Good Readin’ Part 1

11 Monday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review

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How Great a Flame, James Logan, Methodism, UMC, United Methodism, Wesley, Wesleyan

I have been able to do a fair amount of reading lately, but I have not sat down and blogged about very many of the books I have read. So, this week I thought I would take the time to post brief reviews of a few of the books I have read lately. Today we will look at How Great a Flame: Contemporary Lessons from The Wesleyan Revival by James Logan.

How Great a Flame is a very quick read. The book is a smaller format than normal and is 96 pages. I read most of the book in one sitting. I have to say that I was a bit thrown by the Foreword, which was written by Rev. Karen Greenwaldt. Greenwaldt’s foreward made me think I was going to be reading a book that was very different than the one that I actually read. Her review on the back cover of the book has the same tenor as the forward, “James Logan offers a thought-provoking book that explores the interconnection between vital piety and social witness among those Christians who were part of the Wesleyan movement.” This would certainly be a worthwhile undertaking, but I did not find this to be a prominent focus of How Great a Flame.

Aside from the discrepancy that I found between the foreward and the book itself, I really enjoyed this book. Logan calls United Methodists to account a few times, like when he compares our desire for respectability, decency, and order to John Wesley’s. He writes, “But herein lies the difference between Wesley and us. It was ‘the cross’ he chose to bear, and the one which we leave to other churches and groups who don’t conform to our standards of decency and order” (16). Logan writes this in a discussion about field preaching, suggesting that Wesley was able to get out of his comfort zone in order to be faithful, while Methodists today are rarely willing to take these kinds of risks.

In the second chapter, Logan beautifully describes the distinctive features of the Wesleyan revival as: open-air preaching, the organizing of converts into two distinctive on-going structures, and the deployment of a two-tiered lay ministry (26). This chapter includes a wonderful description of the often gradual nature of conversion and how this related to the importance of sanctification. Logan connects the eclipse of the class meeting with the move toward altar call preaching aimed at instantaneous conversion. He writes, “With the eclipse of the class meeting, Methodists came more and more to accept and practice a truncated form of evangelism that focused exclusively upon a decisionistic, instantaneous conversion…. The eclipse of the class meeting marked a decided decline in the church’s sense of being a disciplined people. Without the class meeting the major structure for spiritual accountability was lost, and the church compromised its ecclesial identity, exchanging a missional consciousness for an institutional consciousness” (38).

In the final chapter Logan discusses some bad habits we have gotten into in relation to evangelism and then suggests some ways forward.

My main criticism of this book would be that it felt a bit unfinished. It may have been the point in which I stopped reading and then began reading again – but when I got to the last page, I was surprised it was over. It felt like more should be coming. Ultimately, that is at least a sign that he said many things that really resonated with me and I wanted to hear more.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a brief overview of Wesleyan distinctives, especially as they connect a Wesleyan understanding of grace, discipline, and Christian living to evangelism in the twenty-first century. I definitely found this book to be worth the read!

(Coming soon! Later this week we will look at Vital Signs: A Pathway to Congregational Wholeness by Dan R. Dick, Preaching as Testimony by Anna Carter Florence, and Deepening Your Effectiveness: Restructuring the Local Church for Life Transformation by Dan Glover and Claudia Lavy.)

Another Great Quote from E. Stanley Jones

08 Friday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Ministry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

belief, E. Stanley Jones, practice

I read this today in The Word Became Flesh by E. Stanley Jones:

I once talked to General Smuts, premier of South Africa and the author of “Holism.” He called my attention to something I’ve never forgotten. He said the word “belief” is literally “by-lief” or “by life.” Your belief is your life. And your life is your belief. You believe in a thing enough to act on it, to live it. So you are what you believe, and you believe what you are. Your deed is your creed. And your creed is your deed.” (48)

I wonder how it would change our practice as Christians if we agreed that our beliefs are believed, not by what we say – but by what we do.

