Recommended Reading: Empty Churches in America

This blog has occasionally discussed the missional problems associated with church decline in the United States. One of those problems: What to do with church buildings that are too big for dwindling congregations or no longer used by defunct congregations? Religion journalist Jonathan Merritt has written an article for The Atlantic about just this problem, "America's Epidemic of Empty Churches." The article particularly highlights the work of United Methodist mission theologian Elaine Heath and her Missional Wisdom Foundation in helping congregations rethink the use of their buildings while still in them.

New Mission Area: Space for Honesty and Vulnerability

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.

Some weeks ago, I raised the question of what features of the world and its various contexts in the 21st century might constitute new areas of mission, in the same way that features of the world 50, 100, or 150 years ago led to areas of mission work that we now consider central: education, poverty relief, healthcare, etc.

This week, I suggest another new area of mission work that would be a revival of an older area of mission work: spaces for and practices of honesty and vulnerability.

Once upon a time, two practices were common in the predecessors of The United Methodist Church: public confession and public testimony. In the first, a person admitted to things they had done wrong and were trying to turn away from. In the second, they shared a story of what God had done for them, usually in terms of helping them turn from sin or make it through some significant difficulty.

These two practices have some things in common: They are a means by which people can honestly shared about their mistakes and the difficult parts of their life experiences, they are a means by which people can provide a narrative structure to make sense of their life experiences, and they are a means by which can connect those narratives of their life experiences to the larger narratives of the gospel.

Part of the genius of the Methodist theology of sanctification and the Methodist structure of class meetings was that they provided a reason and a context to continue to generate these types of narratives about one's life on an on-going basis, rather than confining such narratives solely to the moment of conversion as in some other traditions.

Despite the one-time importance of these two practices of confession and testimony to evangelistic mission and on-going discipleship, they have largely dropped out of use, at least in the United States.

Yet it seems to me that there is still a need, often unmet, in American society for exactly the sorts of spiritual and psychological benefits provided by these practices of confession and testimony. They provide a space for honesty and vulnerability about the difficult aspects of life and they way in which we do things we regret, or at least the conflicts among our motivations. Especially in an age in which social media demands public performances of perfection, there is a deep need to honesty confront one's imperfections and the imperfection's of one's life.

You can see this need being expressed in a variety of ways. It's in anonymous sharing phenomena like PostSecret. It's in the popularity of the work of Brene Brown, with its focus on the power of vulnerability. It's in the popularity of movies like Bad Moms and Trainwreck and "hot mess" t-shirts and other cultural products that depict and embrace imperfection. In the Christian world, it's part of what fuels the popularity of (ex-)evangelical female writers and bloggers like Rachel Held Evans, Glennon Melton Doyle, and Jamie Wright.

Opportunities for and models of confession and testimony are, however, largely lacking in the mainline churches, including the UMC, with their commitment to middle-class respectability. (ELCA minister Nadia Bolz-Weber is perhaps the main exception.) They're also mostly lacking for men, where a culture of toxic masculinity prohibits the sort of emotional work necessary for confession and testimony and forbids men from showing weakness in any way.

So, if The United Methodist Church wanted to engage in mission that addressed the spiritual and psychological needs of both its members and others in American culture, it would give serious consideration to how it could open up spaces and practices of confession and testimony. These probably will be different from how those practices played out in the past, but they're likely to be just as life-giving, both for those embracing them and for those who would no longer have to suffer the destructive attempts to deal with such sublimated emotions in other ways.

Would some African and Filipino delegates to GC2019 prefer no plan pass?

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.

A couple weeks ago, I encouraged readers to consider the possibility of the "null hypothesis" being true at General Conference 2019: that no plan to resolve the denomination's debates about gay ordination and gay marriage is passed. That post was intended to remind readers that the passage of a plan is not a given. There is a real possibility that there may not be sufficient support for any of the three plans coming out of the work of the Commission on a Way Forward or any alternate plan introduced by another body.

In this post, I would like to suggest something further: that at least for some central conference delegates, this scenario would not represent a failure of GC2019 but a success. That is, at least some central conference delegates to GC2019 may prefer the present state of affairs to any of the three plans on offer.

To understand why, one can look at some of the recent episcopal statements from African and Filipino bishops. As I have cautioned before, episcopal views don't necessarily reflect the attitudes of delegates from episcopal areas, but these statements are nonetheless instructive.

Both the Africa College of Bishops and the Philippines College of Bishops have recently released statements weighing in on the state of the denomination. Neither endorsed any of the three plans coming out of the work of the Commission on a Way Forward. The statement by the Africa College of Bishops emphasized two things: a traditional definition of marriage and unity. The statement by the Philippines College of Bishops emphasized unity without directly addressing sexuality. Opinions among the Filipino bishops vary, but as the accompanying UMNS article made clear, at least some bishops like Bishop Torio favor a traditional understanding of marriage.

While opinions certainly differ among central conference delegates, as they do among American delegates, these two desires seem common: a desire to continue a traditional understanding of marriage and a desire for church unity, both as a spiritual principle and because it facilitates partnerships with a broad range of American partners.

Yet the major contending plans each threaten one or the other of these two desires. The Traditionalist Plan, while it maintains a traditional understanding of marriage, cuts into the unity of the church and the breadth of partnership because it also emphasizes a "gracious exit" from the denomination for progressive conferences. The One Church Plan, while it maintains unity and thus allows for continued broad partnerships, undercuts a traditional understanding of marriage. The Connectional Conference Plan would seem to threaten both the desire for unity and the desire to maintain a traditional understanding of marriage.

Of course, central conference delegates may decide that one or the other of these two principles is more important to them and vote accordingly. Or they may decide that the changes involved in one of the plans are not significant enough or likely enough to affect them to really threaten their desires.

