“The hope of Christianity, and of the remnant of the mainline Protestant churches, lies in participating in what new thing God is doing. To put it simply, God is working to make the institutional churches conform to God’s own purpose for the church of Jesus Christ. The renewal of the churches will come by being the church. This will not happen by organizational planning, although obviously such is necessary, unless something more foundational is happening. It will happen through repentance and the obedience of faith in God’s purposes for the church to be the body of Jesus Christ that witnesses to the coming reign of God.
via Judgement, Hope and the UMC | Methodism | Commonplace Holiness.
This, I think is synchronicity. I mean, there are lots of factors which are contributing to the decline of the Mainlines, such as changing demographics. That’s not judgment; that’s reality.
But, the Bishop does have a point. When we see a decline, in any thing, Church or culture, we become reactionary and start planning…
Good stuff over all.
Related articles
- The spiritual dilemma of the USA (confessingchurch.wordpress.com)
- Mainline Church Decline? (tyragan.wordpress.com)
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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