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A Global Church

General Conference Day Three

It takes time and effort to be a global church.  I am sitting in legislative committee today.  We have people who speak a variety of languages and come from a variety of backgrounds.  Just moving through the organizational process took significant time because we needed to make sure our translators had time to interpret so everyone could participate fully.  We spent a generous amount of time to introduce the members of the committee to each other so we would have a sense of who is sitting in the circle, where each comes from and some of their story.  It was important foundational work for building relationships in order to work together.

I am person who likes to think fast, talk fast and move fast.  There were moments I was frustrated by how long everything was taking.  But I have been on the other side of the coin as well where I have been the non-primary language speaker, and the needing the hospitality of the group in order to be able to contribute my voice fully.

I believe this is one of the key challenges we face as a United Methodist Church.  The world is moving fast, and we, as a church, are having a hard time keeping up with changes sweeping across the landscape.  I long for a church that is more nimble, agile, and flexible which requires thinking on your feet and taking action without having study committee after study committee. And yet, if we truly are going to be a global church with full participation and not just in name only, then we need to take the time to listen, to build community and to bring our varied perspectives and history.

I don’t know how to reconcile these two.  Many days I feel like we don’t have the luxury of time.  If we do not make significant radical change, I am not sure we will still be here.  The aging and shrinking of our congregations is going to create a financial crisis that is heading toward us like a speeding bullet.  And the implications of that is not just for the US church, but will have ramifications world wide.  But without time, to thoughtfully and prayerfully discern God’s leading and the building of the community, what kind of church will be be and how will we decide well what changes to make?

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A Way of Life

General Conference Day Two

In the laity address, one of the speakers talked about his personal health transformation.  He is a doctor and he said that his patients did not take him seriously about his advice on diet and exercise as they saw that he was not living it himself.  But once he lost the weight and totally remade his health habits, he noted that his patients began asking him what he was doing.  He didn’t need to preach, just embody the change for change to happen.

I can relate to that.  I underwent my own health transformation, losing 75 pounds, and maintaining my healthy way of life for close to two years now.  What has surprised me the most is how many people have told me that I have been an inspiration to them and they started on their own journey as well.  Now, I have not kept my story a secrett, but neither was I preaching to everyone I meet about why they need to exercise and practice portion control.  The visible changes in my life spoke for itself.

So what I have learned about this process of transformation is that it is hard work and a daily discipline.  I got the sense as people asked me what I did to lose the weight, they were looking for some secret that would change everything for them.  I simply said I ate less and exercised more, and I did it as a way of life.  They seemed disappointed with my answer.  They already knew that, but for some reason, were not ready or able to commit to it.  There is no quick fix to transformation.  It is choosing to do different things and to do them everyday.  And that was my biggest aha as I moved into maintenance.  I could not go back to the way it was before.  I had to keep doing what I had done to lose the weight to keep it off.  I had to choose these habits for my life…which is why I was out running at 6am this morning even when we have 13 hour days here.

So here is the connection to General Conference.  We are hearing messages of needing to change, and how the disciples went to follow Jesus immediately.  And then we spent hours debating the rules of the general conference, only to finally adopt them as printed.  We are preaching one message, but our daily habits suggest that we really don’t have a desire to do things differently.  So how possiible is transformation really?

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Insiders/Outsiders

General Conference Day One

I was struck by a irony during the opening worship for General Conference.  There we were, 3000 plus people of all ages, from many nations, speaking a variety of languages.  The worship leaders worked hard to create a worship service in which all those languages were heard and the many hued world we come from was made visible in our worship.  And yet, there was this distinct moment that it felt like to me as something of an insider and outsider worship and the liturgy couldn’t quite overcome it.

I was sitting high up in the bleachers watching people as they arrived and were getting seated.  Many greeted others with hugs and words of long lost friends seeing each other for the first time in mant years.  General Conference, it dawned on me, for many was like a large family reunion.  Many of these people have been at several general conferences or had connected in some other work in the general church, and one of the reasons people look forward to coming is to see those friends.

It was this moment though where it really caught me.  At one point the bishops, all robed in white, stood up en masse, processing to the front.  Now I have respect for the office of the bishop, but wow, it looked like the elect, the in group of the insiders taking the place of honor.  And as I looked down, I saw the chosen surrounded by blue curtains, where those of us without the right credentials must not pass, each wearing a blue prayer shawl, further setting them apart as special.  And then there was the rest of us.  It felt like we were spectators to  someone else’s party, someone else’s family reunion.

I understand the cost and challenges of space.  There may well not have been available a room where all 3000 could have sat together side by side, on one level, no platforms or curtains separating us.  But I have to tell you, space made a difference in that moment, and while the words were stating we were all welcome, we all were called by name by a loving God, the space was saying some of us were more important than others.

It got me to thinking, how else do we do that in the church, in our worship?  While we proclaim all are welcome, all are childen of God, do we unintentionally give a message this is really an insider gathering, and if you want to spectate you are can do that, but you are not fully one of us, and maybe if you work really, really hard, one day you too can be  one of the chosen, one of the elect?

