David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Boundaries vs. Ideals

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Inspired by upcoming work on the General Book of Discipline during this quadrennium of the UMC, I have been examining over the past couple of weeks how United Methodists understand the concept of discipline and what it means to have a Book of Discipline.

As part of that series, I asserted that the purpose of having a denominational Book of Discipline is to help United Methodists live productive lives of Christian discipleship, where, together with others in Christian community, they grow in holiness, i.e., the love of God and neighbor.

I also asserted that one of Methodism’s theological insights is that actions matter in the Christian life, and that discipline builds on this insight by trying to regulate Methodists’ actions, to encourage those actions which best express holiness and discourage actions which are at odds with holy living. Last week, I looked at rules and norms as two different ways to influence action.

This week, I would like to suggest another pair of approaches to influencing action: boundaries and ideals.

In brief, boundaries set the limits of acceptable actions. They determine what sorts of actions are prohibited, or “out of bounds” within a particular community, and what actions are required of a community’s members to remain in the bounds of the community. Boundaries set expectations for behavior by indicating what behaviors people should not engage in and focusing on penalties for not performing required behaviors.

Ideals, on the other hand, set standards and goals for desired and discouraged actions. They determine what sorts of actions would best reflect the beliefs, values, and identity of a community and what actions would be inconsistent with those beliefs, values, and identity. Thus, they set aspirations for behavior by indicating what behaviors people would exhibit in the best of situations, even if there is recognition that in practice, individuals will not exhibit all of these behaviors or will not exhibit them perfectly.

An easy test of whether a rule sets a boundary or an ideal is whether questions about if it has been followed must be answered with “yes/no,” in which case it sets a boundary, or whether such questions can be answered on a spectrum, in which case it sets an ideal.

The UMC Book of Discipline contains both boundaries and ideals.

As an example of a statement of ideals, look at the membership vows in ¶217. When members affirm that they will “accept the freedom and power God gives them to resist evil, injustice, and oppression,” they are not agreeing that they will never commit any more wrongs at the risk of losing their church membership. They are affirming an ideal of Christian discipleship. For various reasons, members may by commission or omission still participate in oppression, but they recognize that such behavior does not conform with the highest ideals of Christian discipleship.

Just a few paragraphs later comes an example of a statement of boundaries. ¶221 on “Accountability” sets a boundary for membership. It explains the actions required by congregants and pastors in a situation in which a congregant is accused of not living up to their baptismal vows. It details the steps of intervention, mediation, and ultimately church trial.

Other portions of the Book of Discipline are less clear whether they constitute boundaries or ideals. When ¶216 says, “Baptized infants and children are to be instructed and nurtured in the meaning of the faith, the rights and responsibilities of their baptism, and spiritual and moral formation using materials approved by The United Methodist Church,” it is clearly attempting to set some boundaries on what the confirmation process should look like in UMC churches. Yet, most United Methodists would recognize that actual confirmation practices in UMC churches vary, with little consequence, so this passage may function more as an ideal than a boundary.

To the extent that the Book of Discipline is influenced by U.S. secular law (and that’s a significant extent), it has tended to proliferate boundary statements. U.S. secular law is geared toward determination of mutuality exclusive states (guilty/innocent, owning/not owning, liable/not liable, etc.) and toward outlining proper procedures. Determining which of two (or more) mutually exclusive states a case falls into is an exercise of boundary setting. The concept of “proper” procedures implies that if certain actions are not performed rightly, if they fall outside the boundary, then the procedures will be improper and invalid.

Large portions of the Book of Discipline, especially in Part VI: Organization and Administration, reflect boundary-setting material – rules for determining who counts as being in which categories of ministry, rules for who should be on what committee or board, rules about actions that must be followed or avoided lest they lead to improper organization and administration of the church. Certainly, some of this material is necessary, especially for the church in the United States to function within the context of secular law.

Yet, we should remember that the point of discipline is discipleship. Discipleship involves being conformed to the image of God through the on-going process of sanctification. And that process of being conformed to the image of God is less about behaviors that absolutely must or must not happen. It’s about better and better reflecting the characteristics and heart of God. It’s about approaching an ideal.

So, since discipline is ultimately about discipleship, ideals are often more useful than boundaries in clarifying the end toward which our church behaviors are oriented. Boundary setting may play an important part in helping us walk the path toward the goal of discipleship by preventing us from falling into ditches to the side of the path, but articulating our ideals of Christian discipleship must remain the primary focus of our disciplines.

To get some idea of what this could look like, I recommend reading through the section on ordination in the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Book of Discipline. So much of the UMC’s section on ordination is focused on boundary setting – required mentoring, required education, required papers, required committee and board meetings, etc. The AME Book of Discipline has some of that, to be sure. But that AME Book of Discipline also has beautiful passages describing the qualities that a Christian minister should embody. It describes what sort of person ministers should be, or at least should aspire to be. It lays out the ideal.

I don’t know if AME ministers are better disciples than UMC ministers because of this setting of ideals, nor do I know how such a statement could even be assessed. But I do know that the AME Book of Discipline is more discipleship focused on this point, and that’s an example that United Methodists can aspire to follow as we continue to refine and perfect our Book of Discipline.

