Church Things

My disclaimer for the following post (shamelessly borrowed from a fellow UM clergy): my blog, my rant.

In our attempt to raise John Wesley on a pedestal of perfection, even the best of us armchair and formally-educated Wesleyan theologians forget that Wesley was a rule breaker who formed a movement that would become it's own denomination in the midst of opposition and persecution by the Church of England. Yes, John Wesley, more so than his brother Charles, was a rule breaker who challenged the church structure of his day in order to birth a movement that invited people to a Christianity that was less rigid and more relevant in lives of people. And yet today, all too often, in our amnesia of our own church history, its founder, and the earliest Methodists, we implement a very rigid and stifling church structure that if challenged meets the reprimand of misconduct to the point of being accused of completely undermining the operation and mission of the entire church--not entirely dissimilar from the accusations Wesley met from the powers-that-be in the 18th century church hierarchy. As Mark Twain wrote, "The past doesn't always repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

Today the church does a whole lot of talking. We do a lot of talking about the need to do something, change something, be something, and yet from what I have seen the ever elusive something that we all hope will revive our church is something implemented from the top down; an ecclesiological trickle down theory, if you will. An agenda articulated from the top down instead of bottom up does not bode well for our future as a denomination. Just as there is really no such thing as trickle down economics, there is no such thing as trickle down implementation of change for the church today. If we want to see change, it must be at the grass roots level, or in church lingo--at the local church level where ideas can be birthed such as those that the "Bible Moths" of Oxford birthed in the 18th century. The local church level--clergy and laity--should be the driving force of articulating change instead of being micro-managed by the top-tier administration lest we forget that the Methodist movement was largely a lay-driven movement. However any student of John Wesley will admit that he came to be a little rigidly structured over time as the Methodist movement grew--hence the name our denomination now bears.

But the early years of the Methodist movement was a defiant movement in face of the church status quo--for which Wesley was admonished. But admonishments did not deter Wesley from pressing forward, from dreaming God-size dreams without first getting permission from those who held positions of power within the church. Spiritual awakenings and revolutions are not planned happenings, but they burst forth, challenge the status quo and shake things up.

The world, not only the church, is in need of a spiritual awakening today. I heard one pastor say to me just the other day, "The definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of different results." We have a lot of insanity in our church today. Everyone knows something has to change, and there are a lot of opinions about what that something is or should be. It has been my experience that there is a lot of desire to micro-manage and control from those at the top, not allowing creativity to be birthed in and among the people who day in and day out serve and worship within their community's context--our mission field of where we hope disciples are being made. John Wesley got away with preaching and teaching wherever he wanted by declaring "the world is my parish." I have a feeling that credentials would be stripped and churches reprimanded if such "enthusiasm" was expressed today; it probably violates some paragraph in the Book of Discipline which would of course be a chargeable offense.

That brings me to another point of critique: we Methodists are no longer people of one book as Wesley was, but we are people of two books--the Bible and the Book of Discipline. What was it that Twain wrote, "History doesn't alway repeat itself, but it often rhymes"? There is so much fear and concern for the future of our church today. I would argue that if we get back to being a people of one book, back to being a movement and less of a rigid institution that maybe we would see some positive change that would change the trajectory of our dying church and our mission to make disciples for the transformation of the world. But until some of those at the top get off their high horse and relinquish power and pride then nothing within this dying institution will change. But then maybe such an institution isn't even worth saving. Maybe we need to birth a movement--a spiritual awakening, a revival, a revolution that works outside the bounds of appropriate church structure and polity in order that the kingdom of God is grown. It worked for Wesley...maybe this part of our past we inherit as today's Methodists should repeat.