I was not going to get to continue doing the things I had learned that worked.

But God.

The Lord, in his kindness to me, opened a door to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary, the school I’d been yearning for more connection with for years, in the city (Tulsa, OK) I had been feeling drawn to for years.

Last Spring, I was given the opportunity to teach this same class again for Asbury at our main campus in Wilmore, KY. Seven students enrolled in a class that was brand new and not even in the ATS catalogue yet. I was so thankful to get to teach again. 

My second time through the class showed me that the previous class was not a fluke. 

The things I learned were repeatable, which is a key principle of disciple-making work.

But looking back I also think there was some spiritual interference. For example, just before the intensive part of the class (where we all gathered for 20 hours of class in 2.5 days), I lost my voice! I mean I really lost my voice, for the first time in my life. It was bizarre. The Lord gave me just enough strength to communicate each day of the intensive and it improved just enough for me to manage to preach in chapel after my class ended before I headed back to Tulsa.

Tomorrow evening, I will start teaching my Wesleyan Discipleship class for the third time. 

And this time 34 students are coming to Tulsa. 

34 students! 

As far as I know, this is the largest class we’ve ever had in Tulsa. And it is an elective.

And I have this deep confidence in my spirit that collectively this class is going to experience the blessing of the Lord’s presence with us.

At every intensive I’ve taught in Tulsa, the Spirit has been present in a powerful way. It has felt to me like Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa Extension Site is a laboratory of the Holy Spirit. We dive deep into the content and information of the course, while also actively seeking to experience the things we are learning about. 

A course on Wesleyan Discipleship is tailor made for just that. We will learn about band meetings and class meetings, laying the historical and theological foundation for these core practices. And we will not only learn about the class meeting, we will experience it in a laboratory where we can do the real thing, talk about it, and discuss how we can practice it more effectively.

By the grace of God, we will learn about the stages of growth in faith and how to help people move from being spiritual infants all the way to spiritual parents.

And the Father will be given permission to do whatever He wants to do during our time together.

The past year and a half has been so good. So fun. 

Today, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I cannot wait to see what God does tomorrow and this weekend! 

Please pray for me to teach well and for all of us to be open and receptive to receive what the Spirit has for us!

Thank you, Jesus.

Interested in studying with me in Tulsa? Check out Asbury Theological Seminary here: https://asburyseminary.edu

Join My Seminary Course in Wesleyan Discipleship in Tulsa [January 2025]

24 Thursday Oct 2024

Posted by in Accountability, Class Meetings, Holiness, Methodist History, Ministry

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I am teaching a course on Wesleyan Discipleship in Tulsa as a January-Term course at Asbury Theological Seminary this coming January (2025). You should join me! 

What is the course about?

Here is my description of the course:

Wesleyan Discipleship explores the history, theology, and practice of discipleship through a Wesleyan lens. Particular attention is given to the role of communal formation in eighteenth-century Methodism. John Wesley’s theology of discipleship is explored, along with a variety of aspects of Christian formation in community in early Methodism. Particular attention is given to the way Wesley’s theology of social holiness was expressed in early Methodist small groups, especially the class meeting and the band meeting. Students will apply the historical and theological understanding of Wesleyan discipleship to contemporary ministry contexts.

Why I am FIRED UP about this class:

This class will have an intensive on site here in Tulsa from the evening of January 16th through January 18th, 2025. I LOVE the time together with students at intensives! This class beautifully lends itself to teaching in this format. 

Hybrid classes have 20 hours of in-person instruction over 2.5 days. (The rest of the course requirements are met through online engagement and completion of online modules.) It is intense! But I have also found, perhaps surprisingly, that it is also an opportunity for a spiritual retreat for students. 

The in-person experience gives us the opportunity to worship together. We will start the class by attending worship at the Thursday evening service at Asbury Church, where Rev. Andrew Forrest will be preaching. Andrew is an exceptionally gifted preacher of the Scriptures and a brilliant communicator. I love being able to start class off by tangibly connecting the church and academy by walking across the parking lot to go to worship.

