Getting Loose

On Remaining in the United Methodist Church—Prolegomenon and Historical Documents

I put out on YouTube recently, a fairly dense version of my reasons for staying United Methodist.  I intend here to break up that video into five discrete units.

Here is the beginning and a touch on some of the historical standards of the church.  There are four:

• The Standard Sermons of John Wesley
• The Explanatory Notes on the New Testament by John Wesley
• The General Rules of the United Societies, and
• The Articles of Religion

Download ProlegomenonAndDoctrinalStandards

Brecon

It absolutely for me, was a coincidence.  An off chance.  I had never heard of Brecon, Wales before I came to England.  It was the closest town to the Boys Brigade encampment.  But the three older gents—Graham, Dave, Les—and I decided at about 11:30 a.m. to go into town.  It wasn’t a requirement, but it would be a mini-outing.  Besides, I thought I might get to hear some Welsh being spoken.

It was, in many ways, a typical small town, though the buildings, while old, looked far more substantial than I see in most small towns in America.  We stopped at a little café to have a spot o’ tea (though, I was the only one drinking tea—the rest of them had coffee), and the leader of our group, Graham, was eyeing a substantial wedge of chocolate cake.  He kept trying to hint to me that perhaps I might want one myself.  I declined, thinking after all the ridicule about cream tea, I’d much rathe’ ‘ave a scone, thou knowest, but I knew that we’d be back at the camp in a little over an hour, and for once in my life, I decided to have some scruples against gluttony and forgo the food.  My, aren’t I the ‘oly one?

After a nice conversation around the table, we decided to walk through town.  The central focus of the town in some ways was the cathedral.  Now over here in Wales, they do not have a covey of radical Protestant churches like we do in America.  The main church is the Anglican Church.  And it was old looking indeed.  I feel quite certain that it was over 200 years old. 
And that is old contrasted to the standards of a culture from which I come in which anytime a building gets over 50 years old, there is some real doubt about its viability.

Well, it was decided to walk up one side of the drag, and then down the other.  We went down town, and then on our way back up, we passed by the outside of the church, which as I stated was quite old looking.  There was a nice little fenced in lawn beside it and a plaque and a marker commemorating those who had been killed in WWI from the village of Brecon.  I glanced at it and walked on.  But Les stayed behind and was reading some plaque on the outside near the church.  I really hadn’t given it a second thought.  But I decided to go back to where Les was, to see what was so interesting about the plaque.

As I looked closer, I could see it was a plaque about a Thomas Coke (that’s pronounced Cook in these parts).  I thought, “How interesting.  I know that name.  Couldn’t possibly be the man of whom I knew a little.  After all, what good ever came out of Wales? (besides coal and slate)”

Well, reading the marker a little closer, and in the middle it read, “ . . . a supporter of the Methodist movement.”  Then I looked closer still, and it said, “ . . . founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of U.S.A. . . .”

I said, “Holy cow!  That man was one of the two general superintendents that John Wesley ordained to come to America to begin the Methodist Church.  I know who he is!  He is a very important man in the tradition of Methodism in which I was reared!  And you mean to tell me he was mayor of this town at age 23?  And he was baptized at this church? 
I cannot believe what I am seeing!  I NEVER knew he was of Welsh origins!”

Absolutely serendipitous!  I would have never guessed that a treasure like this awaited me in Brecon, Wales!

BB

There is a rather successful youth ministry whereof the Kingsdown Church engages.  It is called the Boys Brigade.  It is a much older organization than my beloved Boy Scouts.

From what I understand, it started in Scotland in the late 19^th century and is only affiliated with churches.  Its mission is to advance Christ's kingdom among Boys and to promote the habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness.

I left Wednesday with a group of older gents about 6 a.m. in the morning and we spent three hours traveling by car to Wales where they speak Welsh.  Once you cross over the bridge ,
 the signs are printed in two languages—English and Welsh--
.  Welsh words look funny.  Lots of double dd’s and double ll’s.  (Wouldn't you know that that sign has neither . . .  but then in Welsh it also reads, "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".  The person who made the sign thought that that was the translation!)  CWM is pronounced koom as an example.

When I arrived at the camp, they had the USA flag
just underneath their Boys Brigade flag in honour of my coming.  I was deeply touched.

Their food was good and adequate; they played games like pillow fight, and went into town to play soccer and hockey.

The boys were well behaved and the leaders were full of enthusiasm and energy.  They feel a natural rivalry with the Scouting movement.

Notice the patch work quilt country side on the hill overlooking this camp.  The group of boys at this camp won the band (drum & bugle corps) contest for all of London.

