Category Archives: Ministry

The Methodist Class Meeting for the 21st Century: Why Classes?

02 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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This is the second post in a series on the contemporary relevance and practical application of the Methodist class meeting. In the previous post, I tried to make sure we were all on the same page by giving a brief history of the origin and development of the class meeting in early Methodism. In this post I will discuss the potential contributions I believe the class meeting can make for 21st century Methodism (or any Christians who are seeking to grow together in their faith). This post also will answer some of the questions I have received from you about the difference between the class meeting, small groups, and accountability groups.

The key contribution that the class meeting can make to contemporary Christianity is that it provides an entry point for every Christian to be in connection with one another in a way that is focused on the dynamic process of the Christian life. In general, the Christian life is a fluid process, people tend to either grow and mature in their faith or they tend to decrease in their commitment to their faith.

The class meeting is a helpful tool for increasing the likelihood that people will move forward in their faith for at least two key reasons. 1) The class meeting joins people together in small groups so that people are not lost in church. While this may seem most common or most likely in large churches, people can be “lost” in the smallest churches. In churches of almost any size, I suspect there are people who are connected with the church in some way, but who are not really known by other people in the church. This is largely unintentional, but when a church does not plan for ways to try to connect every person who is involved in the life of the church, someone is inevitably going to be left on the sidelines. The class meeting provides a structure that can connect everyone to a small group of people within the community of faith.

2) The format of the class meeting draws attention every week to the reality that the Christian life is not static. Every week each person in the class meeting is asked the simple question: “How is it with your soul?” Or, “How is your life in God?” In the classes that I have been a part of, simply getting into the rhythm of anticipating answering that question each week helps people to be more aware of how God is at work in their lives and how they are cooperating with God, or failing to cooperate with God. The content of the class meeting, then, is the lives of the people who are present. The goal of the class meeting is growth in holiness of the members of the class.

At this point, the difference between the class meeting and most Sunday school classes can be seen. To put it rather starkly, in the typical Sunday school class the content of the class is the Bible or a book of some sort. The goal is to learn new information. In my experience, people feel that a Sunday school class has been successful if at the end of the class they have learned something new, or have come to think about something in a new way.

In theory, and perhaps all too often in reality, someone could attend a Sunday school class for years, learning all kinds of information about the Bible or about Christian beliefs without growing in their faith one bit. Someone could be in a Sunday school class for years and their life with God could be worse at the end of the period of time than it was at the beginning – and it would be possible that nobody else would even know!

In the class meeting, there is no guarantee that the same person would be doing better spiritually. But they would have the opportunity to give voice to their struggles every week and the rest of the people in the group would have some idea of what was going on with them. They would be able to walk with them and pray for them.

The basic difference between the class meeting and Sunday school is that the class meeting focuses on transformation, on us becoming more and more like Christ. The Sunday school class focuses on information, on us learning information about Christ. To be fair, the intent of Sunday school is that this information will help us to live better lives as Christians. However, this is a second step, and one that often does not receive focus. I wonder if many Methodists have become so addicted to informational approaches to discipleship that they no longer think about how what they are learning is impacting the way they are living their lives.

It is difficult to provide a neat distinction between the class meeting and small groups or accountability groups, in part because the class meeting is a type of small group or accountability group. First, a class meeting is a small group, because it is a group that is small. However, a class meeting is a specific type of small group. The point here is that you can talk about a class meeting as a type of small group, but you cannot talk about all small groups as a type of class meeting. The key distinction is that in a class meeting the focus of the group must be on every person having the chance to talk about their life with God every week. If a small group gathers to read and study a book (no matter how amazing the book might be), it is not a class meeting.

Accountability groups are perhaps more similar to class meetings, in that it is generally assumed that an accountability group involves giving an account to the other people in the group. In other words, accountability groups are usually not dependent on curriculum or group study. Rather, accountability groups are oriented toward a voluntary decision to be accountable to a specific group of people for living a certain kind of life, the specifics of which are usually agreed upon by the group.

At one level, the class meeting is an accountability group. In our brief look at the class meeting in early Methodism, we saw that the class meeting was a place where people were held accountable for keeping the General Rules. And yet, at another level, the class meeting is actually a bit less intense than what most people have in mind when they think of being in an accountability group. In the early Methodist structure, the band meeting (a group of about 5 people that involved confessing specific sins) was more similar to the generally understood meaning of an accountability group.