David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Rules and Norms

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Last week, I argued that the purpose of having a denominational Book of Discipline is to help United Methodists live productive lives of Christian discipleship, where, together with others in Christian community, they grow in holiness, i.e., the love of God and neighbor. The process of developing a General Book of Discipline that determines adaptable and non-adaptable portions of the present Book of Discipline is thus an opportunity to think theologically about the role of discipline in the life of discipleship.

One of Methodism’s theological insights is that actions matter in the Christian life. Christianity is not just about believing the right things; it is about putting one’s faith into action and thereby living out holy love. Discipline builds on this insight by trying to regulate Methodists’ actions, to encourage those actions which best express holiness and discourage actions which are at odds with holy living.

Yet there are two different ways to influence people’s actions: rules and norms.

Rules are formal statements of required or prohibited actions. They usually are tied to a set of stated consequences that apply if the rules are broken or at least an authority that has the power to enforce the rules and apply penalties if they are not followed. The primary feature of rules is that they are explicit. They state clearly, in ways that are accessible to all members of a community, how those community members are to behave.

Norms, on the other hand, are implicit. They are internalized and usually unspoken guidelines about how community members are to behave. There may be consequences to breaking norms, but these are social consequences, and those consequences are not necessarily predetermined nor does their application depend upon a particular authority. Norms operate through a process of socialization into the group that produces a common understanding of how to act.

Both formal rules and internalized norms can significantly shape people’s actions, but they do so in different ways, with each working best in specific settings.

Rules are especially useful in situations where there might be uncertainty or disagreement about how to behave. When there is uncertainty or disagreement about behavior, rules define expected behavior clearly in a way that everyone can access.

There are probably rules posted in your church kitchen. Not everyone who enters a church kitchen does so with the same idea about what to do with a dirty coffee cup or where to store leftover food, so posted rules encourage people to behave in the same way in that kitchen, regardless of what their initial inclinations would be.

Rules are also especially useful in situations where the consequences of behavior are significant. There’s no rule about not making change from the offering plate because, while that might be seen as a social faux pas, there’s little impact on others of that behavior. However, there are probably rules posted around your church about the heating or air conditioning systems because if one person acted inappropriately, that has the potential to discomfort everyone else in the church.

Norms have the advantage of being more comprehensive and more efficient than rules. Because they are based on observations of the behaviors of others, a lot more can be communicated in this way, and it can be done much more quickly than if everything were written down.

Imagine all of the behavioral choices that go into the average church potluck – what type of food to bring, how much to bring, what form to bring it in, how much food to take, etc. Some of these choices might be decided through formal rules (e.g., “Last names A-G bring a salad.”), but most of these choices are made based on observations of previous potlucks. You get a sense of how people act at a potluck, then you behave similarly. There might be some confusion for first-time participants, but by your second or third potluck, you get the hang of it, all without having to read a 32-page manual of rules on how to behave at potlucks. This is the power of norms. Even if there were a 32-page manual of potluck rules, it still probably won’t be as effective at getting people to behave the same way as social imitation is.

The disadvantage of norms is that they require a community of practice to operate. Potluck norms work when there’s a church community that regularly has potlucks. That setting of the same group of people engaging in the same set of actions is what allows people to socially learn from one another. If a church were to have a potluck for the first time ever, there would likely be a lot more variation in people’s behavior at the potluck. Or, if you had been to many potlucks before but then went to one in a new setting, it might be more difficult to anticipate in advance how people would behave because you would be outside the community where you learned potluck norms.

One of Wesley’s key insights, though, was that the practice of Christianity best happened in community. Classes, bands, and select societies were predicated on Christian community. These groups formed settings in which collective Christian norms could encourage all members of the community to behave in a more holy way. The Bible may function as a shared text, but most Christian small groups don’t have an extensive list of rules to govern their behavior or that of their members. Instead, they depend upon frequent interactions among members around shared areas of concern that build up commonly held norms in those areas. This has historically been an incredibly effective way to discipline Christians in their practice of discipleship.

Yet, the entire membership of The United Methodist Church functions much different than a small group. Most members of the church do not know each other, indeed have never met each other. So, there is no opportunity for people to directly learn social norms from one another. To the extent that individuals are part of multiple smaller groups within the denomination, they may help transfer norms from one area to another.

Nevertheless, for there to be shared understandings of expected behavior across the whole denomination, there need to be explicit rules, since the scope of the denomination is too large for implicit norms to function well. That is why we have a Book of Discipline.

Yet, even though rules are necessary in a large, multi-national, multicultural, multilinguistic denomination, it is important to remember that discipleship best happens in community and discipline exists to support discipleship. Thus, making formal rules is not an end in itself. The best and most effective way to discipline members into living lives of Christian discipleship is for them to be part of communities that can create shared norms of discipleship.

Rules support this process of community norming by ensuring that these communities incorporate key behaviors when the potential risk of not doing so would be disastrous to communities and by clarifying expectations of how the communities will relate to one another in mutual support of their process of forming Christian disciples.

