Author Archives: Wesleyan Accent

Women Are the True Heroes of Star Wars by Rebecca Bratten Weiss

I went to see The Last Jedi with some immature trepidation, since I’m more emotionally invested in this story than I should be, not being a teenager doing crappy cosplay before I knew cosplay was a thing anymore. For me, you see, the Star Wars epic is not just a story. It’s one of “my” stories—the stories I have carried with me and that helped shape my imagination, my sense of humanity, and my understanding of our relationships to the cosmos.

It wasn’t until grad school that I found out that George Lucas had been inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in which the mythographer argues for an archetypal mono-myth: One story to contain them all. It all fit together then. The story was my story not just because I had fallen for it as an impressionable kid who liked to wave sticks around and dress up in cloaks. It was mine because it was made to be inhabited out of preexisting archetypes already familiar to me. The things we fear. The things we desire. Temptation. The hero’s journey.

But the hero’s journey is typically a masculine archetype. I don’t just mean simply that heroes have generally been portrayed as male. Nor even that the journey usually involves a lot of typically masculine accoutrements such as swords and spears. I mean, masculinity is written right into the concept itself. The idea that the hero must kill his father invokes all the terror of the taboo against patricide, but it’s a taboo specific to the son and is connected with themes of paternal inheritance, progenitive power, phallic power. Identity between father and son is part of this—and, in the original trilogy, this is made overt when Luke, after cutting off Vader’s head, sees his own face. At the time his lesson is “do not become your enemy!” But later he will learn the more sinister truth: Insofar as the son is an image of the father, he truly is Vader.

But what about the women?

We’re princesses to be rescued, sorceresses to be conquered, crones to give curses. We might be beneficent maternal figures, hovering on the margins. We might be objects of desire. But rarely do we get to be agents in the hero’s tale. This is not because we can’t inhabit the archetype, but because we’re so rarely allowed to do so.

It’s interesting that through the saga, Princess Leia—herself no less force-powerful than her twin brother—escapes reduction to these tropes. She’s a princess to be rescued only as a side note in her already tragic story, and as soon as she’s rescued she takes charge. Initially an object of desire for two men, this gets creepily subverted when one of the men turns out to be her own brother. When Leia is forced into a sexualized costume and position by Jabba the Hutt, she hates it. After strangling her captor with her own chains—itself a subversion of the erotic—she gets back into sensible clothing as quickly as possible.

Fans love the flirtatious banter between Han and Leia, but realistically their relationship was always doomed. It’s no surprise that in The Force Awakens the tempestuous couple is a couple no more. Han and Leia were never really a good fit. The perception of some complementary equality in their relationship was the result of a sexist idea that any man with attitude is automatically entitled to the woman in the story, even if she’s a princess and political mastermind while he’s just a smuggler out for profit. Their romance blossoms in the empty spaces between the stars, in places of danger, liminal escapes. It could never survive reality.

Many female fans grew even more attached to the character of Leia in a year that saw women standing up against powerful men who would treat us the way Jabba treated his captive. It helped that Carrie Fisher herself was a strong advocate for women’s rights, as well as for the mentally ill, so we could have a sort of double-vision appreciation for two heroes, both the princess in space and the brave, outspoken actress in our world.

And then Fisher died. So going to see The Last Jedi meant going to see not just the next stage in the story, but also a final tribute to “space mom.”

The women who don’t give up

There’s been a lot of complaint about the centrality of the female characters in The Last Jedi from more conservative corners of fandom, as though it were too much, too in-your-face, Hollywood forcing feminism on us. And while I’ll grant that The Last Jedi was in many ways a flawed film, its centering of female characters was not one of its flaws.

If the hero’s journey is primarily a masculine archetype, maybe rebellion is where the women take the lead. In the Star Wars saga, the Rebellion is initially led by a woman, Mon Mothma—who also mentors Princess Leia, who becomes General Organa and in time leads the rebellion herself.

Leia is a survivor. During her life, she has seen her home planet obliterated by a galactic villain who would turn out to be her own father. She’s seen Obi-Wan, her “only hope,” cut down by this same villain. After her son went over to the Dark Side, her brother fell into existential despair and disappeared to live as a hermit and her husband returned to a life of smuggling. And, finally, her son repeated the family pattern of doom by killing his own father.

Perhaps, at this point in her life, a prudent general decides that women are the ones to be trusted. Or maybe Leia has simply created a community of mentorship in which she trains reliable women on every level of the Resistance.

If you want to take issue with this, you have to take issue with the reality that in this saga, the hero’s journey has been individual, tragic, and destructive. Like Greek tragedy. You have to take issue with everything you love about the Star Wars epics.

Finding our places

Watching the story unfold, seeing the faithful women who remain at their posts and who don’t give up, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels with salvation history. It’s not only in a Galaxy Far Far Away that the men flake out while the women hold firm. Think of the gospel narratives of the death of Jesus. The male disciples are driven by the great tragic passions: desire for glory, lust for revenge, fear of dishonor. But these passions drive them to betray Jesus, to deny him, and finally to flee his ignominious execution. The women stay, however. They weep, and they endure.

I don’t think either Star Wars or the gospels are trying to prove that women are somehow morally superior or even that women can’t have “hero’s journeys.” We get female villains in plenty of stories, as well as in real life, because to be a woman is to be human. The Last Jedi gives us this, too—Gwendoline Christie’s ominous Captain Phasma, who I hope will somehow be back for the next installment.