We will also have an Asbury Theological Seminary – Tulsa chapel service for the class and students in the area on Friday January 17.

I will get to spend hours talking about my scholarly passion – the importance of community and connection for the Christian life. I love getting to teach students and engage their questions around these topics!

And most important, we will spend time talking about and practicing ways to reintroduce these tried and tested methods that gave Methodism its name.

At the end of the course, students will have the kind of knowledge gain you would expect from a typical seminary course. But they will also have experience participating in class meetings, experiencing small group dynamics, and reflecting on various challenges and opportunities of leading small groups like class and band meetings.

I think of this course as like a laboratory. We will learn a lot about the concepts, but we will also engage them in a hands-on way. In a laboratory you can not only experience a class meeting, but you can also talk about your experience of a class meeting. In my view, this is essential for becoming an expert practitioner. You need not only a theoretical framework and some practical experience, but you also need a place to talk about your experience so you can acknowledge, address, and overcome obstacles and challenges.

I am more confident than I have ever been that groups like the Wesleyan class meeting and band meeting will be at the center of Christian discipleship in these new and strange times we are entering.

These intensives are aptly named. They are not easy. J-term is not a short cut. In fact, it is a three-week academic sprint. My goal is to maximize the 20 hours we get to spend together to suck the marrow out of the class and be as fully equipped to make disciples of Jesus Christ in the contemporary church as possible. 

I want students who come hungry and ready to learn and grow. And that is what we are seeing here in Tulsa. It is SO FUN!

How is the course being taught?

I am teaching this course as a hybrid course at Asbury Theological Seminary at our Tulsa, OK Extension Site (housed at Asbury Church).

What is a January-Term, or J-Term, course?

A J-Term course is a full three credit course that is offered entirely within the month of January. This coming J-Term will start on January 2, 2025 and conclude on January 24, 2025.

What is a hybrid course?

A hybrid course is a course that has parts that are online and parts that are in person. This specific course will have four online modules based on four main sets of reading, students will write a reflection paper that summarizes the content of the reading, critically engages it, and applies it to their own ministry context.

The in-person part is January 16-18, 2025 at Asbury Church’s Development Center in Tulsa, OK. The in-person meeting will be from 6:00pm-9:00pm January 16, 8:30am-5:30pm January 17, and 8:30-5:30pm January 18. The in-person meeting is required for completion of the course. It is also the highlight of the entire course!

Does this course meet the Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation requirement for ordination in the Global Methodist Church?

The Convening General Conference of the Global Methodist Church, which met a few weeks back, updated the educational requirements for ordination. And one of the changes that was made was the addition of a course called “Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation.” I don’t mean to brag, but I believe this course hits the bullseye for what the GMC is looking for here! So, yes, if you are seeking ordination in the GMC, this course meets the Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation course requirement. You can take this course and meet all GMC ordination requirements with either an Asbury Theological Seminary M.Div. or our 60 credit (exactly 20 courses) Master’s in Christian Ministry (MACM).

Should I take this course if I am not in the Global Methodist Church?

Yes! 

If you want to help your church more effectively make discipleship of Jesus Christ, this course is for you. 

I am passionate about Wesleyan Discipleship, not because I am most passionate about John Wesley, but because I believe the Wesleyan theological tradition has a proven track record of excellence in intentional and effective disciple making. We do well to learn from experts who have gone before us. This course is not specifically for students from any one denominational tradition. I mentioned the GMC above only because there is obvious relevance for the GMC because they just made this exact course a required course to be ordained an elder in the GMC. (Your church or denomination should too. This topic really is that essential for succeeding in the 21st century church.)

Can I take this course if I am not an Asbury Theological Seminary student?

Yes! The easiest way to do this would be to apply now to become an Asbury Theological Seminary student. We have a variety of degree programs, and I would be thrilled to talk to you about any of them! There is time to apply now and start this January.

If you are interested in applying to Asbury Theological Seminary or for this course in particular, reach out to me here (scroll down to the bottom of the page) and I will get back to you soon. Be sure to include your email so I know how to reach you. 

