Bishop Mike Lowry

I have shared often how crucial Christmas Eve worship is as an opportunity to reach non- or nominal Christians.  A recent article in Ministry Matters (www.ministrymatters.com click on “Articles”, it was posted November 28^th) entitled “How Christmas Can Help Your Church Grow in 2012” caught my attention.  The authors listed 6 key ideas.  “1) Promote your January sermon series and other upcoming activities during Advent and Christmas services.”  2) Use your Christmas kids’ programming as an on-ramp for new families to get involved.  3)  Offer multiple mission opportunities. 4) Do the caroling thing. (The CEB New Testament Christmas Outreach Kit works well for this kind of outreach.) 5) Use your church’s small groups for outreach during the holidays.  6) Be creative and try new things.”  The authors, Betsy Hall & Shane Raynor, add: “Don’t settle with doing the same candlelight service year after year. Remember, Christmas Eve is prime time. Pull out all the bells and whistles. Get your most creative people on board and provide a worship experience that will make first time visitors want to return in 2012.” To which I add a hearty Amen! The worship of God is the first and most basic step on the path of discipleship.

I commend the article to you.  It closes with the challenging question, “What does your church do during Advent and Christmas that encourages growth in the months ahead?”

As you are lifting up the connection between Christmas Eve, making disciples, and church growth? Don’t forget alternative forms of communication as a way to reach seekers.  A church Facebook page and a twitter auto update are two (among many) different suggestions.  (Our younger clergy have been coaching me, and they are great resources to visit with about different options!)  Whatever you do, have Christmas Eve services featured PROMINENTLY on your  website!

While you are at it, another article from the Lewis Leadership Center is really worth your attention.  It is entitled “Asking Bigger Questions” and written by Keith Anderson. It is from The Lewis Center for Church Leadership online journal Leading Ideas dated November 30^th (www.churchleadership.com).

At a recent meeting of the United Methodist Publishing House Board of Directors, we received a great report on a new online ministry. MinistryMatters.com (www.MinistryMatters.com) is the United Methodist Publishing House’s new ministry resource site. It is a unique blend of  magazine and reference site. Its mission is threefold: to equip, connect, and inspire church leaders, both clergy and laity.

I asked the director of Ministry Matters (Shane Raynor) what its most popular feature is.  He replied, “The most popular feature of Ministry Matters is This Sunday, a weekly collection of resources centered around the Revised Common Lectionary. Ministry Matters has recently added kids’ worship helps, small group studies, and non-Lectionary based sermon series to the This Sunday mix.

Visitors to Ministry Matters have also responded well to the site’s current events resources. The most popular articles in the past six weeks have been a joint book review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins and Francis Chan’s Erasing Hell, and a provocative blog post called “Don’t Give ‘Em What They Want.” The site has been presenting different viewpoints and encouraging readers to step outside of their comfort zones as they consider different takes on current events.

I think this is an exciting new resource that I commend to both laity and clergy.  A final note from Shane Raynor, “Looking ahead, we’ll be launching subscriptions (both individual and institutional) in January. There will be new content in the reference library as well as the
fully searchable Common English Bible as the default translation. We’ll also be adding more topical sermon resources and sermon series to give options to pastors who don’t use the Lectionary. In the next few months, we’ll be adding ‘Reach’ and ‘Lead’ to the current ‘Preach,’ ‘Teach,’ and ‘Worship’ tabs.”

Thursday and Friday I have been at a South Central Jurisdictional College of Bishops meeting at Lydia Patterson Institute.  Lydia Patterson Institute is a mission of the United Methodist Church and more specifically of the SCJ to share the gospel of Christ in a bilingual border setting.  There motto conveys the essence: “Building Bridges on the Border, where Faith and Knowledge Interact.”

I must confess that I have been blown away by the power of this ministry to change lives.  At dinner I visited with a high school senior who hopes to win a scholarship to a one of our United Methodist Universities.  Living in Juarez, the morning trip to school is dangerous but she “trusts God” to keep her safe.  She wakes at 4 a.m. to be at the international bridge by 6 a.m. “for the lines are long.”  She is engaged in a Christian ministry through the Methodist Church both in Mexico and in the United States.  After a nursing degree at College, it is her intent to answer a call from God to enter seminary.

The parents have formed a group to see the students (6^th grade through high school) safely to the bridge.  At the International Bridge, the students patiently cross over to the United States.  Despite the early hour (7:15 a.m.) the smiles and energy offers a sense of the Spirit’s presence.  Our College of Bishops met the students this Friday morning to walk with them the remaining 5 blocks from the bridge to Lydia Patterson.  We were the ones blessed by the walk. As we met these determined students at the bridge, the sacrifice, commitment and courage overwhelm me. I see both the love and power of Christ at work in this ministry.  Truly God is out and about in our world.  Healing, hope, and new horizons are dawning in dangerous circumstances.  The United Methodist Church is engaged in a redemptive work worth being both proud of and humbled by.