The fact that the class meeting is a less intense form of accountability is a crucial point for understanding its potential contribution to contemporary Christianity. In most conceptions of discipleship or Christian formation, it seems to me that a combination of tools are used. There are usually classes offered that will teach people the basics of the Bible, Christian beliefs, or the particularities of the denomination of which the specific church is a part. However, what is often missing is a basic structure that will bring Christians of all levels of maturity together with the basic goal of living out their convictions.

To put it differently, most people who go to church are not willing to join an accountability group where they meet in order to tell each other the sins they have committed of which they are the most ashamed. The early Methodist approach to Christian formation recognized this and created something that was less intense so that every person could have a place where they did come together to talk at a more general and less invasive level about their life as a Christian. Methodism did not force every one of its members to confess their sins to their peers (or to anyone). However, they did require that every Methodist weekly give an account of how things were going in their walk with God.

In our context, I believe a structure similar to the class meeting would help people connect to one another. It also would help people to get into the habit of being aware of what difference the faith that they profess with their mouths is making in how they actually live their lives.

What do you think? Again, please feel free to continue asking questions about the contemporary relevance of the class meeting, or about this post in particular. You are welcomed to leave your questions as a comment, or email me directly at deeplycommitted at gmail dot com.

The Methodist Class Meeting for the 21st Century: The Foundation

30 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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I want to start this series of posts on the contemporary relevance of the Methodist class meeting by covering the basics of the early Methodist class meeting. For those of you who already know about the early Methodist class meeting, please bear with me. After this post, the remainder of the conversation will be focused on practical application. I do want to take the time to give a brief introduction to the origins of the class meeting in case people find this series who want to know how to start small groups that are focused on growing as disciples, but aren’t familiar with the Methodist jargon of “societies,” “classes,” and “bands.”

The class meeting was started in 1742 when a group of Methodists were trying to figure out how to pay off a building debt in Bristol (pictured above). Captain Foy suggested that the Bristol society be divided up into groups of 12 people. One person in each group would be designated the leader and would be responsible for visiting each person in their group every week in order to collect one penny from them. By this means, Foy believed the building debt could be retired. Someone raised a concern that this would prevent the poorest Methodists from being involved. Captain Foy responded by volunteering to take the 11 poorest members of the Bristol Society into his group. He said that he would visit them each week and ask them if they could contribute. If they were unable, he would pay their penny on their behalf. Then, he challenged the other people at the meeting to do the same thing.

As this plan was put into practice, it became apparent that many Methodists were not keeping the “General Rules,” which were: do no harm, do good, and practice the means of grace (i.e., prayer, searching the Scriptures, receiving Communion, etc.). Almost immediately, Wesley realized that the class leaders (who were the ones that had originally committed to make the weekly collection) were ideally suited to address the lack of discipline in keeping the General Rules amongst Methodists.

In the General Rules Wesley described the duty of the class leader:

That it may the more easily be discerned, whether they are indeed working out their own salvation, each society is divided into small companies, called classes, according to their respective places of abode. There are about twelve persons in every class; one of whom is styled the Leader. It is his business, (1.) To see each person in his class once a week at least, in order to inquire how their souls prosper; to advise, reprove, comfort, or exhort, as occasion may require; to receive what they are willing to give toward the relief of the poor. (2.) To meet the Minister and the Stewards of the society once a week; in order to inform the Minister of any that are sick, or of any that walk disorderly, and will not be reproved; to pay to the Stewards what they have received of their several classes in the week preceding; and to show their account of what each person has contributed. (3)

Initially, the class leader met each person at his or her own house. However, it was quickly decided that it would be more practical for the entire class to meet together once a week. Wesley reported in A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists that at the class meeting “Advice or reproof was given as need required, quarrels made up, misunderstandings removed: And after an hour or two spent in this labour of love, they concluded with prayer and thanksgiving.” (II.6)*

Wesley further reported on what he believed were the fruits of the class meeting:

It can scarce be conceived what advantages have been reaped from this little prudential regulation. Many now happily experienced that Christian fellowship of which they had not so much as an idea before. They began to ‘bear one another’s burderns,’ and naturally to ‘care for each other.’ As they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with, so they had a more endeared affection for, each other. And ‘speaking the truth in love, they grew up into Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplied, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, increased unto the edifying itself in love.’ (Plain Account, II.7)

The class meeting, then, quickly developed into much more than a capital campaign. It became a crucial tool for enabling Methodists to “watch over one another in love,” to support and encourage one another in their lives with God. In fact, John Wesley thought the oversight and support that the class meeting provided was so important that it became a requirement for membership in a Methodist society. To be a Methodist meant that you were involved in a weekly class meeting.

