The Shape of Our Lives

I love the KPUMC sanctuary for many reasons, but my favorite feature of our worship space is its cruciform shape, meaning the ground plan is in the shape of a cross.

While it is common for Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian churches to be built in this shape, it’s rare in the United Methodist denomination, particularly in the south.

The shape of our church is not just an architectural feature; it’s not only a nod to the most recognizable symbol of Christianity.

It also makes a statement about the shape of our lives together — the life of a Christian disciple is supposed to be cruciform.

What does that mean?

This is metaphorical language, of course. But it means that, in some sense, as we follow Jesus, we will also experience suffering and crucifixion. Our lives will mirror Jesus’ life; the contours of our faith journey will resemble the ebb and flow of Christ’s journey.

Jesus himself mentioned this when he said, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” Obviously, Jesus didn’t mean that we should all be dragging wooden crosses behind us everywhere we go; he meant instead that the experience of following him involved hard choices and difficult challenges. There is a necessary struggle that we must each embrace if we are going to be God’s people in the world.

I reflected on this truth as I walked the Stations of the Cross in our sanctuary this week. The Stations of the Cross are a cruciform spiritual discipline; not only do we literally walk in the shape of the cross while meditating and praying, but we read through the story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion as we go.

We don’t do this only to commemorate or remember what Jesus went through; we do this because we are called to a life which will resemble his.

This doesn’t necessarily mean our individual lives will resemble each other’s, or that we are called to the same kind of choices in life. To paraphrase the opening lines of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “Each cruciform disciple is cruciform in its own way.”

“Taking up the cross” will mean one thing for me, and another thing for you . “Saying no to yourself” will challenge my behavior in a certain way, but perhaps another way for you.

Lent is a season in which we must check ourselves and ask if our lives are actually cruciform, or whether they take a different shape. What about you?

This is The Way

I am always happy when the summer comes to an end.

Not just because the heat starts to abate just a little … nor because my kids have all left the house for college … but because I love having all of you around for worship, Wednesday nights, and weekday evenings again!

Summers at KPUMC are sloooooooow.

But when school starts, everyone gets interested in church again.

That makes this a good time to announce the roll-out of The Way.

Let me start at the beginning … last fall, I called together a group of new-ish church members to a Vision Task Force. Over the course of a few months, this task force put together a set of recommendations for the church, including a new mission statement.

The new statement, adopted by the Church Council this summer, reads, “As disciples of Christ at Kessler Park UMC, we: Welcome all people, Connect with one another, Grow closer to God, and Serve the community.”

Those four words — Welcome, Connect, Grow, and Serve — form the basis of a discipleship path, or a kind of basic direction for adult training in discipleship. Since I’ve been appointed to KPUMC, I have been searching for a way to orient and align our programs and ministries to correspond with a clear discipleship path.

Put another way, I’ve been looking for language about how to invite people to follow Jesus, and then give them the tools to actually do so. I think these four words accurately sum up that path. First, we are welcomed into a faith community and experience hospitality; when we are comfortable, we seek to connect with some of the members of that community outside of the worship experience, usually in some kind of small group; as a result of this connection, we begin to grow spiritually and find ourselves getting closer to God through Jesus Christ; and as an expression of our gratitude to God, we develop our spiritual gifts and put ourselves into Christian service of others. Then we find ourselves welcoming new people into the community … and the process starts all over again.

At some point, I recognized that each of these four concepts correspond with one of the four gospels. Thus, the idea of being welcoming, hospitable and inclusive aligns neatly with the Gospel of Luke, which is focused on Jesus’ ministry to outsiders; the idea of spiritual growth fits with the Gospel of John, which is mystical and urges us to “abide with Christ.” The Gospel of Mark’s emphasis on radical discipleship points us toward service, and the Gospel of Matthew focuses on the new community and connections formed by the good news of Jesus.

I have decided, then, as your primary preacher and teacher, to focus on each one of the four gospels over the next four years, beginning with the Gospel of Matthew, and focusing on the key question that Matthew seeks to answer, “How does God intend for us to live together in community?”

To that end, I am creating a 24-week core course on Matthew which will be offered to all church Sunday School classes in September. The first 16 chapters of the book will be covered in the fall; the rest of Matthew will be covered in spring 2019. I will be writing a study guide with class instructions, and preparing a 5-7 minute video for each week’s lesson.

In addition, Wednesday Night Live adult classes will focus on the same theme. This fall, I will offer a class entitled“Reading Matthew with New Eyes” and Mike Smith will lead a study on community using the Nooma video series by Rob Bell. In the spring, I will offer a class on“The Sermon on the Mount.”

