Understandably, my last post has made the rounds. In fact, I have had more response on that post about eight times over than anything else I have posted. Not only has it moved through members of First UMC, but many other voices have added in that they have seen this problem at their own church, too, specifically where a small group tries to assert personal preference as doctrine. Please continue to share this with members of our church and anyone else.
I do want to make a couple of additional notes, regarding the last post. If you have not read it yet, I might suggest starting there.
Firstly, to anyone attending First UMC that did not know the severity of this issue or that there was a problem at all, I urge you not to feel too guilty about it. Again, this whole situation (and all incidents thereof) was allowed to fester because this is both a hard topic to talk about and a taboo topic, meaning that we all feel that it shouldn't be talked about. However, in order to fix this problem, we must first be aware of it--that was a large part of the intention, identifying the problem and the modality of that problem.
Secondly, if I wanted to instigate a witch hunt, I would have named some names. There are many, many angry people in the church right now. It's not unchristian to be angry; it's a natural response. There are things that should make us angry in this world: hunger, poverty, and injustice to name a few. What we do with that anger, however, how we choose to use that will be a defining moment for our church. We could easily use it to tear ourselves apart--either through infighting or sitting back and uselessly dolling out the blame from a distance. Or we could take culpability for ourselves and work to make change. Take this as an opportunity to become more involved in your church by volunteering--VBS could always use volunteers, greeters and communion servers are needed, the casserole ministry can use casseroles, and many, many other opportunities. You can become as involved as you want to be every week, once in a while, etc. Other than volunteering, you can join a committee and contribute to some of the ruling decisions at the church. (For the record, I am following my own advice and have recently joined a committee.) Regardless of how you choose to be involved, you are supporting the church and the work that it does, contributing to the health of our community. In our membership ceremony, we promise to support the church through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service: what does this mean to you and where can you improve personally?
In other words, yes, get angry! But then steer that anger into something positive instead of something destructive, and if you're not sure how or where, ask. Again, deciding who deserves how much blame isn't productive. Instead, choose how you personally are going to make changes, not what someone else should do. You will certainly find much more peace in the situation.
So here's where we can combine these two thoughts together. We need to talk about the problem and in doing so we need to change the conversation to this new direction. I don't suggest confronting everyone in the church, but if the conversation happens organically, don't be afraid to have it. There's a lot to unpack (ignoring temporarily our own natural curiosity about the details) and we are going to go through a grieving process, loss of the image we used to have of the church, if nothing else. We can support each other through this. The trickiest part will be drawing the line between discussion and gossip and diverting the conversation away from the gossip side when necessary. What I'm proposing is not to stop the conversation if it needs to happen, but to change how it ends. Instead of <<"Well, this sucks." "Yeah, it does.">> turn it instead to <<"So, how're we going to fix it?">>. This is a subtle change, but it colors the experience differently.
And the talking will get easier. With any luck, so will the ideas for possible solutions. I won't lie, though, in that things are likely to get messier before they get better. I happen to think that this is worth fighting for.
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