Category: Christian life

When the roll is called up yonder

Is it better to have more people in our church or fewer people?

On one hand, the answer is obvious. Jesus Christ calls us to make disciples of all nations. He calls us to seek the lost and bring them in. We want everyone to come to faith in Jesus Christ and connect to a local body of Christ.

But both the Bible and the early Methodist movement don’t answer that so simply. They both seemed more worried about more than just counting bodies. They were worried about holiness and righteousness. God wanted a holy people, not merely a big crowd.

John Wesley was a bit obsessed on this point. In the journals he wrote and the accounts he made of the origin and growth of the Methodist movement, the removal of members from those societies was a regular topic. Here is one such entry in his journal from December 9, 1741.

God humbled us in the evening by the loss of more than thirty of our little company, who I was obliged to exclude as no longer adorning the Gospel of Christ. I believed it best, openly to declare both their names and the reasons why they were excluded. We then all cried out unto God, that this might be for their edification, and not for their destruction.

Imagine that meeting for a moment.

Could you imagine that happening at our church?

Something a little like that happened this week, actually.

On Thursday, our Church Council voted to remove 78 names from our membership roll. These were all names of people who had not attended our church, participated in our ministries, our supported us financially for more than five years. We reached out to them with invitations to reestablish participation in our church. We did this two year in a row and anyone who responded, we took off our removal list. We started with more than 78 names, but after multiple years of inviting people back into the life of our congregation, we wound up with 78. This we, we voted to remove those names.

It really was nothing more than a recognition of the truth. Those individuals had ceased to be members of our church even though their names remained on our records. We still love them. We would rejoice to have them back, but we cannot force anyone to remain in fellowship with us.

Church members make promises to the congregation and to God. They pledge to support the ministries of the church by attending worship, praying with and for each other, working in our ministries, and supporting that work with their tithes and gifts. To treat those vows as if they do not matter makes light of a solemn promise made to and in the presence of God Almighty. It actually is an insult to God when the church acts as if those vows had no meaning. If they have meaning, then we need to act like that is so.

Does that mean it is a happy thing to remove names from our membership list? Of course not. Like John Wesley, we are humbled by the need to do so. In some way, it is a sign that our fellowship has failed. Brothers and sisters we vowed to watch over and nurture in Christian love wandered away and we either contributed to that or did too little to stop it. Every soul matters to God. We pray each on of these people find their way back to us or to another church and to a deeper faith in Christ.

At the same time, I urge us all to reflect on our own baptismal and membership vows. Being a Christian comes with obligations and responsibilities. This is not a game we are playing. It is not a social club that we are a part of. I pray we can encourage and build each other up in our faith so that those we have now and those who will join us in the future remain part of this church until they join the church eternal and see the glory of Jesus Christ. May we all find our names written in the Book of Life, which is the only roll call that actually matters in the end.

‘Let It Go’ and the song of the gospel

Christians in America live in a non-Christian culture. It is not always explicitly anti-Christian, but it is largely, at times overwhelmingly, shaped by ideas and beliefs that are at odds with Christian convictions. This means, then, that Christians need to be paying attention to the messages we are being fed by the culture around us. Without even knowing it, we are being taught things that undermine the truth of God.

For instance, and this is getting to be an old example now, take a look at the lyrics to the popular Disney anthem “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. If you were alive in 2013, you remember how popular this song was. You also recall how fiercely this song was sung by young women and girls. The opening themes of the song about feeling trapped by the expectations of others and forced to hide who you really are spoke — and still speak — incredibly powerfully to many women.

In the song’s crescendo, Elsa sings about breaking free of the rules that bound her: “No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free.” She rejoices in discarding that goal of being a “perfect girl” and tapping into her inner power that has been suppressed by parental and social fears. “Here I stand in the light of day” she belts out in defiance of the storms that will rage against her independence and freedom.

This song brilliantly captures a worldview and tells in a compelling story of liberation and freedom. These are themes that resound across American popular culture in song, on big screens, on small screens, and in the other media we consume. These messages shape and form the minds and spirits of Americans. They do so in ways that work directly against the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let me try to short cut some of the objections to that statement by reminding us of what the gospel is. In a very short form, the gospel tells us that we were made to be good but we are sinners. We seek to be god for ourselves. We fall short of the glory and purposes for which we were created. Try as we might, we cannot fix or save ourselves from this condition. We are terminal cases. It is only because of what God himself did for us by abandoning all his power and glory to become a human being and die for us that we can be set right, be reconnected to God, and receive from him the grace and power to become who we were originally created to be.