At this point, you may be wondering, “OK, but what’s the big deal? So we’re studying Matthew …” Here’s the exciting part: the Sunday School course and Wednesday night classes will all be offered online, as well as in person.

If you can’t be here on Sunday morning or Wednesday night, you can still participate in the learning, the discussion, the spiritual formation! And not only will you be able to participate, but people who are not currently members of our faith community can, too!

Everything that will be used in the class will be available online — the content, handouts, slides, videos, and discussion. I’m also planning to make additional content available online, including podcasts, interviews with Bible scholars, ebooks, and occasional live gatherings.

I’m calling this entire project “The Way.” That’s not an arbitrarily chosen name. Did you know that the first name for the new Jesus movement in the New Testament was “The Way”? Five times in the book of Acts, the movement is called “The Way,” including 9:2, 19:9 and 23, 24:14 and 22.

I love the name because it indicates that we are on a path, following a direction. We don’t have all the answers, nor do we live by a bunch of rules. We’re simply going to follow Jesus together on this way.

I can’t wait to get going … stay tuned for the details!

The Religious Preferences of Our Parish

I’m still combing through the results of the demographic study provided by MissionInsite for United Methodist churches in the North Texas Conference.

Last week, I wrote about some of the stark numbers and facts about the people living around us. But this week, I would like to muse on what the study discovered about our neighbors’ thoughts about religion and church. (Remember, the study looked at the people who live within a 1.5 mile radius of our church.)

Regarding involvement in church, the percentage of people who consider themselves part of a faith community stands at 35.3%, which is higher than I expected. However, that number has dropped over 12 percentage points in the last ten years. That means over 47% of the population were involved in a church in 2007. That’s a huge drop in a short amount of time.

The only two categories of faith community which have grown considerably in those ten years are the “Nones,” or those who say they have no affiliation with any faith community, who make up 27.3% of the population, and those in non-denominational or independent churches, which make up 6.6%. The biggest declines were amassed by the Catholics, who are still the largest single denomination in our area, and the Baptists, the second largest. We United Methodists mostly held our own during this time, declining by only .6% in that time period.

When people who are not part of any church are asked why they don’t participate, here are their top five reasons:
    1. Religious people are too judgmental
    2. Don’t trust organized religion
    3. Religion too focused on money
    4. Disillusionment with religion
    5. Don’t trust religious leaders

Let’s stop right there and think about the implications of these findings. This tells me that there are a lot of people out there who have been hurt by church, who have been abused, manipulated, or denigrated by people claiming to be Christians. Our neighbors have some deeply-felt pain, and much of it is our fault.

As I said several times in my sermon on Sunday, our Bible has been hijacked. It has become a weapon in the hands of some, and the consequences are that some people have been beaten up, wounded, and bruised.

This should be a wake-up call for us. Fifty years ago, the culture around us was sympathetic to the church. Pastors were seen as civic leaders; Sunday mornings were sacred time, as well as Wednesday evenings; and people kept up a veneer of religiosity in the community. But that’s not the way it is anymore.

The study recommended, in a context such as ours, the following top five ministry or program preferences:
    1. Warm and friendly encounters
    2. Quality of sermons
    3. Adult social activities
    4. Opportunities for volunteering in the community
    5. Holiday programs and activities

Another interesting discovery was that traditional worship ranked #7 in this list, higher than contemporary worship, which came in at #17.

Looking carefully at this list, I believe that KPUMC is uniquely positioned to prosper in this community. Though I can’t speak to #2, I think we do quite well on these top five priorities, with the exception of #3. We still lack in the number of quality adult social activities that we offer, but I believe the Vision Task Force has given us a way to improve in this area.

Ultimately, however, the study fails to identify what is most important about a church, and what a church represents. One of the categories ranked “Life Concerns” for people in our community. Answers included such concerns as “losing weight/diet issues,” “day-to-day financial matters,” and “being successful.” Nowhere did I see the choice, “becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.”

The one thing that KPUMC has to offer that makes us different from other organizations, non-profits, and institutions is that we help people become disciples of Jesus. We are in the business of transformation, of change, of life formation, of training in the art of becoming like Jesus.

Admittedly, not many people out there would articulate this as a life-goal. I would suggest that’s because they don’t know much about Jesus yet. They must not know about Jesus' sacrificial love, his fierce justice, his courageous opposition to the powers-that-be, his compassionate concern for the marginalized.

Let’s change that, shall we?