A IS FOR ANXIETYSalina's Bicentennial Center is a basketball arena, ringed by a concourse filled with the predictable array of church-related display booths, each promoting something while feeding you candies and cookies, Halloween-style. Whenever conference grows tedious, you can find the restless circling the margins of conference, transgressing the boundaries and clock-watching of The Order Within. This year, my favorite was the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies. Three times I wandered there, chatting amiably and jotting notes that helped frame what most always happens at conference: |
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Amy, one of the conference's younger clergy, brought the opening sermon. Amy's brother works at a restaurant that -- how to say this at Annual Conference -- does a lot of business late at night. Many of the clients are HIP -- Hospitality Industry Personnel -- who spend their days working at restaurants, hotels, and such. As she thought about that, what progressively bugged Amy was that the HIP Crowd has stolen the purpose and function of the church, commodifying and commercializing what is supposed to be our calling. The old rules of Benedict, for example, taught those inside the monastery to welcome as Christ anyone who came to the monastery's door. "The Christ in me," they practiced, "greets the Christ in thee." Fast forward several centuries to today and picture an Old Woman, trained for decades in Benedict's way of experiencing God. Today she's in a nursing home and can't remember what she ate for breakfast, but she's in the lobby, welcoming absolutely everybody -- genuinely, authentically -- perhaps because years of training transformed her perceptions so that she truly sees God in every person. The absolute antithesis of today's gatekeeper, compulsively sifting the few who get in from the many to keep out, She is Christ, inviting everyone in. |
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After completing that Cliff's Notes tutorial, Schnase accents two difficult teachings in his ideas. |
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Schnase then explores why his book has been well-received [and, unbeknownst to Schnase, why his ideas this morning are prelude to the message people will hear tomorrow night at Reconciling's Inclusivity gathering]. |
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Then he summarizes how to misuse the book: |
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Thursday morning, the conference hears about its connectional ministries. In the desire to be on-topic, some reports veer dangerously close the donut-table example of misusing the trendiness of "radical." I'm at attention when the guy reluctantly talks about doing prison ministry – http://discipleprisonministry.jimdo.com/ -- and needs more money. Partly because I've given-up some weekends to visit people in prison, and partly because the flower shop where I eat lunch each day employs prisoners on Work Release, I see his work as ministry and risky and the whole lot. It's a long ways from feeding the grazing Methodists in the parlor on any Sunday morning. So when Paul Wilke invites Kansas West delegates to turn to their neighbors at the table and say "Just Be Radical," you wonder what they're thinking as they humor him and repeat the words. Donuts or Prisoners? Like the earlier video on bed-nets for African kids, Paul again asks each of us to imagine … this time: a Holy Headline of what the newspaper might say if we were truly radical. I jot down: "Vitality, Joy Erupt as Former Outcasts Transform Dull Church." I decide there's little point in contributing it to the list taped to the gym wall down below, which had maybe 20 headlines from 600 people. |
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A brief discussion period followed, with another discussion period tomorrow before the vote -- delayed to then to permit clergy to be ordained tonight a vote on the amendments. |
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From the Bi Center, we race across town to Salina Trinity where 50 people have signed-up for the Inclusivity Dinner sponsored by Reconciling, despite the caterer capping dinners at 40. Audrey Krumbach from the national Reconciling staff in Chicago flew into Wichita and drove up. Joining the crowd are some Mennonites from Newton who want their churches to open themselves, and came to sit-in on the Methodist version. They invite the Methodist to sit-in on their event: Fri 5 June 7pm at Newton Faith Mennonite, 1500 N Anderson. |
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But don't despair, for help is available to the Disoriented Church. As in Psalm 31, there is hope, despite the institutional church's betrayal of those who know God's presence in the lives of queer people. God's grace permeates our broken lives, and grace is working today in the Church Disoriented. Mapping that unknown land are guideposts, urging us to trust God's grace [see John 3.17], and transforming our fears in ways that reorient us to God: |
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After Audrey spoke, a woman unexpectedly made her way to the microphone, and faced the crowd at Salina Trinity. "I am," she said, "just so grateful to this church for welcoming me when nobody else would." |
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The votes for Kansas West won't be announced until after all the global votes are totaled. In the meantime, stop being blandly typical, safely accidental, and stingy. Instead, practice being intentionally risky, extravagantly radical, and passionate. Intensify your notions of faith development, hospitality, worship, missions and generosity. Swap your sense of what's wrong with a "disciplined consideration" of The Other as both different and right. Your institutionalism, swap for innovation and active creativity. And name one disintegration you dislike in your life … one strong, important belief that you stifle in order to conform to the deadly blandness of the Disoriented. If I do that instead of wondering about vote results from now 'til November, I'm thinking there's a lot I could discover. |
LAWRENCE FIRST, WICHITA COLLEGE HILL -- RECONCILING CONGREGATIONS
First United Methodist Church in Lawrence became a Reconciling Congregation on 8 July 2008, punctuating efforts that began in 2006 and continued for several years. When Bishop Dick Wilke visited in Jan 2008, a church-wide survey confirmed support for being a Reconciling Congregation that truly seeks to have "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" that welcome all people. |
IN KANSAS, THESE UNITED METHODIST GROUPS WELCOME YOU -- REGARDLESS OF YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION | ||||||||
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YOU'RE LINKED | ||||
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