Back to Basics

News flash! We’re making the gospel harder than it needs to be. I mean, how difficult is “good news?” What part of “God is love” is so confusing? What’s with our penchant to load up “for God so loved the world that he gave his only son” with rules, regulations, judgments, punitive indictments, condescension, pettiness, exclusion, insult and contempt — and label it “Christian piety?” Why do we seem more obsessed with sin than grace, condemnation than compassion, disdain than mercy, fear than faith, and being right than doing good? Why is it that fewer and fewer United Methodists pray regularly, read/study the Bible, fast, celebrate communion, and engage in adult spiritual formation?

On August 2, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show compared The United Methodist Church to the University of Phoenix. He notes that we seem to be the equivalent of a diploma mill — that we are the church where you can just “phone it in.” Harsh words, but unfair? Not according to a large number of people who have tried the good old UMC and found it wanting. During the Seeker Study I spearheaded for the denomination in the early part of this decade, many deeply dedicated Christian spiritual seekers walked away from The United Methodist Church in disgust and disappointment because:

You don’t know your own story. You don’t know who you are and what you believe.

You seem to spend more time keeping people out than actually trying to include them.

You strain at gnats and swallow camels. You believe some of the lamest, weirdest stuff and ignore the simple, kind, and helpful stuff.

Methodists are all over the map. I spent almost a year finding out that they don’t have a clue what they really believe.

The way they treat women, minorities, gays, other faiths? God must be so embarrassed by United Methodists.

It feels like a time warp — like 1984, but from the other side. I was looking for “open hearts, open minds, and open doors” and all I found was that I don’t belong there.

I went to about six different United Methodist churches, hoping to find help on my spiritual journey. I could not find it. I couldn’t find people to pray with, Bible studies were all at a fourth grade level, the worship was insipid and tedious, and I left each week depressed. I heard a few good sermons and met a few other people interested in growing in their faith, but overall I realized that the (UM) church would just slow me down. I don’t have time to waste with people who don’t really give a s*&#.

I have so many questions — about God, about life, about belief, about the world — and I really hoped the church could help me sort these things out. Imagine my disappointment when I realized that the church really doesn’t care about any of these things. The churches I tried were interested in getting new members to serve on groups, to sit in the pews on Saturday or Sunday, and to make a financial pledge. Beyond that? No one seemed much interested in anything.

It’s like walking in on a conversation already in progress. I don’t go to church much, and I went and there was all this “code” language and insider terminology. We read a creed together, and I leaned over to a woman near me and asked, “Why did we just do that?” She looked at me all shocked and said, “We do this every week!” I asked, “But why? People don’t actually believe all that stuff do they?” She said, “Shhhh,” and ignored me the rest of the service. I stopped at the preacher on the way out and asked if she could explain a few things to me. She told me I could join a new members class where everything would be answered. I haven’t been back since.

I got invited to a small group, and I thought, “Cool. A small community of people where I can really dig deep and learn about living the Christian faith. I showed up, we had a five-minute devotion, watched a silly little church video with a VERY sincere “hip” pastor, ate snacks and played Bible Pictionary. I called our small group leader the next day and asked if this was normal for what the group did. She said, “Well sometimes we go to a movie or restaurant, or bowling.” When I asked if there were other, more serious, groups I could check out, she told me that ours was the “best” and most active. I couldn’t believe that’s what adults do at church. I felt like I was in Sunday school when I was ten. I couldn’t believe it.

These are a handful of verbatims from hundreds of interviews we conducted in early 2003 through 2006. Now, it is important to note that these were all interviews with people who tried the UMC and chose NOT to stay involved, so it is a negatively biased sample. But that doesn’t mean the viewpoints don’t have merit and that we can’t learn from them. There are a few important common themes:

people are disappointed that there isn’t more focus on prayer, reading the Bible, and spiritual conversation
people are disappointed that we don’t seem to know why we do the things we do; why we believe the things we believe; why we say the things we say
people are surprised and put off that we spend more time looking at what divides us instead of what unites us
people are disturbed that we seem to prefer breadth over depth, surface over substance, and talking to doing
people feel we are out of touch, behind the times, and disconnected
people discover that church doesn’t offer them value or support in their spiritual journey

Are these universally, generally true observations? Of course not. Are they widespread enough that hundreds of people share them? Yes, and for this reason they are worth taking seriously. Jon Stewart is not the only person who thinks you can believe and do anything and be a Methodist. Very few of the people who take the vows of membership in our denomination are held accountable to those promises. Widespread both within the church as well as outside is the view that membership is a meaningless concept in our church — that there is no difference between someone who is a member and someone who is not. There are no explicit expectations, requirements, or commitments — a person can say “yes” they want to be a member, then for all intents and purposes do whatever they want to without penalty, sacrifice or follow-through. In many people’s minds, this is what it means to be United Methodist.

