I’ve been teaching a class on church renewal this semester, and as part of the course I asked my students to watch and critique a video that kicked off the “Rethink Church” campaign. This video is a few years old now, and I remember blogging about it when it came out. Call me crazy, but I found it irksome that we would make such a video with no mention of God and God’s saving work in Jesus Christ. But hey, that’s just me. What do I know? Apparently church is supposed to be a “menu of adventure,” or perhaps a verb, rather than a community of the Holy Spirit established in the ministry of Jesus Christ to bring salvation to a broken and sinful world.
I know… I’m a theological dinosaur.
Self portrait, ca. 75 million B.C.
To be clear I really do think we should rethink church. In North America we’ve been in decline for decades now. Churches are closing. Our social witness is waning. Yes, we need to rethink church. Along these lines I would offer the following suggestions with regard to how we might do that:
1. Reclaim the power of the Holy Spirit that characterized early Methodism, both in Europe and America. We will not be changed by a church. We will be changed by the power and work of the Holy Spirit, transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2). This means that we will have to become more committed to the discipline of prayer, practices such as the laying on of hands, and the sacramental life of the Church. (On this last point, see chapter 3 in Jason Vickers’ Minding the Good Ground: A Theology for Church Renewal).
2. Hold one another accountable in love. One of the more powerful practices of our Methodist heritage was the “holy conferencing” whereby people would “watch over one another in love” for growth in holiness. This is what the term “social holiness” means. Although it is often used as a synonym for “social justice,” these are two different things. See Kevin’s Watson’s article on Seedbed for a more detailed account of Wesleyan meetings.
3. Teach the faith of the Church. The faith handed down to us through the ages, given over to us by saints and martyrs, teaches us about the identity of the one true God who came to us in Jesus Christ for our salvation. We don’t teach the faith of the Church in order to decide who is in or out, or who will or will not be welcome. We teach this faith because knowing who God is and what God has done for us can lead us more fully into the new life that God has prepared for us.
We cannot expect people to do God’s work in the world (e.g., work for social justice) if we do not offer them the means of grace necessary to experience new life. I know it’s not popular to say these days, but people sin. Sin is the reason the world needs transformation. Greed, racism, environmental exploitation, human trafficking and domestic violence–all of these massive social problems we feel the need to address are manifestations of one meta-problem: sin. The way that we overcome sin is to accept God’s work for us in Christ and receive the sanctifying power of the Spirit. If we really want to work for the “transformation of the world,” we must first become the kind of people who consistently have the moral will to do so.
Do we need to rethink church? Absolutely. But rethinking church may mean recovering some practices that have been lost, time-honored practices that keep us in touch with the One who offers us new and eternal life in Jesus Christ. If this line of thinking makes me a theological dinosaur, I’m okay with that. Not everything old should become extinct, nor should everything new be held in esteem.
David F. Watson 
As I was reading Ben Witherington’s little book on baptism (Troubled Waters) last week, particularly in his discussion of the halting rise of infant baptism as the Christian movement gained a second generation, I noticed one important feature left out. The first generation, at least as depicted in the Book of Acts, had a clear experience of the Holy Spirit that could be connected with coming to faith and entrance into the church. As years of nurture replaced a distinct conversion event (whether that event be a moment or a few days), the connection between baptism and the reception of the Spirit was severed. In my experience of Methodism (a very different Methodism than in Wesley’s day), I have seen little overt attention given to a clear experience of the Holy Spirit. In so doing we have not only lost the living connection to original Methodism, but also an essential element of Christian experience as depicted in the NT (Fee’s work in God’s Empowering Presence was pretty convincing here – if I needed more than the NT itself).So your #1 – yes!
Oh man, Fee’s book “Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God” was an awesome influence on me early on in my life (I think it is a condensed verses of “God’s Empowering Presence”).
The problem we have to solve is not the generational one (one generation/group experiences a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit and then the movement heads into decline with each new generation). This problem is always going to be with us because we cannot transfer our experience of the Holy Spirit and our faith in Christ over to other people. It just doesn’t work like that. We are always going to have to work on these things.
I think the thing we have to focus on is recovering practices and ways of life in the church that will open people up to experiences of the Holy Spirit (just give the Spirit some room!) and nurture real faith. For example, what happened to prayer meetings? Hardly anyone in my neck of the woods practices prayer meetings. The BOW also has healing services – why don’t we practice them regularly and invite people on the outside to come and receive prayer (many have already been doing this for a while). And whatever happened to Wesleyan classes where people talked about how there was soul was or bands where people experienced deep spiritual intimacy? I though those were hallmarks of Methodism? Can you find those in your local UM church today?
It’s easy to see WHY so many churches are on the decline today. They are not doing the basics – they are not practicing historical disciplines or even their own denominational distinctives. The good news is that all people have to do is get back to the basics.
Thanks, Richard. I like the way you’ve put this: there is “little overt attention give to a clear experience of the Holy Spirit.” Well said.
In re-thinking, what is the one topic that today’s Church is obsessed with beyond all others and yet Jesus never talked about? Sex. Be it contraception, abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, to the outside observer the Church appears obsessed with sex. Yet Jesus talked about the dangers of money, greed, and religious hypocrisy. Why aren’t Christians protesting, marching and carrying signs against greed? Today’s Church also appears to outsiders to be focused on the politicalization of Christianity, i.e. legally imposing a set of “Christian values” on those who disagree. Yet Jesus avoided efforts to establish an early kingdom or overthrow the government of his day. Actually focusing on Jesus’s priorities rather our own would go a long way in renewing the Church.
