membership – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: The Local Church & Membership

Posted on February 27, 2022Leave a comment

Text: 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 3:18-4:1, 5-6; Book of Discipline 201-204, 214-221

Over the last seven weeks, we have explored together some of the foundational beliefs and practices of the United Methodist Church.

Our focus on grace and faith put into practice.

The call to reach out and share the love of God with all people.

A charge that makes room for difference and invites us to use our brains and celebrates diversity.

All grounded and centered in the core of Christian tradition… praising the God of all creation who became flesh and lived and died so that we might truly know life and who continues to empower us by the Holy Spirit.

As we come to the close of this series, we also come to a transitional date on the Christian calendar: This Sunday before the season of Lent is Transfiguration Sunday.

It is the day that a few of the disciples retreated with Jesus to a mountain top and witnessed the glory of God.

They experienced for themselves the very presence of God, radiating with light, in the person of their rabbi, Jesus.

He shone like the sun and they could hardly take it in… much like Moses before them.

Moses, too, had been to the mountaintop.

He had spent time in the presence of God and for more than just an afternoon.

In the account of Exodus 34, Moses spends forty days and forty nights with the Lord learning about the covenant God wanted to make with the people.

Exodus 34:29 tells us that when Moses came back down from the mountain, his face was radiant. He shone and reflected the glory and the presence of God. But the people were afraid and so he put a veil over his face (34:33).

The Apostle Paul picks up on this idea in his second letter to the church in Corinth.

He describes the law of Moses as a ministry of condemnation, because as individual human beings we couldn’t live up to what it asks of us.

That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a reflection of God’s glory… it was!

But Paul believes that the ministry of righteousness we receive from Jesus through the Holy Spirit is even more glorious, because we are set free to truly reflect God’s glory in all that we say and do.

We are transformed by God’s glory and Paul describes the church in Corinth as Christ’s letter… written not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit.

They are the reflection of Jesus Christ to the world and all who see what they say and do will come to know the glory of God.

That local community and its members reflect the light of the knowledge of God’s glory to everyone they meet.

And so do we.

As our Book of Discipline proclaims, “The function of the local church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is to help people accept and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to live their daily lives in light of their relationship with God” (¶202, p. 147).

It goes on to say that the members of the church gather for worship, to receive God’s grace, to be formed by the Word, and then we are sent out to do the work of Christ. (¶203)

Or as that familiar song from our childhood reminds us:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…
Everywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine…

That light, however, it isn’t my own light.

It isn’t your light.

It is the light of Jesus Christ.

I was thinking about the solar lamps that I installed in my garden last summer. Every evening they light up the path.

But the lamp has no light of its own… it simply captures and stores up the energy from the sun.

The more time it spends soaking up those rays, the brighter and longer it will shine.

Much like Moses shone radiantly after those forty days and forty nights in the presence of God’s glory.

And to keep our lights shining…

To fill up our lamps…

We need to continually spend time in God’s presence.

So as United Methodists, we don’t believe that membership in the local church is simply a box that we check.

It is a commitment and a covenant we make together with God and with the other members of our congregation.

In the coming weeks, our confirmation students will be exploring these vows deeply, but maybe it is good for all of us to get a refresher.

Membership Vows

Renounce, Reject, Repent
Accept God’s freedom and power
Confess Jesus as our Savior
Serve as Christ’s representative to the world
Strengthen the ministries of the UMC
Participate with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness
Receive and profess the Christian faith

Just as John Wesley brought classes and societies of people together to focus on their spiritual life with one another, our membership vows are a commitment to “a lifelong process of growing in grace.” (¶216.1).

We turn away from sin and evil and turn our lives towards Jesus. Then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we become ambassadors of Jesus to the world. We see each member as a vital part of the church and we have “method” for helping one another to keep these vows.

First – a local church provides opportunities for a member to grow in their discipleship. From small groups to worship, from mission events to our stewardship campaign, this local church offers ways for you to go deeper in your faith and to discover the will and grace of God. Each one is an opportunity to spend time in the presence of God.