Practice, Practice, Practice

07 Thursday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Ministry

≈ 2 Comments

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E. Stanley Jones

I came across this quote from E. Stanley Jones in The Word Became Flesh today and it is too good to not share:

“I shall know as much as I am willing to practice, and no more” (46).

Virtual Accountability

07 Thursday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Accountability, Ministry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Accountability, virtual accountability

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

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

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

Here are some thoughts I have initially:

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

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

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

Consumerism: The Major Threat to American Christianity

05 Tuesday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review

≈ 5 Comments

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Alan Hirsch, Christianity, consumerism, The Forgotten Ways

Now I understand Matt’s enthusiasm for Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. (Check out this post and this post that Matt wrote.) I may try to write a more organized review later, but for now I just need to tell you to go out and get this book if you haven’t already read it.

Sometimes you read something that you just need to go ahead and post. Hirsch’s thoughts about the threat consumerism poses to Christianity is one of those things:

“I have come to believe that the major threat to the viability of our faith is that of consumerism” (106).
“Christianity has become a mere matter of private preference rather than that of public truth” (108).
“This is our missional context, and I’ve come to believe that in dealing with consumerism we are dealing with an exceedingly powerful enemy propagated by a very sophisticated media machine. This is our situation, but it is also our own personal condition – and it must be dealt with if we are going to be effective in the twenty-first century in the West” (109).
“I found out the hard way that if we don’t disciple people, the culture sure will” (111).

This section just hit me pretty hard. Consumerism has become so much a part of our culture, even within the church, that we often don’t even recognize it. Hirsch encourages the Church to remember that “discipleship is all about adherence to Christ” (106). And that should impact everything we do, and how we do it.

Finally, please know that this is not the essence of this book. There is so much more, this is just something that really hit me as I was reading it and wanted to put it out there.

So, what are your thoughts? Is consumerism the major threat to American Christianity? Is Hirsch overreacting?

Vital Signs – Some Thoughts

04 Monday Feb 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review

≈ 3 Comments

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Dan Dick, Vital Signs

I just started reading Dan R. Dick’s Vital Signs: A Pathway to Congregational Wholeness. It is one of those books that as I am reading it, I keep thinking, I wish I had had this book when I started my first appointment. In Vital Signs churches are classified into four different types, decaying, dystrophic, retrogressive, and vital congregations. There is a diagnostic tool in the back of the book that is designed to help you identify where your congregations fits. The book is written based on research studying 717 different United Methodist congregations.

I just finished reading the chapter on Retrogressive Congregations. These are congregations that “are highly focused, highly stable congregations that are losing participants” (67). Churches usually only stay in this phase for a while and move from there to decaying or vital. They are retrogressive typically because the church has chosen to increase commitment and focus in a very specific way. This causes many people to leave, but those who stay are more committed than ever before. Thus, in retrogressive congregations the numbers are dropping, while more powerful ministry is happening than has ever previously occurred.

The main critique that Dick gives of these types of churches is that they often fail to balance acts of mercy with acts of piety, usually emphasizing acts of mercy and service at the expense of acts of piety. (Please understand that the point is not at all that acts of mercy are bad. Just that vitality comes from a blend of acts of mercy and acts of piety.)

A few interesting points of interest about retrogressive congregations:

Money and Giving: According to Dick’s research the average annual giving of a new member of a retrogressive congregation is $4,271 a year. In vital churches that number is $2,441, dystrophic – $1,487, and decaying – $1,156! That is an amazing difference.
Retrogressive congregation’s relationship to the connection: “There is no diplomatic way to describe the relationship of most retrogressive congregations to the connectional system: it’s bad. And where it isn’t bad, it’s worse” (87).

On the poor relationship with the connection Dick further writes:

The leaders of retrogressive churches deeply resent the fact that most connectional and conference leaders continue to measure inputs instead of outputs. Fifty people feeding one thousand hot meals a week is nowhere valued as highly as five hundred people feeding no one” (88).

That quote really brought me up short. Do you think this is true? What are the implications for the church and how we do business if it is true?