Britt, we do indeed seem to miss Jesus’ priorities a lot of the time.
It occurs to me, Britt, that adultery by its nature involves sex and the gospel writers give us Jesus talking a good bit about that. With that in mind, I appreciate your call to return to “Jesus’s priorities” as the better focus of our Christian mission.
I hear that point, Britt, but the rest of the New Testament may offer a different point of view. The epistles are full of advice, admonishment, and teaching about sex because once you get a bunch of humans living together and trying to be a community, the issue emerges pretty fast. That is why the Torah, prophets, and writings also had a lot to say on the subject.
And Jesus did talk about sex, just to be clear. He talked about other things, but he did talk about sex.
None of that is to say your criticisms are invalid. But I don’t think it is warranted to argue that Jesus or the apostles never paid any attention to the matter.
As an insider, by the way, I’d say the outside world seems every bit or even more obsessed with sex than the church is.
Amen to that. I don’t think that putting our heads in the sand in regards to sexual ethics is going to somehow get us on the right path. There is tremendous brokenness caused by sex all in our culture. Lord knows that we don’t need to tell people “do what makes you happy.” People need to be told the truth about sexual ethics (in light of God’s creation not just negative rules) and they need to be told about the good news of forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit to free people from the bondage to sin. Oh yeah, and the Christians and churches who speak about these things need to be experiencing the reality of forgiveness and freedom themselves.
You’re right about the world being obsessed with sex. However, Jesus wasn’t. If anything, Jesus refused to condemn those who had broken the religious laws about sex. The world is also obsessed with getting money. However, Jesus wasn’t. He gave His strongest warnings about money, saying it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven (notice he didn’t say that about sex). I have yet to see any Christians picketing banks, investment firms, law firms, doctors’ offices, hospitals, or pharmaceutical companies because they charge outrageous amounts of money and deny services to people who can’t pay. I’ve never even heard a sermon about it. On the contrary, Churches are always asking for money. The world is also obsessed with getting power. However, Jesus wasn’t. During His temptations in the desert, He turned down the offer of all the world’s kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Church seeks the world’s political power. When outsiders seek a place of refuge from the world, what do they often see when they look at the Church? They see an organization that’s often obsessed with the same things the world is: sex, money, and power.
I’ve heard several songs about money and power. I agree we need to be more like Jesus. In peace.
I agree with you Brit that the church should speak to those things and that Jesus addressed them the most in his teaching. Those were the particular vices that his audience (Jews living under Roman rule) were failing in. That’s what incarnate ministry does. It deals with the sins that are present in the audience. I’ve seen that people love preachers who speak about sins “on the outside” – that is, sins that other people (usually the culture) are committing. But he did indeed speak to sexual sins, particularly the sin of adultery and fidelity in marriage (between a man and a woman as would be the case in a Jewish culture and truthfully in all cultures up until now). When Paul took the gospel to the Gentiles, he dealt with the sins of his particular culture and many of those were sexual sins. Paul gets accused of being over concerned with sex but he was just doing incarnate ministry. Failing to speak to the sins of ones particular culture is a failure to do incarnate ministry (Martin Luther has a great quote about that but it escapes me now).
I think you making a way too general criticism of the church in regards to money though. Yes, there is a lot of greed and misuse of money in the church and it needs to be spoken too. Pastors, clergy, and Christian scholars run after big salaries and security. Christians follow the “American dream” instead of Christ’s call to sacrificial living. It happens. But there is a whole lot of ministry done by local churches, para-church ministries, and other Christian agencies that do it right. I personally only make around 24,000 a year with no perks but have about 150,000 dollars in education. The two little churches I pastor do all sorts of good with the offering – and often come up just breaking even at the end of the year. It’s all about where you look.
Thanks for this, David. I 2nd the recommendation of Jason’s book on renewal. I think a kind of Wesleyan ressourcement, going back to the sources (ad fontes) is what is needed rather than a sloughing off of all that is past (which is what too many mean by “progress”).
I thoroughly AMEN! this post. I left the evangelical world because of all the practical atheism (ala C.S. Lewis) that I witnessed there and I’ll be doggone if I didn’t run right back into in United Methodism. Honestly, just go to a clergy meeting. It’s usually a bunch a people trying to figure things out WITHOUT God.
The only thing that I would add is that there has to be a focus on real private and corporate practices and disciplines that will open up people to God’s grace and power. Just talking about it is not going to do much. We can say that we need revival and renewal all day long – and still not do anything concrete about it. And that’s not Wesleyan at all.
What I would love to hear from some of these so-called is a call to the church to reintroduce scriptural practices that are clearly outlined. Semper Reformanda! We must always be reforming our lives around the Holy Scriptures or we will form them around something else (like the UMC and it’s formation around church polity, political correctness, and being ‘nice’ people). The Bible calls to corporate prayer – church, why don’t you start a prayer meeting – a real one where more than one person (the pastor) prays. Lays hands on people and pray for healing. Pray for renewal, pray for revival, pray for the salvation of the people that you are so heartbroken over – and golly gee, God just might answer you! Anoint the sick and pray over them – and you just might see a healing!
And if you call yourself a Methodist, for God’s sake, practice Methodism! Proclaim the gospel wherever and whenever you can (the full gospel that speaks of the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Organize small groups and do your best to get people to engage in “soul” talk. Join yourself with 2 or 3 others in a band and experience the joy and power of spiritual intimacy. It blows my mind how people can go and on about “quadrilaterals” and “conferences” and all this stuff that Methodism is NOT primarily about!
Sorry to go and on . . . this is something that I am very passionate about.