Rules are not the only thing that can be included in a written Book of Discipline. In my next post, I’ll look at the distinction between boundaries and ideals.

David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Discipline and Discipleship

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Among the many actions of the recently concluded General Conference was to approve continued work on the General Book of Discipline. The creation of a General Book of Discipline is an idea that’s been around The United Methodist Church for some time and is laid out in ¶101 of the Book of Discipline.

In short, work on the General Book of Discipline involves designating certain portions of the Book of Discipline as adaptable and certain portions of it as non-adaptable. Adaptable portions of the Book of Discipline could be changed by central conferences (and regional conferences, should Worldwide Regionalization be ratified). Non-adaptable portions of the Book of Discipline are binding on all branches of the church.

Clearly in the non-adaptable portion of the Book of Discipline is the Constitution, the Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task, the Ministry of All Christians, and the Social Principles. Work on the General Book of Discipline is thus focused on the largest portion of the Discipline, Part VI: Organization and Administration. The instructions in ¶101 call for Part VI to be split into adaptable and non-adaptable parts.

This work is primarily assigned to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters (SCCCM) and the Committee on Faith and Order (CFO), with some additional groups consulted on portions of the work. A movement at General Conference to give the SCCCM and CFO the power to reword portions of the Discipline rather than merely categorize them as adaptable or non-adaptable ran out of time to revise the authorizing legislation.

Worldwide Regionalization was one of the major foci for General Conference, and the work on the General Book of Discipline intersects in important ways with the push for regionalization. The regionalization legislation (which still requires ratification by annual conferences to go into effect) would clarify and strengthen the power of what would become regional conferences to adapt portions of the Book of Discipline. A General Book of Discipline would clarify where that power to adapt should be focused.

For some portions of the Book of Discipline, the decision about whether to categorize them as adaptable or non-adaptable is fairly straightforward. Portions of the Discipline dealing with US clergy pension programs, for instance, are clearly relevant only to one part of the church, and other parts of the church should be able to remove them or replace them with their own clergy retirement provisions.

Other portions of the Book of Discipline are less clear. Should the order of deacons be an adaptable part of the Discipline, since some places in Africa still practice the transitional diaconate, or should that become a standard practice everywhere? Should the agencies be seen as part of the global infrastructure of the church, or are they primarily vehicles for the US church to do its work? Should the process of organizing a new congregation be the same in all places?

Such questions push the church to think carefully about theological issues around contextualization, subsidiarity, unity, and mission. They impinge upon relational issues such as trust, differentiation, control, and reciprocity. These are all good and important issues to think through.

Yet if we go one level further up, work on the General Book of Discipline raises a further question: Why do we have a Book of Discipline? What is its role in the United Methodist understanding of the Christian life? How does the concept of discipline and the existence of a Book of Discipline shape The United Methodist Church as a Christian community?

Discipline is a central concept in Methodism, dating back to the days of John Wesley. In secular meanings, discipline has connotations of instruction, knowledge, training, and adherence to rules. All of these fit with Methodism’s understanding of discipline.

But the best linguistic connection through which to understand Methodist discipline is the connection between discipline and discipleship. Discipline is, in essence, a reflection of the Methodist understanding of how discipleship should work. For Methodists, a life of discipleship is a disciplined life.

John Wesley believed, and subsequent generations of Methodists have maintained, that a life of Christian discipleship should be focused on growing in holiness through sanctifying grace. That process of growth involves spiritual and moral training, which is best carried out in Christian community through a set of regularized practices that structure the Christian life.

In Wesley’s revival, such lives of Christian discipline were initially structured through small groups – the classes and bands. Eventually, as Wesley and the preachers associated with him began to meet in yearly conferences, the minutes of those conferences wrote down “what to teach, how to teach, and how to regulate our doctrine, discipline, and practice.” These written minutes were the beginning of the evolution of the present UMC Book of Discipline.

Yet it should not be lost that the point of these formalized minutes was to assist the individual Christians who were part of Wesley’s revival in living out disciplined lives of Christian holiness. The point of disciplines (and a written Discipline) was ultimately spiritual, not administrative, legislative, or legal. Disciplines existed to standardize best practices from the revival so that people could incorporate these practices into their Christian discipleship and thereby grow in holiness.

Thus, as United Methodists think about work on the General Book of Discipline, it is critical to keep in mind the spiritual intent of having a Book of Discipline. The question is not merely, “What rules can we afford to allow variation in around the world?” Ultimately, the question must be, “How do we craft a General Book of Discipline that helps United Methodists around the world be successful disciples of Jesus Christ?”

With this lens of discipleship in mind, I will suggest a few additional concepts over the next several posts to help United Methodists think through how disciplines and a Discipline can contribute to living out lives of holiness in Christian community.

An Appreciation of My Congregation

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

In my last post, I wrote that in order for our congregations to continue to reach new people, we need to be able to talk about what goes right in them, not just what goes wrong. As a practice of that, I want to share an appreciation of some of the many things that go right at my congregation, Decorah First United Methodist Church, even amidst a decline in members and worship attendance.

