Stream of conciencse… REFORMATION! (yeah I said it)…(part 1)

Ξ April 10th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Cultural Architect Stuff |

 

Well, I am @ The Emerging Church for the Existing Church Conference here in Denver right now. Gary (the “Sr. Pastor” @ Florence the support church for Th3 Waters) and we are speaking about how we are living out an example of an Emerging Church can be found within the UMC…. We have found a few loop holes to make it happen, but we must be living this out in this community, because God has called to to this time for such a time as this!!! So anyway, right before Gary and I led the discussion yesterday, I realized that I would need to speak about the UMc as a whole and the place of Emerging in it. And I actually was going to just say the same thing I said @ a previous discussion we did on Young Adults… so I immediatly sat down and just started writting….. I realized I was getting passionate and just had to write down a few othe the things that need to be molded in the UMC to allow this ancient/future way of living to happen in the UMC and especially with the polity of the UMC.. so here is my stream of conscience writting on the topic, and I pray that this will just start a discussion!

(if yallo would like the thoughts I have on Young Adults and ministry to them just let me know.. I can put that up as well. but here are the thoughts I jotted down:

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I wanted to see if family (in its healthiest sense) could actually occur like it seemed to occur like it looked like it did with Christ, when he told those that his Mother and brothers were right there and not outside!!

Only place I saw it happening in our world today that included true life transformation was AA!!!
And so, I am passionate for community. And I mean authentic community, and I define authentic community as Family. (Real Family, I am talkling that you get support because people really love you, if there is a death we are ther for each other, if there is financial problems we attempt to help out anyway we can…. offer a room in your house until people get back on their feet, babysit babies so that parents can have a date night to save marriages, help people study for classes, What ever it is, this is what family looks like and we live like!

We decided that “church”; the term, was so stale and filled with so much baggage that it was actually becoming a hindrance to forming relationships with those outside the UMC/church walls. How can the world be our parish if we are not even in it, have no idea how to talk to it to relate to it, all for the purpose of loving it and building relationshipw ith it???!!!!!

We must stop thinking demographics, and start thinking relationships.
(most annual conference church planting entities are all demographics in thier minset…and I was born for relationships, not numbers!

And I come here to say to the UMC, “you are blind” and you have no voice to anyone in the world, because you have no idea how to think and speak in a way that the world would even consider talking to you, much less desire a relationship with you!  And we must learn to take the words of Doug and Tony and Lilly, and Karen, but we must be VERY good at translating it for the UMC. And, I must say I am passionate about loving normal people just as much as I am passionate about loving United Methodists. Are you younger Generation clergy and laity? Are you willing to die for your enemies and those that frustrate you? Ar eyou willing to put your fmaily in danger for the gospel? You are willing to move and live on the wrong side of the tracks, but not to eat with the DS’s and bishops, and those that have a voice in your conference all to help build relationships to invite to live into an existence of experimentation and failure?

And I am sick literally sick of hearing the stories like Bob’s daughter, who says (to those who push the polity of the UMC on her instead of encouraging her to find out how she can being Christ in her envisioned way in the current polity of the UMC, but also come alongside her to pave the way for the future of the UMC to actually stay alive and help bring the kingdom here now…not just waiting around for Christ to come back!!!),

“you have got to be joking, but you just laughed at my soul!” And they leave the UMC. But how do we love and build up young clergy that will realize that God is calling for reformation. And I must say that that is a word that I say with fear and trembling. God is changing the face of his people so they look, and smell like Christ.. and Christ smells like prostitutes, and smokers, and hospitals, and crack houses, and Methodists, and Baptists, and young adults, and death and Bishops, and DS’s.

When you choose Christ, you choose a life of pain, hurt, and sacrifice…. And that sacrifice pisses off those that are in leadership, and governments, and polity. It challenges them to be something they have never been, it forces change..and that is VERY hard!!! But, it is through that sacrifice that we find worship, and hope, and joy… not happiness, but joy in the midst of being in relationship with others that smell like those things that I mentioned above.

So, I am tired of young clergy, and young adults leaving the UMC, or the ministry in general), and (there are older adults that are doing this too, but they just leave quietly, the young adults will leave, but will tell you what is up if you ask them.

I have spoke to young adults who’s families and lives and passion for Christ are hurt so much And FRUSTRATIED sooo much, that they stop it. And they think they have had patience enough (1-3 years) so that change should have occurred, but they are dealing with the older generation (who “got to” where they are in the polity, because they have “put their time in” and lived out the patience for 30 years!!!!) (So, we need for the Older generation to accept the apprecition for experimenting in the kingdom and see the younger generation as a peer and not a young whipper snapper. That they and we learn for each other and live in the Kingdom alongside! And for both generations to stop forcing each to look and act like the other, but to loo, act, and smell like Christ… the one we find in the bible not the one that the church has created over the years.)

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Ok part 2: Hope and Change! is coming up… please join the discussion!