Have we fallen prey to the idea that others can’t do without us? After all, the world – not to mention the Kingdom of God – will continue, UMC or no UMC. It would be egocentric in the extreme to suggest otherwise.
“God, You have outwitted me!” Isn’t that a delightful phrase?…What a testimony to the providence of God, the working of God’s grace in our lives.
My baby face in the pulpit every Sunday is the physical reminder that their faces don’t look the same anymore. I feel like the ‘someone else’ Jesus talks about in John 21:18.
“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
But discipleship in the Wesleyan spirit cannot and should not be compartmentalized to what a particular ministry of the church does. Discipleship is a way of living. It is as much about being a disciple of Jesus Christ as it is about doing the things of Jesus Christ.
You will be so tempted to think this is about you – and your needs, your wants and your desires. But remember it is Jesus who transforms your people and your church, not you; it is Jesus who takes words of truth deep into the heart, not you; it is Jesus who is Lord, not you.
The good news is that we already have a basic blueprint for how to help people embrace faith in Jesus and become his apprentices. Methodist discipline, or the method that gave Methodism its name, was focused on helping people become deeply committed Christians, to become mature followers of Jesus Christ … The biggest challenge contemporary Wesleyans may face is our own unwillingness to be a disciplined people.
The protest that is needed in a violent, fragmented and fragile world is the formation of communities of character, where the reality of grace and the possibility of holiness are taught and lived, where individual rights are tempered by membership in the body of diverse gifts.
None of the people welcomed by Bishop Kennedy had broken their covenant of ordination and the majority of the people welcomed by him had been pressured to leave in large part through the experience of violence or threat of violence. Those circumstances do not seem to resemble the case of Mr. Schaefer.
How shall we struggle to identify what keeps us rooted and grounded in our shared covenant even when we are not in agreement? How shall we “hang in there” with each other – not in spite of, but because of our different views? We share deep roots. Our Wesleyan heritage is rich and grounds us deeply in the love of God and love of neighbor. We share deep roots and from what I’ve noticed over the last fifteen months, our branches spread wide.
A teacher was walking among the desks of her Kindergarteners, hard at work on an art project. “What are you drawing?” she asked one little girl. “Oh, I’m drawing God,” the child replied. “You know, no one knows what God really looks like.” the teacher confided. Without looking up, the girl replied: “Well, they will in a minute!”
There aren’t many times in the life of the church where people sit down and say, “Please teach me doctrine.” As a theology nerd, I wish it would happen more. But it just doesn’t happen that much.
Advent is primarily about looking through the baby in the manger to see Christ the King coming on the clouds in glory. The problem for Methodists is that, for decades, we did not have a single hymn in the Methodist hymnal that explicitly referenced the Lord’s physical return.