My wife once described a church she served as “the type of Methodists who like to drink coffee and do good.” I think Decorah FUMC has a lot of that type of United Methodist, though I would add sing and learn to the list of things that the congregation likes to do. So, I will talk about singing, drinking coffee, learning, and doing good, or if you prefer church words, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and mission, as I have experienced them at Decorah FUMC and as I have come to know them as Methodist practices.

Singing
One of my distinct impressions of Decorah FUMC growing up was the singing. Not only was there a good choir, but the congregation would sing in four-part harmony during the hymns, singing “lustily and with good courage,” as John Wesley instructed. Even now, a much smaller choir continues to offer anthems as an important part of the service, and you can hear the voices of those around you during the hymns.

As I have come to learn more about Methodism and other Christian traditions, I have learned that Decorah FUMC’s emphasis on singing is perhaps to some extent an influence from our Lutheran neighbors, with their strong choral traditions, but also something intrinsic to Methodism. For a tradition co-founded by Charles Wesley and claiming some of the other top hymn writers of all time (Fannie Crosby, Charles Tindley, etc.), singing comes naturally.

But it wasn’t just that we sang, it was the joy expressed in the singing that stuck with me. The church I grew up in was generally a joyful church. They made plausible Psalm 122:1, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD!’” There is less joy and more weariness in the church these days, but the old joy still pops up every now and then.

This joyfulness taught me something important about Methodism and about faith. It taught me that church should be a blessing and not just an obligation. And it taught me the importance of emotion in experiencing one’s faith. Methodism has always been a tradition that combines head and heart, and growing up around joyful Christians helped me internalize that.

Drinking Coffee
After the singing (and the rest of worship) is over, most folks at Decorah FUMC head downstairs. The church is part of that large group of US Protestant churches that believe that coffee time is the third sacrament. Of course, despite what my children might tell you, the real point of coffee time is not the treats or the coffee (organic and fair trade though it may be), but the opportunity to sit around a table and talk with other congregants.

Every church has its cliques and its social customs that feel foreign to outsiders, and I expect Decorah FUMC is no different than others in that regard. But I have experienced their fellowship to be open, warm, and meaningful.

I remember as a kid watching my parents interact with their friends at coffee time and learning from those models of Christian adulthood. Then as a teenager, I remember the thrill of sitting at a table without my parents and talking to other adults who treated me seriously and with respect and affection. It was an important step in forming my own identity. Now, I appreciate the chance to talk with people I wouldn’t otherwise during the week – people with different ages, abilities, and life histories than me. Each of these experiences of fellowship fits with the larger Methodist emphasis that religion must be a communal experience. One cannot be a solitary Christian.

Learning
Decorah FUMC has always scheduled Sunday school for after coffee time. Those faith formation options for children and adults have ebbed and flowed over the years, and they are not always confined to Sunday mornings. Church members have formed a long-running book club, and there are a variety of occasional presentations on a wide range of topics related to the practice of faith in the world. This is perhaps not surprising for a congregation with an overrepresentation of teachers.

As I’ve come to know more about Methodism throughout the world, this also strikes me as representative of Methodism as a tradition broadly: the emphasis on learning and education. This expresses itself in various ways, from starting Sunday schools to starting universities, but Methodists care about education.

I’m currently in the middle of teaching a short Sunday school session on mission at my church, and it’s reminded me of another thing I appreciate about Decorah FUMC. It’s a church that’s interested in learning and, as part of that, willing to talk about faith and how to live out one’s faith in the world. Most of the people at Decorah FUMC do not subscribe to a privatized faith that is only something internal. They are interested in talking with other church members about how to better understand and live out their faith.

While the church has not had (to my knowledge) a formal “discipleship system” or “Wesleyan accountability groups,” but this is the work of discipleship, overflowing into in the lives of the congregants. This, too, is very Wesleyan: an emphasis on discipleship that impacts people’s everyday practice of their faiths.

Doing Good
It is this fourth category, doing good, where Decorah FUMC perhaps shines the brightest. The congregation has always been and remains civic-minded, willing to volunteer, generous, and serious about mission.

Decorah FUMC did not and does not have the town’s wealthiest or the most prominent college professors on its rolls. Instead, it has had a lot of teachers, small business owners, nurses, and a smattering of other professionals. In other words, the congregation has had a lot of the civically oriented middle class among its members.

These are the sorts of people who volunteer for things and serve on committees and generally help keep the gears of the local community turning. They helped launch the local Habitat for Humanity organization, serve on the library board, help keep the food pantry running, and the like. Not all of this happens through the church, but it is still a form of local mission.

As I have learned more about Methodism, this strikes me as quite frequently Methodism’s place in the religious ecology of communities. It may begin among the “upwardly mobile poor,” but in many places, Methodism comes to be characterized by people who care about the common good, the health of the community, and who have enough to contribute to that common good without necessarily having a lot left over. Sometimes those contributions to the community are organized through the church; sometimes church members make them on their own.

As part of caring about its community, Decorah FUMC has long been a generous congregation. My first experience of church committee work was serving on the mission committee in high school and being impressed by the number of organizations in the community that the church helped support. Now, I am the treasurer of the local food pantry, and I know that the tradition of generosity continues in the church.