Turning things around shouldn’t be so hard. What many people in the church as well as outside are seeking is simple, basic Christian community. They want to know how to pray. They want to know how to read and intepret the Bible. They want to be able to talk about Christian beliefs and practices. They want companions on the journey. Most are willing to define what it means to “uphold this congregation of The United Methodist Church by your prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.” They are less interested in sound systems and Powerpoint and delivery style than they are about the substance and quality of what is being communicated. They are seeking less, rather than more — less noise and activity and information in favor of greater value, content, and experience. People are seeking depth, and a safe place to dive in… and they reject those places where people don’t know their own story — the story of the church, the faith, and God.

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17 responses to “Back to Basics”

David Kueker

August 18, 2010

I think there are a variety of types of seekers. There seems to be a trend in consumer oriented seekers to move toward a more harsh, demanding, almost narcississtic expectation of instant gratification when they enter a church. Witness the current flood of response to Anne Rice’s recent declaration – these seekers are somewhat hostile when they come for their first visit. There is some research that warns of a trend of exodus by 2020 from all churches by this sort of high demand/low investment Christian that predicts a 2/3 drop in attendance.

As for Jon Stewart, well, it’s a joke – and an inaccurate one. But a fundamental concept of all racism and discrimination is to extrapolate that all people in a given sociological group are the same based on the behavior of a few. We’re going to see more of this.

When I walk into the church nursery, I encounter church attenders who really don’t do much to practice their faith – for understandable reasons. They are still important, and as they grow up, they do more. Being a Methodist in diapers in the church nursery is easy. Christians who “phone it in” aren’t very grown up and will find that there are rich opportunities in the United Methodist Church if they are willing to leave the nursery and invest more in their spirituality.

What Stewart is making fun of is our tolerance of people who are not yet very committed – I suspect he would feel welcome with us.

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1. doroteos2
  
  August 18, 2010
  
  Much of what you say about seekers is also true of existing members. The consumer mentality isn’t an “us/them” phenomenon, but an “all of us” reality. The connectional aspect of our identity is both a plus and a minus. It allows for diversity, but it also means that if 9-out-of-10 churches are dysfunctional it means that United Methodism is sick — we don’t have the luxury of saying, “yes, but one of us is okay!” We stand or fall together — and we’d better get our head around “us” pretty quickly so that our witness to the world is seen in a more positive light.
  
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Daniel J. Dick

August 17, 2010

Folks, sorry for the confusion, but I need to say something.

The owner of this website is Daniel R. Dick, and I’m Daniel J. Dick. We’re two entirely different people, both Christians and share the same first and last name, but he’s a Methodist minister, and I’m an old time member of City Blessing Church which is similar to the Methodist Church in doctrine but perhaps more like a charismatic version of the Nazarene Church.

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Steve Garnaas-Holmes

August 17, 2010

Dan, I think the attitudes you quote are in response to something deeper than badly done liturgy, poor leadership, failure to think quick in response to good questions, lack of seriousness about the Creed, or unscientific sampling. It’s that for centuries we’ve advertised the church as a place where we have the answers on file. You come and learn them, and you fit in. And if you fit in in the church then you’ll fit in in heaven. It’s not just about getting into a nice place in the afterlife, it’s seeking a sense that your life is worthwhile. And it’s all based on fitting in.

But what I think people are seeking in church, and not finding, is a community devoted to radical lifelong transformation in the spirit of Christ. Not assenting to some creed or other, but learning—by practicing—how to live with passion, love, gratitude, generosity, courage and beauty. Learning how to shed our attachments and anxieties and live in pure love and trust. Connecting deeply with the Mystery of Life, even if that means losing some favored old assumptions and habits. Learning to live for justice, healing and the liberation of all people, even if it means risking and sacrificing. Learning to lose my life to love God, and becoming increasingly receptive to the new life that God grants the moment I let go of the old one. . . (It’s dying and rising with Christ.)

And that’s just not what most of the people in our churches signed up for. They “come” (they don’t “belong”) to get their “batteries recharged” so that they can endure lives that seem to them to be difficult, anxious and uncertain. This is perhaps an over-characterization– but I see it week after week. People just do not want to change. They don’t want passion, mystery, risk or loss of control. They want to feel safe.

Dan, you say “Turning things around shouldn’t be so hard,” but I wonder. I’m not sure if we turn things around or just start over, either within or outside the established church. I love the church– but I wonder how possible it is to create communities of passion within the institution and its structures, expectations and inertia. I’m open.