I must confess that I came to Iona Abbey with a romantic notion of the Abbey Community.  Somehow in my mind it represented a modern representation of a heroic past involving courageous Christian witness and daring Christian service.  While still impressed and thankful for my time at Iona, I left Iona Abbey searching for something more.  Allow me to briefly (far too briefly to do real justice to something I have given much thought and prayer) explain.

George MacLeod started (or more properly restarted the Iona Abbey community) in 1938 out of a heartfelt concern to reconnect the church of his day with the working class people of the community.  He took young ministers (essentially ministers-in-training) and unemployed stoneworkers together to Iona.  As they worked together in rebuilding the Abbey, they shared together in the Christian faith.  Not all of the stoneworkers were Christian but the intermixing of the clergy with laborers helped the church reconnect with the working class of Scotland.  Following the ministry and model of Columba, MacLeod combined genuine conversion-oriented evangelism (witnessing to Christ as they worked side by side) with justice and mercy (helping fight the crippling unemployment of the depression).

From those early beginnings the Iona Abbey Community has emerged with a deep sense of justice and mercy ministry.  Though the historic island of Iona and the physical Abbey itself are the spiritual home of the Iona Community, the community’s main ministry is all over the world through the reach of its approximately 270 members and a much larger number of Associate Members.

Over the years it has been extremely active in the peace movement, ministry to the marginalized and impoverished, deep commitment to ecological sustainability and the like. Prayer, worship with liturgical and musical renewal has remained a central emphasis as well.  Members (capital M) of the worldwide Iona Abbey Community commit to fivefold rule of prayer and Bible study, economic sharing, planning of time, meeting together for mutual support and accountability, and working for justice and peace.  In many ways, the ministry is impressive and faithful.  And yet, there is  something lacking.  As the justice and mercy ministry has moved more and more to the forefront, a sense of evangelistic witness has faded to mere abstraction. The worship liturgy and prayer alone appear to keep the group from  drifting off into being just another agency of social activism.

In a discussion group, a layman from a church in Leek, England probed the Member of the Iona Community on their current connection to the original vision of MacLeod to reconnect the church to working class people.  The response to his probing was  polite but defensive.  The Member of the Iona Community acknowledged that they were essentially a mid-class (mainline) Christian movement that had lost connection with the working class.  Peace and justice were the predominant focus of their work.

Later, I sought the layman out to follow up on his thinking.  Perceptively he  commented that it was “hard for an institution to recover its original mission.”  As we conversed, it became clear that this layman did not disagree at all with the commitment to justice and mercy.  What he missed (and had come to Iona looking for) was a concomitant commitment to sharing the gospel in the way of St. Columba and Rev. MacLeod.  He spoke of a great commission commitment to share the faith with others in a way that led to committing one’s life to Christ.

The direct application for my ministry and for the Central Texas Conference was not lost on me. However good (and it is truly good, needed and a work of God) social justice ministry is, it alone is not enough.  The second major way the Iona Community is seeking to live out the mission and ministry of Christ is in and through authentic community.  Essentially they represent another attempt (among many) to re-engage the great insights of Christian community tracing a line from the original Christ followers (read the close of Acts 2) and the abbeys of old down to today.  This is a large subject which must wait for another day.  (Watch this fall’s The Wilderness Way.)

In my reading as I prepare to leave Tuesday for our Educational Opportunities Tour of Wesley Heritage sites in England, I came across the following comment: “The best general method of preaching (in every sermon) was outlined: to invite, to convince, to offer Christ and to build up” (Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodist, p. 145).

Such guidelines offered by the Rev. John Wesley set me to reflecting on my own preaching.  Do I, in all my sermons, invite, convince, offer Christ and build up.  I would like to think I do but am haunted by the suspicion that I cannot really pass a close examination. 

In our day and time we day we tend to be best at “building up.”  Even though we live in a post-Christendom age, we often assume that people know Christ and are convinced.  I do not think this is really the case.  Wesley’s advice is still good today.  I need to be more diligent in examining my sermons based on Wesley’s admonition – invite, convince, offer Christ and build up.

In 1747 Wesley followed up with some specific rules for preaching:

1747 Rules for Preaching

1.         Be sure to begin and end precisely at the time appointed.
2.         Sing no hymns of your own composing.
3.         Endeavour to be serious, weighty, and solemn in your whole deportment 
             before the congregation.
4.         Choose the plainest tests you can.
5.         Take care not to ramble from you test, but to keep close to it, and make out
             what you undertake.
6.         Always suit your subject to your audience.
7.         Beware of allegorizing or spiritualizing too much.
8.         Take care of anything awkward or affected, either in your gesture or
             pronunciation.
9.         Tell each other, if you observe anything of this kind.