Pitshangar

The Methodist Church of Great Britain is quite a different animal from the United Methodist Church.

 

With exceedingly few exceptions, by definition, a Methodist Church in England is part of a circuit to which might be appointed 3-4 ministers.  I am taking the place for five Sundays of a clergyman who is appointed to a 10 point circuit for which he has the pastoral care of two churches—Pitshanger and Kingsdown. 

 

Pitshangar has approximately 30 members, and Kingsdown has around 100.  Both have members who can remember when there an additional 100+ more people in worship decades ago than today, yet there is a liveliness and vitality that is refreshing to me when compared to so many churches of which I know that are that size in the states.

 

My first service was at Pitshangar (pronounced PITTS hanger).  They all sat on the south side of the sanctuary in front of the pulpit, and as soon as I came out to start the service, they applauded.  I can only remember that happening twice before—once when I preached in an exchange with the St. Luke’s Catholic Church at Houston.  After I finished my sermon they applauded.  I wasn’t clear if they really liked it, or if they were relieved that I was finally done.

 

The other time was when I was pastoring a church and I announced that the bishop would be moving me to a different church come June.

 

At 10:30 in the morning, Pitshangar was attentive.  They sang with unusual gusto and verve.  I think I would have difficulty finding another United Methodist Church of that size that could do that well.  Not only that, because I did not know most of the tunes to their hymns, I was of zero help in trying to lead any singing.

 

Because it was the first Sunday of the month, we celebrated holy communion.  The services are amazingly similar, but the customs that surround that familiarity can really throw one off  who is used to somewhat being in autopilot.

 

I have never really used much of public transportation except in NYC where it is a virtual necessity, but I rode one of those red double-decker buses in order to preside at worship at Pitshangar.

They were a delightful group.  I was glad to be there worshiping with them.

The Cherubim

In the Bible study I have been teaching on Wednesday mornings at the village church, we recently were looking at chapter 6 of the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  That led to a discussion about the 9 ranks of angels with the seraphim being next to God himself, and the cherubim just below them. 

I had remembered that P. I. Tschaikovsky, one of my absolute favorite composers, had composed some piece of work about that rank of angels, and here it is.

.

I remember how it blew me away the first time I heard it by chance at night on my car radio years ago.  I was alone.  I tell you, the composer was a genius . . .  or very, very sensitive . . . like Mozart.  As I listen, I shake my head in amazement and wonder.

If you want to get blown away, turn up the sound and listen to it at night with the lights off, or with just a few candles lit.  You will be within aural proximity to the antechamber of paradise.

1st Class Church Fund Raiser

Last night we went to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral Greek Festival.  Man, you talk about knowing how to do a fund raiser, it was phenomenal.  Here were just a few of the things that impressed me:

• It is held on 4 successive nights
• Lights were strung up outside attracting people like moths
• A pared down menu that included quality items with lots of meat cooking and the wonderful smells drifting through the air
• Big open-air white tents set up
• Big, portable see-through fencing set up close to the street so that you could see through and get activities closer to the traffic to attract people
• Select beers and wines (I've seen Methodist Churches in Iowa with beer at their church--but it was like one of those under the counter operations)
• Dancing
• Live shows with lots of people
• $5 entrance fee (they could have doubled that and I still would have gone)
• Quality, select, vendors
• They had to have made easily hundreds of thousands of dollars

I'll bet we spent over 2 hours there, and they got at least $70 out of us.  On top of that it was absolutely an impulse decision for us to go.  We were going to stay home and eat, but I had had my car in the J & T Automotive, and I gather that the people who run this place are Greek (the front desk woman's name means "wisdom" in Greek, the General Manager's last name means "God is with us" in the Greek form of the Hebrew, etc.)   Anyway, as I was peeling off the bills to pay for my car repairs, the young man said he couldn't wait to go to the Greek celebration.

I said, "What celebration?"

"It's like a festival."

"Where?"

"On Yoakum Street."

"Where is that?"

"It's a little difficult to explain."

"Yeah?  Well try."

Blank look.

"Is it connected with a church?

"Yes!"

"Which one?"

His mind was whirring, and then he blurted out, "Annunciation!"

"They're having it tonight?"

"Yes!"

I thought, Well that sounds like fun . . . but . . . I'll need to check in with the War Dept. first though to see if that is a possibility.

Hypothetical Question

There is a blog that I read on occasion called Dooce.com.

The blogress is a lapsed Mormon who rails against religion and common sense from time to time. She can be witty, sarcastic, impudent, and downright silly . . . but she is never dull. She is a mom and a wife and she can swear like a sailor, yet she can still be endearing.