Second – we share a mutual responsibility for one another. We need you, just as much as you need us, and together we shoulder burdens, share risks, and celebrate joys. We encourage one another along in this journey. After all, the people that make up our church are the body of Christ and we also experience the presence of God in one another.

Third – each person is responsible for their own participation. We can have all the opportunities in the world, but ultimately, you are the one who prays, who shows up, who gives, and who reaches out to share God’s love with the world.

However, as part of our Wesleyan heritage, we are called to hold one another accountable to these commitments. Those early Methodist class meetings were designed for members to keep one another on track, it is the responsibility of the local church to reach out in love to invite people to return and to nurture people back into community.

Sometimes that might look like a call or a note from the pastor, but this is the responsibility of all of us.

It is the phone call you make to invite someone to join a small group with you.

It is the note you put in the mail to let someone know you have missed them in worship.

It is the way you speak up if someone in a meeting has said something harmful.

It is the advice you offer when someone seems to be taking a wrong turn in their journey.

We do all of this, because we believe that through these ministries and this community, the glory of the Lord is transforming us more and more everyday into the image of Christ… and that we reflecting that glory to the world.

In Sara Groves’ song, “You are the Sun” she writes:

You are the sun, shining down on everyone.
Light of the world giving light to everything I see…
I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can’t be a light unless I turn my face to you.

The work of the local church and our responsibilities as members of that church is to turn our faces to the Light of the World and let God shine through our lives.

As the Book of Discipline says:
Each member is called upon to be a witness for Christ in the world, a light and leaven in society, and a reconciler in a culture of conflict… to identify with the agony and suffering of the world and to radiate and exemplify the Christ of hope” (¶220).

And we don’t do it alone. We do it together.

The work of the local church is only possible because all of us have gathered our resources and our talents and our time together so that we can reach out to the people in this community, and work to help one another grow. And we also are part of a larger connection, so we partner with other local churches – like inviting students from Windsor UMC to join us for confirmation. We work to be stewards not just of our resources, but of God’s creation as we participate in the mission of the larger United Methodist Church. (¶202, p147-148)

Let us keep soaking up the light of God so that in all of these things, the glory of God might shine through us.

Amen.

best customer service ever…

Posted on August 27, 20111 Comment

For the Iowa Annual Conference this year, our conference artist created a gallery in our meeting space. It housed a collection of works from various people and each piece connected with our theme of Radical Hospitality with Justice.

The room itself was a conversation space. Chairs arranged for discussion, room to move, room to reflect, post-its on the wall to share thoughts. The art grew and expanded as we interacted with it.

But our artist, Ted Lyndon Hatten, wanted it to move beyond that room. So we were provided with nametags that indicated we wanted to continue talking about an issue.

And he asked if I would help the conversations continue via social media.

Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. And the first place I looked was twubs.com

You see, Twubs takes conversations that are happening on twitter and brings them all to one place. By using a hashtag, you can make a page, a bulletin board, embeddable widgets… it is a fantastic way to gather together the various thoughts. The best part is that it also then can live stream those tweets for display on something like the HUGE screens we use for worship.

Its a great idea… but due to my experimentation, I somehow messed up my initial twub. And linked to the wrong account. And then changed the hashtag. In about 25 minutes, what I wanted to create was now in three different twubs and I couldn’t figure out how to change/merge/edit any of them.

Problem, right?

I tweeted in frustration – someone who has used these twubs before… HELP!

And five minutes later, I had a phone call.

It was the guy who created Twubs.com. He called me, on my phone, and asked how he could help. He quickly fixed the back end issue, merged my accounts, closed the one I didn’t want, and it was exactly how I needed it… in less that two minutes.

I was having an awful experience with the site and probably never would have turned to the media again. But because of that personal, helpful, compassionate response, I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

I had a similar experience with our local McDonald’s. After getting my food, it was cold, sloppy (who leaves the cheese off of a double cheeseburger?!), and the workers were rude. So I complained via their online comment form and got a personal letter of apology, gift cards, coupons for free samples come every couple of months, and they have worked their butts off to keep me as a customer. It worked.