(Minutes [1747], 38;  taken from Wesley and the People Called Methodists by Richard P. Heitzenrater, pg. 164)

Early in December I attended a regular learning group with other bishops that I am a part of – The Episcopal Leadership Forum at Duke Divinity School.  While there, we listened to (among other great presentations – including our own Dr. Ginger Bassford – who was outstanding!) the report of some fascinating research done by the Center for Creative Leadership.

After extensive research (which was later supported by similar research conducted in Europe), they reported the following fascinating information about learning temperaments.

• Active Learners – 10% of North Americans
  • Strive to take responsibility for their own learning
  • Take a role in how & what they need to know and what to do about it
  • Educational self-management
  • Self-motivation becomes a greater force behind learning
• Passive Learners – 85% of North Americans
  • Learner is a recipient
  • Expectation is that others will provide occasion for learning
  • Socialized to believe that personal learning needs are identified and provided by others as determined by a given situation or authority
• Blocked Learners – 5% of North Americans
  • Appear to be incapable of learning from their experiences
  • Variety of causes

Which category are you in?  Be careful!  Clergy are no different in learning temperaments than the rest of the population.  These insights forced me to stop and engage in personal inventory.  It is too easy to assume that I am in the 10% of active learners.  Self deception is common and all of us wrestle with the malady of such self-deception.  I am asking myself: Am I an active learner?  What evidence is there to support such a conclusion?  I invite the reader to do the same.

In the run up to the Thanksgiving holiday, I attended two informative events.  While distinctly different from each other, each is evidence of the creative reflection taking place across the United Methodist Church.

Saturday, November 20^th I attended “Can We Talk?” and took part in a Bishops’ Panel during a Q& A time.  “Can We Talk?” focused on “Effective Leadership … Changing Our Reality” in the African American church.  (An annual event, this is my 3^rd year in attendance.)  Rev. Ronnie Miller Yow, pastor of Wesley UMC, Little Rock, Arkansas, gave a powerful address on new ministry in new ways.  Some nuggets of his address:

• Dead worship will not bring anybody to Christ.
• No pay, no say – if you are not tithing you should not have a say in the direction the church is taking.
• The reason this church is dying is that pastors don’t know how to pray.

There was more but the listener (and hopefully reader) can grasp the cutting edge of Rev. Yow’s connection between spiritual formation and congregational fruitfulness.

 The second event took place on Sunday evening, November 22^nd.  I attended The Texas Methodist Foundation’s dinner recognizing special medallion honorees, Rev. Leighton Ferrell and Tom Graves.  Dr. Bill Enright a Presbyterian clergy and President of the Lake Institute for Faith & Giving, spoke on trends in stewardship.  Giving is down (as the economy would suggest).  Significantly though, major giving is much more focused than it used to be.  Instead of giving to (say) 7 or 8 causes, those sharing larger gifts are choosing to focus on a few causes (say 2 or 3).  The driving question is: How can I make a gift of significance?  Put differently, what difference (play on words intended) will my gift make.  Meaning, purpose and engagement are driving giving as never before.  Churches cannot simply assume economic loyalty.  Are we places of significance in the kingdom building work of Christ?

 Both groups are leaning into a new future.  These are exciting times to be in ministry for the Lord.

My August 12^th Wilderness Way column sparked a number of responses and questions about the meaning of orthodox Christian belief. They raised questions relative to what I meant by theologically orthodox. While that is a long and deep subject, in general, orthodoxy in United Methodism is defined by the Articles of Religion and the Doctrinal Standards, as found in our Book of Discipline. You might wish to look at Paragraphs 1-199 in the 2008 Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church.

In a larger sense, our understanding of orthodoxy comes historically from the Anglican Church in England and reaches back to the great ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, particularly those of Nicene (325 A. D.) and Chalcedon (451). Dr. Justo Gonzalez in Believers offers a marvelous understanding of orthodoxy.  He uses the image of a baseball diamond and says that the church through its great ecumenical councils has established “foul” lines. There is a great deal of room to roam between left field and right field, but there are clear foul lines.

The doctrine of the Trinity provides a concrete example. However we understand the Holy Trinity, those who hold to Christian orthodoxy are clearly Trinitarian: God as Father, Creator; God as Son, through the person and work of Jesus Christ (“His only Son, our Lord”) and God as Spirit, through the Holy Spirit present with us always to both comfort and challenge. Unitarian beliefs are clearly outside the foul lines. That does not necessarily imply that someone who is theologically unitarian is going to Hell or anything of the like.  It simply indicates that Unitarian belief is not orthodox Christianity. Another concrete example of orthodox theology would be the use of Holy Scripture as both source and norm for the Christian faith.  Holy Scripture is inspired by God (There is great room for debate as to what precisely “inspired by God” means. It does not necessarily imply a rigid fundamentalism.)  The orthodox understanding of scripture is that it is the canon, the rule of faith. Thus, when someone adds a new book to the Bible, or an additional “bible” (such as the Book of Mormon), such an addition is clearly is not orthodox Christianity.