But in both stories, we see that the women have earned a place at the center. In The Last Jedi, the plot gets this right. Women aren’t running things in the Resistance because Hollywood is trying to rub our faces in feminism; rather, they’re running things because it makes logical sense given the backstory and who’s in charge.

Men who object to women taking central roles in the church might want to remember what place the women took in the gospels: at the foot of the cross, present with Christ, at the moment when God himself was pierced and blood and water flowed. For us to be present at the heart of the practice of our faith is not some modern innovation. It’s not artificial or forced, but part of the story’s truth.

We look to the great myths and religious narratives to tell us where we belong and for women, too often we’re left on the margin of the story. The Last Jedi may be simply a popular film—a mediocre one, even—but it taps into the mythic structures that form our sense of ourselves. It points me towards the same assurance I find in the gospel narratives: You have a place. This is where you belong. Right here, at the heart of things.

Testify: Many Voices, One Song

A Note from the Editor: Wesleyan Accent is pleased to share a rich chorus of voices who have answered questions posed in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr Day.

Elizabeth Glass Turner

In the United States, today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Many within our Wesleyan Methodist family observe this holiday in a variety of ways. Today, we share these reflections from voices across multiple Wesleyan Methodist denominations in America.

Wesleyan Accent: Growing up, who did you look up to? Who did you want to emulate?

Rev. Yvette Blair Lavallais, Associate Pastor at St. Luke’s Community UMC, Dallas, Texas: Growing up, I wanted to emulate my mother. She had such amazing style and strength. She grew up in the segregated South, the daughter of an interracial couple (a black mother and a white father). She was always involved in our community, speaking out on issues, and taking a stand.

Rev. Marlan Branch, Pastor at River of Life AME Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Years ago my uncle, who was a history teacher at Evanston Township high school, had a picture of Dr. King on his wall. And there was a snippet of a quote. “The time is always ripe to do right.” For years that line always stayed in my soul, even when I didn’t really know what it meant. I looked up to my uncle. I would often help him organize all of his classroom papers. He would talk to me about black history. I was always fascinated with the “Eyes on the Prize” series. That’s where I really began to understand the struggle of African Americans in America.

Makayla Burnham, Student Leader at The Wesley Foundation of Wichita Falls, Texas: I looked up to my grandmother because I thought she was the funniest, hardest working, craziest person ever and all these people that would come to her house or we would run into somewhere genuinely loved her, so I wanted to be her.

Dr. Kevin Murriel, Senior Pastor at Cliftondale UMC, College Park, Georgia: Definitely my father. He taught me to be proud of who I am as a black man, to work hard, and get an education so that I would not be overlooked for promising opportunities. One of the most valuable lessons learned from my dad was that as a black man in America, I always needed to work twice as hard just to be somewhat equal to my white counterparts; and three times harder to get ahead. But his Christian example in our home and his savvy business sense is why I will always seek to emulate my dad.

Rev. Karen Bates, MDiv, Alabaster Box Ministry Services, Bowie, Maryland: Growing up, I most wanted to emulate my mother. She showed incredible strength in difficult situations — most notable being a single mother to five girls. No matter what obstacle came her way, she had the strength to overcome it. She was a praying woman and before most people knew anything about a “War Room” my mother had dedicated one room in our house to prayer. I wanted to be like her, a woman of strength and prayer.

Wesleyan Accent: What is your first memory of the name “Dr. King”?

Rev. James C. Simmons, Senior Pastor at Baber AME Church, Rochester, New York: Because I’m from a rural and conservative hometown in south central Pennsylvania, it was rare to learn about black men and women who were whitewashed from our textbooks outside of home or church. So my first lessons about the Civil Rights Movement and the men and women who led it like Martin Luther King, Clarence Mitchell, Thurgood Marshall, Daisy Bates, Rosa Parks, Joseph DeLaine and so many others were from my Grandmother and Mother. They demanded that I emulate these men and women and commit my life to justice as well. Because of their model, I continue to work to establish and maintain a nonviolent culture on the streets of Rochester, New York where I serve.

Steve Beard, Editor-in-Chief at Good News Magazine: I don’t remember the year that I first learned about Dr. King, but I do remember the story that surrounded the introduction. I vividly recall the time my dad, a United Methodist pastor, told me about his first time being confronted with “Whites Only” drinking fountains and restrooms while on a road trip during his years at Wesley Theological Seminary. The year was 1961 and my dad was returning to Washington, DC from spring break in Florida when he stopped at a gas station to use the restroom. Appalled at the condition of the restroom, my dad complained to the service attendant. “That restroom is a mess,” he reported. “It is?” replied the attendant. “Oh, you went in the wrong restroom. That is for ‘Colored People.’ You were supposed to go into the ‘Whites Only’ restroom.”

Raised as a farm boy in rural Pennsylvania, my dad had never been exposed to “Colored Only” restrooms or “Whites Only” water fountains. My dad’s traveling companion from seminary counseled my dad to just get back in the car and forget about the ugly experience. No such luck. In no uncertain terms, my dad made it clear to the attendant that the conditions of the restrooms were inexcusable and that the restrooms should be open to all men. My dad’s scolding may have only had a temporary effect on the attendant who grew up in a segregated culture, but that lesson was etched deeply into my soul.

Makayla Burnham: My first memory of the name Dr. King was from a movie that’s called, “Our friend, Martin” and I thought the man speaking gave great speeches – but I also thought at a young age, from that movie, that Dr.King really liked walking!

