It was in the late-sixties that I became aware of the liberal bent of many leaders in the UMC. I was in my late teens; I had just come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ myself, and at that time I was on “their side”. I thought it was the right way to think. We needed to get this supernatural thinking out of the church and get into realism, where we belonged. After all, nobody really believed all that stuff in the Bible, did they? I mean, come on. It’s the 1960s. We’re much more sophisticated nowadays.
Needless to say, my thinking changed as the years went by. I found a living faith as I sought to follow the Lord.
In the 1990s I started becoming very frustrated with the unbelieving liberals who held the power in the UMC, and sought to do whatever I could to get them out of power. (Obviously I couldn’t do much, as they’re still there.) In the late 90s I discovered computers and the internet as an avenue where I could possibly express my views and find other like-minded people. I also encountered many like-minded United Methodists, many of whom had left the UMC, or were in the process of leaving. It became almost the “in” thing to leave the UMC for what were perceived to be greener pastures.
It was being said that “God has given up on the UMC. It is an apostate church, and God is calling all true believers out of it.” And I watched many of my friends leave. I saw people in my local church leave. And I even tried to leave at one time. But you know, after a few months I felt God gently calling me back; gently, because He knew he didn’t have to whop me over the head with a 2X4 to get my attention on this.
We saw big fights going on every four years at the General Conferences, and big fights going on every year in Annual Conferences, and people were getting hurt, and people were leaving. And still, through it all, there were good folk who thought as I did, yet they stayed.
We have taken encouragement as well, that through the years our position has actually grown stronger as every General Conference came and went. And then we are told that our position is merely the law on the books, and the rebellious people who break those laws will just continue to do so, because the law has no teeth. The church isn’t going to enforce those laws. And so, because of that, we need to leave.
And still we stay.
We have seen the UMC likened to the sinking Titanic. We are told that what we are doing is merely rearranging the deck chairs, and the ship is going to sink anyway.
And still we stay.
And still they say, “God has given up on the UMC. Come out before it takes you down with it.”
And so it has been on my mind. Has God really given up on the United Methodist Church?
I think I am finally coming up with the answer, and it’s an emphatic NO!
God is still working in and through the UMC to change lives and make for Himself a holy people. People really are being saved in the UMC! It wasn’t too long ago that I didn’t think that happened, but I have seen it with my own eyes. I see the Holy Spirit working powerfully in United Methodist churches, congregations and individuals alike. He even works in the Annual Conferences, in the General Conferences, in the general boards and agencies, sometimes working with the UMC and sometimes in spite of the UMC!
You see, the UMC is basically a human institution. Yes we consider it a church of Jesus Christ, but God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen to let us stumble along within the church in our humanness. That means that while we have God’s Word, and we pray and worship Him, we are still in a fallen state of sin. We still live in this body of flesh. We can be nothing but far from perfect, yet God chooses to work in and through us in this state. And that includes our churches. Because no church is perfect, they are all controlled by people…fallible, sinful, human people.
Someday, maybe we will know why God likes to work with and through that which is less than perfect. Perhaps it’s because His perfection shows through more clearly. Perhaps it’s because His grace shines more purely when it is seen through that dark glass of imperfection.
Isaiah says this about God:
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 TNIV)
Paul speaks of the same God in his first letter to the church at Corinth:
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. (I Corinthians 1:27-29 TNIV)
We in the UMC are foolish, weak, and lowly, and our amazing, incredible God has chosen to work in and through us!
Those who choose to leave the UMC leave with our best wishes and hopes for their blessing. But as long as God wants me in the UMC, I will remain, continuing to be a faithful witness for Him, however imperfect I may be, and however imperfect this institution may be.
God has not given up on the UMC. How can I?
The Sundry Times 
Well said. Thx for this.
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Amen. Thank you.
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Gary-
I will offer up this for you to think about. Linguistically you really seem to make the assertion that “liberal” would define a group of people that don’t take the Bible seriously, question supernatural realities, and for all intents and purposes are almost non-Biblical. While that generalization for the most part would be widely accepted, I wonder if it really adds to the goal of trying to be Christ-centered.