So what happened in these weekly meetings?

Classes were intended to have between 7 to 12 members in them. They had both women and men in the classes and class leaders were both women and men. Classes were divided primarily by geographical location. In other words, you would have attended a class meeting with the Methodists in your neighborhood. From what we have seen above, the class meeting seems to have focused on three things. First, it held people accountable to keeping the “General Rules.” Second, the class meeting was a place where every Methodist weekly answered the question, “How is it with you soul?” (Methodist historian Scott Kisker has recently rephrased this question as “How is your life in God?”) Third, it was a place where Methodists were encouraged to give weekly to the relief of the poor.

The phrase that I believe best captures what the Methodists believed was so important about the class meeting was “watching over one another in love.” Early Methodists were asked to invite others into their lives and to be willing to enter deeply into the lives of other people so that together they would grow in grace. They were committed to the idea that the Christian life is a journey of growth in grace, or sanctification. And they believed that they needed one another in order to persevere on this journey.

The remainder of this series will be focused on what it might look like to “watch over one another in love” in the twenty-first century. I continue to welcome your questions about the relevance or application of the class meeting for the twenty-first century. You can leave your questions as a comment on the first post in this series, or you can email me at deeplycommitted at gmail dot com. I am looking forward to the conversation!

*(Note: All quotations in this post are from John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 8., ed. Thomas Jackson, first published 1872. I have used this edition because it is in the public domain, and I am not sure what the copyright implications are for quoting as extensively as I have from “A Plain Account” and “The General Rules.” Having said that, I would highly recommend The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, as it is the recent scholarly edition of Wesley’s works. Vol. 9 of this edition contains the documents I have cited here.)

Kevin M. Watson teaches, writes, and preaches to empower community, discipleship, and stewardship of our heritage. Connect with Kevin. Get future posts emailed to you.

The Methodist Class Meeting for the 21st Century

29 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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Recently, I have had several opportunities to speak at churches about Wesleyan small groups. I have been encouraged by the desire that many pastors and laity have had to start something like a class meeting. On several occasions I have had further conversations with people about what it might look like for them to actually begin a class meeting. A common refrain I have heard when I have talked about the Wesleyan method for making disciples of Jesus Christ has been something like, “This all sounds great, but how would you actually do this today?”

Based on the things that people have said to me, I have been surprised at how easy it has been to convince people that the class meeting was of vital importance to the success of early Methodism. Rather than doubting the value of the class meeting, people seem to want concrete guidance on the steps to reclaiming this practice.

In light of this, I am going to write a series of posts called, The Methodist Class Meeting for the 21st century. This series will focus on topics such as: What were the nuts and bolts of the early Methodist class meeting? What are the primary obstacles to starting something like a class meeting? What ingredients are necessary for starting a healthy class meeting? How do you start a class meeting? How do you maintain the vitality of an established class meeting?

I also want to solicit your questions. Are there questions that you have about class meetings? I welcome both historical and practical questions. Feel free to either leave your questions as a comment on this post, or email me directly at deeplycommitted at gmail dot com.

I look forward to the conversation.

Diets and Christian Discipleship

22 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry

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Have you ever tried a new and exciting diet?

Several years ago, I remember watching in horror as my friend ate two large pieces of greasy beef. There was no bun, no vegetables, or anything else for that matter. There was just meat – and lots of it. What surprised me more than the fact that he could consume so much meat was that he was proud of himself for being on a diet. Why eat a salad with no salad dressing for lunch, when you can eat 32 ounces of ground beef?

Truth be told, my memory is not crystal clear regarding this experience. (The trauma of the experience may have caused me to block parts of it out.) He may have been eating chicken, or lamb, or hot dogs. I am certain, though, that it was meat and nothing else. And while I am not a vegetarian, the idea that this was a diet seemed patently absurd. With each bite, I felt like I was watching his heart slow down.

