My Experience at EmergingUMC2: Friday night and Saturday Morning

It has been over a week now since EmergingUMC2: Restoring Missional Methodism finished up.  At  high noon, Saturday, November 14, our gathering headed back into the world.  Some having a 700 mile ride back home on a minibus. 

Where do we go from here?  That was the big question for me. 

We spent Thursday night watching and discussing The Ordinary Radicals, a beautiful film about what Christians are doing across the country to reclaim the faith from both apathy and the dark years of the Christian right era.  On Friday morning we walked through downtown Indianapolis and met  with arts leaders, janitors, and hotel workers, and got some context for how Lockerbie Central UMC developed and is developing its missional focus.   We spent Friday afternoon thinking about Methodist history and the current story of the United Methodist Church, especially the history of class and society meetings and their relationship to congregations.  

On Friday night some of us went to nearby Englewood Christian Church and saw Shane Claiborne speak as part of another conference going on that week, Through the Consuming Fire.

So, where do we go from here? 

A week out, that Saturday- morning seems like a blur.  I am sure I am leaving some things out.  

First off, we talked about our experience Friday night watching Shane Claiborne speak.  I showed up late Friday night  and just in time to hear Shane speak. For those who haven’t seen Shane speak before, the guy is a rock star.  When he spoke at our church, we had nearly as 1,000 people show up–the biggest crowd we probably have ever had in the 125 year history of the church. 

I know our group wa s a bit annoyed because the music prior to Shane went on and on and on and on.  And on. It went so long that the scheduled Q and A session had to be cancelled.  The thing that stuck out to me though was the power of Shane’s story–even though I had already read his books and have seen him speak before.   Here, a small group of people dedicated themselves to living out the Gospels and they launched a movement.  Nine people living together in community and in friendship and solidarity with the broader community.  That’s it.  And they are changing the world through their witness, activism, and Christian discipline.  Last year, UMC youth in Carmel, IN–the wealthiest city in the state were so moved by Shane’s Irresistable Revolution that they begged the church’s leadership to invite Shane to lead worship on a Sunday morning.  (He accepted their invite.)

Still, I feel that for some of us Methodists, Shane’s  Irresistable Revolution gets lost in translation. It might be called the Impossible Revolution for us United Methodists.  But for me, that was the great hope of EmergingUMC2.  In our own ways, given our deep traditions, we United Methodists could begin to restore missional Methodism. 

As the conference concluded and before our final worship gathering together, we broke up into small groups to talk about how we might begin to work together.  I talked with two UMC clergy from central Indiana.  It was exciting  to begin to dream about how local congregations and individual Methodists could work together in real ways. 

We finished up with a powerful  worship service that sent us back into our communities  hopefully ready to restore missional methodism.

Filed under: Christians, Earth House, Indiana, Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church, Thursday Night Film Festival, church, emergent church, shane claiborne , art, Carmel, Christians, class meetings, emergingumc2, Englewood Christian Church, fringe festival, hotel worker' uprising, hotel workers, IN, Indiana, Indianapolis, Irresistible Revolution, janitors, Justice for jANITORS, lockerbie central, lockerbie central united methodist, methodist, methodist history, missional, missional church, missional methodism, music, ordinary radicals, shane claiborne, society meetings, Through the Consuming Fire, united methodist

My Experience at Emerging UMC2: Friday Afternoon: What Happened to the Methodists?

I hope to blog out my thoughts about EmergingUmc2: Restoring Missional Methodism over the next several days.  Here is my second attempt to summarize my experience at the conference. Here is my blog post from yesterday about the conference.

After our walking/missional tour of downtown Indianapolis, we returned to the church, had lunch, and finished up the official part of our Friday at EmergingUMC2.

We spent that afternoon talking about the early Methodists and the church structure that had developed since then.  Ultimately, it was this way of doing church that got us into the ditch  that we United Methodists now find ourselves in. 

One thing is clear; John Wesley and the early Methodists were the Shane Claibornes and ordinary radicals of their time and place.  Their ministries started in prisons, coal fields, factories, in the farm fields, etc.  They spoke out against injustice like slavery and industrial reform and primarily worked through small groups called classes.  Along with the social activism and small gatherings, these early Methodists also put emphasis on personal piety and discipline. 