As we wrestle with the concept of what is and is not orthodox as a church, our understanding is dynamic. Our context and culture may cloud our understanding of the truth.  Even more than dynamic, it is led by the Spirit. The ancient hymn catches the essence correctly, “new occasions teach new duties” (Once to Every Man and Nation, vs. 3).  Through all the vicissitudes of time and culture we have a foundation to hold to – the orthodox Christian faith as defined in the great ecumenical councils and promulgated through Holy Scripture.  Scripture, tradition, reason and experience all play a part in informing our best understanding of the Christian faith.

Allow me to recommend a number of books that are worth reading on this subject. Dr. William Abraham’s Waking from Doctrinal Amnesia (an even deeper study is his outstanding Canon and Criteria in Christian Theology), Thomas Oden’s The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, Albert C. Outler’s Theology and the Wesleyan Spirit, and William Willimon’s Who Will Be Saved?. In our church life, an excellent extended study on theology that delves fairly into the whole concept of an orthodoxy that is both open and generous is the study The Christian Believer”(referenced above as simply Believers).  It follows the Disciple Bible Study model of readings and reflections.

            Currently I am in Arkansas at our Jurisdictional Conference Center, Mt. Sequoyah.  June 23^rd is a day for the meeting of the South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops.  Wednesday, June 24^th we begin Bishops’ Week with a decidedly different thrust.

            In past years Bishops’ week had been essentially a continuing education event hooked on to various Jurisdictional gatherings involving Bishops and District Superintendents.  While the presentations were often excellent, attendance has been spotty at best.  This year, in sharp contrast, Bishops’ Week will focus on the work of the Extended Cabinet.  Dr. Gil Rendle, Senior Consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation, will be guiding us on leading the church through the wilderness.  Bishop Sally Dyck, Resident Bishop of the Minnesota Conference, will be leading the group on spiritual formation and deepening our walk of faith.  We have read two books in preparation for the time of learning and spiritual growth – The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom and Finding Our Way Again by Brian McClaren.

            The Starfish and the Spider wrestles with the difference between movements and hierarchical organizations.  Implications for us as a church are obvious.  Once, the United Methodist Church was a movement for Christ.  Today we are best characterized as a hierarchical organization.  Where once we were fluid and nimble, today we are rule-bound and argue about boundaries.  Consider this quote:  “If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.”

            Finding Our Way Again chronicles the rediscovery of vital spiritual disciplines.  Consider:  “Spiritual practices … are a way of locating ourselves in a present moment no less lighted by the presence of the unseen God from whom we come, to whom we go, and with whom we travel.”  Pilgrimage, fasting, sacred meal, common (disciplined) prayer, giving, Sabbath rest, and liturgical year –  “these ancient practices have formed people of Abraham faith through many centuries.”

            There is much to share, learn and discuss here.  I look forward to this time of learning together.

I sat through a discussion recently about whether a church-related college or university should require a course in religion as a part of a liberal arts education. Science classes, fine arts classes, language classes (to mention a few) are a required and expected part of a liberal arts curriculum. The required religion course was not a required course in Christianity (or any other particular religion); it was simply a required course in religion – period. The faculty voted to eliminate a required course in religion.

It is incomprehensible to me that religion per se is not a basic and foundational part of any truly comprehensive liberal arts education. The historical and contemporary importance of religion (not just the Christian religion but religion as a broader category of inquiry and study) is self-evident in a world torn by religious conflict, competition and claims. And yet, the skeptical gods of the Enlightenment reign triumphant in the academy. Religion is to be suspect on principle. In much of “so-called” higher culture in Western civilization (Europe and North America), religion (and especially the Christian religion) is rejected out of hand as some form of corrupted superstition. It is no longer seen as the queen of academic inquiry but rather treated as the dreads of mere opinion and ignorant opinion at that.

And yet, those same gods of the Enlightenment, so eagerly embraced, are challenged across the landscape by religious climate to truth with a capital T. Two colleagues of mine commented on the subject: “How can your education be liberal if it has no exposure to religion?”(Rev. David McNitsky) “The need for intentional examination of the religious dimension of life is imperative to any first-rate liberal arts institution. As important as open inquiry is in the area of the humanities, arts, and sciences, fine arts, etc. is, I contend, that any complete education must address the religious dimension of life. Religious dimensions of life contextualize all other areas of inquiry.” (Dr. J. Eric McKinney)

Well spoken gentleman!