In this world, negative feedback can destroy a company. All it takes is one person having a bad experience and suddenly that comment is all over facebook, twitter, angie’s list, you name it. Reviews make or break someone’s future usage and purchases. But when you shower someone with service, quick responses, and personal care, suddenly a negative experience can turn into a fantastic walking advertisement.

Having that amazing experience with twubs made me think long and hard about life in the church.

As a pastor, I am glad that people don’t run home and write on facebook or on twitter “Wow, I had a really bad experience at church today!” Because that is AWFUL press and if someone made those kinds of comments, you probably wouldn’t ever see them again.

On the other hand, most people don’t give any feedback. They just stop going to church. As a pastor or a visitation minister you don’t know what the problem is, and so it is hard to be quick to respond. If someone actually made a post like the one above, I would be able to ask what happened, I would be able to clear up questions. But when you don’t know, you can’t respond.

There is a gray line that I face in ministry between being pushy and being pastoral. When I notice that someone hasn’t been in worship for a while, my first instinct is to send a little note, telling them we miss them. But if a response isn’t heard, do you make a phone call? Do you knock on the door? Do you guilt someone into coming back?

In these customer experiences with twubs.com and McDonald’s, I think the message is to kill them with kindness. Be available. Be personal. Let them know they are loved and precious to your ministry. And don’t forget them… even if they don’t respond right away. I am always impressed that I keep getting coupons for McDonald’s. I know that I was probably just added to some mailing list of disgruntled customers, but when those coupons arrive, I feel special and I remember that experience and that someone took the time to listen to me.

I absolutely hate comparing ministry to the world of business, but I wonder what else we might learn in pastoral care from twenty-first century customer service.

Hebrews Part 6: Discipline

Posted on November 8, 2009Leave a comment

My nephew has recently picked up a bad habit. Lying. Whether it’s just a phase he is going through or if developmentally he has just realized that he can make up stories and try to get away with things… it hasn’t been working. His parents see right through his lies. They catch him all the time. But they couldn’t figure out how to get him to stop doing it.

But they recently got some advice and figured out a new way to discipline him. Each time they catch him in a lie he has to pay them a dollar. Now, for a 7 year old, a dollar is a lot of money. And he has to go all the way up to his bedroom and get his piggy bank and pull out a dollar and come all the way back downstairs and pay up.

And since they have instituted this new form of punishment do you want to know how many times he has lied? Once – the first time – and it was so painful for him and it made such an impression on him that he hasn’t done it since.

As we come to the last chapters of the letter to the Hebrews this morning – we find that we have come full circle. We have gone from being accepted by Christ and called his brothers and sisters in chapter two – to being addressed as children of the Lord in chapter twelve. And like all children – like my nephew – we are going to learn a little bit about discipline.

All of that stuff that happens in between – all of those big words like Christology and atonement – they help us understand how we become children of God, but what really matters is that it happens. Because of what Jesus has done in his life, death, and resurrection life – we are restored and redeemed and we are now children of God.

We have been adopted into God’s household – but there are some changes that we are going to have to make in our lives – some new “house rules” if you will. Because what Christ did is set us on a new path – we have a new direction in this life and our job now is to run this race to the end.

We talked a little bit about that race last week – but today we are going to talk about what running this race is really like.

So first a question – How many of you here are runners? Not very many, I would imagine.

Running is very hard work. On and off for about 4 years I have tried to take up the habit of running. And I’ve learned that you have to start off slowly, step by step, little by little. If you tried to start off running 5 miles a day – you would cramp up and your heart would scream at you. But slowly, gradually, you can build yourself up to that point.

The reason why my attempts at running have been unsuccessful is very simple – I lacked the discipline it takes to become a runner.