Not ready to apply to one of our Master’s degree programs? You may be able to apply to take the course as a non-degree seeking student. You also may be able to audit the course. Both require an application and auditing requires permission from the instructor. For either of these, reach out to me at the link immediately above.

I am open to considering some auditors. Auditors do not receive any academic credit for the course and do not turn in any assignments. They are given permission to sit in on the in-person part of the class and participate in class discussions and activities. However, I will only open the class up to auditors if there are open seats after the registration period closes. (I would assume auditing the course would not satisfy denominational ordination requirements, but you should check with your own denominational leaders.)

What is the official title of the course?

The course is cross listed as a Spiritual Formation course and a Theology course. So you can sign up for either TH650 Wesleyan Discipleship or SF650 Wesleyan Discipleship.

What are the assigned readings in the course?

Students will read a few short essays from John Wesley. And they will read these three books (affiliate links):

The Class Meeting: Reclaiming a Forgotten (and Essential) Small Group Experience, Kevin M. Watson

The Band Meeting: Rediscovering Relational Discipleship in Transformational Community, Kevin M. Watson and Scott T. Kisker

Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches that Make Disciples, Jim Putman

I cannot wait for this class! I hope to see you here in Tulsa January 16-18, 2025.

Powerful Divine Healing Prayers at Asbury Church Tulsa, OK

07 Wednesday Aug 2024

Posted by in Life, Ministry, Sermons

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The video above is the sermon I preached at Asbury Church here in Tulsa, OK on July 28th. It was such a special Sunday. I’d like to share a bit of what I experienced with you.

This summer at Asbury Church, we have been working through the book of James. We created a prayer guide to help our congregation read the entire book of James and commit to a daily rhythm of prayer. We called the series “Summer of Prayer.” And it was awesome! 

I was given the opportunity to preach the last week in the series. I preached on James 5:13-16, focusing on the instructions related to praying for divine healing. Here is the passage: 

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.  

I still don’t feel like I can adequately describe how special the weekend was and what a blessing it was to me.  

Caroline Ewy, a college intern at Asbury, shared her testimony and a song she wrote. She did a fantastic job – so cool to see. Caroline’s story was so powerful! Even if you have zero interest in my sermon, you should check out her story and the song she wrote and performed live. You will not regret it! 

In the weeks before I preached, I had a pretty strong sense that we were supposed to do what James says to do, not just talk about it. Basically, I knew I needed to invite people to come forward, be anointed with oil, and receive prayer for divine healing. 

For me, one of the most vulnerable things in ministry is standing in the tension of saying I think God wants to do something. It is vulnerable for me because I am always acutely aware that this requires response by the people you are speaking to. Will anyone respond? And even more than that, I am deeply aware that I am asking them to pray for something that I do not have the power or ability to do myself. God is the one who does the work. 

It was a precious gift to me the way Asbury Church leaned in collectively. And even more, though I am often tempted to shrink back, the Lord is faithful!

At our Thursday night service there were 137 people in attendance and 26 came forward to receive prayer. We had more than 2,300 in attendance at our four services last week. And there was a significant response at each service. The 11 AM service went past 12:30 because we were still praying with people! I think it is safe to say 10% of the people who came to worship in person came forward for prayer.

And since then, we’ve had people asking to come by the church to be anointed and prayed for. We have also received some wonderful testimonies to the ways the Lord has answered our prayers. 

God is so good!  

The Sunday that I preached was also the one year anniversary of our move to Tulsa, OK. I am so thankful for the ways the past year have brought both healing and blessing. The partnership with Asbury Theological Seminary in Tulsa and Asbury Church have been more than I could have dreamed. I am so thankful. And this summer has just been SO FUN!

I may write a bit more about my first year in Tulsa in the coming days. For now, I hope you’ll watch the video above and check out Caroline’s story and song with my sermon following. 

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary and Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK.

