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”

Mike Lindstrom

September 30, 2010

I realize my response earlier was a reaction to my own struggle in a previous place – and probably far too incendiary for what we should be doing. However, I hear this “parallel culture” and “appointed to the current congregation” and I wonder why those who employ means of leverage to stop the church from being the church are allowed to continue unabated?

Some have invoked John Wesley. Yes, he did develop a parallel discipleship culture, but was not under the pressure of getting apportionments paid or keeping open the doors of the church or keeping members happy so we don’t have more numerical decline. Do we have a new revival to be undertaken in a new way?

People have mentioned Jesus as the example – but he stood up in the face of religious leaders (in our case local church leaders?) and called them out. He was crucified as a result, and God used that to redeem us all and bring us to new life. Jesus did not try to work within the religious culture to bring about change. He certainly did not take 12 years – one could argue it has taken over 2,000 years and He is not done yet. Do we follow Christ or not? Are we ready to be brutalized, accused of treachery, and crucified?

I go back to the original exchange – “we don’t want to do all that and we don’t care if God speaks through the Bible and tells us we should. We want what we want.” Sounds like the religious leaders of Jesus time.

Many say – be nice and work behind the scenes. But I wonder, is that not just arranging the chairs on the Titanic? I really wonder and wrestle with this reality. Thanks for letting me join the conversation.

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David Kueker

September 30, 2010

Taylor Burton-Edwards earlier wrote:”nurture a parallel discipleship culture within a congregation before there is critical mass in place to ask such questions and expect much of a different answer.”

This is very wise … and “parallel discipleship culture” is the perfect phrase. If you begin to work closely with 2-3 “disciples” you can begin to live a missional life in a small group within this congregation RIGHT NOW, and which will slowly grow from 3 to 12 to 70 and spread like leaven through the whole over time – slowly, inexorably, irresistably, organically.

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David Kueker

September 30, 2010

Pushing on a system guarantees not only systemic resistance but destroys the influence that is essential to leadership. Being “prophetic” is usually misguided – and most of the training on how to bring change to churches is not only wrong, it guarantees failure to change. In case I’m not clear, “relevancy” and “urgency” brought to the whole system guarantee failure in the real world. It’s like throwing a grand piano up into the air and then standing under it. (I have done this several times.) This is especially true in an anxious congregation like this one.

Churches are social systems and need a systems approach – Peter Steinke, Edwin Friedman, Peter Senge(The Fifth Discipline – “Limits to Growth” archetype) and Everett Rogers (The Diffusion of Innovation). These authors present a different method of change that begins with just a few people off to the side and moves toward a tipping point – just as Jesus did.

Pastors are not appointed to a building but an existing group of people; your influence as a leader will always be derived from the positive relationship you have with these people and their willingness to follow you out of the church into the world is trust that one has to earn over time. It doesn’t come from positional authority.

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Gregg Graening

September 30, 2010

Church in exchange (email communication) above = Laodicea. My heart hurts. Obviously, we disciples have a true “God sized” job to do going forward. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus! Pray we remain faithful to His coming and calling for us to witness unto our own, our communities and our world.

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All Hail The Pastor

September 30, 2010

Mike: Great point. But, WHERE would Conferences get that sort of money? Almost all are near broke.

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Todd Anderson

September 30, 2010

WOW — 12 years. That seems a too-long-time without a super-strong laity, clear lines of “succession” from 3-year term to 3-year term, etc., for us as UMC-ers.
I am wondering how effective such a model is given (as has been commented) our “cycle of 4-6 year Pastoral appointments” etc.,

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Jim Hawkins

September 30, 2010

Dan, this is very depressing, particularly the response from the district superintendent.

And when you add to this the proposal to end guaranteed appointment for elders, I am truly worried. (Why end guaranteed appointment? If it is to combat ineffective clergy, don’t we already have a process for this? If that process is not being used, use it! If that process is not working, fix it!)

The end of guaranteed appointment means that any elder can be “let go” for any reason: because she has the reputation for “rocking the boat,” because he is prophetic, because she is a “she” and the open churches are uncomfortable with a woman as pastor, because the open churches are uncomfortable with a pastor of his ethnicity, because there are not enough churches willing to pay an elder’s compensation, etc.

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