I might start off good for a week – or maybe even two weeks. I would gradually increase my time running and my lungs would expand their capacity to take in air and my heart would become gradually stronger and my legs would slowly start to adapt to the work I was asking them to do…

…. but then I would get busy, or get tired, or get frustrated because I wasn’t seeing the instant results I wanted. And so I would skip a few days… and then those days would become two weeks, and then I had to start all over again. I couldn’t pick up where I had left off – because my body had already reverted to its pre-running stage.

What I really need is a running coach – someone to yank me out of bed in the morning. Someone to remind me of the basics and to teach me new skills. Someone to keep me on track. The kind of discipline that a running coach would encourage for their student… healthy eating, drinking plenty of fluids, warming up your body, and the part I dread: wind sprints, endurance running, and pushing yourself a little farther each day… is all designed to help create the best possible conditions for a running lifestyle. Each and every single thing is important to turn your body into a running body.

I don’t think its mere coincidence that our reading on discipline in Hebrews this morning comes right after the introduction of this race metaphor. Bill Long wrote that “discipline can not only ‘chisel’ or ‘sculpt’ the body…, but it can shape the soul.” And just like a runner, we are being asked to transform ourselves – mind, body, and soul – into something different. We are being asked to become different people – and that takes discipline.

What is true for my habit of running is often true for our spiritual race as well – the discipline we need often has to come from without.

The good news is that this race comes with its own coach. Hebrews 12:2 reminds us that we can look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith who has tread this path before. When we look to him – who endured more than we could possibly imagine – we find the strength to keep going.

And then what we are asked to remember is that this race isn’t going to be easy. We are going to run through some rough terrain. We are going to bump elbows with people who are running different races and we might get pushed around in the process. There will be potholes and roadblocks and dead ends and hills and valleys along this race.

But in each of those struggles, in each of those trials, God is disciplining us – we are being shaped into children of God.

As verse 11 reminds us – discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Just like wind sprints strengthen and transform our hearts… although they make you feel like you are going to die in the process… so too does the discipline of God transform our lives.

Something that is rattling around in the back of my mind… and I want you to bear with me for just a minute, because I haven’t fully figured this bit out… is that discipline is not punishment.

Now – I know that in the version of the scriptures that you have printed there it actually uses the word punishment – but it is the only version that does so and I believe it’s a bad translation of the passage.. Almost every other version I have looked at uses the word “rebuke” instead of punishment…. God is expressing disapproval, God is correcting us. In the greek, the word is elegchomenos… literally, we are being exposed when we are on the wrong path or doing the wrong thing.

But the type of discipline that then is carried out is not some arbitrary punishment, God does not take pleasure in causing pain in our lives or seeing us struggle… but God’s discipline helps us to correct the mistakes in our lives… it is a training or teaching that will equip us for righteousness.

If I am running incorrectly and someone doesn’t point it out and correct my form, I could cause serious damage to my body. The initial correction might be tough, it might be painful and it might hurt my pride, but it will strengthen me for the long haul. So too, the discipline of the Lord puts us back on the right path and strengthens us for the tougher parts of the journey ahead. It will forge us into the type of people that God knows we can be.

What that also means is that God doesn’t send trials into our lives just for the sake of trials. God only disciplines us because we are loved and only disciplines us to correct missteps and to prepare us for the future.

I firmly believe that God doesn’t give us cancer to teach us something, or send hurricanes to shore to send us a message. Love is not the foundation of that kind of discipline.

But when tragedies befall us – when we face roadblocks – when we are rocked to the core by a death or a disaster… we can know that we have strength to endure because of what we have already been through and we can be assured that God will bring us through to the other side a stronger person than we were before.

The final thing that I want to say is that discipline not only happens between us and God, it also happens in a community.

John Wesley was really big on discipline. The very reason we are called Methodists today is because he and his friends had such a meticulous method to keep their minds and souls conditioned – to keep them running on the right path. Wesley often referred to an early church saying that “the soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian.”

