Make-No-Wave United Methodist Church

I received an interesting email from a pastor today who “followed my advice” and raised questions about expectations and accountability in the church. He asked the “what is the church?” and “what is the church for?” questions, and zeroed in on what our membership vows really mean. He was shocked when the chair of the church council responded by saying, “well, we don’t have time to talk about this now. We have church business we need to deal with.” Later that evening, the chair of SPRC (Staff-Parish Relations Committee) called to schedule an appointment — “We need to talk. As soon as possible.” The pastor was surprised early the next morning when the SPRC chair, the Lay Leader, the church Council chair, and the head of Trustees all showed up together. The conversation went something like this (church leadership in bold; pastor normal type):

We need to know what’s gotten into you?

What do you mean?

This kick you’re on to push; to make us feel bad about not doing enough?

I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad. I’m just trying to offer people something better. I want to help people grow in their faith.

Well, that’s fine, but a lot of people are perfectly happy where they are.

I know they are, but that doesn’t mean they should be.

See? That’s exactly the kind of pressure we’re talking about. Who are you to judge what kind of Christians people should be?

It’s not a matter of “judging” anyone. It’s a matter of helping people grow in their faith.

You made a lot of people uncomfortable last night. You made it sound like we should be doing more.

We SHOULD be doing more! I brought up the issues for a reason.

But that’s not why people come to this church. People come here because they know they will be loved and cared for, not judged and made to feel guilty.

Being loved and cared for and becoming faithful disciples are not mutually exclusive. People should want both.

In your opinion. None of our previous pastors said any of this stuff.

But it isn’t just my opinion. It’s in the Bible. It’s in our Book of Discipline. I didn’t make this stuff up.

No, you said you pulled it off the web and we all know how reliable things are you can find online.

You’re kidding, right? You’re saying because I got the articles off the web that we shouldn’t pay attention to it? All I raised were three questions: what is the church? what is the church for? and how do we hold people accountable to the promises they made to God and one another. That’s all. These are good questions to ask.

But they’re unnecessary. We’re not trying to be super-Christians. We’re just normal people who love God and need to know that God loves us. That’s all. We don’t need you telling us how we ought to live our faith. It’s none of your business if we pray or not or read the Bible or even how often we attend church. You are here to be our pastor, not our conscience.

But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t preach and teach from the Bible and challenge people to be the best Christians we can be.

Look, you’re young and we want to support you, but you need to be reasonable. People are busy — we have full lives. We don’t have time to be saints. We need you to do your job — lead worship, visit church members, teach confirmation, pray for us, and try to grow the church. We just don’t need you making things harder than they ought to be.

I don’t know what to say. You tell me you want me to do my job, but when I do my job you don’t want me to. This is impossible. I didn’t do anything wrong last night. In fact, I did exactly the right thing.

The pastor received a call later in the day from his district superintendent. Hoping for support, he was irritated to discover that his DS sided with the congregation’s leadership, asking that he “back off.” The DS told him that he needed to make this appointment work, and that he couldn’t afford to alienate key leadership. Again, he heard that he needed to be “reasonable.”

What am I missing here? I was called to ministry. I am part of a church whose mission is to make disciples, but when I bring up acting like disciples I am told to back off. If we can’t even have discussions about what it means to be the church in the church, we’re in big trouble. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that your “basic” questions are not “simple” questions at all.

This is one of the more dramatic responses I have received, but in no way is it rare or unusual. Some of our United Methodist churches are held hostage by low expectations, complacency, lack of vision, and a distinct aversion to anything remotely disciple-like. What are we going to do about it? When mediocrity becomes the standard, it is only a matter of time until we cease to exist. No relevancy, no urgency, no commitment = no church. Unless it is safe and even encouraged to rock the boat, makes some waves, and shake things up, we may be looking for a new church real soon.

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124 responses to “Make-No-Wave United Methodist Church”

Eric Seiberling

October 5, 2010

Many churches have gotten comfortable with mediocrity. That is why many churches are in decline. Christ calls us to a life of sacrifice, not comfort. A life of obedience, not self-centeredness.

Many of the denominational structures are more interested in maintaining the status quo vs. seeking the lost. That is why only 7% of churches are growing while 50% are in decline over a 20 year period in the West Ohio Conference.