Rev. Yvette Blair Lavallais: My earliest memory of Dr. King is when I was four years old attending preschool at Bethel AME. I was born the year after King was assassinated. Our church wanted to make sure we knew who King was and what he stood for. Back then, TV went “off” every night around 11 pm and each station would play excerpts from Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

Dr. Kevin Murriel: My first memory of the name Dr. King was in church. Each year we had to recite a speech during Black History Month and our Sunday school teachers made sure we knew about the significant contributions of Dr. King and others to American history. Church taught us things about the Civil Rights Movement and its heroes that our school system never took the time to teach us.

Wesleyan Accent: If you could do one thing in the next year to impact national and international race relations, what would it be?

Rev. Karen Bates: The one area of national race relations that I hope to impact this year is helping people understand that Black Lives Matter is not about race, but about justice. Until all lives are given the same value, there is an inequality that exists in this nation and it must be addressed. We have to understand that it is a continuation of the work of Dr. King and a reminder that all men are created equal. Until the scales of justice balance, there is work to do.

Rev. Daniel Szombathy, Senior Pastor at Journey Church, Robinson, Illinois: If there was one area of national or international race relations I could directly impact this year, it would be the attitude of evangelical Christians towards immigrants and refugees. My feeling is that much of the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments that came from many Christians this past year (especially in Facebook posts!) finds its origin in racism. While many of these Christians claim they just want to keep America safe, ironically the best thing they could do to make America safe is by showing love to our “enemies” (people different than us). I love this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” If Americans were to feed, clothe, and educate Muslims around the world, it would be a lot harder for IS to recruit them to harm Americans!

Makayla Burnham: One area of race relations that I probably could impact this year would be awareness of an individual’s culture, religion, or background, so there’s a level of accountability to respect another person’s history.

Rev. Yvette Blair Lavallais: One area of race relations that I’d like to directly impact is the disparity in our educational system. Hispanic and African American students in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods often are not exposed to the same textbooks, learning opportunities, and academic information as their white counterparts. Just because children are on the free or reduced lunch program does not mean they should be treated with reduced learning opportunities. I’d like to see intentional investment in the academic excellence of all students regardless of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Rev. Marlan Branch: “The time is always ripe to do right” – that quote is really where I wish I could get people to begin to work out, especially in race relations: there are so many on both sides who know the truth but for whatever reason choose to stay silent and not speak. I dream for the Beloved community, the community that King began to speak of right before his death. We will not heal as a people until we believe that we are all God’s creation, equal in potential and promise and presence.

Dr. Kevin Murriel: There are many areas of concern, but I truly want to help the Church better understand its role in racial reconciliation. The Church should be leading the effort towards greater race relations. It is the prophetic voice of the Christian collective that has the power to transform the world following the example of Christ. My personal mission and commitment is to keep this perspective in front of the people of God in hopes that our culture of racism and prejudice will change as the Church stands for what is righteous.

Fiction in the Pulpit: Preachers’ Favorite Books

Note from the Editor: Following our series of posts exploring theology and literature – from Steinbeck and the prophet Jeremiah to Jane Eyre, Jane Austen and John Wesley to the poetry of Mary Oliver – we asked several pastors and preachers from various Wesleyan/Methodist denominations what works of fiction have had the biggest impact on them personally.

Here are some responses:

Probably something from childhood: A Wrinkle in Time, especially Meg Murray, feeling awkward but finding herself and fighting for love. – Dr. Beth Felker Jones

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God – Rev. Yvette Blair Lavallais

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. I am now reading it to my boy. – Rev. Edgar Bazan

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, although there were a few books that I read as a kid that influenced me as well! Narnia series count? – Rev. Rob Lim

I think about Gilead by Marilynne Robinson a lot. – Rev. Jennifer Moxley

The Little Engine That Could – Rev. Kelcy G.L. Steele

Hinds Feet on High Places. That would be my number one. – Rev. Carolyn Moore

What works of fiction would you include? Leave answers in the comments below.

Eaters of the Soil: Holiness for Tongan Wesleyans by Maafu Palu

Let me offer some observations on the fate of personal and biblical holiness in the enterprise of Pacific Theology. Pacific Theology, as it has prevailed among Pacific theologians (and this is especially true in the efforts of my fellow Tongan theologians), is thoroughly shaped by an attempt to give a response to Dr. Sione ‘Amanaki Havea’s quest in 1986, “What if Jesus was a Pacifician?”[1] Dr Havea suggested that Pacific Theology constitutes of the response to this quest. Such responses must be drawn from our physical surroundings, our legends and myths, our social interactions and even our cultural values. The bottom line is that we must adopt cultural categories and ideas as descriptive frameworks for the Gospel storyline of Jesus.

As far as I am concerned, my Tongan colleagues (with all due respect to them) are still deeply entrenched in Dr. Havea’s quest for a response to, “What if Jesus was a Pacifician?” More recently, Dr. Vaka’uta and Dr. Vaipulu have probed into the social status of the readers and interpreters as being a tu’a (a commoner) in order to determine what contributions such a standpoint could offer to the overall shape of biblical interpretation or a re-construction of the doctrine of God.[2] Despite the great novelty displayed in these academic endeavors, the trend seems to result in no ethical concern for personal and biblical sanctification. In fact, the premises upon which these theological reflections are constructed prevent such ethical implications from being drawn.