Powerful Moments at West Plains Annual Conference: A Reflection

21 Friday Jun 2024

Posted by in Christian Living, Class Meetings, Life, Ministry

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When Rev. Mike Schafer, President pro tem, of the West Plains GMC Annual Conference reached out to me last fall and asked me to preach and teach at the upcoming conference, I was thrilled! And the West Plains Annual Conference exceeded my expectations.

One of my favorite moments of the conference was when Mike described something he had never had happen in his entire ministry: an Annual Conference attendee asked if they could bring a friend! That gives an idea of the atmosphere and spiritual environment in West Plains.

I showed up planning to preach one message, and instead spoke on Matthew 13:44:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sees all that he has and buys that field. [NRSV]

I shifted because the Spirit did something when Mike prayed for me right before my sermon. I don’t remember exactly what he prayed, but it had something to do with the Spirit opening me up to receive what he wanted to say, even if it was different than what I’d planned. I had been wrestling with a sense that what I had prepared was not quite right and Mike’s prayer brought clarity that I was supposed to change courses and trust the Lord.

The truth is that I don’t really remember most of what I said because it was so unscripted. That is not a comfortable place for me. And I didn’t think I did a great job. When Mike gave an altar call after my sermon, I went to the altar and repented and apologized to the Lord because I just felt like I missed it with my message.

I am grateful for the exceptionally gracious feedback I received from many people in West Plains about how the Lord had used the sermon for them.

God is good!

The ordination service was powerful as well. A few things really stood out to me. First, the unity in the room, not only among the ordinands, but also among the clergy and laity in attendance was palpable and a joy. When Bishop Jones went through the Historic Questions, it was the first time in my ministry I wasn’t wondering if people meant “No” even though they were saying “Yes.”


Bishop Jones led in a way that kept the focus on the main thing and the seriousness of what was happening. That was a gift to experience. 

Two other things happened in the ordination service that were beautiful. First, immediately after ordination, Bishop Jones celebrated Communion and the newly ordained served the rest of the congregation. It was so well done! Second, after Communion, Bishop Jones gave an invitation to receive a call to ministry during the final song. I saw at least three people from the congregation respond to that invitation! I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed that before. It was so hopeful and encouraging to just have a strong focus on the significance of ordination and even more so on the Triune God who speaks and calls us to serve.

Rev. Schafer asked me to speak on Wesleyan discipleship, focusing on class and band meetings on Saturday morning. If you know me, it is pretty easy to convince me to do that! I have been thinking quite a bit about the old(er) Barna survey that is outlined in the book Maximum Faith (you can find a summary of the ten stops of the Christian life here). I summarized those findings and the way they point to the need for relational connection and deeper discipleship across the church in the United States. This, in my view, only increases the importance of returning to our Wesleyan heritage of intentional discipleship through small groups.

I had a blast teaching that material!

Finally, I got to experience two of the three TED-style talks given by folks in West Plains. Wow! The first talk was about a fire ministry after the massive fires in Texas last year. Even more than that, it was a powerful testimony about God’s work in one woman’s life. The second talk was by a rancher and a lawyer who felt called to co-pastor the GMC church in their town. The commitment to the local church and the authority of Scripture was powerful! I wish I’d been able to stay for the final one and the rest of the afternoon!

Preaching and teaching at a place like the West Plains Conference is an enormous privilege. It still surprises me to be asked to speak in places like this. I love doing it and it is a blessing to me. Every time, I think, I can’t believe I get to do this! God has been so kind to me and I am thankful.

One final thing about my time at this conference. Mike Schafer will become the first Connectional Operations Officer for the Global Methodist Church, starting August 15, 2024. Leadership in West Plains recognized Mike for his service as the first President of the West Plains Conference and gave thanks for this new role. One of the people who praised Schafer’s leadership in West Plains commented that he was exactly the right person to serve in this new key leadership role in the GMC because he had not spent his entire career trying to receive this kind of position. I loved the way that was put! And it rings true of my experience with Mike. His selection for this role is encouraging to me and a hopeful sign of things to come for the Global Methodist Church. (You can read more about Rev. Schafer and his new role here.)

Thank you, West Plains, for having me! And special thanks to Emma Stonum for sharing the photos I’ve used in this post.