The gospel is about freedom. It is about overcoming fear and being freed from the chains that bind us, but the path to those things is the exact opposite path that we are offered in American popular culture. The way to true freedom is not self-assertion. It is not casting off the very concept of right or wrong and become a law unto ourself. It is not tapping into our inner true self and constructing a world that mirrors our desires back to us.

Those things can all feel wonderful in the moment. It is why such messages are so popular. There is ecstasy is letting go of every source of expectation and rule that tells you who you are and who you should be. There is a great sense of power is saying you don’t care what anyone else — even God — thinks about your choices. The song feels like a war cry of liberation.

And at the end of it, Elsa stands defiant, triumphant, and alone atop a castle of ice in the midst of a frozen wasteland and, despite her bravado, with so little control of herself that she will nearly kill her sister for a second time when her sister comes to try to bring her back home. She is still angry. She is still afraid. She is free of the perhaps misguided advice of her parents and the troll shaman who told her to suppress her powers after she nearly killed her sister the first time, but her freedom is exile into a lovely cage of her own making.

Now, to be fair, the final act of the movie has Elsa’s sister sacrifice herself out of love for Elsa, and Elsa at last discovers that it is love that sets her free from the fears that had controlled her. There is, however, no song that goes with this lesson. Indeed, the only songs Anna sings in the movie are about loneliness and false notions of “true love.” You could argue that the point of the movie is that Elsa was wrong about the way to overcome her fears, but almost no one thinks of that lesson when they think of the movie. The movie ends by rescuing Elsa from her ice palace, but it is the song that led her to that palace that has made a dent in our culture.

If this movie and this song were the only example in all of popular culture that lifted up these themes, this would be a pretty silly post to write. I think if we look and we listen to what we are being told in music, in movies, on streaming platforms, in books, and other forms of popular culture what we find often lines up with the themes that got so many girls belting out “Let It Go” a decade ago.

It is into this culture that the message of gospel sings a different tune.

The gospel tells us that the way to be free is to let go of ourselves. The way to find life is to lose it. The way to discover our true self is in submission to God. The way to be free of fear is to know the love that we did nothing to deserve.

This message has always been so radically counter-cultural that it has been dismissed and mocked. It is slandered as hostile to joy and happiness. In its place we are offered hedonism, self-assertion, self-absorption, and various forms of intoxication to blind us to the fact that there is a hole deep within us that no amount of “me” can ever fill.

Christians sing a different song. Our songs are songs of being found when were lost, of rising because he rose, of standing on the promises of the one who is higher than me. We do not overcome our fears by tapping into an inner power but into a heavenly one. We do not break free of social pressure by standing defiantly in a storm of our own conjuring but by kneeling humbly at the cradle of the one who calms all storms. We don’t overcome the terrors of death by building empires on earth but by clinging to the blood-stained cross where death was defeated.

I don’t write all this to tell you to stop singing songs and going to movies. There are many true, beautiful, and good things that talented artists display in their various crafts. But as Christians it is important that we don’t let the song of the gospel be displaced or distorted by the songs of the culture around us. We are called to be wise in the way we deal with the world that is not yet redeemed by Christ. May it always be the gospel that tunes our hearts to sing God’s praise.

I am curious, if you’ve read this far, what you think about all this. I’m happy hear from Frozen fans who think I’m unfair to Elsa. I’m related to some who feel this way. I’m curious how you hold on to the gospel message in a world that sings songs that know so little about Jesus.

Visiting the sick as a means of grace

One reason why the Methodist movement outlived the first generation of Methodists is because John Wesley was a practical theologian and a spiritual guide to the people called Methodist.

In most of his standard sermons, the ones that serve as doctrinal standards for the United Methodist Church, we see signs of this, but it is in some of his non-standard sermons that we see these aspects of his spiritual leadership in fuller display. I am going to walk through one of these sermons, “On Visiting the Sick,” in several posts. My goal is quite simple. I want to listen and learn from a spiritual leader who the Holy Spirit used in a mighty way.

1. It is generally supposed, that the means of grace and the ordinances of God are equivalent terms. We commonly mean by that expression, those that are usually termed, works of piety; viz., hearing and reading the Scripture, receiving the Lord’s Supper, public and private prayer, and fasting. And it is certain these are the ordinary channels which convey the grace of God to the souls of men. We are often admonished in the church these days to not use “church words.” The problem I often have with such advice is that it rarely includes suggestions about what words to use instead, and, therefore, people are left without the concepts and the frameworks that make sense of what we do as Christians.

“The means of grace” is a good example of this. This is not a phrase you will use in any setting other than church. It is built upon a word, “grace,” whose meaning is not at all clear from day-to-day life and has no easy secular substitute.