In the last chapters of Hebrews our joint responsibility for one another’s discipline is clear. “see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.” “make sure not root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble.” “ remember those who are in prison, as if you are in prison with them” “let mutual love continue” “remember your leaders… your earthly coaches… who are charged with watching over your souls…”

But we also remember that the same charge is given to us whenever we stand together and make our member ship vows. Each time we do so, I say to you:

“Members of the household of God,
I commend these persons to your love and care.
Do all in your power to increase their faith,
confirm their hope, and perfect them in love.”

Our job as Christians is more than to simply believe… we also must be in relationship with the living God… we must live our lives differently. And discipline is how we hold those two together. Discipline is how we make sure that our lives match our beliefs. It forms us into the kind of people God wants us to be. It is our training ground for the life to come. And the good news is – we are all in this together.

church growth

Posted on June 30, 20091 Comment

#6) I have never been a fan of the church growth movement. While I went to a large church in high school – and served a large church in Nashville – I just never bought into the whole church growth schtick. As one of my seminary professors put it – the only thing that grows that fast is cancer.

I never realized how much I would love being in a small town church until I got here. It’s amazing folks. People are there to lend a hand instantly, you really get immersed into the community because you are living among your parishoners – instead of everyone traveling in to the church from far off places. They have a great work ethic, they are hungering to learn more and want to get their hands dirty.

My focus has never been to get the church to grow. at least not numerically. Growing in our faithfulness – yes. Growing in our commitment – yes. Growing in our ability to respond to God’s Spirit – yes. Growing in numbers… eh.

But we are! My first year here, we about evened out with our deaths and members joining. But this year, with our confirmation class and so far 4 new members, we have grown our church by 11 in six months.

At an Ad Board meeting sometime last fall, someone commented that if we are doing what God wants us to do – the people will come… or maybe they said that the money would come… either way – if we are faithful, people will see that and they will want to be a part of what we are doing. And I think that is true.

We don’t need to market our church so much as witness to what cool things God is doing in our midst right now. And right now we witnessed seven young people professing their faith in front of friends and family and their church. We have watched God connect us with a ministry in Cedar Rapids and have been called to respond with donations and building of relationships. We had a family join our church who was so excited about doing so that they brought all of their siblings and parents with them.

Stuff like that is pretty cool. And we are going to keep trying to follow God. And if more people want to join us on that journey – amen!

some thoughts on amendment one

Posted on April 28, 20091 Comment

The first amendment that comes before our Annual Conferences from General Conference this year is to change the wording of paragraph 4 in our constitution.

There are a whole lot of youtube and blogposts and newsletter articles about this and suffice it to say – there are reasons to be in favor of it and to be against it. (not all of them might be rational, but…)

I ran across a post by John Meunier on the topic however that spoke to a lot of what I was feeling. Especially in regards to how similiar the first part of the amendment is to paragraph 214 in the Book of Discipline.

Here is my response to his blogpost:

I absolutely agree with you on the first part of the amendment. We already have the idea of “all persons” in our BOD – so it should be there in the constitution as well. I have especially noted that the amendment talks about eligibility – and I don’t necessarily see that as denying the rights of pastors to determine readiness for membership, or the rights of BoOM to examine candidates for ministry. Just because you are eligible for something doesn’t mean that you are going to automatically get it (see paragraph 215 in the Book of Discipline)

The wording of the last line of the amendment is unfortunate I believe.

I think the intent is to make it a consistent paragraph and it may have shot itself in the foot. I, too, am interested from a strictly procedural standpoint what the implications are. I don’t have the fears that others do about it.

Here is the current last sentence of paragraph 4.
In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constiuent body of the Church because of race, color, national orign, status or economic condition.
Here is the sentence if amended.
In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body.

As I would read it, just in a common sense sort of way, it makes me think that no conference or organizational unit can build discrimination into their structure. And to me, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a process for readiness or standards for participation.

Who really should be up in arms about this (and I haven’t seen any official word) is the United Methodist Men and Women’s units…

whew.

