Author: Teddy Ray

The emperor has no clothes, or The illusion of authority in the UMC

umc emperorEvery four years, elected delegates from across the world meet at a General Conference of the United Methodist Church. Among the most discussed and debated topics for decades have been issues like the United Methodist Church’s stance on the practice of homosexuality, or its decisions and position regarding abortion.

We invest a lot in those conversations. After all, only the General Conference has the power to speak on behalf of the United Methodist Church.

Now that’s a bizarre statement, isn’t it? The only person/group with the power to speak on behalf of the United Methodist Church is a group that meets for two weeks every four years.

And it’s not working out so well for us, either.

You see, I would expect an organization that invests so much time and energy into its official standards to then enforce those standards. That would include expecting its most visible leaders to support those standards – or at least not to publicly contradict them.

But over the past several years, we’ve seen an increasing disregard for the official positions of the UMC by some of its most prominent agencies and leaders.

So for instance, a recent press release by leaders in the United Methodist Women and our General Board of Church and Society ignored or darn near contradicted the majority of the UMC’s stance on abortion. See my response to that here.

And now, the most prominent of UM pastors, Adam Hamilton, comes out with a statement on homosexual behavior that flat out contradicts our official position. A fellow pastor commented to me that Hamilton’s “entrepreneurial skills are very impressive. As a UM leader, I think he means well, but Scripture is not his primary rule of life and ministry.” You should take a look at Tim Tennent’s well-reasoned response to Hamilton: “Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals.”

Unfortunately, the UMC has all too gladly given Hamilton its biggest platform due to his entrepreneurial skills. (We reward nothing more than worldly success, do we?) He’s using that platform to rather plainly reject our hard-fought statements of belief.

And I get it. These people don’t like our stated positions. So they’re speaking out against them. Is that okay, though? For which positions? And what does it mean that they took a vow to “preach and maintain” our doctrines and “support and maintain” our discipline and polity? Surely it doesn’t mean it’s okay to publicly reject them with no consequence.

These are two examples among dozens (hundreds?) of recent public contradictions and refutations of the UMC position – both in word and deed.

The emperor has no clothes

These people seem to know what our institution has failed to recognize, or wants to pretend isn’t so: the emperor has no clothes.

If only the General Conference speaks on behalf of the UMC, we’ll be waiting 3-1/2 years for an official response to these recent acts of defiance. And do any of us expect them to do anything about it? Do we expect anyone else of note to do anything before then? Do we expect the Council of Bishops to come out and say that the UMW and GBCS press release was a gross distortion of our actual values? Do we expect Adam Hamilton to receive any censure for such a brazen mockery of the UMC’s theological positions?

Or perhaps we should ask it another way: what does one have to do to actually face consequences in this institution? And without any form of accountability, what do any of our “official positions” mean in the first place? They seem a comfortable piece of clothing. A very costly piece of fabric at that — years of preparation and petition-writing and delegate elections, with an expensive two-week conference at its climax.

But surely soon we’ll go ahead and name what we’re all seeing here: these clothes aren’t real. And it’s getting pretty embarrassing to stand around here naked.

Can anyone do anything about this, or have we legislated ourselves into these make-believe clothes?

Another reason we’re seeing such silence from our leaders: they got where they are by not making too many controversial waves. See “The Catch-22 of Change and Bureaucracy”

More UMC Posts here

How to memorize lots of Scripture

psalm 8 initials
psalm 8 initials
A screen shot of one of my Anki cards

Memorizing Scripture is one of the best Bible studies I ever do. When you memorize Scripture, you have to think about it in a different way than when you read. To help your memory, you have to pay attention to the exact language being used and might find yourself thinking about why a certain word is (or isn’t) used and repeated. And you’ll also need to pay a lot of attention to sentence and paragraph structures — noticing the progression the passage takes and how it transitions from one piece to the next. It forces you to study the Bible inductively.

Pastors: memorizing my sermon text has been the most important part of my sermon preparation. I’ve had to live with the text and notice all its details long before I preach it. And it’s also nice to have the passage freely available in my mind as I go about the week — thinking about it in the car, the shower, waiting in line, etc.