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Hope of the World

In worship on Sunday we sang a song called Build Your Church.  It proclaims that the church is the hope of the world.  One the way to church that morning, I got a snippet on the radio that there is proof that hope exists.  It is our very breath.  As long as we are breathing, this person contend there is hope.  We are here for a purpose, and if we are still breathing, that means we are alive and we have not completed our purpose.  God is still present in our lives and calling us to be or do something with this life we have been given

I am in Tampa today.  Hundreds of people are streaming by me as I sit here writing this.  They have come from all over the world because they believe in God’s church, and specifically because they believe in what God is doing in and through the United Methodist Church.  Some say that the day of the mainline church is over, and church is increasingly irrelevant and perhaps even unnecessary in our spiritual but not religious culture.  Who needs the church to be in relationship with Jesus or to do good in the world?

But I would suggest there is still breath in this thing called the United Methodist Church, and as long as we have breath, I suspect that God is not done with us and we have a purpose.    We will be praying about that, arguing about that, debating and conferencing about that this week…but my deepest prayer is like the song says, is we will be a people who continually ask: Lord, we pray for the eyes to see all who long for your church to be.  We believe it is the hope of the world.

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The Power of Belief

I am reading  The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  it is a great read and provoking all sorts of thought for me.  One is do we believe that change is possible and things can get better for the church?   We have been hearing a story of malaise of the mainline church for so long, do we believe that story more than we do about the possiblity of God doing a new thing?  Are we so convinced that the U.S. is increasingly  a post-modern, post-Christian culture in which the church will continue to decline and be less and less relevant that we do not see any way for the church to have a new and different future?

What got me thinking about this was the idea that for a habit to permanently change, people had to believe that things could be better.  The book gives a couple of examples.  Alcoholics Anonymous is built on a process of teaching people new habits.  For many people it works.  But some, when they hit a crisis or stressor, return to old habits and fall of the wagon and others don’t.  What was the difference?  What researchers found was  the power of belief.  Those who believed in a higher power, had developed a capacity to believe.  And that translated to  other parts of their life.  They began to believe that they could cope with the stress  without alcohol.  They believed they could change.  “AA trains people to believe in something until they believe in the program and themselves.  It lets people practice believing that things will eventually get better, until things actually do.”

So what I am wondering: what do we believe?  I am off to General Conference next week…the global gathering of the United Methodist Church.  I have been known to be cynical about the ability of a 1000 people to legislate themselves toward a new future.  We know the church will not continue in this same form if we are going to be relevant to the world we find ourselves in.  But do we believe we can change?  We can post statistics weekly to a dashboard.  We can change our structure, which personally I think is long overdue and needed.  But none of those things will change us unless fundamentally we believe God is still alive and at work in the people and churches called United Methodist, and even though it will be different, our future can be even better than our past.

Ironically, we are in the belief business.  Of all people and organizations, we should be training people in how to believe…in God, in themselves, in the reality that transformation is possible and does in fact happen.  But in my conversations with clergy, with congregnants, with ordinary citizens…I don’t hear many people express much sense of believing the church can be on a different path than growing older, growing smaller  and growing more and more sidelined in our world.  So what is up with that?  And how do we start believing in a different story?

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Do we believe we are an Easter church?

I heard a respected church consultant say that every church could potentially have in weekly worship the number of people who attend on Easter Sunday. He was consulting with a church of about 1,100 people who attend on Easter; on a “normal” week, they have about 500 in worship.

It was intriguing to consider what this church would be doing differently, what the staffing would look like, what systems would need to be in place to effectively disciple that number of people on a weekly basis. An even more provocative idea was setting the intentional goal of being an Easter church, and how they could embody that day in and day out.

Of course, the irony is that this is what sets the Christian church apart. We are an Easter church. The Christian Sabbath is Sunday because that was the day of the resurrection. Even in Lent, as we are reflecting on the journey to the cross and the crucifixion, Sundays are not considered a part of the forty days of Lent because every Sunday is a mini-resurrection.

In this Easter season, reflect upon Easter services you have attended. What set them apart? In many of our churches, children, youth, and adults are in worship together. The music is joyful and celebrative and there is lots of it. The worship space is filled with flowers and other visuals to make it colorful and alive. Often there are special components such as skits, movie clips, and multi-sensory experiences to help people experience the power of the resurrection.

Easter worship shouts that something significant happened and it has changed everything. Those who plan that worship hope that everyone present will feel and know that so they can have the promise of new life.

Celebrate the resurrection year-round

What if every week we were as intentional and creative about worship as we are on Easter? What if we asked ourselves how we can embody the resurrection in our congregational life in all that we do?

If we truly believe that Jesus Christ is risen, then the body of Christ should be a community where people experience God as alive and well and present in our midst. And what if we believed and acted like an Easter church 52 weeks a year? Yes, that requires energy and resources. But it might just be what people are looking for in a church: that we believe our own story enough that we act like it is true!

I believe the world needs the hope of a God who can heal, make whole—and yes, bring life out of death and new beginnings out of dead ends. When we go back to “business as usual,” we send the message that Easter is only a day and not a way of life; not a real possibility for life after all. What would it take for us to be the Easter church that the world needs?

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