Posted on April 26, 20092 Comments

all of the distraction and wrestling and frustration yesterday with my sermon… and in the two weeks worth of conversations on membership and discipleship really paid off this morning.

I think my number one goal was to get us to admit as a congregation (and as the church) that our current journey of faith – the one through membership – right now isn’t transforming us into disciples of Jesus Christ… we aren’t quite there yet. The big problem isn’t that it’s a bad road to travel, it’s that we haven’t held one another accountable to prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. We haven’t fully accepted the path.

When I asked how many people feel equipped and empowered to transform the world as a disciple of Jesus Christ – no one raised their hand. When I asked how many wanted to be equipped and empowered to go out there right now and change the world… everyone looked a little bit uneasy.

Good!!!! We should. Because we aren’t there yet!!! But we are always moving on to perfection, and today – we put that out there in the light of Christ, we confessed our shortcomings and failures and over the next five weeks we will be prayerfully discerning how we can begin to live out our vows. Because we don’t have to be disciples in order to practice these things…. but we might just become disciples if we do.

Becoming Disciples through: Accountability and Practice

Posted on April 26, 2009Leave a comment

1. Our life of faith is a journey

Later on in today’s service, the life of faith will begin for this little girl as her parents and family bring her forward to be baptized. As the water is poured over her head and the Holy Spirit fills her life nm, we are remembering that God blessed us with the gift of life… and life abundant.

As her family and as this congregation – we will make promises this morning. Promises to hold her firmly in this faith to which she is born. Promises to guide her and pray for her. Promises to support her – no matter where on this earth her journey may take her.

That journey begins for her today – at this baptismal font.

But it doesn’t begin in the same place for all of us. Think for a moment – Where did this journey begin for you? Was it through an invitation from a friend to come worship? Was it in a Sunday school class? Perhaps as you were engaged in some community service project –or elbow deep in another person’s pain? Maybe your journey began as you plowed your fields or first saw your newborn child and thought about the miracle of life?

Sometimes we think of our journey beginning the moment we are saved. But I want us to think farther beyond that experience. When was the seed of faith first planted in your life? Believe it or not – you have been on this journey ever since.

Now, I’m going to be completely honest here for a moment. In the institutional life of the church – where we record such things as baptisms and confirmations and those who profess their faith – this is the journey of membership. It is pretty much the way the church is organized to help and support people along this journey. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system – but ideally, as we make members of this body of Christ, we are also in the process of making disciples of Jesus Christ. In my mind, that is what the whole journey of faith is about – becoming a disciples of Jesus Christ.

The question I want us to explore over the next month together is – Are we on the right path?

Will you pray with me?

2. Come into the light

God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If I were to stand up here and say that that membership process I just described is perfect – that it accomplishes the mission of the United Methodist church… I would be lying. I would be walking in darkness.

for too long, I think that the church as a whole has let our system do just that – stay in the dark. We simply let it be and we haven’t taken the time to look at whether or not disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world are being formed (that is after all – the goal)

In this passage from 1 John, we are reminded that when we come into the light of God – reality is exposed

all the stuff that we were hiding in the darkness, or ignoring, is seen clearly. And it is clearly judged. I can honestly say that over the past few weeks, I have been looking prayerfully and seriously at this process and I have felt convicted. Our system is broken. It doesn’t work properly. And as a pastor, I can say that I am part of the problem. We make and take vows to support the ministries of the church through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and now our witness – but if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t really have any expectations on people to live them out. We don’t hold one another accountable to these promises. We say all the right things – but then no one really cares if you aren’t walking the talk.

The amazing gift about standing in the light – is that once we see clearly, once we confess and acknowledge what is broken, than God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is our promise from the First Letter of John. And then we have a chance to truly walk in God’s light once again.

3. So come into the light with me. Come see what it is that I have been so convicted about – what it is that isn’t working. For that, let’s go back to our scripture from Luke. We find ourselves in the midst of the disciples, who have basically stalled in their journey faith. They aren’t going forward, they aren’t going backward. They are stuck.