How I used to memorize Scripture

Here’s how I used to memorize Scripture. I’d pick a verse – a small, nice quotable piece – and I’d write it down and rehearse it over and over again until I had it down. If I spent a lot of time working on it, I could memorize six or seven verses in a week. If I wasn’t careful to come back to them, I’d forget them pretty quickly.

How I memorize Scripture now

Then someone shared something that changed my whole approach to Scripture memory. They had me take a larger chunk – a full passage rather than single verse – and turn it into initials. (I’ll show you what I mean below.) I worked on a few verses at a time until I could say the full passage using only the initials as my guide. Then from there, I began to discard the initials and work on full memory.

For some reason, that intermediate step of working from initials made a huge difference. I think it also helped to begin looking at Scripture memory in terms of whole passages rather than single verses. The memorization served a deeper purpose, too, as it opened up the depth of these passages to me in whole new ways. It also helped me to see I could work through pretty large chunks, amounts I didn’t think were possible to memorize.

Step by Step

So here’s what I would suggest you do.

1. Choose a passage.

For a week, I usually set 9 verses as my lower limit and 19 as my upper limit. Less than 9 seems a bit too slow and easy. More than 19 starts to get daunting. Let’s choose Psalm 8 for an example. It’s a beautiful psalm, and one of the most oft-quoted. And it’s just 9 verses. I use the new NIV version, so that’s what you’ll see below.

2. Initial the passage.

See Psalm 8 in NIV here. You might want to have it alongside as you read this.

I take the first letter of each word, and create a card with only those first letters. Here’s how Psalm 8:1-4 looks for me:

Psalm 8 – You made them rulers   [I always title my passages]

Ftdom. Atg. ApoD.   [Yes, I also do the prefaces to the psalms]

1 – L, oL,
hmiyniate!

Yhsyg
ith.
2 – Ttpocai
yheasaye,
tstfata.
3 – WIcyh,
twoyf,
tmats,
wyhsip,
4 – wimtyamot,
hbtycft?

Notice that I preserve all the formatting and punctuation of the passage. That’s important and helps break it up.

3. Break it up into three parts.

If I’m working on something over the course of a week, I spend the first three days on initials, the next three days memorizing the three parts individually, and the final day pulling it all together.

Psalm 8 is nine verses long. I’d break this up into three verses per day, but that leaves a bit of an awkward break at verses 3 and 4. So here, I’d probably break it like this:

Part 1 – verses 1-4
Part 2 – verses 5-8
Part 3 – verse 9 (a nice, light ending)

4. Begin memorizing

On day 1, I learn part 1, using the initials as my aid. I work on the verses for the day until I can do the whole thing by only looking at the initials. Same for days 2 and 3 (reviewing, of course, the previous days).

On day 4, I learn part 1 from memory. I use my initials as an aid until I can quote the section without my initials. Same for days 5 and 6 (reviewing, of course, the previous days). On day 7, I work on quoting the whole passage from memory.

5. Keeping it

The hardest part of memory is the first part – memorizing it in the first place. If you memorize something, then don’t review it to maintain, you’ve done all the hard work for temporary benefit, when a little bit of review could have made it permanent.

If you want a structured way for learning and then reviewing these, I highly recommend Anki software. Download it onto your computer, and then you’ll probably want to watch a quick tutorial video or two to understand how to use it. Anki is the best memory tool I’ve ever seen. I’m using it for Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, a catechism, and Bible memory, and it has been excellent for all. At its core, the principle is to identify things you’re struggling to memorize and show them to you more often, and to show you things increasingly less often as you go — essentially reminding you of it just before you might have forgotten it.

So for a week, I create 7 Anki cards. It doesn’t take much time with some copy and paste work. The first 3 cards show the initials on the front and the full passage on the back. The last 4 cards for the week show only the passage title on the front and the full passage on back. Play with Anki for a while. You’ll get it. And I think you’ll love it.

How about it? Give it a try for a week. Why don’t you start with Psalm 8? I think you’ll be surprised. And I think you’ll get a lot from it. I’d love to hear how you do. Or hear if you have more questions.

See my Facebook Page linked on the side? Click “Like,” and you’ll be able to join some of the discussion there.

