What it means to me to be United Methodist

What it means to me to be United Methodist

People have accused me of overthinking things. Meh. Sticks and stones, ya know? Anyway, I'm not a (n>1) generation UM. (I am, however, a mathophile! Go ahead. Cast that stone. Haters gonna hate.) I became a Methodist…. Well, let's start with where I started before I was a Methodist. I was raised in a Mormonish church. (The family tree of the Mormon variants is almost as colorful and confusing as the Methodist family tree.) However, Mom was raised Dutch Reformed, and only became mormonish when she married Dad in 1950. So when the Jehovah Witnesses came knocking at our door c.1965, asking her if she knew how wrong her church was about the Bible, and would she like them to tell her what the Bible really said, she politely took their proffered copies of Watchtower and Awake! And then started her own search. Yes, she admitted that what she heard from the pulpit was very different from her childhood sermons, but it was also different from what she had heard at that Kathryn Kuhlman crusade in Akron, Ohio in the late '40s. She was talking about this with a co-worker one day (she was working as a part-time secretary) who invited her to a Bible study that took place in her (the co-worker's) home. There was a beginning of a pentecostal revival movement in my hometown, and this prayer group/Bible study was it. Yep, The Jehovah Witnesses saved us from the Mormons, and sent us to the Pentecostals.

Fast forward to 1984. My first marriage had fallen horribly apart, and I had begun to date Sandy. The biggest chasm of my first marriage had to do with religion, and I wasn't going to let that happen this time. Now, I have to admit that I had become somewhat disillusioned with Pentecostalism, and I knew I was never going anywhere close to anybody who thought the Book of Mormon was really scripture, but when Sandy and I got married the only Protestant church in town was (gulp) Methodist. From both Mormon and Pentecostal points of view, those Methodists (along with a list of all mainline churches) were the Church of Laodicea, that lukewarm church that made God want to barf. OK, absent a sign from Above showing me where to go each Sunday morning, I would be there to worship, but I wasn't gonna just believe anything the pastor said. Within a year the pastor was pleading with me to join the church, because they needed a lay leader, and we were the only couple under 60 years old attending.

This all happened in a little town just outside of the Denver, Colorado metro area. Does anybody remember what was the topic of discussion among Colorado Methodists through the '80s? Does the name Julian Rush ring a bell? Here's a headline from 1985 (from the Chicago Sun-Times!) http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-06-25/news/8502100749_1_homosexual-pastor-rev-julian-rush-church-officials

to refresh your memory. OK, I had found a church home in a little country United Methodist Church, and I had even made peace with a liberal pastor who didn't seem to have a problem using non-canonical writings as source material for Christmas Eve services. But I was NOT going to become one of THOSE people who thought a gay man could really be an acceptable pastor. Ever. But they really needed a lay leader. And after much prayer, it seemed pleasing to God that I should (shudder) become a member of The United Methodist Church, so as to serve my local church family.

Then I heard The Call.

It wasn't a sound-waves-going-through-the-air-and-into-my-ears sound, but it was an Out Loud, real Voice in my head that said, “I want you to be a minister.” It was right after I took stock of my life, and realized that God had done Great Things in the previous two years, and said, “Thank you, Father.” That was when I heard, “I did it for a reason. I want you to be a minister.” Now, remember, my background is Mormon and Storefront Pentecostal. What do I know about being a minister? So, I answered, “OK, but I don't have a clue what that means. You're gonna have to show me the way.” Now, that also included the caveat that I couldn't imagine this calling could mean being a Methodist minister, but that would seem to go without saying. Now, God is both gracious and persistent, and eventually He made it clear that He wanted me to serve Him within the structure of The United Methodist Church. Which meant that I had to figure out what it meant to be a United Methodist.

Scripture tells me that I am to be obedient to whatever authority God puts over me. OK, so where does the authority reside in The United Methodist Church? My answer – The Book Of Discipline. And the most authoritative paragraphs in the BOD? The Restrictive Rules. So, can a United Methodist really believe anything she/he wants to, and still be a United Methodist? Just about. Well, OK, there is the Confession of Faith, but that's a Johnnie-Come-Lately, added to make the takeover of the EUB palatable. What we have are Doctrinal Standards, not confessional or creedal standards. So, a Methodist isn't required to sign off on any belief statement. No, preachers have to sign off on what is authoritative to be taught. There are no standards for what they believe. There are standards for what I teach.

I had been serving my first appointment as a Licensed Local Pastor, having gone through License To Preach school but not yet having started Course of Studies, and wondering what I had gotten myself into. I found myself looking down the barrel of my first funeral, having gone to exactly two funerals in my life before this. So, I went to the Cokesbury Store. Yeah, they still had those then. I did find a really helpful Funerals 4 Dummies guide, but I also picked up a book from the closeout table: Sugden's edition of Wesley's Standard Sermons. And I started reading Wesley. I have to tell you. I really thought, “You know, if this is what Methodist believe, I'm in!” It didn't take long to realize that most methodists only have a vague idea about who John Wesley was, much less lean on his Sermons for their morning devotionals. But not long after I found my copy of Sugden I found the Restrictive Rules, and I knew that I could indeed be a Methodist.

Several years later I got my Baker reprint of the Jackson 3^rd Edition of the Works of John Wesley (in 13 volumes!) which are still a part of every day of my life. And every day I continue my (possibly quixotic) project to help recover the Methodist Movement in the 21^st Century. I'm chasing Wesley, finding a doctrine that makes more sense now than ever before. For me, that's what it means to be United Methodist.