Some of you may remember this particular approach to weight loss. If you don’t remember this one, you probably remember another fad diet. I suspect that most people know that the basic ingredients to weight loss are a balanced diet and exercise. And yet, fad diets continue to pop up. They are often startlingly different in content, but what they tend to have in common is the promise of a short-cut. They promise that you can lose weight without having to be disciplined about the kind of food you eat and how much of it you consume. Or they promise that you will drop pounds without exercise.

I think there may be another reason that there is so much literature available on diet, exercise, and weight loss: It is easier to think about losing weight than to actually do it. It is easier to read a book about diet and exercise than to prepare healthy food and commit to regularly exercising (you can even have a snack while you read about the diet you will try someday).

From this perspective, diets are similar to Christian discipleship. I am confident that you could read a book about Christian discipleship every day from now until you died and you would not read every book that has been written on discipleship. In other words, the literature related on Christian discipleship is enormous. Some of these resources are excellent, others are… well, not excellent.

Like diets, Christian discipleship is not actually that complicated. The reason there are thousands of books on Christian discipleship is not because nobody has figured out how to actually be a disciple of Jesus Christ, or because we can’t quite figure out what a mature disciple looks like. Rather, I suspect there are so many books on discipleship because it is easier to read about discipleship than to be a disciple. It is easier to think about what it would be like to live lives of radical faithfulness to the God Christians worship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit than it is to actually live such a life.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:37-40, TNIV)

John Wesley organized Methodism around Jesus’ summary of discipleship in the “General Rules.” The first rule was a simple reminder to “do no harm.” If we love God and neighbor, we will not do things that harm either of them or our relationship with them. The second rule, “do good” to others, echoed Jesus’ second greatest commandment. For Wesley, doing good is an active expression of love of neighbor. The third rule, echoed Jesus’ commandment to love God with heart, soul, and mind through the means of grace. When we pray, worship, receive the Eucharist, search the Scriptures, and fast we express our love for God.

There is more that could be said about discipleship. And yet, one of the profound gifts of Methodism is its recognition that understanding Christian discipleship is relatively easy. What is far more difficult is actually putting it into practice.

I have a hunch that when a parishioner expresses a desire to go deeper in their faith, most United Methodist pastors are most comfortable recommending a book for them to read. And while this is understandable – there are some great books to recommend – I wonder if this is somewhat like giving people stones when they ask for bread.

If someone came to me wanting to lose weight and asking me what they should do, I could recommend they read a book about how to lose weight. Or, I could invite them to go running with me.

United Methodism will be most effective in its mission of “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” when pastors and lay leaders offer both resources about discipleship and guidance on practicing their faith.

If someone asks me about how they can go deeper in their life with God, I hope that as I listen to them I can think of the perfect book to give them that would help them continue thinking about their faith. But I also hope I would take the time to ask them about how their life with God is. Are they practicing the means of grace? Are they doing good to their neighbors? What do they think the next step of faithfulness looks like? I hope I would walk with them.

In the sermon I preached at New Haven United Methodist Church this past weekend, I focused on Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me.” My prayer is that we will become a people who are so captivated by Jesus’ invitation to follow that we will walk with Christ, rather than falling into the trap of thinking about walking with Christ. May we become people who support and encourage one another as we seek to follow Christ.

Empowering and Equipping Laity

22 Tuesday Jun 2010

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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In response to my recent post on the expansion of Methodism in the early 19th century, I highlighted the large percentage of laity who were involved in spiritual formation of other laity in their churches. I suggested that one of the key reasons for the success of early Methodism was that for every church there were several lay people who were leading class meetings, where the lay leader of the group was responsible for asking each person in the group, “How is your life with God?” I then suggested that “one of the most essential tasks for the United Methodist Church today is training and empowering laity for this kind of ministry.”

John Meunier responded with a brief and piercing comment: “Someone teach me how to “empower and equip” lay leaders and I am there.”

So how do we empower and equip lay leaders in the contemporary United Methodist Church?

In this post I will do two things. First, I will identify two ways I think the early Methodist approach to discipleship can be directly adopted by contemporary United Methodists. Second, I will specifically outline one way to empowering and equipping the laity for the kind of ministry I have in mind.

