Circuit Writer Blog

Since receiving my appointment to become the Pastor of Grace UMC the end of June I have been asked a lot of questions about the itineracy.  Some of the questions have been from curious non-UMC pastors who wonder what it is like to make a church change based the appointment of the Bishop rather than the church call system used by many congregationally organized denominations.  Some of the questions have come from members of my current church who know of the system but often wonder how it works or why United Methodists use this system for the placement of pastoral leadership in the Conference.

The system of pastors being placed by the Bishop or a superintendent goes all the way back to John Wesley who with his brother Charles and others founded the Methodist movement.  He sent out preachers and circuit riders to share the gospel all over England and used this means of assignment to maximize the effectiveness of spreading the gospel and the Methodist message of God’s grace to all who would listen.   This system continued in the US after the founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church and under the leadership of Francis Asbury and has carried forward into United Methodist Church we have today.

The purpose of the itineracy is for the Bishop to place pastors where they are most needed for the most effective benefit of all the congregations in the conference for the entire welfare of the conference.  It is a system that allows the Bishop and the cabinet to look at the overall needs of congregations and not just the needs of one congregation or even the desires of one congregation for leadership.

This is a system which I have come to believe has very strong and Biblical roots in the leadership of the Apostles assigning leaders to congregations and one which I believe can be more effective than the congregational polity I grew up in where pastoral calls are often based on wants rather than needs or simply on who is available rather than the person who is a match for the congregation.

As for me as a Provisional Member of the Iowa Conference and new United Methodist pastor, I see the itineracy as part of my spiritual journey of going where God wants me to go.  In Celtic Christian liturature we read about St. Columba who set out in a voyage with a dozen others in a coracle, a small Irish boat, to find a new home, a new place where God wanted them to serve.   They sailed until they found a new home on the Island of Iona where Columba founded a famous monastery.  Columba’s Voyage of the Coracle is a repeated theme in Celtic Christianity because Celtic Christians emphasize that the Christian faith is a journey and a pilgrimage that we are all on.  The destination is important but what is most important is always being willing to place our coracle in the water and set out where God wants you to go.

I have loved my time serving in Cedar Falls.  I have made friendships here that I hope to have for the rest of my life.  But I am also honored that I have been appointed by my Bishop to put my coracle back in the water and go on pilgrimage with another congregation in this great United Methodist connection of which I am a part.  There is joy in the destination, there is joy in the journey, there is joy in opening up to the leading of God to take me wherever the wind and waves will take me.

For all of those on this great journey whose hearts have been strangely warmed by the healing grace of Jesus Christ, Happy Aldersgate Day!

I believe I said previously in my blog it was my intention to avoid denominational politics.  I really want my blog to be about my journey of faith in the UMC and ministry of the UMC churches I serve.  But today I felt prompted to write out of concern for the loving people I have come to know in my new UMC family.

Today in the General Conference session I knew the contentious and difficult issues of homosexuality would be brought for some kind of vote.  This issue has come up every four years for many years.  United Methodists have sharp disagreements on this issue each believing that their view is right, moral, and Biblical.  Each side believing that what they believe and want is for the good of kingdom of God and the church.

So, in what appeared to me to be a brilliant, loving, and caring move for unity Rev. Adam Hamilton and Rev. Mike Slaughter, pastors of two of our largest UMC churches, were involved in sponsoring an amendment to the Book of Discipline which said in part, 

“We commit to disagree with respect and love, we commit to love all persons and, above all, we pledge to seek God’s will. With regard to homosexuality, as with so many other issues, United Methodists adopt the attitude of John Wesley who once said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may.”

It was simply an amendment in which they sought to get acknowledgement that United Methodists honestly disagree on this issue but that we pledge ourselves to love each other and work together in the name of Christ.  The amendent did not seek to change anyone’s mind or push one view or another.  It simply called for the UMC to record the obvious, that we struggle with the issue of homosexuality and that many of us are in disgreement about this issue.

Yet, the delegates chose in about a 60/40 vote to vote down this statement.  I honestly found that hard to believe!  Surely none of the delegates could fail to note that we disagree.  Immediately following the vote there was a lengthy protest at the altar in disagreement with the failure of the resolution to pass.  

So what did the delegates disagree with in the resolution?  Honestly I’m at a loss.  I’m at a loss beause agreeing to disagree is how the church operates every day and at every level.  In any church I have served in, Christians of good will and theological depth disagree with each other on decisions in the church from the weighty to the trivial.  

When we disagree we discuss, we negotiate, and finally we vote and then those who did not get their way go along with the majority for the sake of the church and the sake of the kingdom until the issue can either be resolved or discussed at a future date.  That is how people work together.  That is how the church works and moves forward.  That is how we seek to perfect our work for the sake of Christ.

But in the end the most important thing isn’t if I get my way or not or if the vote goes the way I wanted it to.  In the end the most important thing is that the world needs to see that Christians truly love each other that if we cannot think alike at least we can love alike with the same grace of Jesus Christ.  If we can’t do that then right doctrine, clear polity, a or even snazzy new reorganization plan will not save us.  Because if we cannot love each other than no one is going to buy the idea that the Jesus we talk so much about loves them either.

At the heart of the message of John Wesley and his Wesleyan disciples that I have grown to love dearly and become a part of is the promise of grace, free grace, prevenient grace which runs before us and overflows from the love of God for all of us, each and everyone one of us!

I believe it is time to agree that we agree to disagree.  

I’ve been trying to follow General Conference this week.  But with making plans for my move to Sioux City, not to mention my regular work schedule, I can’t say that I have spent as much time following it as I’d have liked to.

The first day of GC 2012 I had signed up for a whole raft of Twitter feeds hoping to get relevant updates, and I did.  I also received a great deal of “noise.”  Anyone who uses twitter knows the signal to noise ratio is pretty high.  There are some people who will insist on posting that they had a toasted cheese sandwich while you are trying to figure out what the delegates are thinking about Call to Action, the CtA plan, Plan B, the MFSA plan etc.

After the first day I unsubscribed from many of the feeds focusing on the posts by Iowa delegates, UMNS, and a handful of organizations and entities whose take I wanted to see.  So far it is still too early in the Conference to know how the legislation will go in very many areas.  But what we do know is that the ministry of all United Methodists will be effected by the changes that are made to our structure (if they are made) to the potential changes on issues of sexuality, and on issues related to ministry such as guaranteed appointment.

There are a lot of bloggers out there who are quite sure they have the answers to how all these questions should be decided and I’m sure that at least some of them may be right.  Some of them are cynical, some of them are optimistic, some have obvious viewpoints they are hoping to express.

What I hope to see in the General Conference is that the importance of the United Methodist connection is expressed in ways that show we are working for goal we profess of “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  I’ve been around the block enough times to know that there isn’t just one way that can be expressed.  So my prayer is that whatever structure our delegates feel led to choose, whatever theological statements they feel led to make, whatever changes to our Discipline and church law they choose to enact, that they would be guided by God’s spirit to work for the unity of the church, the oneness of God’s people in Christ, and the goal of sharing the loving grace of God with all those we meet.

May God bless the delegates of the 2012 General Conference and may God bless the United Methodist Church as we seek to bring people together for the cause of Christ!