Nor is it just money that the congregation gives. It is generous about the use of its space, too, hosting everything from AA meetings to preparations for the community Thanksgiving meal to holiday celebrations for students from the local college to concerts to community forums on various topics.

Yet Decorah FUMC has never believed that mission is just about giving money or letting others use their space. Instead, over the past several decades, the church has subscribed to a notion of mission that has emphasized personal relationships. I know that this practice of personal relationships in mission has impacted how I understand mission and how I have taught others about mission.

I remember the United Methodist Congolese student at the local college that the congregation helped support during and beyond her studies. I think of the church’s commitment to the Ulster Project, which sought to foster reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland by forming relationships among youth from the two groups. I remember how the church showed up for families impacted by the immigration raid in nearby Postville, IA, the largest such raid in the nation’s history. First and foremost, I think of the congregation’s now 25-year-long commitment to a sister congregation relationship with a congregation in Central America.

It is this commitment to mission, this dedication to putting faith into action for the sake of others, that strikes me as most characteristic of Methodism. Methodism is a missional movement, as its proponents have repeatedly emphasized throughout the years. I am grateful to have been molded into that tradition of Methodism by Decorah FUMC and further grateful that I am now able to share that understanding back with them and with others throughout the world.

Recommended Listening: Global Conversations on Discipleship Podcast

Over the past two months, Might Rasing, Director of Central Conference Relationships for Discipleship Ministries, has begun a new podcast entitled "Global Conversations on Discipleship." Using Discipleship Ministries' world-wide network, Rasing interviews pastors from around the UMC connection on a wide variety of topics having to do with the contours of United Methodist life in those particular contexts. The episodes, which run from 45 minutes to an hour, provide an interesting glimpse into the life of United Methodists in various spots around the world. As of this post, there are five episodes in the series:

Discipleship and Church Life in the Time of COVID-19: Responses from Africa, Europe, and the Philippines with Rev. Alan Masima Gurupira from Zimbabwe, Rev. Ande Emmanuel from Nigeria,  Mr. Phileas Jusu from Sierra Leone, Rev. Anne Detjen from Germany, and Ms. Earlie Pasion-Bautista from the Philippines

Evangelism, Discipleship, and Publishing in Zimbabwe with Rev. Gift Kudakwashe Machinga, Pastor-in-Charge of Cranborne UMC in Zimbabwe, Chair of the Board of Discipleship in the Zimbabwe East Annual Conference, and leader of the Discipleship Resources International (DRI) - Publishing Team in the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area

Discipleship and Community Engagement in Germany with Rev. Dr. Barry Sloan, director of evangelism of the Germany Central Conference and co-founder of Inspire Chemnitz

Young People's Ministry in Sierra Leone with Senesie Timothy Aruna Rogers, a United Methodist youth leader in Sierra Leone

Ministry with Children and Parents in Denmark with Rev. Maria Thaarup from Aarhus and Rev. Anne K. Thompson from Vejle

Nkemba Ndjungu on "Sent in Love," Part 1

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Nkemba Ndjungu. Rev. Nkemba is a missionary with Global Ministries. He formerly served as the Mission Superintendent of the Cameroon Mission and currently serves in Belize. This post is part of a series on the UMC's new ecclesiology document, Sent in Love: A United Methodist Understanding of the Church, which will be presented to General Conference 2020 for review and adoption. It is the first of two posts by Rev. Nkemba.

I like the title of this document: Sent in Love. The church is God’s mission to the world. As members of the Universal Church in general, and the United Methodist Church in particular, we are God’s envoys. My comments will address the four Marks of The United Methodist Church, marks that we share with the Universal Church: 1) The United Methodist Church is called to be apostolic; 2) The United Methodist Church is called to be catholic; 3) The United Methodist Church is called to be holy; 4) The United Methodist Church is called to be one.

The United Methodist Church is called to be apostolic
This is our commitment for mission. The Church is God’s mission to the world. A Church without mission is dead. Three fourth of the works performed by our Lord Jesus Christ on earth were social. While helping people with their spiritual needs, the church must also care for their social needs. The Church does not exist for itself. It exists for others.

“The apostolic community exists not for its own sake, but as a means of grace for the whole world, an instrument of God’stransforming and redeeming love. Starting with the sent character of the church should guard against an inward-looking and self-protective stance for the church toward the world” (Sent in Love, p.18). As much as this statement is true, it is also right to say that the church should not embrace the practices of the world that compromise its faith. In his Priestly Prayer, the Lord Jesus made it clear that although the church is in the world, it is not of the world (John 17: 14-19). Making disciples of Jesus Christ is the ultimate mission of the Church.

To make disciples is the mission that Jesus entrusted to us: "Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I prescribed you. And behold, I am with you every day until the end of the world" (Matthew 28: 19-20).

To be able to make disciples of Jesus Christ, churchgoers must be true disciples themselves. For more than twenty centuries, it has been proven that one must be a disciple of Jesus Christ to make disciples of Jesus Christ. When this condition is not fulfilled, we may make disciples, but they are the disciples of a man, a movement or a sect. This is what we see in many churches today. People follow a man, and when that man falls, they are scandalized, and they fall with him.

