KEEN

Several of us "younger" clergy in the Kansas Eat Conference are attempting to organize a new way of doing and being United Methodists in Kansas. Among our hopes is to truly live out a connectional polity - to really be one Church, one people, of Jesus Christ. I'm excited by the prospects of younger people taking leadership roles in the Conference and asserting effective leadership in local churches. At the same time, I am aware of some more experienced pastors who are leery. I would imagine that if I had been a pastor for 20-30 years and some of my younger colleagues began saying that we need significant changes in style and leadership that I might be offended or put off. I hope we can all agree that for better or worse we stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. I have too many mentors to count from those who have preceeded me in ministry. Many are still actively and vitally serving churches today. I imagine every generation thinks it can do some things better than the previous generation. I also think every generation gains more from the previous generation than we could ever realize on our own.

So, I am very excited about KEEN. I am excited for the future of the United Methodist "brand" of Christianity in Kansas. I am excited about young leaders stepping up in important ways, respecting but not being overly restricted by precedent and official polity. I also am very thankful for those who have helped shape my spiritual and professional life and who continue to inform my practice of ministry. I hope that we will continue to learn from each other and serve together for years to come.

Essentials and Nonessentials

Last Sunday I finished a series of sermons on "What Makes a Methodist." The last sermon I quoted liberally from Wesley's "Catholic Spirit" sermon. Our focus was on mutual love as a defining mark of Christians and one that takes precedence over many of the specific beliefs and opinions we have. Wesley was also clear, though, that this desire to share love for one another cannot make us mushy about what we believe. We should hold firm to what we beleive are the essentials of the faith while at the same time recognizing that others may hold just as firmly to another set of beliefs. I suggested in the sermon that traditionally for United Methodists, the list of essentials to the faith is pretty short. But I wonder where we might agree and disagree on what is essential. Not for the purposes of starting a debate, but just out of curiosity, what do you think are the "essentials" of Christianity? I'd start with the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, the divinity and resurrection of Jesus. What would you add or take away?

COR Leadership Institute

I'm in a sermon seires called What Makes a Methodist (for those concerned with technicalities I omitted the word "United" before "Methodist" because most of what we're talking about is common to all the denominations that come out of John Wesley's work). Last Sunday the focus was on the Connection. How appropriate that the sermon came just two days after Church of the Resurrection's Leadership Institute. I've been there probably 5 times before and it's always good. This one seemed like the best to me. I really appreciated the messages from Adam Hamilton and from Jim Wallis. The workshops were great. Closing worship was amazing. I thought the best part of all, though, was the simple fact that 500 churches and 1,600 people would gather together from around the nation to work together for a common purpose, making disciples for Jesus Christ. I think this is exactly what John Wesley would want for an Annual Conference (meaning the annual meeting, not the organizatoinal unit). I think it is a partial fulfillment of Jesus' prayer "that they may be one as we are one". I pray the spirit of cooperation and collegialilty will continue.

Church and Politics

A couple weeks ago I posted a blog about politics - not taking a stand for either presidential candidate, but just making a couple observations. A good friend of mine who is also a pastor questioned whether that was a wise thing to do. Members of my congregation could read the post, misunderstand what I was saying, and get upset. Other people think that the Church and pastors should stay out of politics entirely. At the same time, I've seen pastors on Facebook and other places go so far as to endorse a specific candidate. If a pastor does this as an individual rather than from the pulpit or in official church communciations I think it is legal. So here's a question for you: what is the proper relationship between the church (or pastor specifically) and politics? Is personal endorsement outside the pulpit OK? Or can a pastor preach about or make a statement about a particular issue? Are you a pastor who has done so?

How much of a decline are we really in?

I was visiting with a clergy colleague a few weeks ago when the conversation turned to the "decline" of the mainline church. He said we're not really in decline. I thought he'd lost his mind. But I listened anyway and found that his point intersects with a project I'm sorta kinda working on already.

When we say that the mainline churches are in decline, we point to the loss in membership and attendance. There can be no doubt that according to these measurements we are continuing in a multi decade slide. But is a decline in membership and attendance necessarily the same thing as a decline in the church? If the measure of a church is whether we are making and teaching Disicples, maybe not. The question of whether we are declining should really be answered based on whether we are making and growing more or fewer disciples than in earlier times. I think most people understand that membership is not a good statistice to measure disicpleship by. Maybe the apparent decline of the church is due to bloated membership numbers of people who were cultural Christians, not "real" Christians. Perhpas attendance is the same way - maybe we were bloated in the past by people attending worship who weren't really giving their lives to Christ.

I think those are good questions. I still think we're in decline, but I'm beginning to think that even if the numbers decline for several more years to come (as I would expect them to) that we're nearing the bottom. At least in the United Methodist Church I find more people talking about faith, living out their faith, and being excited about faith than ever before. I see a new generation of Christian leaders that have energy and vision. I wonder if the "discipleship decline" is not as steep as we perceive and if we are about to get it turned back around. What do you think?

Seeing Jesus face to face

Last Sunday we had our first Sunday evening worship service in Burlington. It went great - the band was fantastic, 73 people showed up, and there's a really good buzz around about it right now. About 2/3 stayed for dinner afterwards. This coming Sunday small groups begin, so we'll see how that goes!

Here's the best part, though. Some guy named Kevin showed up. Nobody knew Kevin, which in Burlington says something. But he had a great smile and seemed happy to be there. During dinner afterwards he had five servings. A couple church members engaged him in some good conversation. I went up to the Sanctuary to put some stuff away, and one of the members followed me up. She said, "I think he's homeless - he's headed south from Washington. We've got some leftovers - do you think we should offer them to him?"

Well, the sermon was the first in a new series on Methodism. For the first week I focused on Wesley's desire to bring head and heart together, to help people live out the Gospel instead of just talking about it. I even quoted Matthew 25. So of course my answer was yes. Kevin loaded up his food, had some more convesation, and left after giving me a smile and a wink.

On Monday the leadoff question my L3 Incubator group was asked was "where have you seen Jesus face-to-face since we last met." Not only had I seen Jesus, he even winked.

Dirty Politics

Once upon a time I thought both Barack Obama and John McCain were a different breed of politican, wanting to elevate the dialogue and campaigning for the benefit of the American people. I was wrong.

Several weeks ago McCain said that Obama would rather lose the war (in Iraq) than the election. It was maybe the worst thing that I've heard a candidate ever say. I'd have a hard time voting for someone who would say something like that about an opponent. Now, in the wak of Governor Palin's nomination as VP, Obama's Florida spokesperson has said, "Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan, a right-winger or as many Jews call him: a Nazi sympathizer."

First of all, the only evidence I've heard that Palin supported Buchanan is that she wore his button in 1999 when he was campaining in Alaska. She says she voted for Steve Forbes. Wearing a buton when someone is campaigning is more polite than an endorsement. Second, that statement calls Buchannan a "Nazi-sympathizer" and implicitly that Palin supports "Nazi-sympathizers". That is just as outlandish as what McCain said. Obama will undoubtedly distance himself from the comment, but as a self-proclaimed accomplished executive (which he said to butrress the rather weak argument that Palin has more experience than Obama) he should have better control of his organization than to allow such a statement to be released.

I'm an undecided voter, looking for a reason to believe in either candidate and increasingly finding less reason to believe in either of them.