Since the Pacific theological enterprise thus far is convinced that our pre-missionary culture was simply good, and that it was the missionaries who corrupted it with their so-called “Western” gospel, we simply fail to see how deeply rooted was our pre-missionary and even our contemporary culture in selfishness and sin. To be honest to God and to ourselves, the historical account in extant of our pre-missionary ancestors precisely reflects what Paul says of all Gentiles which includes us in the Pacific: “that in that time we were without Christ…having no hope and no god in the universe” (Ephesians 2:13 ESV).[3]

This implies that an ethical concern for personal and biblical holiness as can be observed in John Wesley’s Plain

Account of Christian Perfection was altogether absent in Pacific culture prior to the arrival of the gospel with the nineteenth century missionaries. True, our pre-missionary ancestors had “gods” but in relation to the God of the Bible, they were “no gods.” In that context, any sense of morality depends entirely on the sentiments of the chiefs under which our people tend to gather for reasons of safety and security. In pre-missionary Tonga, it was believed that only people of chiefly origins had souls. Thus, they were the only ones who could be assured of an afterlife existence. Pulotu, the abode of the dead, was the eternal destiny of the chiefs. The commoners, on the other hand, were believed to have no souls and therefore they died only to become eaters of the earth – the kainangaefonua (literally: “eaters of soil”). Since the afterlife had no grounding in morality here and now, a concern for personal or general holiness could understandably be missing in the religious convictions of our pre-missionary ancestors.

With the advent of the gospel through nineteenth-century Methodist missionaries to Tonga, it appears that a concern for holiness must begin with an awareness of the encroaching power of sin in us humans. The distinctive lack of any such notion of sin in current Pacific Theology is foundational to the loss of any concern to articulate personal and biblical holiness in the enterprise. In my view, Wesley’s emphasis on personal holiness and perfection can tip the balance of Pacific Theology towards a theological plausibility structure which has the biblical gospel’s concern for holiness in the foreground.

Perhaps a cultural framework such as the following could be drawn upon as an explanatory structure for such a concern for holiness. Just as in pre-missionary Tonga, the moral sense of the people was identified with the moral sense of the chiefs, now in Christian Tonga, Jesus is the “chief of chiefs” – the ‘eiki ‘o e ngaahi ‘eiki. The church as the “Jesus people” gathers around him for safety and security reasons, not only in this life but, more so, in the life to come. Jesus therefore determines the ultimate shape of personal morality.

One of the ways in which the Jesus-shaped morality can be seen is in, “loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” – God and a love for our neighbors (Mark 12:30-31). As the chief, the eiki, of the church, Jesus does not get to go to the heavenly abode alone. He promised his people that he will go and prepare a place in eternity for them and then he will come back to take them there (John 14:1-6).

Hence his people, even though they still live here in Tonga, begin their “afterlife existence” here and now. They no longer look forward to the Tongan abode of the departed, to Pulotu, but to heaven itself. With the Apostle Paul, they look forward to departing and being with the Lord which is better by far (Philippians 1:23). Their hope is no longer to be “eaters of the soil” – kainangaefonua – but to be sharers of the divine nature in the likeness of Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20). Since in Jesus they have partaken of the divine nature, they therefore have made every effort to progress in their life of holiness while still living and worshiping God in Tonga.

Soli Deo gloria.

[1] See S. ‘A. Havea, ‘Christianity in Pacific Context’ in South Pacific Theology: Papers from the Consultation on Pacific Theology Papua New Guinea, January 1986 (Parramatta: Regnum, 1987), 11-15, especially, pp. 12-13.

[2] See N. Vaka’uta, Reading Ezra 9-10 Tu’awise: Rethinking Biblical Interpretaion in Oceania (Society of Biblical Literature. International Voices in Biblical Studies 3. Atlanta: SBL, 2011); S. F. Vaipulu, ‘Towards and ‘otualogy: Revisiting and Rethinking the Doctrine of God in Tonga’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis. Charles Sturt University, 2013).

[3] I am thinking here of William Mariner’s account of the Tonga Islands (2 Vols. Edited by John Martin, 1827) and even Captain Cook’s Journal bears witness to the blood-thirsty character of our pre-missionary ancestors.

In Their Words: How Pastors Pray for Their Children (And Raise Them In The Church)

A Note From The Editor: Recently Wesleyan Accent posed a couple of questions to pastors and their spouses about how they pray for their children while in ministry, and how they choose to shape their kids’ experience of vocational ministry. Here are their responses.

Elizabeth Glass Turner

Wesleyan Accent: What are some ways you prayed for your children while they were growing up as you served in ministry?

Rev. Carolyn Moore, Founding Pastor of Mosaic UMC in Evans, Georgia: My husband and I have prayed together every night for most of our daughter’s life. When she was young, she’d crawl into our bed with us before going off to her own, and we would pray over her. We always prayed for God’s hand over her life, and we prayed for her future spouse. As she got older, she always knew we were there, praying for her, night after night. Of course, she prayed with us over our church and we prayed with her over things she was involved with at church. She grew up knowing the language of prayer, and feeling comfortable with prayer.

Rev. Andy Stoddard, Lead Pastor at St. Matthew’s UMC in Madison, Mississippi: We as a family gather together in one of our children’s rooms, we read a passage, talk about it for minute, and then we pray and go to bed. I’ve often wondered if we should do more. But for us as a family, this little routine works for us. We try to be real people who love Jesus, not spiritually perfect saints. My daughter and I on the way to school listen to Christian music on K-Love, but we are just as likely to listen to Taylor Swift or some other Top 40 song.