It seems to me that often when folks in the Methodist blogging world talk about John Wesley or early Methodism, they trip over themselves to make sure their audience realizes that “things are not as they used to be.” At one level, this is an obviously true observation. Life in the 21st century United States is very different than life in 18th century Britain. An awareness of context is very important both in reading and interpreting Scripture and in making comparisons or prescriptions from one period of history to another.

And yet, the pastor in me often wonders if the concern for context is often a way of distancing ourselves from taking the Christian life too seriously. What, for example, has changed about the current context that would make the question “How is your life with God?” an irrelevant question for the twenty-first century?

As it relates to empowering and equipping lay leaders in the church, my guess is that the church could fruitfully adopt most of the strategies of the earliest Methodists without having to do too much contextualizing. Here are two specific ways that the early Methodist approach could be directly adopted by contemporary Methodists:

First, the expectation that every Methodist must join and participate in a weekly class meeting meant that Methodist leaders were constantly trying to identify people who might do a good job leading a class meeting. When a gifted lay person was identified, the typical response was to encourage them to become a class leader. This is relevant for contemporary Methodists because I suspect that many pastors most naturally assign their most gifted laity to be the leader or chair of a committee, rather than seeking to help them find a way to pastor other members of the church. So, the first thing I think contemporary Methodists should do to equip and empower laity for the ministry of “watching over one another in love” is to make identifying lay leaders who are gifted for this kind of a ministry a priority over everything else. If you have a lay person who would either be an excellent chair for the board of trustees, or would be willing to lead a weekly small group focused on growth in grace, you should direct that person every time to lead a weekly small group focused on helping others grow in grace.

Second, early Methodism equipped and trained lay people through a sort of apprenticeship. The first thing that someone who was Methodist did was join a weekly class meeting. In that meeting they would observe a lay person leading the class meeting, asking each person how their lives with God are, facilitating the conversation, making sure everyone has a chance to participate, and offering advice or encouragement as they discerned it was helpful or appropriate. These class leaders, when they identified someone they thought had the potential to be a good class leader, would talk with them and provide an opportunity to lead a class. I believe that this is relevant for contemporary Methodism. The main concern of some pastors might be that there are no laity currently involved in this kind of ministry who can apprentice others. My guess is that nearly every church (if not every church) has at least one or two laity who would thrive as a spiritual director or guide for others, but they are not able to exercise this gift because it is not currently valued by the church, or they are not able to exercise these gifts because they are so absorbed in tasks of institutional maintenance. The first step, where there is not currently an active lay ministry to others would be for the pastor to work to identify people who are gifted in this way, and seek to apprentice them and then help them start a ministry with others. This could be very similar to the ways that excellent Sunday School teachers are identified, except that they would not be teaching a curriculum, but would be a shepherd of souls.

The second thing I want to do in this post is outline the steps that could lead to empowering and equipping laity to start something like a class meeting. (I want to preface this by saying that this approach assumes that the congregation where this is being implemented generally has little to no awareness of the class meeting or the early Methodist approach to discipleship.)

First, preach a sermon series on the Wesleyan Way of Salvation and the Methodist “Method” for Making Disciples. Depending on the pastor and the congregation’s need for teaching on this, I would envision this being 6-12 weeks. The goal is that after the sermon series, the congregation should have a basic familiarity with Wesleyan theology and the “method” for bringing this theology to life that gave Methodism its name.

Second, towards the end of the sermon series announce that small groups will be forming which will explore this further. A book like my A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley’s General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living would be helpful in helping folks get a better sense of the way that Methodism was originally designed to be a force for the spiritual renewal and transformation of its members. Sunday School classes could also be encouraged to use this study during this period of study.

Third, at the end of the study people should be invited to join an experimental class meeting that would last six weeks. During this time they would be able to see what a class meeting is like and they would be able to discern whether they would be willing to make a longer term commitment to being in a class, or even become a class leader.

Fourth, at the end of this period people would be invited to make a commitment to join a class. Depending on the response, a new class, or classes would start. Ideally there would be at least one lay person who would be willing to lead each class. This is less important, but I think it also would be ideal if after the six week “experiment” the classes met in the home of the class leader, or another person’s home (mostly because this is a more intimate and less intimidating environment for people who might consider joining a class after it has already been formed).

Fifth, the pastor should ask the class leaders to meet with her once a month to talk about any challenges they are facing, to ask questions, or to process what they are learning. The purpose of this is not to gossip about what is happening in other people’s lives, but is solely for the purpose of providing continued support and encouragement for the class leaders.