She had a post recently that touched my heart. Reading it, I almost thought maybe she is religious after all her protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. If nothing else, it will make you think.

Predestination

"I’ve never heard that preached in a Methodist Church before!"

That was not a criticism.  It was a statement of thanks.

Today’s lectionary had, as one of its readings, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.  And wouldn’t you know, it came from the 8^th chapter—a chapter that so many theologians and would be theologues have cut their teeth on.

I honed in on verses 29-30.  That’s the infamous passage about predestination.

I am convinced that so many in our culture (outside of the Reformed tradition which pretty much "gets" it) when they hear that word immediately jump to two variants of conclusions that center around either infralapsarian double predestination (and no, I am not going to explain that. You have the ability to double click any word in my blog to find out what it means), or the loss of free will.  Neither of which are true.

The aboriginal impulse of the doctrine of predestination is to assert that God is beyond our manipulation.  Period.  That’s the main point.  And honestly, most people miss that.  You cannot manipulate God (Now you can influence him and what he will do . . . but that is another post).

Being a man who has been heavily influenced by the thinking of that Anglican priest, John Wesley, I honed in on his viewpoint in the sermon. I’m not sure that I will try to go through that argument here.  But in some cursory fashion, predestination tends to swing around the nub of two things.

Number one, you do have free will 24/7. God never takes that away from you ev-er. Holy cow, there’s enough evil in this world to document that.

Number two.  For God, (even though Paul speaks of it in Romans) there is no such thing a "foreknowledge" or "after knowledge".  God is way beyond time and space.  So that to get a grasp of it, God has the ability to see the past, present, and future in one eternal "now."  He sees it all (Again, time is only one small part of eternity). And seeing it all, God knows in every tribe and nation, throughout time, those people who are going to be predisposed to believe (and that is still another post . . . or two . . . or three . . . or . . . ) and those are the people he predestines to salvation (still another post). And there you basically have it.

‘Nuf o’ dat.

Transformational Discovery

I remember some months ago reading about this wacko, weirdo guy who just "dove into things", a culture of immersion for a month or so to see what particular lifestyle phenomena were all about.  He works for Esquire Magazine.  I'd forgotten about him until Tim Keel turned me on to the TED web site.

While there, I just ran across a relatively short video where A. J. Jacobs talks about trying, for an entire year, to live as much as he could understand to do so literally by the proscriptions of the Bible. It is a fascinating talk. He went from being a Jewish agnostic to a reverent Jewish agnostic. He discovered that he had not come anywhere close to giving thanks for the many, many good things that go on everyday because he had been so focused on the 3-4 bad things that went wrong.

He also grew to understand the gift of resting on the Sabbath. That is a concept that is so very little understood in our culture in the 21st century. Although it is a topic for another post, rest does not equal sleep or napping. When God rested on the 7^th day, he was not tuning out.

At any rate, it’s a very interesting reflection on the part of A. J. Jacobs.

Building Blocks

The Rev. Dr. Lyle E. Schaller is one of the premier church consultants in America. I know he has written somewhere around 40 books and a number of articles. He is a man I have admired from afar for decades.

In one of his books he says that the crucial first step in planning is to admit that something needs to be done, and to be willing to do it . . . that people must recognize that past programs may not be adequate for future needs.

That is a remarkable statement for how it conceptualizes the truth in so few words. The church I serve in one of the Villages of Houston is in the process of examining this very issue—our past, our present, and where God is leading us for the future.

Our beliefs have pretty much been set in stone for centuries. By that I mean, there is no question that we believe in articles like:

• One God in three Persons

• That Christ was both fully human and fully divine

• The Resurrection of Christ

• The sufficiency of Holy Scriptures for salvation

• Original Sin

• Sacraments, etc.

Going beyond beliefs, though, we have finally hammered out a set of values by which we will make the journey in the days ahead as we self-assess and lean into God’s inspiration. Those values are:

• Prayer

• Worship

• Servant Leadership

• Proactive Response to Change

• Christian Education

• Outreach

We are now working on a Mission Statement. We’ll be able to put it on the front of a T-Shirt. We are making it 9 words or less. Stay tuned.

Pathway to Productivity

Penelope Trunk who has surely had her share of ups and downs has an interesting post today in which she writes about four pathways to productivity. Guess what one of the four is? That’s right! How perceptive. It is actually going to church! How is that, you may ask. It’s that girls who go to church regularly tend to work harder and are more optimistic. So boo on you people who don’t go to church: who wants to hang around a bunch of hopeless drips?