Rev. Adam Lipscomb, Pastor at City Life Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan: Lately we’ve been praying that they just understand how deeply God loves them.

Rev. Kelli Ward, Connections Pastor at Forest Hills Wesleyan Church in Evansville, Indiana: We’ve discussed our prayers for our children and how we pray for our children to have a healthy understanding of the church. That they would have a healthy understanding of church as a family, complete with struggles and victories, grief and celebration.

Rev. John Gargis, Associate Pastor of Evangelism at Fountain City UMC in Knoxville, Tennessee: I pray they land in an area of life that they enjoy and fit their spiritual gifts. I pray they are a light.

Dr. Otis T. McMillan, Director of Evangelism in the A.M.E. Zion Church: Below is a sample of the prayer we prayed for our children and with our children. Barbara and I had weekly Bible study in our home:

Father God, although you have entrusted these children to us as a gift, we know they belong to you. Like Hannah offered Samuel, we dedicate our children to you, Lord. We recognize that they are always in your care. Help us as parents, Lord, with our weaknesses and imperfections. Give us strength and godly wisdom to raise these children after your Holy Word. Please, supply supernaturally what we lack. Keep our children walking on the path that leads to eternal life. Help them to overcome the temptations of this world and the sin that would so easily entangle them.

Dear God, send your Holy Spirit daily to lead, guide, and counsel them. Always assist them to grow in wisdom and stature, in grace and knowledge, in kindness, compassion and love. May our children serve you faithfully, with their whole heart devoted to you all the days of their lives. May they discover the joy of your presence through daily relationship with your Son, Jesus. May they become part of the solution in this world but never a part of the problems. Help us never to hold on too tightly to these children, nor neglect our responsibilities before you as parents.

Lord, let our commitment to raise these children be for the glory of your name. Cause their lives forever to be a testimony of your faithfulness. In the name of Jesus, I pray.

Wesleyan Accent: Did you deliberately shape their exposure to ministry and church life?

Dr. David Smith, Dean of Wesley Seminary in Marion, Indiana: Angie and I did not separate ministry into a compartment. We simply did “Kingdom life together” with our entire family. They were never excluded from the hard stuff and always were able to celebrate the high points. It seems to be a better reflection of what life is like; fully integrated in the walk of faith.

Rev. Adam Lipscomb: There have been times, especially early in the church plant, when we had people specifically assigned to them for Sunday mornings, one on one. We were both busy on Sunday mornings doing all the pastor/connect stuff.

I’ve made sure that I intentionally disciple the boys outside of church. For me, when we meet one on one, I took them through the story of the Bible and we had a little rhyme to keep the major stories in place in their heads. Our oldest son loves the Action Bible. When they were younger, we read through the Jesus storybook Bible.

Rev. Carolyn Moore: Not really, though we didn’t make her show up for every single thing. And we certainly never required that she act in a certain way around church people. We wanted her to have a genuine experience of community. She never questioned that she would be in church on Sunday mornings and at youth group on Sunday evenings. And she was always very comfortable with the people who came to our home for meals and groups. She would say that Mosaic helped raise her, and that the authenticity of that community shaped her understanding of “good church.”

Rev. John Gargis: My focus is Celebrate Recovery. They have seen people make it…not make it…and even go on to glory.

Rev. Kelli Ward: We have been deliberate in shaping their exposure. But in more ways, we have endeavored to be consistent in our own integrity. For instance, we don’t talk negatively about the parishioners in front of the children, not because we reserve those conversations for times when they are not around, but rather because we prayerfully look to God to transform our hearts in negative situations.

Rev. David Drury, Chief of Staff for the General Superintendent of the Wesleyan Church: I have used some ministry experiences to expose my kids to things others don’t get the opportunity to do. I see them as helpful windows into my ministry, so they understand what I do, and also just to help them be better Christians. So I have taken them with me on hospital visits, to pray with people, to funerals, etc.

Rev. Andy Stoddard: For our family in ministry, we try as best as we can to be authentic. My wife and I try our very best not to be spiritually two-faced. We try to act the same, live the same, talk the same, be the same at home as we are in church. I will not act imperfect in my “real” life and then act perfect in my “preacher” life. I try to own my brokenness and imperfection as a preacher. we just try to be real in our faith, authentically Christian. And my hope is that will lead my children to love the church as much as I do.

Neighbors in the Middle East

One month ago, an American couple herded three children into a men’s room in the Istanbul, Turkey airport. The wife visibly pregnant, they settled in for the night and texted to family members in the U.S., letting them know that their flight was being delayed indefinitely – keeping some of the details to themselves. All night the parents kept vigil as the children miraculously slept through the sound of explosions, reports of shooting, sonic booms from low-flying fighter jets and men coming in with blood-spattered clothing to wash their faces and hands for their ritual Muslim prayer time.

One of the protesters from a crowd of 5,000-10,000 men who, at the Turkish President’s command, had marched to the airport chanting in Turkish and protesting the military coup, saw the family camped in the bathroom and reassured them, “we are not here for you.”

Hours before, the couple had tried to get a taxi from the airport to the hotel after a long flight with young kids in tow when everything suddenly shut down: a tank quite literally blocked the way in and out of the large transportation hub. For a while, the family of five (and one on the way) was trapped in “arrivals” near the insecure glass doors that opened out onto the street, where people ran in for shelter from gunfire popping in the distance. Security officers and airport employees had disappeared from the airport at the news of a coup, leaving travelers to fend for themselves, helping themselves to bottled water and café food. A Frenchman volunteered to watch the family’s luggage. After hiding in a stairwell during a bomb scare (in which travelers nervously opened an abandoned bag), the family settled into the men’s room.

