Methodism By the Numbers

Over the last few years we have come to appreciate the significance of certain numbers in the United Methodist Church. I wish to review them here. Bill Hybels, of Willow Creek talks about vision leak. It is as though we carry our vision around in a bucket with a little hole in it and after a while all of that vision will leak out. We need to keep filling the bucket. We need to keep reminding ourselves of who we are and who God calls us to be. Counting from 1 to 5 might be a means of reminding us of that vision and keeping it “fully” before us. So, here are the numbers of Methodism.

1We have one mission in the United Methodist Church: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. This mission statement must inform every decision we make in the church. If we are looking at a congregational study we need to ask how this will help us make disciples for the transformation of the world. It is the question we need to ask whenever we make decisions about purchasing a bus, or putting a welcome center in the narthex, or providing space for AA: how do these things help us in our mission to make disciples for the transformation of the world. As our teams meet to plan next years ministries and budget it is especially important for us to pray over this mission of the church that we may faithfully plan to do the work God has entrusted to us.

2We believe that holiness manifests itself two ways. There is a personal holiness that is connected to our relationship with God and a social holiness that is connected to our relationship with our neighbor. We learn in the Gospels that the greatest commandant is to love the Lord our God and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. John Wesley encouraged the Methodists to be engaged in works of piety and works of mercy. The works of piety help us grow in love with God and develops our personal holiness. The works of mercy help us grow in love with our neighbor and develops our social holiness. These are activities that we do alone and in community. Our small groups help us in both of these types of holiness and encourage us in loving God and neighbor.

3We have three simple rules that have been passed down to us from the earliest days of the Methodist class meetings: (1) Do no harm; (2) Do good; (3) Stay in love with God. Consider how these rules apply to our speech. How prone are we to say hurtful things about other people that not only damage our relationship with others, but also with God? To do no harm is more than avoiding bad behavior or bad words. It also means we must be proactive in examining our lives in relationship to one another. Do I have a tendency to complain about things when I am around others? Do people see me as being a negative person? Do I comport myself in a way that I exhibit the grace of God in my life? To do good must be more than doing that which pleases others. To do good means we actively live our lives to bless others by God’s grace. We become that vessel of God’s grace and love to those for whom love and grace is seldom experienced. To stay in love with God means we practice those activities that keep us close to God. The old means of expressing this rule was “to attend upon all the ordinances of God.” This means we spend time in reading and meditating upon the scriptures. We spend time in prayer, expressing our love and adoration to God as well as sharing our burdens and failures to God. It means we gather with God’s people in worship and praise and attend the holy meal where we share in that glorious foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

4We are called to work in four areas of focus. The first is to develop leaders. Beginning with our children, we take the time to instill a sense of Christian leadership. We encourage them to be engaged in mission: local and global. We allow our youth to find their place and voice in leading worship. We equip the laity of the church to do the ministry God has entrusted to us. The second area is to create a place for new people. We do this by establishing new places of worship and revitalizing existing places of worship. At Horne, we are especially called to do both in our partnerships with Greater Heights and Calvary. We serve to mentor individual Christ followers and congregations in their faithfulness to God’s call. The third area is eliminating poverty and the fourth is improving health globally. I list these together because we seek to do both in the work we do in world missions, but especially in Haiti. Haiti is a country that is geographically so close to our own. It is one of the world’s poorest countries just miles from one of the world’s richest countries. God has given us a wonderful opportunity to love and serve these people in the name of Jesus Christ. In every well dug, every home or school or church built, in every orphan cared for we do nothing less than what God is calling us to do.

5There are five practices of fruitful congregations. We recently completed a study on these five practices, so they should be fresh in our minds. God calls us to practice radical hospitality. We park our cars away from the church and walk through the rain so our guests don’t have to do the same. We accept inconveniences and go out of our way to make others feel welcomed and at home. We become expressions of God’s love and acceptance in the lives of those the world neither loves nor accepts. We remember how Phillip and Peter and Paul were called to leave their comfort zones in sharing God’s loves with other.

We celebrate God with our passionate worship. It doesn’t matter what the style of worship is – that tends to be selected based on our own preferences. God just desires us to worship passionately and adoringly. We offer God the best we have in our singing, our praying, and our proclamation. We discover that passionate worship is not about what we get out of a worship service, but what we put into it, yet when we worship passionately we find it deeply fulfilling.

We understand the importance of intentional faith development for people of all ages: from the smallest child to oldest adult. In this life we never graduate with all we need to know about being a Christ follower. The time we spend in our small groups, Sunday School classes, or Bible Studies is important for giving us the eyes we need to see the world with all its hurts and needs as God sees it. It is important for giving us the ears we need to hear the cries of the lost and the lonely and the hurting. Growing in faith is not about how much we can learn. It is not about us. It is about becoming the people God calls us to be as we live in community.

It is at this point that we realize how God is calling us to be engaged in risk-taking mission and service. Jesus said we would be able to do greater things than he did. Do follow in his steps and in the steps of the apostles means we must be willing to fail. Caution and timidity are not part of the miraculous. Mary told the servants at the wedding feast to do whatever her son told them to do. He instructed them to draw some water from the jars and take it to the wine steward to taste. In so doing they witnessed the first of the signs of Jesus. Had they shied away, they would have witnessed nothing.

We see that these five practices build on each other and finally lead us to extravagant generosity. Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume worth a year’s wages. The early Christians sold their property and distributed the proceeds that not one of them would be in need. Our stinginess or our generosity is what informs others what we believe about God. If we are stern and stingy toward others they will believe we worship a stern and stingy God. It is in a generosity of spirit and sharing that we bear witness to a God who provides an abundant and full life.

So, this is Methodism by the numbers. May they always serve to remind us of who God calls us to be.

Grace and Peace,
Alan