This passage comes after the women have encountered Jesus at the tomb. It comes after a few of the disciples themselves were witnesses to the resurrection. It comes after two followers of Christ met him on the road to Emmaus and rush back to tell the disciples. There has been a whole lot of talking about the resurrected Christ – but the disciples haven’t really MOVED yet.

As Jesus enters their midst, he doesn’t bring judgment, he doesn’t ask them what on earth they are doing, he brings them peace. He shows them his hands and his feet. He eats a piece of fish. He is the living and breathing Jesus Christ walking and talking among them and he wants to remind them of that.

BUT – because he is the light of the world, he also reveals some truth. He sheds some light on the situation so to speak. And so he says: This is what I have told you… that everything that was written about me in the law and prophets and psalms must be fulfilled: the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations!”

The disciples were not only witnesses to all of these things – but they were also now supposed to be witnesses of these things. They are called to go out, to tell the world why Christ died and rose again – to call people to repentance and share with them that their sins are forgiven.

4. This is pretty much the great commission from the gospel of Luke – it is the sending out of the disciples with the promise that the Holy Spirit will soon be right there with them – empowering them to speak and live out God’s good news.

Let’s not leave our church out of the light either… because here in this church – we hold that commission pretty seriously. It is in fact our mission. Our calling as a community is to make disciples of all nations – First, by baptizing them and then, by teaching them everything that God has commanded us.

Hey – we’ve got a baptism happening this very morning! We are helping this beautiful child begin her journey of faith. We are certainly on the right track! We are reaching out to our families and loved ones and inviting them to be a part of this mission that we ourselves are on.

And we seem to be doing some teaching as well. We have Sunday school classes and confirmation and small groups… I know that I have learned a lot in this past year… but I sometimes wonder if we are doing enough.

Are we truly making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?

Quick show of hands… and I want you to be completely honest here – how many of you feel like you are equipped and empowered as a disciple of Jesus to transform the world? How many of you think that you, as the Body of Christ, really can go out there right now and make a difference?

(might be more than you think) I think that if I come into the light, if I stand firmly in the light of Christ, I have to admit I have doubts. I think my doubts are not so much about our ability to do so (or Christ’s ability to work in us), but about our willingness to do it.

We can only go as far as we think we can go. Which means if we

I think that as much as we talk about following Jesus, we are a bit more like those first disciples of Jesus Christ, hunkered down in a room somewhere, not quite sure if we want to take the next steps… not sure if we are able to take the next steps.

5. I think those disciples drastically underestimated just how much was expected of them. And they did so, because they drastically underestimated just how much was given to them.

I wish I could take credit for this wonderful image, but as I talked with the pastor over at the Lutheran church about this passage, he said that we are like sticks of dynamite sitting on a shelf. We are filled with all of this potential power and energy – extremely dangerous stuff! But as long as we sit on the shelf… or in our pews… or on our couches back home, we are simply potential.

We forget that Jesus promised the disciples that power would be given to them. We forget that power came down from heaven and filled the disciples at Pentecost. We forget that although they were in that room waiting for God to act – God has ALREADY acted in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is loose on the world. It is a spark of fire and energy given life by the resurrection of Christ from the dead and it is ready to turn all of that potential energy inside of you – inside of this church – into the amazing transforming power of Jesus Christ.

And yet… the Holy Spirit is wild and elusive. While I would like to believe that we could all just hold out the wicks on our little sticks of dynamite like we hold our hands up in the air and catch the spark – I can’t guarantee the Holy Spirit will show up.

John Wesley – that founder of our faith – waited for YEARS – to have the holy spirit light a fire in his soul. His ministry up until that point was a series of flounders and failures mixed in with some good attempts – but it wasn’t until the Holy Spirit took hold of him that the Methodist movement really took off. In the meantime, he was the same thing he was afterwards… a preacher – out there proclaiming the word of God.