Both “liberal” and “conservative” designations put on by either side tend to create an us vs. them mentality. Shouldn’t the goal be for us to use language that asserts the goal of being Christ-centered.
Personally, I find that neither side really has it “right” because in their assertions there is a sense of displacing the “centrality” of Christ with the interpretation and ideas of their own assertions. As someone who muddles his way through the middle I see great joy and passion of faith and embodiment of Christ on both sides.
I am thankful for the thoughts you share, some of which I disagree with, but I can tell that you honestly and truthfully seek to live out your faith and the centrality of Christ in your life and for that I am thankful because you cause me to think, to examine, and to soul search.
Let me also clarify that I too am in no way perfect or have the right way as I try to muddle in the middle. We are all human and we all continue to grow in grace and learn as we go.
Blessings,
Pastor Justin Halbersma
Winona Central
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Thank you for the comments, Justin. I appreciate your kind and thought-provoking words.
I don’t like the labels, “liberal”, “progressive”, “conservative”. I think they all leave something to be desired. Maybe I should just say they are people I disagree with, instead of calling them liberals. But I would still find myself biting my tongue in half most of the time. We have to judge false teachers in the church. Paul would tell us to throw them out. But even so, I will once again try to be careful about throwing labels around.
I appreciate the tone of your comments, especially your use of the term, “Christ centered”. A big problem I have with UM pastors is the fact that many of them shy away from speaking of the Lord Jesus, and even the Father, and instead only want to talk about “God”. But we need to speak of our faith, and its author and finisher. The Apostle John tells us, “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” (1 John 2:23 TNIV) If we are so ashamed of the Lord Jesus that we only refer to “God”, we have backed away from the truth of Christ and only preach a hollow gospel. It’s hard not to have an “us vs. them” attitude when I have seen that for so many years.
I appreciate your “muddle in the middle”. But I think it’s time we in the UMC turn our backs on that middle muddle, stop trying to conform to the culture and seek the narrow path again, wherever it may lead.
Anyway, thanks for giving me something to think about, and may the Lord bless your ministry over there in Winona. That’s a beautiful spot!
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By the way, I don’t mean to belittle your “muddle in the middle”. It’s of course a major part of growth in the faith to realize how imperfect we are, and I know you know that as much as I do.
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Gary,
I sense your pain and frustration. You’re right in that God choose to advance his cause wherever he so chooses.
As we both know, leaders, for some reason, exercise great influence, whether negative or positive.
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Thanks, brother TC.
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Not a bad write up. I don’t believe that God has given up on the UMC, even though I have made a person decision overall to leave… or at the very least not pursue ordination. I would agree that the Discipline has no teeth and many seem to be in a dream world where they do not see the fight going on. Which probably isn’t all that bad that they don’t. My hope goes with you, as I believe that eventually Christ will win, meaning explicitly that “conservatives” will win. Maybe when the political power struggles are over I might consider wholeheartedly returning.
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Yes, Jeremy, you leave with my best wishes. I certainly understand where you’re coming from. I’ve seen lots of good people leave for similar reasons. We all have to do what we believe God would have us do.
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I grew up in the UMC and was active in it as a member of a large local church until after I was 50 years old. It was really all I knew.
The trouble came for me when the senior pastor’s beliefs became well know. Basically it was this – that many religions were equally pathways to salvation whether they be Islam, Hinduism, and others. This was of course just one of several issues. This caused, like in many churches, a rift and over 75 families left that church and the UMC. It was so sad. It broke my heart but I had to leave too. My wife would not leave but I could not stay or else I felt that I would loose my faith.
I found a new local non-denominational church plant to become a part of and for 3 years I went there and she stayed at the UMC. Later we adopted a plan were we attend both – she is still a member at the UMC and I am a member of the other church.
My wife has wanted to be a force within the church that tries to turn things around. She doesn’t want to give up on it. I on the other hand just want to move on and not continue to feel like I’m being dragged under water.