Throughout the entire night, as deep booms rumbled in the distance and the kids snored peacefully on, while the safety of team members spread throughout Istanbul was unknown and the promise of a flight out was evaporating, one Turkish man stayed steadfastly with the family of five Americans (and one on the way). He had seen them and given his promise: “I am going to stay with you until you’re safe. I am not going to leave you.”

And he didn’t. The man they had never met before stayed by their side throughout the long night hours.

Finally, at 5:30 in the morning airport workers began to return. By 7:00 a.m. the thousands of protesters began to empty from the airport. Roads opened and taxis arrived.

It would be another three days spent in an Istanbul hotel before they finally were able to board a flight out of Turkey to London, and from there, home. A few days after touching down on American soil, they were scheduled to speak at a church about life as missionaries in the Middle East. By the grace of God, they kept their appointment. I was privileged to hear their first-hand account.

Life in the country where they serve (not Turkey) does not usually hold the kind of danger and suspense they faced in the Istanbul airport, despite what many Americans would picture when they hear “the Middle East.” Even so, when I asked the missionary from a denomination based in North America what I needed to scrub from a piece covering their work, I got a wry smile.

“Either our names, or everything else.”

So here’s the “everything else.”

For this American missionary family working in a Middle Eastern region, the biggest change of the past few years is the arrival of refugees from areas taken over by ISIS. In the area in which they serve, NGOs and organizations are arriving to offer services to refugees. New shortages have emerged with the arrival of refugees – gasoline, the electric grid, on various components of the infrastructure, there is new strain from the ballooning number of people.

The new dynamic has affected people and their openness to Christ: for the local nominal Muslims, the Islamic State is causing secular Muslims to want nothing to do with Islam.This has nothing to do with real Islam, they think; we’re peaceful, obviously: so this is politics. The changing dynamic has led to openness to thinking critically about the loosely-held religion that has shaped their lives.

“If this is Islam, I don’t want it – so what is true?” One local young man began privately following Christ because of videos he’d found on YouTube. People who have begun to follow Jesus privately through the internet then quietly find a church and receive a Bible.

Compared to their first five years of missionary service in the Middle East, this missionary couple has witnessed more people come to Christ in the last two years than in the first five. Many of the young people choosing to follow Jesus aren’t accepting the faith through intentional relationships but rather are, in the words of the North American, “random people God drops in our laps simply because we’re there.”

One Arabic young man from a refugee family chose the Christian faith and was beat up and abandoned when his family members found out. Because of the ISIS conflict in his home region, and because of the anger of his family, he was kept from being able to take qualifying exams for university. In a new place, where he didn’t speak the local language, having moved away from his home because of explosions and violence, he eventually moved in with a pastor’s family, desperate for a way forward.

Yet many of the new Christians don’t quickly trust each other. Even in a culture of nominal Islam, they are cautious who and when they tell about their Christian faith. As that trust builds, they share with their friends; discipleship grows. In the region, there are now two local pastors in area cities, house churches of around 20 people – enough of a seed to start to have a small Christian subculture.

In a few months, the American missionary family will return to their place of service in the Middle East (though they will probably avoid flying through Istanbul – just in case). The family of five will be a family of six by that point. They’ll be going back to uncertain gasoline supply, unreliable electricity, strained infrastructure – and friendships and relationships with new Christ followers.

The family of five (and one on the way) asks for two things: first, that Americans will keep praying that people in their region will continue to have dreams of Christ (this is a recurring theme among people who seek out a church). And second, that Americans will consider that there are openings for single or married, young or retired missionaries that have remained unfilled; even missionally-minded Christians aren’t leaping at the chance to serve in the Middle East, and so this missionary couple asks fellow Christians to be open to follow where God leads.

Even if the path goes through a men’s room in the Istanbul airport.

In Their Words: When Pastors Face Prejudice

A note about the following reflections from Black and Hispanic clergy: These accounts have been given by denominational leaders, academics and clergy from across Wesleyan Methodist denominations. As a white editor, I have been keenly conscious of the weight of holding these testimonies with care and respect. Content has been edited for length. As much as possible, editorial work has been extremely light in order to stay out of the way and allow the words and accounts to speak for themselves. Ministry is not easy and white pastors have many stories of difficult parishioners or hard seasons. These accounts illustrate the unique individual histories of minority pastors – and the unique challenges they continue to face on top of regular ministry demands.

Elizabeth Glass Turner

“It took me some time to share these reflections because in recalling these experiences, it was like pulling the Band-Aid off the wound. Some wounds never really heal because another one plops on top of it. They just become scar tissue that irritates us under the skin.” – a contributor

Wesleyan Accent: Have you ever been called a racial epithet? If so, what were the circumstances?