In the midst of one of his struggles with this dilemma, he asked a friend and mentor Peter Bohler what he should do. Bohler’s advice: Preach faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

If I were to translate that to our journey of faith, I would say that we need to practice being a disciple until we have the Holy Spirit, then, once we have the Holy Spirit, we will be a disciple! Until it happens, we shouldn’t sit holed up in the church waiting to be filled… but we should be out there, in the world, actively looking for others to join us on this journey of transformation.

Come into the light my friends. See that we already have a path laid out before us – a way of living as a disciple that we have already claimed as being holy and good. We live as disciples through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness. Each of these things are a means of God’s grace – Each of them opens us up to the Holy Spirit in the world around us. Each one of them will transform our lives – if we truly do them and if we hold one another accountable to do so.

That is the journey of faith that we are invited on in this church. Come and walk in the light of God with me in these next weeks. Amen and Amen.

making members, making disciples

Posted on April 20, 20093 Comments

At my church, we have a pretty significant number of people who are “constituents” of our church and not official members. For various reasons, these people want to be an active part of our congregation but do not want to take the vows of membership and officially become United Methodist. And yet, many of those individuals are just as, if not more, active than the “members” of our church.

At School For Ministry last week, we talked a lot about making disciples, and very little about making church members. And at one point in the conversation, we actually admitted that we don’t really expect people to uphold their baptismal vows. If we did, we would have a structure for responding or holding people accountable to their choices. But we don’t. We baptize them, hold them in our prayers and pray to God that a seed we might have planted would take root.

Contrast that with early Christianity. Baptism was a process you only went through after years of formational training. I’m not sure that “membership” was ever the term used in that time, but certainly one could be excluded from the body for offenses until penance had been made. Confession of faith was extremely important.

Now, our church has very good reasons for upholding infant baptism. It says that baptism is a sign that God’s grace goes before us – even before we are able to respond. But… BUT… baptism is also supposed to be an act of the congregation as we together promise, covenant, commit ourselves to nurturing that baby in the Christian faith.

Perhaps it was because for such a long time, Christianity was just the norm that we lost touch of those promises. The congregation didn’t take seriously their role, because after all, this was a Christian nation and anyone who was raised simply by the culture would be brought up Christian. But that was a false presumption and it has led to whole generations of people who have been formed by the culture’s view of Christianity, rather than God’s view of culture.

So we make members. We ask people to join our club. And we count our success in ministry by the number of people we have on the rolls.

And there is nothing in there about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

The big question for me is how do we start? How do I help my confirmation kids, or the baby who will be baptized this next Sunday – but whose parents do not even attend my church (her grandparents do), or the members of my congregation who think that simply by showing up once a month they are living out their commitments… how do I begin to show each of those groups of people that ideally, membership is a process of discipleship?

Let’s look first at the process of membership.

1) we ask people to renounce sin and profess their faith
2) the congregation promises to nurture one another in the faith
3) if someone has not been baptized, we do so
4) if it is someone who was baptized before and is now reaffirming their faith (new members or confirmands) we have a blessing over them.
5) we recieve people into the church with the following vow:
as members of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its
ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness? I will.

In our tradition, being a member means taking on those five responsibilities.

And to be honest – I think that they are good commitments to make. I believe that they can be disciple making activities. But the big disconnect is the part where it says “its ministries.” We expect that all of this disciple making will happen in the congregation, or in some way connected to a ministry of the congregation. And it might not. It may be in a bible study at work, or in helping a neighbor, or partnering with community agencies to share your gifts. Our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness will be evidence of our growth as disciples… but we can’t let ourselves be limited to the church. We have to be disciples for the transformation of the world.

Maybe that is my starting place. As we baptise an infant next week, I need to uplift that it is our responsibility to help nurture her wherever in the world she may be. As we get ready to confirm our youth, I need to encourage them to be disciples wherever they may be. And as we go over these membership vows in teaching and preaching in the next five weeks – I need to remind people that this is their responsibility and commitment… and that we need to hold one another accountable to doing so in EVERY facet of our lives.