reinbeck umc - the view out my window

The Larger Church

The General Conference of the United Methodist church meets this week.  A number of things have happened.  Among those things that will change the church are

• Approving a committee to bring a new hymnal to the 2012 General Conference for approval.
• Approving Full Communion with the Evangelical Church of America pending their approval next year.
• The Côte d’Ivoire Methodist church was accepted as part of the United Methodist church

Some items were tabled

• Asked the Council of Bishops to continue study of making the UMC less America-centric by making the US churches into a central or regional conference along with most of the rest of the denomination.
• Continued study

And a few controversial things have happened

• A coalition (lobbying group) gave 150 cell phones to African and Pilipino delegates.  Were their intentions good, or were they trying to influence votes?
• 200 people attended a noon rally asking delegates to welcome everyone regardless of sexual identity

Among the most interesting to me tonight is the addition of 6 words to the discipline. “For the transformation of the world.” 

These 6 words will be added to the end of paragraph 120 of the discipline which is entitled “The mission of the church.”  It now reads “The Mission – The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”

The church has been distracted by many things over the years:  affluence and power, nationalism and parochialism, reformation and imperialism, materialism and modernization, statistics and fads.  I suspect most congregations and members have always known somewhere deep down that they do not exist for any of these things.  But too often when faith is institutionalized the true purpose of the church gets cloudy.

What is the purpose of our congregation in practice?  I know . . .  On paper our mission is  

"To make disciples of Jesus Christ by providing a family connection with other Christians who, together will:

discover Christ-live in the Holy Spirit-and communicate God's message of forgiveness and love."

That is a great mission, but let’s come at our mission another way.  What would change if we closed the doors tomorrow?

• For those of us who are active in the church a lot would change.  Not having worship, studies, fellowship, dinners, Sunday School, mission projects, meetings would leave a huge hole in our lives.
• For those of us who depend on the church a lot would change. Not being able to pray together, or for each other; loosing intentional times of spiritual growth; the loneliness of missing fellowship times would make us all poorer.
• Would our neighborhood change though?  The City?  The county? The country or the world? 

I’m not going to answer that question for you.  I want you to search for you own answer.  Be specific and honest.  Who would miss us?  Who would be poorer?  Who would be hurt?

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General conference in reminding us that it should be easy to fill that list.  If the church is only in the business of making disciples, she has only done half of her job.  If the church is only in the business of helping people – “transforming the world” without making disciples she has only done half of her job.

We are in the business of making disciples so that the world can be transformed.

Lovett Weems of the Lewis Center for church leadership was one of our speakers at the School for ministry.  Dr Weems suggested that at every turn the church needs to be pushed for a “so that.”  When we plan an event we should be asking ourselves “so that” what?  A proposal comes to the board or committee, and we should be asking our committee “so that what?” 

o       If we do this, we would be doing it so that what will happen?

o       If we do this, it would be so that we can do what?

If the answer does not come back to making disciples or transforming the world, we need to ask ourselves if we should really be doing it.

I have been trying to filter everything that comes to me through the “so that” filter.  It has worked very well. It has helped to thin out some of the “busy work” I might otherwise be doing.    I have enjoyed the focus it has brought to my work.  I have enjoyed the clarity it has brought to my ministry.

What would happen if we would apply that same “so that” question to every ministry in the church?  There might be some things that we would stop doing.  It might also make our decision making process and planning process considerably easier.

What do you think?