Rev. Dr. Joy Moore, UMC: I have often described my youth and young adulthood as living in a gap in history, a period of promise somewhere between my 5^th and 12^th birthdays as I experienced life under the protection of my parents. It would be the summer after my freshman year of high school when I would be confronted with my racial status. A friend and I had volunteered to work in a Catholic program for impoverished inner-city youth in Milwaukee. One day, as we walked back to where we were staying, a few younger boys rode around us on their bikes shouting at us. My friend was visibly shaken by their taunts. I, with a newly attained teenage defiance, questioned the pre-teens as to whom they were referring. My friend stared with incredulity at my apparent unawareness that their characterization referenced us. But my simple question dispersed the bikers as quickly as their name-calling dispersed my innocence. It was the first time a white person had addressed me as “nigger”…

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais, UMC: I was called a nigger while pulling out of the parking lot of a grocery store. Another motorist almost cut me off as I drove down the lot and I honked my horn. The passenger rolled his window down and hurled the slur at me, laughed and topped it off by flipping his middle finger at me. I was stunned and frozen for a few minutes, but I recovered and composed myself quickly and drove on away. The car was full of white boys and I wasn’t sure what else they might do.

Rev. Edgar Bazan, UMC: What is said with a simple scowl sometimes is even more powerful than words. There have been a few times when I experienced rejection because I am Hispanic and have an accent when I speak. Even though I am very confident of myself, it hurts to feel rejected because of who I am. What am I supposed to do, bleach my skin? Is my worth devalued because I moved to live in a different geographical area? Of course not, we know this if we are decent people. I know people that have been deeply hurt not just by looks but by actual hate-filled and ignorant racial slurs. It hurts me: things like, “wet-back, go back to your country, speak English, you are not American,” and so on.

Wesleyan Accent: Have you ever been physically or verbally harassed because of your race or ethnicity? If so, what were the circumstances?

Rev. Marlan Branch, AME: While living in Glencoe, IL, my dad was actually on the news because he worked in Evanston and would have to drive home late every day to Glencoe. He would get pulled over by the police at least twice a week once he reached the white neighborhood.

One time my friend and I were walking to his gymnastics practice on the North Shore. He was one year older than me and was black too. Here we were, two black boys – me in 7th grade and he in 8th grade. The police stopped us, searched his bag and our persons because we “fit the description.” Apparently there had been some robberies in the area.

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais: I’ll speak from the point of being harassed in an academic setting and in a corporate setting. When I was an undergraduate, studying journalism, one of my professors said, “you dress so cute all the time. It’s like you’re white. You even wear your hair like a white girl. I don’t even wear nice clothes like that. And for the life of me I can’t figure out how you’re doing that because you’re not white. I’ve decided that I don’t like you.” Imagine my frustration, anger and disbelief that a professor, someone who is entrusted to present a fair and balanced environment in higher education, (instructing the class in balanced news coverage of all things) actually told me those words outright. She then used her white privilege to begin failing me in class. I ultimately passed the class but my work suffered because she intentionally always found fault with anything that I wrote.

During my career working as a communications director for a major national non-profit, I encountered harassment from a peer when I was promoted from a director position to a regional vice president position. The peer, who was in my same position (just in a different market) verbalized that the only reason that I was promoted is because I am black and that another team member, who had been at the company longer, should have been given that position. She said that I took that team member’s spot. Both team members were white. The working relationship became strained.

Rev. Dr. Joy Moore: Only by giving attention to history did I become aware that the announcement of the right to vote was not my achievement but a delayed right granted to United States citizens of my race. It would require a similar benefit of hindsight to learn that my father’s refusal to stop when we travelled was neither stinginess nor stubbornness in response to my naïve pleas for a bathroom. Rather, his concern was safeguarding his young family from humiliations levied as refusal of service. Because of this, I never heard the restaurant owner who told my parents if they came around to the back, he would make an exception to serve us since our family was fairer skinned. I didn’t yet comprehend the rest areas we frequented as we drove south were only for “colored.”

Later, when shopping alone back in Chicago, caught off-guard one afternoon, I stopped in a drug store to make an emergency purchase. Just as I picked up the package and turned toward the checkout counter, the Middle Eastern shop owner accosted me with an accusation of shoplifting. Publicly, my person and purse was searched, displaying for all to see my wallet and the cash I was carrying while drawing attention to the lone item in my possession, a box of sanitary napkins. That afternoon I perceived the difference between humiliation and indignity, and the contrasting response each fuels in me. The former, shame; the latter, animosity.

The public elementary school education I received in segregated Chicago more than prepared me for private secondary education. So there would be no humiliation when I was again accused of wrongdoing during my freshman year of college. Upon reading my final paper for a sociology class, a male professor accused me of plagiarism, insisting, “no black student from Chicago could write like this.”

As the white sociology professor attempted to accuse my writing skills, the white English professor challenged the premise of my argument. Avoiding any stereotypes of African Americans, she enumerated the evidence of Asian mathematical acumen, the fiery tempers of redheads and simple-minded blondes. Knowing I had taken college-level English classes in high school, her dispute with my paper focused on its argument: nurture has more to do with development than nature.

Rev. Otis T. McMillan, AMEZ: I have been pulled over by two Moore county sheriffs, with their hands on their guns, with no explanation. They saw my sign on the back window and my clergy collar, they let me go.

Barbara and I were pulled over on NC 87 by a North Carolina Highway Patrolman, who said I was going a little fast. When I asked, “how fast was I traveling?” he said, “do you want the warning or do you want a ticket?”

Wesleyan Accent: For your personally, as an individual, what was the most painful experience you’ve had related to your race or ethnicity?