Reminder: My new book releases next Tuesday, June 25th

My new book Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline: A History of the Wesleyan Tradition in the United States releases on Tuesday, June 25th. I wrote a post about the book here. Please check it out. This is the first book I’ve directly asked folks to pre-order. Doing so helps the long-term success of the book in a variety of ways. It would really help me out if you would take a moment to head to Amazon (affiliate link) or Zondervan and order the book now. I am really encouraged by the early interest in this book! Thank you so much to all of you who have already pre-ordered it.

In this time of rapid change and chaos, it is imperative that we reground ourselves in our identity. This book explains the core identity of the Wesleyan theological tradition and points to lessons from the past that will help us be more faithful in the present and future.

Thank you!

Life in the Negative World: A Review

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

Posted by in Book Review, Christian Living, Ministry

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In February 2022, Aaron Renn published a piece in First Things Magazine titled “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.” The article laid out a metanarrative for thinking about the changes evangelicalism in the United States has experienced over the past fifty years or so. (Renn actually first developed this argument in 2014, but the First Things piece brought a significant increase in attention to his argument.)

This article received a lot of attention, both positive and negative. I have found Renn’s way of framing the moment we are in to be very helpful. I was thrilled to see that he was publishing a book on this topic, Life in the Negative World, which was released just a few weeks ago.

Here is the heart of the argument:

Since that bygone midcentury era, the status of Christianity in America has passed through multiple thresholds as it declined, dividing that post-1963 period into three major eras, or worlds, characterized by three ways society at large has viewed and related to Christianity. These are the positive world, the neutral world, and the negative world (dates are approximate).

  • Positive World (1964-1994). Society at large retains a mostly positive view of Christianity. To be known as a good, churchgoing man or woman remains part of being an upstanding citizen of society. Publicly being a Christian enhances social status. Christian moral norms are still the basic moral norms of society, and violating them can lead to negative consequences.
  • Neutral World (1994-2014). Society takes a neutral stance toward Christianity. Christianity no longer has privileged status, but nor is it disfavored. Being publicly known as a Christian has neither a positive nor a negative impact on social status. Christianity is one valid option among many within a pluralistic, multicultural public square. Christian moral norms retain some residual effect.
  • Negative World (2014-present). In this era, society has an overall negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the higher status domains of society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and now seen as a threat to the public good and new public moral order. Holding to Christian moral views, particularly affirming the teachings of the Bible, or violating the new secular moral order can lead to negative consequences. (6-7)

Renn unpacks this argument at length in Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in An Anti-Christian Culture. But the book is actually more about how Christians ought to live in negative world than it is a book-length argument trying to convince you that we are in negative world.

The phrase that has kept coming to mind as I have thought about Renn’s thesis and as the church seeks to respond faithfully to our present cultural moment is this: 

Everything depends on knowing what time it is.

If we are in negative world and we respond with neutral world strategies, we will fail. Every. Single. Time.

And my sense is that most of the people in my tribe are living as if the last page of the calendar in 2014 had never turned. 

One of the biggest indicators that you are attempting to live in the past is any attempt to woo the world on its own terms.

And I see this all over the place. If we could just explain ourselves in the right way, people would realize that we are reasonable, good, and likeable people. Let me put my understanding of Renn’s argument sharply: 

If you are an evangelical Christian, they will never like you. 

My sense has been that for quite a while, the church in America has tried to do evangelism by winsomeness. But if you are a traditional Christian, they are never going to like you. Instead of seeking to avoid giving any offense and trying to explain why our convictions are reasonable on the anti-Christian culture’s own terms, we need to evangelize. We need to seek conversion to Jesus and submission to him as Lord of all creation. Winsomeness is a losing strategy in negative world. (Please note that this is not the same thing as recommending the opposite of winsomeness as the right strategy. I am also not advocating for anger or bitterness or anything else contrary to the fruit of the Spirit.) 