Would it be better if ministry were a bad career?

career ladderWould the Church be better off if vocational ministry were a less attractive career?

I’ve spoken up a few times recently to question why the Church is giving raises to pastors who already have six-figure salary packages (in Kentucky, this puts them in at least the 83rd percentile for households, and that doesn’t take into account any income from spouses). One of the common points I keep hearing back goes something like this: “We need our ministry positions to be attractive, or we’ll lose our best and brightest to other vocations or other locations.” Or similarly, “Where’s the incentive to work harder and do better if you can’t get a raise?”

Do we really need ministry positions to be attractive? What would happen if they weren’t?

Two articles I read yesterday might contradict our need for more attractive positions.

The first was an excerpt from Todd Nelson’s Sunday sermon. Look at how he describes the early Methodist circuit riders:

You and I are here today because of the sacrifices of people who for roughly 300 years refused to ask “what is in it for me?” and instead asked a different, perspective changing, question. One of the best examples of this is the early Methodist circuit riders. You see, we stand upon the shoulders and peer into our future because of the tireless work of circuit riding preachers whose life expectancy was less than 40 because of the constant exposure to the elements and a difficult lifestyle. These servants of God carried God’s message on horseback across this nation. Outpost by outpost. Town by town. City by city. Refusing to count the personal costs and instead giving all for the benefit of others. At one point, the Methodist movement was the largest denomination in the United States…by a large amount.

Todd reminds me again what an unattractive career this was, by any worldly standards. Circuit riders braved often treacherous conditions, were dependent upon others’ (often underwhelming) hospitality as they traveled, and made barely enough to support themselves. And if you had climbed the ladder to become a district superintendent… it often meant you took the toughest circuits (i.e. rough terrain, notoriously bad hospitality along the way) so the less experienced preachers wouldn’t have to.

And yet these circuit riders changed the American landscape. Drastically. Why? Because their hearts burned to share the gospel. Because they wanted nothing more than to see the spread of the kingdom of God.

Do you think there was any question about the motives of many of those circuit riders? Did anyone say, “I’m not sure his heart’s really in it”? I can’t imagine they could. If your heart’s not in this, you don’t sign up.

Then I read an excerpt from a recent address by my bishop, Lindsey Davis. Look at how he describes some of the woes of these same people called “Methodists” today:

Only about 20 percent of United Methodist congregations are healthy, he said. And we “can’t change the other 80 percent by requiring them to send in numbers. They will simply play the game.”

Did you hear that? Require 80% of our people to show their numbers, and they’ll simply “play the game.”

Why is it that none of those circuit riders were “playing games,” but there’s a fear that as many as 80% of our congregations’ leaders today are?

I would argue that the answer is simple. There was no reason (and no time) for those circuit riders to play games. Playing games is about climbing the proverbial ladder, about preserving an income, or maintaining a position. There wasn’t much ladder to climb, nor income to preserve for those early circuit riders. It wasn’t much of a career. But it was an incredible calling. If you weren’t serious about the calling, you had no reason to stick around.

I wonder how different the history of Methodism would look if a career as a circuit rider had been attractive — potentially lucrative. I suspect Methodism would be a shadow of what it is today. Even though it surely would have attracted a more educated and naturally talented lot than those early circuit riders represented.

So I wonder… Would the work of the kingdom be done better today if the job were less attractive? Would it eliminate some of the questions about whether someone’s heart is still (ever was?) in it? Would it keep people from playing games, since there wasn’t much of a ladder to climb or big position to maintain in the first place? Would it keep people from doing things that look successful in the short-term but won’t last, and instead keep them focused on the real mission and the things they believe will be best for it?

And before the comments: Many, many, many people in vocational ministry are not in positions they or others would deem attractive or lucrative. I know that. And I know that many aren’t in it to play games! And I’m glad that you can afford to have a family and still be in vocational ministry today.

I’m just suggesting that, well, on par, this is a much more attractive vocation than was that of circuit rider. And yet those unincentivized itinerants put most of us to shame. Could it be there’s actually a correlation there?

There will be lots of opinions on this one. Hit one of the share buttons below to ask the people you know what they think. “Would it be better if ministry were an unattractive career?”

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