But there is also the option that central conference delegates would decide that the current state of affairs is actually the best way to balance unity and upholding a traditional understanding of marriage. The UMC currently officially has a traditional understanding of marriage. Passing nothing would not require anyone to leave the denomination (it is likely that some would, but that is likely under any scenario). Thus, some central conference delegates may see the status quo as the best way to balance their desires for traditional understandings of marriage, unity, and broad partnerships.

Most Americans see the debates over gay marriage and gay ordination as indicative of an untenable situation in the church. Surely, they think, something has to happen. We can't continue to go on in the way we have. Yet, for many outside the US, these debates are remote and do not affect the daily experience of the church. It is entirely thinkable and relatively unproblematic for the status quo to persist. Ultimately, the biggest difference between US and central conference delegates to GC2019 may not be over views of marriage but over how important it is to try to resolve the debates.

Recommended Reading: Mental Health Ministries

A couple of weeks ago, I published a piece entitled, "New Mission Area: Mental Health." The piece argued that the church should consider addressing mental health issues as a form of mission, just as it has long addressed physical health issues as a form of mission.

Since that time, I have been informed of the existence of Mental Health Ministries, a site for online resources for addressing mental illness. Mental Health Ministries is an outgrowth of the DisAbility Ministries Committee of The United Methodist Church. Those who are interested in learning more about the potential for conducting ministry with those with mental illness as a form of mission are encouraged to peruse the resources available on Mental Health Ministries' site.

New Mission Area: The New Temperance

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.

Five weeks ago, I raised the question of what features of the world and its various contexts in the 21st century might constitute new areas of mission, in the same way that features of the world 50, 100, or 150 years ago led to areas of mission work that we now consider central: education, poverty relief, healthcare, etc.

This week, I suggest a fifth new area of mission work that would be a revival of an older area of mission work: temperance.

 Already, readers from different geographical areas will have responded differently to this post. Many in Africa and the Philippines will ask, "Isn't this something the church still preaches and promotes?" Many in the United States and Europe will ask, "Why is he suggesting the revival of some out-dated, moralistic crusade?" I mainly want to address the US context here.

As someone who has studied the history of Methodist involvement with the temperance movement, I will readily admit that there were certainly problems with that movement. Much of it was motivated by, or at least drew upon, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-working class prejudices. There was a tendency for the movement to be moralistic and self-righteous.

Yet, the movement had its points as well. In the eighteenth century, a fifth of US adults were essentially functional alcoholics. You don't need to think that we should ban the sale of all alcohol to recognize that as a problem. Moreover, temperance reformers were also often concerned with alcohol use's correlation with domestic violence, the economic impact on women and children of money being diverted to alcohol use, and the economic exploitation of the poor through alcohol sales. More than just kill-joys, nineteenth century temperance reformers saw temperance as a means of both aiding individual alcoholics and of ameliorating social injustices.

Temperance's great achievement and apotheosis was the passage of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution establishing Prohibition as the law of the land. While the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol didn't last (it was repealed by the 21st Amendment), it did produce a marked decrease in the amount of alcohol Americans consumed, even after drinking was re-legalized.

But Americans are now back up to pre-Prohibition levels of drinking, drinking much more than in recent decades. The amount of binge drinking and alcoholism is up too. The gender dynamics of drinking have changed, too, with women making up much of the increase, raising their drinking to on par with men.

I will admit than even as a good United Methodist, I still enjoy a bottle of beer or a glass of wine. I've even brewed my own beer. I drink in moderation, but I do drink.

But still, I wonder: at what point in the craft beer revolution, wine as "mommy juice" trend, upswing in craft distilled spirits, boom of wine of the month clubs will Americans start to recognize that perhaps we've gone too far? At what point will we decide that the impacts on our health, our relationships, our work are more than we've bargained for?

And when we come to that point, what will the church do about it?

Recommended Reading: Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies Papers

This past August was the 14th meeting of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. The theme for the 2018 meeting was "“THY GRACE RESTORE, THY WORK REVIVE”: Revival, Reform, and Revolution in Global Methodism." The meeting brought together scholars of Methodism from around the world, though especially from the British Isles and North America.

Papers from that Institute meeting are now available online.

Papers are grouped into eleven working groups, as follows:
1. Biblical Studies (Hebrew Bible / Old Testament)
2. Biblical Studies (New Testament)
3. Ecumenical Studies
4. Interreligious Studies
5. Methodist History
6. Mission and Evangelism
7. Practical Theology
8. Theological Education
9. Theology and Ethics
10. Wesley Studies
11. Worship and Spirituality

Just over 125 papers are included in the collection. This collection is sure to be a rich resource for those interested in learning more of the current state of academic conversations about various facets of Methodism.

Recommended Readings: Updates on the UMC and injustices in the Philippines

As previously shared on this blog ([1] and [2]), The United Methodist Church in the Philippines is struggling to confront and name injustices in a country with a significant amount of state-sanctioned violence, especially against the poor and indigenous people. The following are three recent stories that continue the tale of the UMC's social engagement in the Philippines.

UMC's Church and Society agency shared a story about a Solidarity Team from the Cal-Pac Annual Conference that traveled to the Philippines over the summer. It includes what the Solidarity Team learning about violence and injustices in the Philippines.

UMNS covered a story about an All Saints' Day service at St. Paul UMC in Manila that lifted up prayers for and shared the experiences of victims of extrajudicial killings and their family members.

UMC Deaconess Norma Dollaga wrote a blog post about what she has learned about the plight of sugarcane workers in the Philippines, especially during the "Time of Death," when lack of income raises the risk of starvation.