One question – or a variation of same – that I have been asked a number of times is this: “If you could change just one thing about The United Methodist Church, what would it be?” Now, I wish the question were, “If you could change just 437 things about The United Methodist Church, what would they be,” but I will honor the limitation and specificity of the original question. The one thing I would change about the UMC is how we understand the meaning and purpose of church.

Church is not the place we go to for an occasional hour on a Sunday morning. Church is not a worship service. Church is not an institution or a denomination. Church is not a building, an incorporation, defined by a pastor or a preacher, nor is it an individual personal private option. In our incredible creativity we have managed to make church so much less than it ought to be. We have allowed it to become insipid, boring, passive, bureaucratic, paternalistic, judgmental, divisive, cheap, and simplistic.

Church is community of faith in Jesus the Christ equipped, encouraged, instructed, and empowered to be the body of Christ for the world. For us to live into this definition, a few critical shifts are required.

First, spiritual formation in small groups should be our primary connection to the church (not an hourish worship service on a weekly or less-than-weekly basis). To learn, understand, embrace, and practice the teachings of Jesus, we need interactive educational and formational experiences on a regular schedule. As athletes in training or musicians rehearsing, Christians should engage in disciplines that strengthen and perfect their faith.

Second, outward and visible evidence of our relationship with God in Christ should reinforce and reflect our inward and spiritual grounding. There is no such thing as a “personal and private” relationship with God for followers of Jesus Christ. We should not assess the vitality of a community of faith based on the number of people who join or attend. Our true authenticating metric should be how many people we serve, care for, connect with, and invite into fellowship on a daily basis. There is no such thing as a “passive disciple.” We are blessed to be a blessing, we are served in order to serve, we learn to teach, we follow to lead, we receive so that we may give.

Third, worship should be about God not us. A sad unintended consequence of church becoming a one-hour or less weekly scheduled event is that we have to try to cram every aspect of Christian formation into that sliver of time. The expressed discipleship, fellowship, stewardship, apprenticeship, internship, evangelistic partnership, and scholarship essential to a vital, living faith get compressed and convoluted with worship. Historically, Hebrew and Christian worship is about God for our benefit. We have allowed worship to become about us for God’s benefit. We forget that God doesn’t need our worship, but we need to worship God. Therefore, true worship is highly interactive. Congregations are to engage in liturgy – literally “the work of the people.” Liturgy is never performed for the people, but by the people. Music is worship is not performed for the congregation, but the community of faith lifts their voice in praise together. A choir should never perform for the audience; choirs lead the congregation in praising God. Pastors should “preach prayers at the people,” but should lead the people in prayer. Preaching isn’t entertainment, therapy, political posturing, persecution, prosecution, nor is it a platform from which the preacher impresses with their knowledge and expertise. Preaching should help us understand God, God’s will, and the ways we can please, honor, and glorify God. Will it inspire, encourage, and guide? Most certainly. Will it make us feel better about ourselves? Maybe, if we are aligning our actions with our core beliefs and values. But true worship will never let us off the hook. Along with all that we receive from God comes a responsibility to use wisely and well all we receive for the benefit of others as well as self. In my experience, we spend a lot of time in worship that is much more about us and our needs instead of God and God’s will.

Last, though I could go on and on, I wish our church would exorcise the demon pleonexia from our denomination. The Greek concept of pleonexia is an insatiable fixation and desire for more, for bigger, for fancy, for attention, for regard. Pleonexia says bigger is better and success and value is defined quantitatively rather than qualitatively. When I did my research for Vital Signs (my book published in 2007 by Discipleship Resources), I found that the healthiest, most engaged, most impactful and relevant churches had between 120-300 active participants, did not allow a category of “inactive members,” engaged between 75-85% of their participants in active ministry outreach and leadership, and had almost everyone connected to a small spiritual formation/learning group. Mid-size (300-600 “member”), large membership (600-5,000), and mega- (5,000+) were very popular and they produced much of the “we did it! You can do it to!” rah-rah church programs and campaigns published for smaller congregations. However, they also had 30-70% of their members on an “inactive roll,” had less than 10% of their members in active leadership, focused most of their ministry inward, and were attractive for the “show they put on” – with many attendees naming music, a particular preacher/pastor, of the style of worship “experience” as the reason they show up. In over 1,100 church visits, surveys, and interviews I did not find a traditionally healthy congregation over 350 members. (This explains why it took almost a decade to get the research published. Because not one of our “premier” large churches landed in the vital category some higher-ups at the General Board of Discipleship withheld the information so it wouldn’t offend any of the significant large donors to our Church World Service dollars…)

So, I wish our understanding of church more closely aligned with the vision, model, and witness of Jesus rather than the more corporate, hierarchical, and regimented vision and instruction of Paul. We don’t go to church; we are the church. We don’t belong to the church; the church belongs to God, and, again, we are the church. The church can never be a once-a-week hour on Sunday; the church is 24/7/365(6 every four years). The church is never only for us; we are the church for the world, and if we want to truly honor and glorify God, we need more church, not less. Okay, I will now jump down off my soapbox. But I do believe that somewhere John and Charles Wesley are smiling.