Reflections on Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, Part 2

31 Thursday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review, Ministry

≈ 2 Comments

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Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, passionate worship, Schnase, worship

The clergy group that I am in met this week to continue our discussion of Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. In this post I will continue my reflection on the discussion we had from last week. (Last week’s post discussed the practice of “Radical hospitality.”)

My first comment is that I love that Bishop Schnase mentions in one of the side bars Meri Whitaker’s ministry at Canterbury Chapel in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. Meri Whitake happens to be one of the people are church intentionally supports as part of our efforts to be connected.

Second, I really reacted to this quote:

It’s amazing how good Christian folk vociferously and antagonistically resist launching a service they don’t plan to attend anyway! It’s not intended for them, and to sabotage the desire for worship of those who have different tastes is like unreasonable diners demanding that their favorite restaurant refuse to serve chicken to anyone, anytime, forever, because they prefer beef! (45)

I personally have not had to deal with that situation. But I have heard of far too many people who have. I have a good friend from seminary who was asked to preach at a new contemporary service that a church wanted to start. Even after a full year of that church bearing fruit through folks attending the service, the church still refused to support the service at all. They even refused to allow the money raised during the offering during the worship service to be used to support the basic needs of that service. My friend, who had been serving as a volunteer, was finally forced to realize that the church was not really interested in this service (even though it was being strongly attended!) and he had to step aside because he could no longer support it with his own resources.

Stories like that are probably easy for any of us to see as pretty ridiculous. But it is startling to realize that the people in that church did not see that they were doing anything wrong. I hope and pray I am not doing anything to quench the Spirit’s work in our worship service.

The final thought I had from this chapter was a sort of canary in the coal mine. “When a congregation loses touch with the purpose of worship, people come and go without receiving God” (37).

I think this is very difficult to measure as the pastor, at least on a week by week basis. But, I think far too many people come to worship today out of habit or out of a sense of obligation. I yearn for more and more congregations that have not just leadership that expects and desires passionate worship, but that have churches filled with people who have come expecting to encounter God’s holy and life-giving presence.

I would be blessed if you would share experiences or ways in which you have seen congregations move towards passionate worship. And of course, please share any other thoughts you have.

You can also read more at the “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations blog.”

If You Could Only Read One Book on Discipleship…

30 Wednesday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

I am really enjoying the feedback and conversation from these book recommendations. So, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I thought I would try another one.

What one book on discipleship would you recommend? Again, there are a few different ways you could go with this, but I will leave that up to you.

This is the hardest question for me to answer yet. So, with the caveat that my answer may change as I think about this more throughout the day, I am going to say the one book I would recommend on discipleship would be The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. It is not a fast read, but I remember it being profound. It is one of those rare books I want to read again. Willard really lifted up the depth of what discipleship truly is meant to look like, instead of what we so often settle for.

Ok, your turn.

Edit: I forgot to add links to the previous “If You Could Only Read One Book…” posts, If You Could Only Read One Book on Emergent… and If You Could Only Read One Book on Methodism…

If You Could Only Read One Book on Methodism…

29 Tuesday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review

≈ 6 Comments

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Methodism

I enjoyed yesterday’s discussion – If You Could Only Read One Book on Emergent – so much, I thought I would try again. This time I am just curious to hear what you would recommend in a different area. So, if you could have someone read only one book on Methodism what would it be?

There are a lot of different directions that you could go with this. Would it be a history of Methodism? A book on Methodist theology? A book on renewing Methodism? I am curious how you would choose from all of this, what would be the one book, and why.

I am going to actually obey my own rules this time, and only pick one book. Here is the one book I would recommend if I could have them read one book on Methodism:

John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, edited by Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater. I would recommend this because I believe this is the best one volume book that would give someone a solid grasp of Methodist theology as well as insight into the passion and zeal that Wesley and the early Methodists had for becoming deeply committed Christians who relied upon God’s grace to enable them to have a relationship with God and to grow in it. My one hesitation is that it is not the most readable book, as it is Wesley’s own sermons in that good olde English. But I am going with this book, because my premise is that I am recommending a book that the person I recommend it to will read.

So, what would you recommend?