In a totally unrelated situation after all this happened, someone at work asked me if I would go through a video series, one hour once a week for 13 weeks. I did and what I learned there really hit me right between the eyes. I discovered that what I now believe is happening to myself, many Christians and in most all denominations and I could finally put a name on it. It is a world view issue. More and more we are all being taken in by a secular world view. Frankly I believe that we are all being poisoned by it. It surrounds us and bombards us daily. Scripture says that we are not to become like the world but that is what is happening. You really have to fully understand what is happening in order to fend it off. Perhaps you have heard of the series – The Truth Project. I would whole heartedly recommend it.
I like your blog. I really feel what you are saying. Grace and Peace
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Barry, you are seeing clearly what is happening in many UM churches, and your reaction and your wife’s reaction are the two main ways for biblically-minded people to react. I think you are both right in your reactions. The loss of the Biblical or Christian worldview is a major reason for the failure of the UMC and many other churches to remain faithful witnesses to the Lord. We are fortunate in the UMC that, while many in leadership positions have a liberal and secular worldview, there is still a faithful majority. But those of us who choose to remain and stand up for what we believe in must never let down our guard and give in to the faithless P&S who try to lead us away from that Faith.
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Pingback: Staying faithful: a Methodist perspective « Churchmouse Campanologist
It’s both encouraging and distressing to see others in the same position I and my family find ourselves in. My husband and I and our daughter and her family are members of a UMC (I have been all my 63 years). We are distressed because it has become increasingly apparent that our church is not Christ-centered.
My daughter and son-in-law send their 7-year old to Awana at the Baptist Church on Sunday evening so that he can hear the gospel at church and “hide God’s Word in his heart”. At our church he hears all about being kind and good like Jesus was but not about Jesus as Savior. Of course they teach him at home, but we would like for that teaching to be re-inforced at our church.
We have a group of (to over-simplify) wealthy and influential members of our church who dominate our church council. They voted last January 10-8 not to allow a beautiful painting of the Apostles’ Creed to be hung in our church because they do not believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. “Their group” believes that Jesus was probably the greatest example who ever lived, a great teacher, but not in his divinity.
After this I have met with our 2 pastors and the Director of Programs unsatisfactorily. Our senior pastor just basically doesn’t reply and doesn’t want to alienate anyone. His wife teaches a Beth Moore study in their home and is a deeply committed believer, but he is just basically silent. Our assistant pastor said that she was encouraged in seminary “not to make an idol of Jesus” and the Director of Programs said that my desire to hear the atonement preached was so harmful to people who would “be made to feel bad and sinful”.
Most of “these people” emphasize good works and for those who do believe in an afterlife (most don’t)they will rely on these good works.
We have not left so far because of the believers in our church. We have a Bible study in our home each week with 18. There are many others. I tried to tell the pastors, etc. that believing in Jesus as Savior leads one TO DO good works, but they seem determined to by-pass that step. We and our daughters’ family have been very active in our church over the years, but they and we are weary, and now it is their 7 and 3-year old that have to be our main concern. We have told them that if they find a different Christ-centered church we will leave with them (this decision being made after much prayer.)
Thank you so much for just letting me vent. It was just so good to know we are not alone!
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No, Sherry, you are not alone. I can relate very well with what you’re saying, and I have heard similar stories ever since I’ve been on the internet.
It seems to me that in an individual church we come to a point where it is necessary to leave, and I think you have reached that point. You are blessed to have a good-size group of people who could leave with you. Keep that group together if you can. Start a new church based on your Bible study. You can go it alone, or you can get in contact with other denominations. I don’t know where you’re from, but you know there are other “Methodist” denominations out there besides the UMC. Get in touch with the Evangelical Methodist Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Church; even the Church of the Nazarene is a “Methodist” body. Do a Google search and see if you can’t find them. They all have fine websites, and I know personally that most if not all those churches are interested in growing and helping groups like yours.
Your UM church has left you. You will only be walking away from a non-church. Take whoever you can with you. Follow Jesus, don’t follow the earthly church. It can hinder your walk with the Lord in such a circumstance.
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