Sixth, once this approach has become a part of the congregations “DNA” steps one and two could be the training that new members go through, or confirmands.

Seventh, once or twice a year there could be space in the worship service for people who have been in classes to testify to the difference it has made in their lives. Following this, the person could make an invitation to join a new round of a six week experimental class meetings where people could get a feel for a class meeting without fully committing to it. After this, the procedure that follows step three could be followed.

These are my thoughts for equipping and empowering laity to become spiritual leaders who “watch over one another in love.” What are your thoughts, objections, or questions?

Futile Faith?

19 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by in Christian Living, Life, Ministry

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An interesting article in the Washington Post about “Disbelief in the Pulpit” has prompted quite a bit of discussion about how far pastors can dissent from the basic teachings of their particular church or denomination and still in good conscience continue as a leader in the denomination. Several times in these conversations pastors have admitted that they do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. And they seem to me to have expressed this in a way that suggests that this is not problematic.

I confess that I am baffled by the idea that one can be a Christian, much less the leader of the church, and not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. It seems to me that if Christ was not raised from the dead, then Christians have no hope. Each time I have read someone casually dismiss the importance of the resurrection I have thought of 1 Corinthians 15: 12-19, where Paul does not mince words about what is at stake for Christians regarding the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

But if it preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.

The implications of what Paul thinks is at stake are clear – If Christ has not been raised from the dead, Christians are the most pitiable people in the world. We are to be pitied because if there is no resurrection, death has won and it is the final word. If it is the final word, the world should pity Christians because we are wasting the finite amount of time we have to live on something that isn’t true.

But more than that, we are to be pitied because we have no hope if Christ has not been raised from the dead. If there is no bodily resurrection, then when we stare death in the face, we have no grounds for hope because it is the last word. It will ultimately win. Everyday should be Ash Wednesday.

But, thanks be to God, Christ has been raised from the dead. And because of this, Christians can look death itself in the face and have hope. Pastors can read 1 Corinthians 15 in the presence of a dead body and tell the congregation that there is hope, that God is more powerful than even death itself. Paul says it much better than I do.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Cor. 15:54-57)

Reading this passage at funerals has been one of the most powerful things I have done as a pastor. Left to ourselves, death will overwhelm us. But with Christ, we can look even death itself in the face and dare to have hope. We can tell death itself that it will not win, its sting has been taken away.

As we draw nearer to Easter morning, this Lent, we will confront the last days of Jesus’ life. We will read of his passion, we will hear of the crucifixion. But Christians always have hope, because Easter is coming! This is not a metaphor. We celebrate Easter for eight weeks because after the Son of God was nailed to a cross, on Easter morning the tomb was empty. At the heart of the gospel is the good news that the one whom we crucified is risen, and that very one continues to seek and to save the lost.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the Christian faith. Without it, what is left is a mere shell. Indeed, without the resurrection I am not sure there is anything left that can be recognized as Christianity. Proclaiming the Risen Christ is the heart of the gospel message itself.

When the disciples said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!” He responded, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” You probably know the story, but here is what happens next:

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’
Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:26-29)

What an awesome gospel we have been given! Even during the midst of Lent, we celebrate on Sundays, because the resurrection of our Lord is such good news that we cannot contain it. It is the reason we come together to worship God every week. Our faith is not futile, because the one who was crucified lives! Jesus is risen, praise God!

Amen.

Thought Re: Infrequent Communion

10 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry

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I am reading John T. McNeill’s A History of the Cure of Souls as part of my preparation for my upcoming field exam in the History of Christian Formation. I just read the following passage:

“The parishes were divided into elders’ districts, in which each elder was to examine communicants privately before each communion service, and to bring about reconciliations between neighbors found to be at variance. Metal tokens were distributed to those qualified to take communion, and were presented for admission to the communion table.” (252)

The passage is broadly referring to sixteenth century Presbyterianism. As I read this passage a question popped into my head: Is this the reason that Presbyterians typically celebrate Communion quarterly and not more frequently?

