Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
December 2002 |
Misplaced loyalty
RE: Schwein column, Sept. issue ("A little more loyalty, please")
If indeed you find Coke at a Pepsi plant, just maybe Coke offers a better product. If K-Mart sale papers are found at Walmart, just maybe K-mart has a better sale. Loyalty to a product is earned but not guaranteed if the product fails to live up to its representation.
Loyalty, to a Christian, is directed only to the one who never changes - Christ. Unconditional loyalty to an entity set up by man, such as a religion, can blind us to what or who is most important. Possibly the reason for finding such authors as Chuck Swindoll, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, James Kennedy is that they still deliver God's message without fear of offending with the truth. Just maybe people are so starved for this truth, this spirit, they must seek elsewhere to be fed and filled.
Reading articles on page 21 shows just how loyalty to a denomination or job can take you away from Gods word. As far as Salt Lake City, we may take a lesson -- at least when God said take my gospel to all the world, they got it right -- even though their message came from one other than our God.
Lastly, I never heard you complain as you walked through the church that you didn't see Christ or feel the Holy Spirit. Without these two it really doesn't matter what you read or sing, you are really just wasting time.
I was at one time a member at Eden United Methodist Church. I found my loyalty provided me with nothing but confusion and heartache. I now belong solely to Christ.
Ron Kraus
Via e-mail
Reaffirming the Aldersgate way
RE: Schwein column, Sept. issue ("Just a little more loyalty, please"):
A few years ago I attended the Bishop's workshop on Evangelism led by a very respected Methodist Minister of growing churches. He stated he follows the teachings of a minister in Texas, selected his leaders by their natural talents and ignored the United Methodist Discipline. As you listened to him you realized he was searching for something, but had not found it.
What he was searching for was the Aldersgate Experience of John and Charles Wesley. Prior to Aldersgate if the Holy Spirit had any work to do they were going to do it for him. After Aldersgate they realized that it was the Holy Spirit doing his work through them, and this led to their great success.
I have taught many school lessons using Cokesbury's Adult Bible Studies. The authors would use the legalistic view of theology for their explanations. In the Home Bible Study section they would provide their evangelical views for your review.
I have written several books on the Methodist Theology of John and Charles Wesley, and was advised by Abingdon Press that "nothing the Wesleys said pertained to religion of today."
The United Methodist Discipline gives the impression that the basis of our theology is John Wesley's Fifty-three Sermons, and his Notes Upon The New Testament. I particularly enjoy Charles Wesley's Journal when he goes back to other members of the Holy Club, and basically says: "Hey, guys we have been doing it wrong." He then explains what their misunderstanding was all about.
Michael Willison,
Common Thread Ministries
Terre Haute
www.ctministries.net
In defense of the door hangers
Last updated on 01/14/2004RE: Nancy Parkison e-mail, "Viewpoints," November issue.
I am not surprised that the door knob hangers shown in the front of your September issue offended some of our brothers and sisters in Christ. What I am surprised about, however, is that the person who sent you the e-mail expressing her feelings on the matter attempted to hide behind the shelter of Scripture, tradition and reason while taking potshots at what she believes to be politically correct wishy-washiness.
The writer states that to spare judgment, love others and embrace diversity is to "lack the strength of a follower of Jesus Christ." I reckon, then, by my own reading of the Gospels, that Jesus, himself, lacked this strength. For instance look at John 4:1-42. In this story Jesus crosses ethnic, religious, political, and gender barriers to share his Messiahship (4:26). There are numerous other such stories in the Gospels.
Ms. Parkison adds that to reach out in love, with lack of judgment to embrace a diverse set of people in God's name, lacks "reverence of John Wesley." I am sure Mr. Wesley would be troubled that one of his spiritual daughters would make such an accusation. You see, Mr. Wesley denied himself scholarly and ecclesiastical success to reach out the hand of love and brotherhood to the unwanted masses of Georgian England -- the drunks, the unemployed, the prostitutes, the teeming mobs of coal miners and shipyard workers and their families not wanted by the Church of England in his day. Historians have suggested that his actions and the actions of those in his "connexion" saved England from a bloody revolution.
There is one issue, however, on which Ms. Parkison and I can agree. That is that it does, indeed, go against common sense to help those in need, to spare judgment and to embrace diversity. In fact to ignore the needs of others in the face of one's own needs, to judge others harshly, and to mix only with others of your own beliefs, values, ethnicity, and prejudices are among the most common of all human traits. These traits, combined and shaken together with a good measure of free will are what lead us into sin, individually and corporately.
Thank God the Church is seeking to help us overcome our sins. And "thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" that we have a savior who can save us, even the weakest of us, from sin and from ourselves.
Jeff Johnston
Approved Candidate for Ministry,
Huntington District
Bluffton First UMC, Anna UMC (Ohio)