The second part of the Great Commission, which is also our duty, is training. We make disciples by speaking, proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. When someone becomes a disciple of Jesus it is not the end of the story. He must produce another disciple. A new disciple is someone who must be trained.

The disciple's duty is to make other disciples through training. This is what Jesus meant when he said: “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Jesus expects new disciples to be trained so that they do not remain babies in the faith, but that they grow up in faith. They must learn to do what Jesus commanded; and most importantly, they must make other disciples.

The only reason why we are in this world without being of it, is because our lives must reflect Jesus Christ; and we must be the image of our Master among the people that we are called to serve. To make disciples of all nations is to work with Jesus Christ who works in us, with us and through us, to meet, welcome, teach those whom he places on our way.

The United Methodist Church is called to be catholic
“When we as United Methodists affirm that the church of God is “catholic” we mean to affirm that God’s saving love has a universal intention, and wherever this saving intention draws people together in Christian fellowship, there the fullness of the church is present” (Sent in Love, p. 21). This is our commitment to universality, diversity and ecumenism. We are compelled to see beyond our walls in order to embrace people of different nations and faiths. To work with people of different cultures, traditions and denominations poses many challenges. That is why love must be our leading principle.

God is love, and all life revolves around love. Since God is love, the most important thing He wants us to learn on this earth is love; especially the love of the members of our spiritual family (See 1 Peter 2: 17b, Galatians 6:10). It is in loving that we resemble him the most. Love is the foundation of all the commandments he has given us. Paraphrasing the Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul said, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this one, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Galatians 5:14). Many people who cause troubles in our societies are people who have not known the love of their parents. Love is the greatest testimony of our Christian life.

Therefore, because of the differences of views and opinions as we work with people different from us, we need to exercise “Universal Grace and a Catholic Spirit” (Sent in Love, p.21) by practicing two great principles: forgiveness and tolerance. Forgiveness is the act by which the Holy God decides not to hold human beings accountable for their sins. While the amnesty of men can be rigged, the forgiveness that God offers is sincere, true and irrevocable. That’s the kind of forgiveness believers must exercise.

Tolerance refers to the ability to accept what one disapproves of, that is, what one should normally refuse. In the moral sense, tolerance is the virtue of respecting what one would not accept spontaneously, for example when it goes against one's own convictions. It is also the virtue that leads to being vigilant both towards intolerance and towards the intolerable. Tolerance can allow unity to hold even in the midst of opposing views and beliefs.

The United Methodist Church is called to be holy
“Scriptural holiness has been understood to include the renewal of persons in the image of God, having the mind that was in Christ Jesus, and ultimately the perfect love of God and neighbor ruling in the heart” (Sent in Love, p.25). This is our call to spiritual and social transformation. God calls us all to be spiritually holy: “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11: 44). Because salvation has a double dimension, the “now and the yet to come,” as Karl Barth puts it, spiritual holiness will not be complete until we achieve social holiness. Through spiritual holiness, we are personally transformed to resemble the God who calls us; and through social holiness, we transform the world that we are called to serve. The means by which we transform the world is service, because we are “sent in love” to serve.

We have been saved and we are sent to serve. It is true that the service does not save, but it is the mirror of our spiritual life. Every Christian has been called to serve God. Vocation is not the privilege of pastors and lay preachers only. All ministries in a church have the same importance. Sometimes even the small hidden ministries make the biggest difference. Size does not matter really. For instance, the liver is smaller than the leg. If your leg is cut off, you can still live long; but if your liver stops, life stops immediately. The Church of God suffers because some people think that they are too “small” to do anything in the church.

Serving God by serving others is giving a part of ourselves; and we renew our own life when we give ourselves to others. We all know the difference between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The difference is that one receives water and gives it away, while the other receives without giving. The consequence is that there is life in the Sea of Galilee, but there is none in the Dead Sea.

At the end of our life, we will stand before God, and He will judge us according to the way we have served him by serving others on this earth. When our time arrives to stand before God, He will not ask us a question such as: How much money did you have in your bank account? Or what brand of car did you drive? No! Instead God will ask us this one fundamental question: How many people did you serve on my behalf? To live is to exercise a ministry.

Service is the path that leads to the true meaning of life. God wants to use each one of us to make a difference in this world. The most important thing is not the duration of our life, but its usefulness.

Global Ministries Response to Wonder, Love and Praise, Part III

This blog post is one in a series containing responses to the denomination's proposed ecclesiology document, "Wonder, Love and Praise." These responses are written by United Methodist scholars and practitioners around the world. This piece is the third of four written by a group of Global Ministries staff persons on behalf of the agency. That group includes Malcolm Frazier, David Logeman, Emily Richardson-Rossbach, Jerome Sahabandhu, and David W. Scott.

There is much to be appreciated and affirmed in “Wonder, Love and Praise,” the United Methodist Church’s ecclesiology document drafted by the Commission on Faith and Order (CFO). Global Ministries is grateful for the work of CFO is preparing this document for comment by the church. This piece is intended as a response to that call for church-wide feedback, and is offered in hope that other United Methodist individuals and entities will also heed the call.

