Repairing the Witness of the Church Begins With You
Photo by Jaime Lopes on Unsplash
It’s annual conference season in the United Methodist Church. Not all of our substack subscribers may be familiar with the governing structures and activities of the United Methodist Church. Annual conference is a time for churches in a designated region to gather in prayer, worship and to tend to various matters of church business. Over the past decade, (or more) annual conference has become, for many, an environment full of contention and disunity as the United Methodist Church wrangles breakdowns in governance, accusations of institutional corruption, theological disagreements over a number of issues including human sexuality, as well as overall declining membership numbers. After years of attempting to resolve these differences to no success, a means of exit has been created for churches and pastors who wish to leave the United Methodist Church.
If you’re in the UM tribe you no doubt have come across the term to describe this event. We call it: disaffiliation.
Many annual conference agendas this year will include the work of voting to approve the exit of local church bodies who are seeking disaffiliation. A number of annual conferences have already taken place and the process hasn’t been easy. Leaders on various sides of contentious issues find themselves negotiating hostile conversations with colleagues. Many people find themselves struggling to fend off bitterness and anger. Relationships are fragile. And almost everyone regardless of where they fall on the issue of disaffiliation is experiencing deep grief.
In fact, it seems grief is the only thing in which we find ourselves unified. In particular, I hear repeatedly lament over the damage done to the credibility of the Methodist witness. It’s true. Our Christian witness to culture is lackluster at best and was in decline long before our current issues. Beyond the particular problems of the Methodist family, the witness of Christianity in the West seems to be struggling in general. Between moral failings of high-profile church leaders, viral Christianity-adjacent docu-dramas, and headline-making denominational conflicts, people who are outside the body of Christ likely have some strange ideas about what Christianity is truly about.
Leaders cannot take on the task of attempting to fix the ball of tangled misconceptions our surrounding community may have about Jesus, Christianity, and the church. Rather we must do the simple day-in-day-out work of, as Paul says in Philippians, living in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Christ. We will repair the witness of the church through one loving, image-honoring interaction at a time. But this will only have a transformational impact when we first allow the Lord’s love to transform us.
When we submit to be completely overtaken by the Holy Spirit’s witness to the Father’s love for us personally the critical thoughts and opinions of the world become unimportant. We have assurance in the authority and power of God’s love to change even the most hardened critic of faith. We can know this is true because when we have a personal revelation of the Father’s love the true extent of our own hard-heartedness is inevitably revealed, and by God’s love–healed. From this place where we can now be both vulnerable and confident in our security, we can begin to understand the truly unfathomable depth of love God has for both his children, and those who don’t yet know him as “Father.” We don’t need to be afraid of, or feel anger towards those who don’t share our perspectives. Even if we feel momentary (and completely understandable) emotions about various conflicts and circumstances we can meditate on the love the Father has for us and find peace in his secure presence.
Questions of theology and the manner in which Christian life is lived are matters of eternal importance, but repairing the witness of the church will require more than being able to articulate correct theology and doctrine. We must aim to be people who demonstrably walk and talk about the faith, hope, and love of Jesus– even in the midst of chaos and conflict. When people of the world ask how it is we are so calm and filled with love we can witness to the one who made such miracles possible.