The United Methodist Church’s “Call to Action” Report and Study on Clergy Effectiveness support these stories. In many cases, both churches and clergy are satisfied to decline vs. pruning to grow.

Here are two blog articles for further discussion of the topic:

Accountability for Pastors & Churches:
http://www.flockology.com/2010/06/a-matter-of-accountability-or-a-lack-of-trust.html

Pruning the Church:
http://www.flockology.com/2010/04/stop-the-excuses-prune-your-church-to-grow.html

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1. Tony
  
  October 6, 2010
  
  Having read the aticle on accountability, here are my comments: Anyone who believes that doing away with guaranteed appointment will ease our decline is naive. Every main stream denomination you can name is in decline. All that doing away with guaranteed appointment will do is create a class of clergy who are both unemployed and homeless.
  Unlike other denominations where pastors can send out resumes and find a job, we are at the mercy of the cabinet. That means that, once guaranteed appointment is eliminated, and you no longer have either a job or a home, you are not then free to “apply” for another church, even if you know that church is open, because only the cabinet can make the appointment. That means that you’ll have to find some other job. Good luck with that, given the curerent economy.
  As you make clear, “the appointment and assessment process is a subjective one. Individual District Superintents and Bishops use any number of criteria and their own perceptions to judge performance” But to then suggest that “We need to trust them” or thatappointments will somehow be made on the basis of some mysterious “clear systemic measurement process” once guaranteed appointmnets are eliminated is likewise naive.
  The situation will be worse for older clergy, since we know that churches want younger clergy (for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they can get by with paying them less), and it is nearly impossible to find a new job in our society once you’re 40 or older.
  
  Reply
David Kueker

October 5, 2010

What I find most interesting about this conversation –

#1. This “prophetic message” did not work. It did not bear good fruit. It alienated people, was destructive to trust, increased congregatinal anxiety, and was a very poor example of 1 Corinthians 13 and John 13:34-35. It showed a stunning lack of understanding of people and how to communicate effectively with them. It may have destroyed that pastor’s effectiveness at ever helping that congregation to change. Yet people continue to maintain that it was “the right thing to do” regardless of the corresponding results. And encourage it to be done.

#2. The basic content of the pastor’s message to the leaders was “you are not doing what you should be doing” which was the identical content of the lay leaders message to the pastor. It’s a stunning example of Romans 2:1 – “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” But we don’t see that both parties are essentially saying the same things … yet we feel the pastor is righteous and the lay leaders are unrighteous in their expectations of the other.

#3. A reasonably fair person can find plenty of scripture to support the position of the church lay leaders. Without theological training, they don’t usually camoflage their intent with religious language. We learn a lot if we attempt to imagine ourselves arguing from the perspective of the other side of an issue.

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Rev. Run

October 5, 2010

I needed to read this today. Thank you for the encouragement to know I’m not alone.

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John

October 4, 2010

Press on!

I imagine no one really wanted to hear what a prophet had to say. The truth about who we are isn’t comfortable at all.

Thanks be to God for our sisters and brothers who are willing to stand against the Powers to bring Christ’s light and Truth.

Stay blessed…john

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What I See « Thoughts From The Heart On The Left

October 4, 2010

[…] from the top. There is a discussion going on right now in response to a post by Dan Dick (“Make-No-Wave United Methodist Church”) that speaks to the conformity and complacency of the modern church, of the inability of the […]

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David

October 4, 2010

Had the earliest disciples sought only to be comforted and comfortable, the church would have died in the first century. The problem is that we’re a disobedient church. We are failing the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, both spiritually and physically. In American society, generally speaking, our families and our churches are no longer the center of who we are as a people.

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Jeff Uhler

October 4, 2010

Sometimes I’m amazed at the level of difficulty and excuse we often level at why the church is or is not what we think it should be. Many laity tell me that they like their church to be there for them, but there are many who look for ways to feel useful, to be helpful, to touch other people’s lives in positive ways. Then we look at clergy. Do we have the clergy leaders we need? We consider systems theory and apply those to our churches… the list can continue with personal experiences and anecdotes that make the case the way we prefer…

What happens if we stop trying to figure it all out and focus on loving God with all that we are, and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves? What if this is our primary focus in all that we do – from worship to outreach and everything in between?

What if we let God be God and use us to share God’s great love with all?

Does it seem more simple (or more difficult) than we think?

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