So what is this concept that is the starting point for Wesley’s sermon about visiting the sick? He begins by writing about the “ordinary channels” by which God administers his grace to us. These “means of grace” are words, actions, and signs by which God draws us to himself, convicts us of our sin, declares to us our pardon, assures us of our pardon, and cleanses and strengthens us as we grow into the very image of Christ. All of these things, God can do in an extraordinary fashion, but he has given us these means as the way. (For a more complete discussion of this, you can see Wesley’s “The Means of Grace,” which is a doctrinal standard for United Methodists.)

Normally, when we speak of the means of grace we think of things like prayer, Bible reading, worship, the Lord’s Supper, fasting, and similar things. Since this sermon is about visiting the sick, though, we can anticipate the next move in this sermon.

But are they the only means of grace? A good question.

Are there no other means than these, whereby God is pleased, frequently, yea, ordinarily, to convey his grace to them that either love or fear him? Wesley’s distinction between those who love or fear God is a reference to two spiritual states. First are those who have been justified, that is pardoned, by faith in Christ. In the contemporary evangelical church, we would say those who are saved. These are those who can properly love God. Those who fear God are those who are conscious of God and aware of their sin, but they do not yet know the pardon, mercy, and forgiveness of God, so they rightly fear the consequences of their sin.

By making reference to those who love and those who fear God, Wesley is here indicating that the means of grace are useful to us at every point in what we often call our “faith journey.” Sinners need grace as much as the redeemed, and so what we find in these means is fitted to our needs wherever we happen to be.

Surely there are works of mercy, as well as works of piety, which are real means of grace. They are more especially such to those that perform them with a single eye. The single eye is a phrase taken from the King James translation of Matthew 6:22. It is about having our focus only on Christ and the things of Christ. If we use the means of grace with only an eye on what God will do through them, and do not do not bring any mixed motives, such as a desire to appear pious or holy in the eyes of others or a believe that by our efforts spent on these means we accomplish what only God can do, then we benefit.

And those that neglect them, do not receive the grace which otherwise they might. Yea, and they lose, by a continued neglect, the grace which they had received. Is it not hence that many who were once strong in faith are now weak and feeble-minded? And yet they are not sensible whence that weakness comes, as they neglect none of the ordinances of God. But they might see whence it comes, were they seriously to consider St. Paul’s account of all true believers: “We are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before prepared, that we might walk therein.” (Eph. 2:10) This is no small thing. Indeed, Wesley got into many arguments with fellow churchmen in his day over this very point. What he is saying here is that we can be diligent in prayer and Bible study and other “works of piety” and yet still find our faith weakening. If we are religious in every good sense of that word but do not also access God’s grace through the works of mercy, then we are cutting off a vital flow of spiritual sustenance. The “works of mercy” are not option, in other words. To neglect them is to risk losing the benefits we have already received.

This point about losing grace is extremely controversial in Protestant circles and one of the chief divides between Methodists and more Calvinistic forms of Protestantism. I am not going to dwell on it here, but there are many who would read the words above and have a strong reaction to what Wesley presents in passing. Rest assured, he engages with that question at great lengths in other places.

The point made by Ephesians, however, I find quite persuasive. God calls us to good works of many kinds. The commands in the Old and New Testaments are not laid aside when we are saved. They are the guides for how a redeemed sinner bears fruit. They are the means by which God continues to pour out his grace so that we who are born of Christ grow up into him in every way. If we cease to drink at this fountain, we will find throats dry and our bodies weakened by our neglect.

3. Is it not strange, that this important truth should be so little understood, or, at least, should so little influence the practice of them that fear God? Suppose this representation be true, suppose the Judge of all the earth speaks right, those, and those only, that feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, relieve the stranger, visit those that are in prison, according to their power and opportunity, shall “inherit the everlasting kingdom.” And those that do not shall “depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”. Wesley here, as always, does not shy away from a focus on heaven and hell. The stakes of the matter are plain in Scripture. Matthew 25:31-46 is about heaven and hell, and Jesus describes the method of sorting. As he warns in the Sermon on the Mount, we will not be received in heaven because we cry out “Lord, Lord,” but because we obey his commands.

Why then, Wesley wonders, do so few do so?

4. I purpose, at present, to confine my discourse to one article of these, — visiting the sick: A plain duty, which all that are in health may practise in a higher or lower degree; and which, nevertheless, is almost universally neglected, even by those that profess to love God. And touching this I would inquire,

I. What is implied in visiting the sick?

II. How is it to be performed? — And,

III. By whom?

The introduction complete, we will follow Wesley further in my next post.