While “Wonder, Love and Praise” (WLP) does include useful pieces of theological reflection, Global Ministries would like to lift up four ways in which the document could go further or explore more theological territory than it does. These four areas are the role of laity, the church’s relationship with the world through mission, the church’s nature as a community, and the church’s nature as an institution.

Community
Community is an important term for WLP. One of the three core theological convictions that shape the document is, “The saving love of God creates community.” Global Ministries appreciates and affirms this focus on the church as a community. Nevertheless, we also felt there were important ways in which this focus on community could be extended and given additional Wesleyan theological grounding.

Such additional grounding could be achieved by noting the connections between the three theological emphases of WLP: that the saving love of God is for all, that the saving love of God is transformative, and that the saving love of God creates community. Put another way, WLP could enrich its discussion of community by focusing on community as not merely a static state, part of the unchangeable essence of the church, but by focusing on community as an active entity, the body that carries out the works of the church. Such an active understanding of community would highlight the connection between community and mission (related to the first emphasis) and between community and discipleship (related to the second emphasis).

We have already noted the need for a greater mission-orientation in the ecclesiology presented in WLP. In addition to the already given reasons for doing so, such an orientation could help uncover important insights into the nature and activities of the church as a community. The church as a community is always invitational. It is perpetually reaching beyond itself, seeking to bring new members into itself. Even in the face of rejection, the church continues to extend the invitation of Christ to the world, thereby participating in God’s mission of redemption.

Yet to say that the church is (or should be) such an invitational community is to make a claim that sets the church apart from many other communities. Community of any type presumes some level of similarity. All too often, however, similarity implies group boundaries, and those boundaries make it difficult for those outside of a group to join it. In our world today, we see the tragic consequences of such an approach to community formation in nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, and sexism. These chauvinistic forms of community wound the world and the church. The church is called to bind these wounds inflicted by false understandings of community and to seek reconciliation in such conflicts.

The church can most effectively do so when it remembers its missional, invitational nature as a community. For the church, unlike almost any other community, the commonality that brings us together also impels us to reach beyond ourselves, rather than focus within or on precisely drawing the boundaries. The saving love of God in Jesus Christ is the commonality upon which Christian community is built (as WLP recognizes). Yet our experience of that saving love must, according to Wesleyan theology, lead us to respond by seeking to share that love with others. Thus, any community that is not actively engaged in God’s mission to share the saving love of God in Christ cannot claim to be a fully Wesleyan expression of the church. We recognize that we as a United Methodist community are still, as WLP puts is, “in pursuit of God’s gift of community,” and thus imperfect in living out this task, but the task should be named.

Just as Christian community cannot be separated from active participation in God’s mission, so it also cannot be separated from the process of forming individual believers as disciples. As WLP notes, “the saving love of God is transformative,” and as it further notes, “growth in love and in the other fruits of the Spirit is possible only in community.” Yet given the emphasis that Wesley and other Methodists have placed on this practice of social holiness – growth in discipleship in community – it is disappointing that WLP does not spend more time discussing this aspect of the church as a community. Classes, bands, and other small fellowships have been central Methodist means to make disciples in community, and it would be nice to see such groups lifted up in the document.

Moreover, a discussion of the relationship between community and disciple-making would be an opportunity for WLP to bring additional Wesleyan theological insights into the conversation. In particular, WLP could talk about the communal practices involved in Wesley’s means of grace. Methodism as an expression of church originated in just such a setting – believers joining together in class meetings and bands to hold one another accountable in their process of growing as disciples. By acknowledging the importance of community as a context for experiencing the transformative love of God, WLP would have an opportunity to exposit key Wesleyan ecclesiological concepts such as discipline. Such a discussion could help laity better understand such historically important practices of Methodism, commend them to Methodists today, and emphasize the practical nature of Methodist ecclesiology.

Furthermore, a discussion of the communal means of grace could further enrich WLP’s exploration of the relationship between koinonia and ekklesia. The two Articles WLP cites from United Methodism’s theological affirmations both mention the sacraments and the word of God. Wesley mentions the importance of both communion and Bible study as communal works of grace. While sermons are certainly not the only means for studying the Bible, they are a means. Affirming communion and group engagement with the Bible as elements of both koinonia and ekklesia would make an important connection between the two, one that highlights our Wesleyan theological heritage.

Misunderstanding Our Mission, Part 1

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

The denominational mission statement for The United Methodist Church is "making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." This mission statement, like most good mission statements, provides focus for a diverse organization while still allowing for a variety of interpretations.

Yet there's one common interpretation of this mission statement that is, I think, quite problematic despite being perhaps the default understanding of the mission statement (at least among Americans). I think when many United Methodists hear "making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world," what they really hear is "recruiting church members to continue church programming." This understanding is problematic for two reasons.

First, there is the equation of being a disciple of Jesus Christ with holding church membership. The first is an active process of following Jesus and drawing nearer to him in love. The second is a static state generated by saying a couple of words one Sunday.

