When
I go back to my home church in Augusta, I tend to head for the third pew from
the front, left middle section. That is where I sat with my family as I grew up
in Trinity-on-the-Hill UMC. But when I visit, there are always people I don’t
know sitting in my family pew. Things change. The average age of United
Methodist clergy used to be somewhere in the forties; now it hovers around fifty
seven-years old. Churches used to hold neighborhood
“evangelistic” canvasses but they don’t now because we live in gated
communities and we teach our children not to open the door to a stranger. Young
adults used to drift away from church during the college years and drift back
once they were married and began to have children. Young adults still participate in traditional church settings today, but many of them prefer the “indie” churches that appeal to their musical tastes
with contemporary worship. I know of one United Methodist church that serves a
catered brunch as part of its worship experience; jazz musicians provide
accompaniment; some Sundays after worship, the congregation head off together to
do mission work in the neighborhood. And that church is growing. It’s not your
father’s way of doing church anymore.
The culture is changing and the church is changing too. In the Sixties and Seventies, the debate over Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the struggle for women’s rights dragged the Church, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century. In 2012, the Bishops’ Call to Action is a strong appeal to churches and pastors to wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late. I think that the leadership is about forty or fifty years late in calling us to action but hey, who’s counting? We were comfortable on that third pew from the front, left middle section, of my home church. Why change, why move, why question what would Jesus have us do?
These days the mainline Church in this country is in decline and the United Methodist Church is trying hard to re-root itself in good Wesleyan soil and reclaim its place as a world changer. We are instituting new styles of worship, finding new places and ways to be in mission; we are welcoming the stranger and the pilgrim with a radical hospitality. My God, we even bring electric guitars, electronic percussion, and iPhone generated music into the sanctuary—and call it sacred music. What next--clergy preaching in jeans and tee shirts? No, wait. I do that already. Nothing new there. Change can be a good and positive thing. The early church grew like a weed because its people practiced hospitality in a way that was unheard of in that ancient culture; they actually welcomed and cared for the stranger. John Wesley left the high pulpit of his Anglican sanctuary and preached in the field. He preached spiritual piety and social reform and managed to make everybody with wealth and power uncomfortable; and he ministered to “the least of these” like Jesus told him to. In the colonies, he appointed laity to preach God’s Word and some of them did it with an eloquence only God could have provided; and the Methodist people grew in number and strength. And that is the good news of Jesus Christ. In any age the body of Christ in the world should always be an ever changing, vibrant, dynamic thing.
But that sort of transformation comes with a cost. When church customs, worship practices, and even the way we engage in mission change, we feel pushed out of familiar surroundings. We lose what used to be comfortable and comforting. When we go to the well for a drink of Living Water and draw up a taste of anything else, we feel cheated. It can make us edgy--but more than that it grieves us. We have lost something dear to our hearts and so we mourn the passing of customs, rituals, and habits of the heart that used to sustain us. Unrequited grief hurts to the core.
But Christ has an answer for us. Christ calls us out of the garden of grief and what came before and asks, “Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” The Gospel of John tells the story well. In her shock and grief Mary Magdalene found Jesus disguised as a worker in the garden of the tomb. Others, like Thomas, found him in their fear and disappointment. Seven of his disciples found him on the beach cooking breakfast after they had fished all night and caught nothing. When Jesus told them where to fish, their harvest was so heavy that it almost ripped the nets. Simon Peter had decided to go back to the old life of fishing, but he found Jesus and a whole new vocation in the reach and breadth of Jesus’ forgiveness and love. It’s in the gospel of John--check it out. Death and grief happen but for those who believe the promises of Jesus, life and joy follow. Things change. Thank you, Jesus.
The culture is changing and the church is changing too. In the Sixties and Seventies, the debate over Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the struggle for women’s rights dragged the Church, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century. In 2012, the Bishops’ Call to Action is a strong appeal to churches and pastors to wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late. I think that the leadership is about forty or fifty years late in calling us to action but hey, who’s counting? We were comfortable on that third pew from the front, left middle section, of my home church. Why change, why move, why question what would Jesus have us do?
These days the mainline Church in this country is in decline and the United Methodist Church is trying hard to re-root itself in good Wesleyan soil and reclaim its place as a world changer. We are instituting new styles of worship, finding new places and ways to be in mission; we are welcoming the stranger and the pilgrim with a radical hospitality. My God, we even bring electric guitars, electronic percussion, and iPhone generated music into the sanctuary—and call it sacred music. What next--clergy preaching in jeans and tee shirts? No, wait. I do that already. Nothing new there. Change can be a good and positive thing. The early church grew like a weed because its people practiced hospitality in a way that was unheard of in that ancient culture; they actually welcomed and cared for the stranger. John Wesley left the high pulpit of his Anglican sanctuary and preached in the field. He preached spiritual piety and social reform and managed to make everybody with wealth and power uncomfortable; and he ministered to “the least of these” like Jesus told him to. In the colonies, he appointed laity to preach God’s Word and some of them did it with an eloquence only God could have provided; and the Methodist people grew in number and strength. And that is the good news of Jesus Christ. In any age the body of Christ in the world should always be an ever changing, vibrant, dynamic thing.
But that sort of transformation comes with a cost. When church customs, worship practices, and even the way we engage in mission change, we feel pushed out of familiar surroundings. We lose what used to be comfortable and comforting. When we go to the well for a drink of Living Water and draw up a taste of anything else, we feel cheated. It can make us edgy--but more than that it grieves us. We have lost something dear to our hearts and so we mourn the passing of customs, rituals, and habits of the heart that used to sustain us. Unrequited grief hurts to the core.
But Christ has an answer for us. Christ calls us out of the garden of grief and what came before and asks, “Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” The Gospel of John tells the story well. In her shock and grief Mary Magdalene found Jesus disguised as a worker in the garden of the tomb. Others, like Thomas, found him in their fear and disappointment. Seven of his disciples found him on the beach cooking breakfast after they had fished all night and caught nothing. When Jesus told them where to fish, their harvest was so heavy that it almost ripped the nets. Simon Peter had decided to go back to the old life of fishing, but he found Jesus and a whole new vocation in the reach and breadth of Jesus’ forgiveness and love. It’s in the gospel of John--check it out. Death and grief happen but for those who believe the promises of Jesus, life and joy follow. Things change. Thank you, Jesus.