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Daniel J. Dick

August 17, 2010

I think there may be confusion stemming from the fact that two “Daniel”‘s were replying. Anyway, I didn’t mean to run off against “liturgy” as though there were anything specifically wrong with the concept of having a liturgy. I see the value in that it can drive home into the heart the Word of God and help us remember it and apply it to our lives. And the best way for us to minister to others is by example, by becoming what God has called us to be, and then naturally multiplying after our own kind spiritually, morally, ethically, or perhaps a better way to say it is, “by faith” since faith is the evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for.

It’s just that there has been so much religion and so little sincerity, faithfulness, courage, honesty, as of late. We’ve compromised with sin tremendously. Often people have noticed that churches seem to do better in places where persecution is rampant, where people have to have underground churches for fear of prosecution, incarceration, torture, and death. There, people are less likely to be counted as Christians for all the wrong reasons.

But, here, religion often repeats history as people become religious in a way that bears strong resemblance to the Pharisees who congratulate themselves for their great knowledge, high class education, family heritage, pedigree, and all that worthless crap that clouds the fact that many of them are headed straight to hell with the greatest ignorance of all. But, to hear those words would offend them greatly even if God Himself were to say them. I know because they did it before in the time of Jesus.

We need to kick the nonsense of Phariseeism and cheap grace and charlatanism to the curb and live for Christ. Not your way or my way or some charlatan’s way or the way someone would teach us in some seminaries, but whatever God says to do in the Bible, we need to trust Him and obey Him. Either that, or we should accept the fact that someone else and not Jesus is our Lord.

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Daniel

August 17, 2010

Sometimes when I travel I visit Episcopal/Anglican Churches (been to them in Scotland, England, the US, and in the Middle-East) and there is a very comforting consistency to the liturgy. It’s always basically the same; always puts forth the same doctrines about who God is and who we are called to be “in prayer form.”

Our own liturgy (both Word and Table #1 and the classical Wesleyan #4) offers us the same potential, but sadly we don’t always get there. I believe this is what we lose by, or is the downside to, our greater degree of freedom and our greater tolerance for liturgical diversity.

But I think our problem goes beyond just the liturgy. It seems to me that the preaching in our churches, the teaching from Sunday School on up to the pulpit, and the actual lifestyle models of our lay and clergy leaders simply has not been challenging people, provoking, calling, or wooing them into a deeper discipleship – at least in many cases (there are, thanks be to God, plenty of exceptions).

Of course, some of the problems identified in the original post might be residual of previous leadership problems that have been partially corrected already. The seeds of change may indeed have already begun to sprout. Even on the liturgy there has been more push in recent years to return to the Wesleyan practice of weekly communion using the full liturgy (as seen in “This Holy Mystery” for instance).

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Daniel J. Dick

August 17, 2010

I am not sure what liturgy you speak of or how liturgy has anything to do with God, God’s Word, the Gospel, or our response to it, or what place God has in our lives. I see the value in consistency or continuation when it comes to teaching so that one can be assured that continuity of, say, a course in theology will not be broken. And yet, I would tend to feel that study is something we must be responsible for ourselves. That is, we should be in God’s Word, devouring it, loving it, cherishing it, letting God speak to us directly. Also, as for coming together for a church service, it seems important to me for the pastor to watch over the salvation of his congregation and for those in the five fold ministry to be about their duties preparing the congregation for ministry. In other words, Christianity is not just a spectator sport or an entertainment center of a different sort where we go to church to feel holy or holier than thou while living for the devil the other days of the week. It is not to be a place where we determine for ourselves what sins are pleasing and acceptable and what sins should be rejected as heinous. It is not where the idealists are to be mocked and rejected as ignorant and if possible trained out of their zealous hunger for the things of God. It is not where people are taught to say one thing liturgically while believing another practically or where these are the kinds of “ropes” that new Christians are to be taught in the course of dumbing down their youthful zeal.

Church is not to be a place of cowardice. We’re not to pander to the rich for fear of being unable to pay off the foolish debts we accumulated building up grand places for our glory. Church is not to be a place where pastors call Jesus Christ a liar by declaring in ceremonies something to be Holy Matrimony which Jesus Christ called adultery. It is not to be a place for twisting of scripture and making it more demanding or less demanding than it is. It is not to be a place where the grace of God is denied in favor of working one’s way to heaven, but it is also not to be a place where the grace of God is misshapen into a lust for the perverted beauty of harlotry with fine decorations rightly dividing socially accepted pornography and adultery at heart from that which is not socially acceptable. It is not to be a place where the wisdom of man is exalted above the wisdom of God. Church is not to be a place for liars to be bold and comfortable, but a place where liars are understood to be hellbound without the least shadow of doubt, not because someone is mean and judgmental, but because God said so with the writings of scripture, and therefore God meant it.