There are certainly many who are not members of The United Methodist Church (and perhaps not formal members of any church) who are still true disciples of Jesus Christ. Conversely, there are also certainly many who are members of United Methodist churches but who are not seeking with their whole heart to follow Jesus, who have the form of holiness, but not the power thereof.

This understanding of making disciples means, first of all, that we pay insufficient attention to discipleship and spiritual formation within our churches. As long as people come occasionally and perhaps donate some to the church’s budget, we are content and ask no questions about how it is with their souls. We lose the central Wesleyan conviction in sanctification if we do not see disciple-making as an on-going process that applies to all in the church.

If we are focused merely on whether people are coming to our churches rather than how they are growing because of their church membership, then we become focused on institutional maintenance, not spiritual vitality, an all-too-common malady especially in the United States. American United Methodists are very concerned about membership numbers as a way, not of drawing more people closer to God, but of preserving our prestige, our budgets, and our buildings.

Even worse, some churches brag about continued growth in members despite dramatic drop-offs in worship attendance. I don’t want to equate worship attendance with discipleship, either, because being a true disciple involves much more than showing up somewhere for an hour Sunday morning, but we can assume that most who are not showing up on Sunday are not engaged in United Methodist discipleship at other points in the week, either.

Not only does this understanding of making disciples distort how we think of church members, but it distorts how we think of evangelism, too. Evangelism from such a perspective is not about an encounter with the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ but about the deployment of new and more sophisticated marketing and business tools for recruiting organization members or, worse yet, customers.

Mission, too, is misunderstood from this perspective. Mission becomes not something we do because we are disciples of Jesus, seeking to pour ourselves out in love to the world as he did, but something we do just to attract new members. Our mission becomes clouded with ulterior motives and we are will to accept coercive strategies for distributing aid and assistance that aim to gain us members but fail to reflect our basic Wesleyan beliefs in free grace.

It might be sad but somewhat excusable if this sort of misunderstanding were common among the people in the pews. Yet, this misunderstanding reaches to the highest levels of the denomination and is reflected in some of our most important initiatives. As I have written elsewhere, the focus on Vital Congregations and dashboard indicators in the American United Methodist Church is largely a focus on membership numbers and not on discipleship measures.

There are some of the dashboard indicators that do correlate with discipleship, especially those focused on small group membership and mission trip participation, but even the best of the dashboard metrics count members rather than asking anything about the spiritual quality of those members’ relationships with Jesus. Admittedly, it is much easier to count members than to assess spiritual impact, but that’s not necessarily a sufficient excuse for focusing on numbers only. Moreover, to the main point of this article, when we count numbers rather than assess spiritual impact, we send a sign that the former is important and the latter is not.

An approach to our mission that conflates disciple-making with member-recruitment is not only deeply spiritually misguided, it’s also not terribly effective in the long haul. If The United Methodist Church is only a membership organization, then inevitably it must compete with other groups who can also offer community service, friendship, social prominence, political action, or any of the other non-religious benefits to church membership. The history of capitalism teaches us, too, that almost all organizations are eventually outcompeted. If we are a membership organization only, then we can expect our decline to continue.

If, however, The United Methodist Church is a place where people can be supported in the hard but life-changing work of following Jesus, a place for people to experience the affirming, transforming power of the Holy Spirit, a place where people can draw closer to the God that loves them, that is something people can’t get elsewhere and will always have staying power.

Technology limitations and the global church

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

Yesterday, I blogged about a couple of stories of United Methodists coming together in partnership to successfully deploy technology to further ministry in Africa.  Today, I'd like to take a look at some of the limitations of technology as a ministry tool in Africa and elsewhere around the world.

This reflection was inspired by discovering that UM Communications offers on online course in "United Methodism 101."  The course includes four modules and costs $10.  In itself, that's great.  It's a good thing for people to have more opportunities to learn about our denomination, and this resource may be especially useful for new members in small churches without the ability to do an extensive new member training.

Nevertheless, seeing this course and thinking about its potential uses made me reflect on the way the Internet is often talked about in American circles: as this revolutionary technology that totally reshapes or even erases geography.  Yet while the internet does significantly reshape geography and people in disparate locations can interact, it does not erase geography.

Geography still matters, even in the internet age, largely because geography is connected to access to the internet, as this series of visualizations nicely shows.  Africa is connected to the internet, but not nearly as connected as North America or Europe.  Thus, while online courses on United Methodism are a great resource for Americans and maybe Europeans, they're likely to be of limited use in promoting knowledge of the UMC in Africa.

Two other reasons why the internet is limited in its use to bring together United Methodists across the globe are language and cost.  This online course and much of the rest of the internet are in English.  While many United Methodists Africans, Asians, and Europeans do speak English, many do not.  English can only reach a limited audience.  Moreover, while $10 US is not that much for an American to spend on learning about Methodism, that price is much more expensive in a country with a significantly lower average annual income.

I'm not saying that this online course is bad, nor am I saying that the Internet is of no use in helping forge a global United Methodism.  I am saying, however, that as amazing as technology is, it is still limited in what it can do - limited in function, distribution, price, and access.  United Methodists should use technology to build global connectionalism, but they should also be aware of its limitations.