According to Taylor Burton-Edwards, the EmergingUMC2 conference leader, the prevailing  spirit and structure of the early Methodists started to dissipate with the creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, especially as the church gained economic and political power and became part of the dominant, mainstream culture by its 100th birthday in 1884. 

The numbers lie sometimes but the United Methodist church is fading.  We are about to be passed by the Mormons for third place on the largest American denominations list, continue to lose hundreds of thousands of members each decade, and now the percentage of Americans who consider themselves United Methodist  have nearly been cut in half over the last forty years. (6% in 1970, 3% today).

Burton-Edwards argument on this Friday afternoon made a lot of sense; The church as congregation model hasn’t worked out very well and its well worth looking at what those early Methodists were up to! You cannot recreate the past, of course, but there is much to learn  from the pre-Methodist Episcopal Church Wesleyan movement.  

Much more could be said, but most importantly, returning to a model that emphasises the small group/class could add the vitality needed to Keep Wesley’s hope that the Methodist movement “[would] not only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.…” He wrote that two years after the formation of the Methodist Episcopal church.  

To back this up, Burton-Edwards quoted the following in his presentation:

•GBOD research– discipleship grows and deepens  primarily through an experience or a group outside the congregation (Dan Dick)

•Missiological observation– “communitas”–a “band of brothers and sisters who have each other’s backs struggling through a common ordeal– is the environment most conducive to missional action and multiplication (Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways)

Filed under: Christians, Indiana, Indiana history, Indianapolis, Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church, bible, church, community, community organizing, emergent church, jesus, prison, prison justice, prison ministry, tradition, united methodist , united methodist church, john wesley, shane claiborne, ordinary radicals, united methodist, missional, prisons, Dan Dick, Taylor Burton Edwards, early methodists, farms, emergingumc2, methodism, small groups, methodist classes, band of brothers, Allen Hirsch, Methodist Episcopal church, methodist history, powerpoint, Methodist decline, Mormon, ranking, growth, decline, missonal methodism, open air, coal mines, mines, 1784, 1884, dominant culture, mainstream culture, communitas

Who Killed Indy’s comprehensive smoking ban? or a Sad day for Indy

 

Terrible.  Indy politicians have once again missed an opportunity to improve the health of our community.  There’s a lot of blame to go around about why the city council has once again failed to pass a [nearly] comprehensive public smoking ban.

Mayor Greg Ballard is one person to hold accountable.  Matthew Tully in today’s star writes that the mayor  walked into a closed-door meeting with council Republicans and made it clear he didn’t want the ordinance to land on his desk.” Tully points out that as a canidiate for Indy mayor Ballard approved of a comprehensive smoking ban.

Democrats aren’t blameless either.  First of all, if council Democrats had made a stand during the Peterson era about smoking (or anything, really), this would be a mute point. Indy would have long ago joined the 21st century when it comes to public health.  But Peterson and the council back then weren’t about taking bold stands.

And on the city council, Democrats should feel embarrassed.  Council member Dane Mahern abstained from the vote because, as Tully reported, his father is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Heaven forbid, you take a stand that might bump against your father’s business interests.   More so, Mahern had his father host a fundraiser for him within a week of the scheduled smoking ban vote.

This was a chance to be a truly bipartisan and  other Democrats didnt’ show up.  Council member Doris Minton-McNeal, Monroe Gray, and, already mentioned Mahern, abstained from voting.  Their abstentions helped kill the bill and  Minton-McNeal didn’t even bother to show up.

Whatever the reasons, other Democrats who voted against the bill include Duke Oliver and Vernon Brown.

Thanks should go to  Democrats Jose Evans and Angela Mansfield and Republicans Barbara Malone and Ryan Hunter for taking a strong stand for making Indianapolis a better place to live.   And don’t forget to thank Smoke Free Indy.

 

http://www.indystar.com/article/20091028/NEWS08/910280381/Tully++Ballard+threat+helped+kill+smoking+ban

Filed under: Broad Ripple, Indiana, Indianapolis, Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis politics, POlitics, city council, community, community organizing, economy, progressive , Indianapolis, POlitics, Greg Ballard, Indianapolis Star, city council, Indianapolis politics, Bart Peterson, Jose Evans, smoke free indy, smoking, ban, smoking ban, angela mansfield, ryan hunter, doris minton-mcneal, monroe gray, vernon brown, duke olliver, barbara malone, dane mahern, mayor, comprehensive smoking ban, matthew tully