Church is not to be a mutual admiration society. Nor is it to be a place of infighting. But, there will never be peace but only war between Christ and sin. There can be no reconciliation. One may leave Christ, or one may leave sin, but one cannot do both, nor can one do neither. One must be possessed by God or possessed by Satan. There can be no middle ground. And to call this ignorant, black and white thinking is to take sides with Satan against God for to favor sin is to offend God and be His enemy. This is not because God is mean and over-demanding, but because God is simply faithful and honest and cannot be called upon to lie to the universe on judgement day and call that faithful which is unfaithful.

So,. we must make our choice. Be liars and go to hell with Satan and for good reason, or live by faith. We can love God for who He is or fashion a god more palatable to our wishes and worship that idol misnaming him as God if we wish, but when it comes time to stand before the whole universe and give an account to God, that make-believe god won’t have any say. The truth will be laid out as will the sacrifice that God made for our sins. And when the question comes up how God can send Satan to hell while sending us to heaven, there can be no answer other than that which would separate us from Satan. Did we believe God existed? So did Satan. Did we believe the Bible? So did Satan. Did we believe Jesus died for our sins? So did Satan and all his angels. What makes the separation? The grace of God? Would God be committing favoritism arbitrarily and unjustly setting up righteous standards and violating them himself?

When we stand on judgment day we will stand before an honorable and honest God–yes a loving God, but one with real love and not the pathetic, cowardly, wimpy, compromising, hypocritical love that so many have learned to savor in others. It will be a love that loves righteousness and hates sin. It will be a love capable of righteous wrath. There is reason to fear God. There is a reason the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Without that fear, not the tiniest beginning of wisdom has come about.

And if we think too highly of ourselves, it will be evidenced by the way we emulate the wimpy, lying, cheap grace, whore of a church living in hypocrisy, living in sin, condemning sin but ever living in it, defending it, cherishing it. And it is this objection to sin that the Pharisees hated so much. It is this objection to sin that caused the Pharisees to try to find fault in Christ continually to take Him down. It was the attitude that says, “I’m the one who knows the ropes around here and if I want to let people sin, I can do that my own way, and if I want to condemn sin, I can accuse people falsely or do whatever I want as long as it it OK in my own eyes, and that is the crux of wisdom in my eyes.” I really see no difference between this view and the one that Satan holds. Nor do I see any difference between this view and the view of the churches which lack sincerity. No wonder the consumption of pornography goes up in the hotels at the times of pastor’s conferences. No wonder there is so much divorce and adultery in the church. No wonder such tiny percentages of people ever share the Gospel and why so many never even share it with their own family members. Imagine that!

I can assure you, there is definitely a radical change needed in our thinking if we want to have our eternity in heaven and want to see our loved ones and friends there, too.

I don’t think this is empty rhetoric or ranting to get something in return. It’s time we make up our minds whether we will serve God or serve Satan. The best servants of Satan are in the church, and I don’t mean the Church of Satan or the Wiccan coven. In fact, if anything, it would seem there is a great effort to make sure these things are mainstreamed into the church while others deny it is happening. It’s the old conspiracy theory ruse where conspiracy happens in plain sight, just as a King parades nude in his “new clothes” and nobody speaks for fear of being thought “unenlightened” or “crazy” until one little kid comes along and asks plainly, “Why is the king naked?”

Heaven or hell? God or Satan? Choose your poison. Or your salvation. Which will it be?

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Joel Sutton

August 17, 2010

Great post. I’ve been wondering when you would get around to commenting on the Daily Show comment. I posted my own response a couple days ago, but it amounted to much of the same. I’ve been a Methodist for 10 years, but it didn’t take that long for me to realize the vows I took (with the exception of “my gifts”) are moot. They have no practicle value or meaning; and if that’s the case, why even bother?
Taylor (whom I respect a great deal) says this is likely true of “seekers and those trying to take on the practices of Christian faith.” Probably so. But a good many of those trying to take on the practices of Christian faith are sitting in our pews and they’re being ignored. Just because they’re in our congregations doesn’t mean they have it all figured out. (I say this from personal experience.) What’s the point of membership drives and church growth seminars if we aren’t doing something to grow the spirituality of our members once we get them in the door.
Last month, I was licensed as a part time local pastor and this issue is at the very top of my list. It’s easy to nod my head and agree with Jon Stewart (and I do agree) but now, what am I going to do about it??

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