If you think all of this is dead wrong, I would encourage you to read Renn’s book. If you read it and are entirely unconvinced, then there will at least be clarity that we are working on very different problems. May God bless you in your work. I hope you will ask the Lord to bless my work as I work according to the truth as I best see it.

I am convinced those of us in the American church do live in negative world. This is true of our context. And it is independent of denominational affiliation across that context.

I suspect that most of the engagement with Renn’s book will consist of two responses:

  • Evaluation of the framework itself. Does he get the details of positive, neutral, and negative world right? And most importantly, are we in negative world?
  • Engagement with the prescriptions for life in negative world. What does Renn get right? Where is he off?

I think these are important and I will read these kinds of engagement with interest.

However, I want to respond to Renn’s book in a different way. 

As I read Life in the Negative World, I often just felt sad. I felt sad because I know so few people who are doing this kind of work. I felt sad because even after having left the United Methodist Church, I still often feel like making progress on the issues facing the church is an uphill battle. 

Having left the UMC, some seem to think the first order of business is showing the world we are not the crazy, bigoted fundies our enemies have said we are. But this posture is still reacting on the terms set by those who fundamentally disagree with us and will never like us.

Rather, I think the first order of business for those leaving the UMC is to get our own house in order as soon as it is properly our house and not the United Methodist Church’s house. 

For many of us, a ruthless inventory is needed before we seek to enter the Promised Land of whether we are still carrying Egypt around with us.

Life in Negative World is, in my view, an important book simply because it is paying attention to the big picture and it is willing to risk speaking the truth as clearly and accurately as possible, even when it is uncomfortable, seems like bad news, or might offend.

On the one hand, we need to do our own work to develop moral courage, boldness, clarity, and a willingness to suffer for the core claims of the gospel, if necessary. And on the other hand, I believe that those who find themselves in leadership positions must use their power and influence to make it easier and not more difficult for people to “live not by lies.”

It is past time for those in the United States who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ to lay down their reputations and fear of man in obedience to the Lord.

If we live in negative world, and I believe we do, there are major adjustments that need to be made, and yesterday, in almost every single way we approach the Christian faith. Evangelistic strategies that worked in the 1990s and 2000s will not work in negative world. (And at least in my world, we never really had evangelistic strategies in these decades anyway.) The same is true for discipleship.

I have been reading Daniel 3 over and over again for years now. Daniel 3 is a beautiful story of cultural differentiation. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are so grounded in their faith that they can respond under immense pressure to the claims of the world and the demands of empire on their lives. They are differentiated from their cultural moment. They don’t pick fights to be nasty or pursue conflict. But they are willing to stand and put their entire trust in the Lord, even under very real threat of death.

This passage gets me every time:

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. (Daniel 3:17-18 NLT)

I long to see a church in the United States with his kind of clarity, conviction, and courage.

I am thankful for Aaron Renn’s willingness to step forward and offer new ideas and prod evangelicals in the United States to think more carefully about the times we live in that we might be faithful. This is not easy to do. I suspect it has come at a cost for him personally, though I do not know this.

If we are wrong, we can change our minds. But if we are too afraid to think or take any risks to ask questions or challenge the dominant culture and its brokenness, we are blind guides.

One more thing:

I was excited to see that the senior pastor of my church, Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK wrote an endorsement for Life in the Negative World. Here is why Rev. Andrew Forrest thinks you should read the book:

The most important distinction in the American church today is not the one between liberal and conservative, or high church and low church, or mainline and evangelical; no, the most important distinction in the American church today is between those who recognize that we live in the negative world and those who haven’t yet accepted that fact. I am in the former camp, and Aaron Renn has given me the vocabulary I need to help others see the world as it is. Every now and then a writer and thinker comes along who helps us see the world more clearly, and Aaron Renn has been that guide for me. In Life in the Negative World he does two important things: (1) He helps us see the world as it actually is and not as we wish it to be. (2) He gives us a way forward. I’d recommend this book to every pastor I know, and I’d like everyone in my church to read it.

(Links to the book in this post are Affiliate links, which means if you use them, it helps to support this blog.)

It is time to start reopening churches #Covid-19

07 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry

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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.