In other words, I wonder if the history of the reason for infrequent celebration of the Eucharist in Presbyterianism may have been lost. I am ignorant of the reason that academic Presbyterians would give for quarterly celebration of the Eucharist. However, the main reason I have heard lay Presbyterians give is that receiving Communion too often makes it less special. My purpose here is not to get into why I think that is an inadequate understanding of Communion. Rather, it is to ask if anyone has any further insights into the reasons that Presbyterians give for quarterly Communion.

I am intrigued by the possibility that it was originally because there was a very complicated system for interviewing every member who wanted to take Communion beforehand, which would have made it impractical to do this every month. My guess would be that very few Presbyterian churches continue to do this today. If that is true, it seems possible that the original reason for only communing four times a year has disappeared, but the practice has remained in place.

And yet, I suspect that there is much more to it than what I have just laid out. Does anyone have any thoughts or expertise to share?

Too Close to Home

09 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Book Review, Christian Living, Ministry

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I am reading Alan J. Roxburgh and M. Scott Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One and I just came across this:

Recently an executive of a denomination was pulling his hair out over the decisions being made in the national office. They had received an estate worth over 20 million dollars. Of that amount, the national office had spent 10 million dollars hiring an agency that researched people’s attitudes toward the denomination and then developed a massive marketing campaign that included chat rooms and a bobblehead dog mascot. The executive was frustrated because of what this program suggested – namely, there was nothing wrong with the church’s perspectives, and all it needed was a marketing challenge on how to attract more people into what was already there. Nobody and nothing on the inside needed to change; it was about how to present and market who they were. This is the attractional mind-set that has to die before a missional imagination can be born. (83-84)

The authors are challenging the attractional approach to ministry, where the goal is to get people to come to our programs or our events as a church (foremost of which is typically the Sunday worship service). Yet, as I was typing the quotation above, another reason occurred to me why marketing campaigns are not the answer. To put it very crudely: If all that mainline churches in the United States needed to attract people to become involved in a church was something that compelled them to enter the doors of a church again, September 11, 2001 would have been the advertisement the church was waiting for.

I have often heard people talk about how full their churches were in the week or two after 9/11. However, I have not yet heard anyone say that the people who visited after the devastating events of September 11th actually became involved in the life of the Church. (I am sure there are some people who joined churches after 9/11, but what I am pointing to is that I have not heard of a church where the majority of people who visited stayed connected to the church they visited over the long term.) This could be interpreted in a number of ways. But one way of looking at it is that they were “attracted” to church and did not find anything there that they needed or wanted. Spending money on Coke ads would be a waste of time and money if nobody thought Coke tasted good.

I am sharing these thoughts as a sort of stream of consciousness, so I may ultimately decide that there is nothing here worth exploring. I guess my main question at this stage is this: Does the ReThink Church campaign fit into the quotation from Introducing the Missional Church? Thanks be to God, as far as I know there is not a bobblehead dog mascot in the campaign… so it seems like we are already ahead of the game there.

The very name of the campaign at first glance would seem to suggest that there is an openness to doing things differently, to changing. But I suspect that is either not ultimately the case, or the creators of the campaign have dramatically overestimated the UMC’s ability to change over a short period of time. We are, after all, a denomination which has been lamenting the decline of younger clergy and the implications of such a decline for the future of the church, while continuing to put the real power of framing and shaping the future of the church into the hands of people who will decidedly not be the future of the church. Or to put it differently, there seems to be a broad consensus that the denomination is not healthy. However, there seems to actually be very little that is proactively being changed. And the ultimate motivation for change seems to be fear. One does not have to read too many books to read one that predicts when the UMC will cease to exist if we continue declining at our current rate.

My prayer for the United Methodist Church is that the Holy Spirit will release us from our fear of death. I pray that by the grace of God we will be motivated by love – love for God and love for our neighbor. I pray that we will want to reach out because we have something worth sharing, something that people need, and that we will actually care about people outside of the church enough that we will want them to experience God’s love, to taste and see that the Lord is good! I yearn for revival to come upon us, to come to us – not as something that we have earned or forced into being, but as an utter gift of grace. Unmerited. Undeserved. But freely given so that we might have life, and have it abundantly.

Craig Groeschel on the UMC

26 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Accountability, links, Ministry

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

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

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

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

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

Groeschel on the UMC #1

Groeschel on the UMC #2

Groeschel on the UMC #3

Groeschel on the UMC #4

Groeschel on the UMC #5

Groeschel on the UMC #6