Rev. Yvette Blair Lavallais: The first time that I really began to understand that my race and skin color was considered “less than” is when I was in the first grade. My family had moved to a neighborhood that was slowly becoming diverse as more Black families began to call the area home. A little girl in my class named Ruthie, who played hopscotch with me and my other friends, was a little blonde-haired girl who spoke softly and wore her hair in a choppy pixie-cut. We had become fast friends and always played together at recess. I didn’t know it at the time, but Ruthie’s mother was disgusted that her daughter had made friends with a black girl. On a particular day that the mom rode her bicycle to pick up Ruthie, she instructed Ruthie to tell me that she was taking Ruthie out of our school and moving her somewhere else. When Ruthie related the news to me, these were the words that this little six-year-old girl struggled and stammered to say, being very careful to try not to tell me the exact words: “My mom says that I can’t play with you anymore because you’re black and we can’t be friends. I won’t be coming back to this school either.”

That very afternoon, my mother and I had a long talk about that quick yet painful moment. She explained to me that some people are just filled with hatred and that there will be people like that who exist in the world. To this day, I still remember that because it ultimately began to shape my experiences as a little black girl growing up in a society where parents didn’t bite their tongues to express how they felt about the way God had made me. And that I needed to know being in this black skin was a reason not to be friends with me.

The other defining moment is when I was in junior high school. It was open house night and I was helping my math teacher set up her room. Her daughter, who was about eight years old, walked up to me, stood up in a chair and came face to face with me. She looked me right in the eyes and said “I don’t like you because you’re black and I don’t like black people.” I was stunned but not so naïve to think that my teacher’s daughter uttering those words could possibly have just happened. Once more, my mom and I had a conversation about this occurrence.

Rev. Marlan Branch: I have had the fortunate opportunity to live and grow up in many different places. I’ve lived in the Deep South, the west side of Chicago, Glencoe (IL) where I and one other black girl were the only black kids in our grade from 6th to 8th grade, and Evanston (IL) which is a conglomerate of every demographic of people.

While in middle school I had to take a music class. I didn’t realize it then, but every class period the teacher would send me to a room by myself to “practice” and she would never come and teach me the music like the rest of the class.

I was the only little black kid in the class.

Wesleyan Accent: For you as an individual, what is the most common misconception you encounter about your race and identity?

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais: The leading one is that we are all thieves and looking for an opportunity to steal something. I surmised that to be true on the day that I was stopped by a police officer. I was driving my brand-new SUV that I had saved up the down payment for and purchased. It was in my name. I was in downtown Dallas and had just pulled off from a “red to green light” when the patrol car came up behind me. The officer asked me whose car was this because it couldn’t possibly be mine. He told me that it was too expensive of a car for me to be driving. When I showed him my license, registration and papers, he was puzzled that the SUV actually belonged to me. I didn’t get a ticket, but I did get a reality check that once more being a black person driving a nice vehicle was “suspicious.”

Another misconception is that black women have the “black angry woman” syndrome. I was warned about this during one of my experiences in the ordination candidacy process in The United Methodist Church. I was told by a lay and a clergy person, “you’re very articulate for a black woman. You’d make a good associate pastor almost anywhere in this conference. Just make sure you don’t do like some of the other black clergy women we have and become known as the black angry woman.”

There is a misconception that black people don’t speak the King’s English, that we can’t make a complete sentence. When we shatter that perception, there is visible shock and surprise often accompanied by, “how did you learn to speak to eloquently?”

Wesleyan Accent: Do you estimate that the Church in general or local congregations specifically are more, less, or the same amount of welcoming than interactions in general society? Do you worship in a diverse congregation or one where you are a majority or a minority?

Rev. Edgar Bazan: In general, churches are places where one experiences hospitality and acceptance. As new guests or visitors we typically get a warm welcome. We are encouraged to join the church, which is great. But once we do and have spent time as insiders, we realize that to share power with someone that has a different heritage or race is not always as welcoming. I am troubled when I hear of a white church with a Hispanic ministry because typically they are “those people” or are the “Hispanic pastor congregation.”

Worshiping as a minority of non-white heritage means by default that we are not going to be in positions of power or influence unless we prove ourselves to be worthy. Yes, churches are typically healthier places than secular ones when it comes to race, but being welcoming is just a fraction of what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais: I am serving in what the United Methodist Church calls a “cross-racial appointment,” meaning that I am a non-white pastor serving at a predominantly white congregation. My experiences so far have been positive. Both congregations have been welcoming and have shown love and hospitality toward me. An elderly man shared with me that when he heard I was coming to the church he was a bit apprehensive. He was already getting adjusted to having a woman pastor and now they were sending another woman, a black one this time. He followed it by telling me that this was a first for him in 50 years of being a member and after getting to know me, he was glad that I was here. On another occasion a woman in her 70’s walked up to me after the worship celebration, grasped my hands and told me “I am proud to call you my pastor.” That was a shocking yet beautiful moment for me.

I preached a difficult message the Sunday following the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the five Dallas law enforcement officers. A member told me about her experience of being 10 years old in Birmingham when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed in 1963 and four black girls lost their lives. She shared, “imagine in 2016 that the Holy Spirit would come in the form of a black woman pastor and preach to this congregation.” That too was a beautiful moment. I don’t know how this registers on the race barometer compared to society in general, but it is a refreshing start.

Rev. Dr. Joy Moore: The neighborhood congregation where I attended was affiliated with the predominately white National Council of Community Churches. Conferences and area collaborations afforded exposure to Christians who were of a variety of cultures other than my own. It seemed, from this limited experience, that the church was the best place to strive for and demonstrate unity across racial barriers.

But a decade into ministry, I was assigned a congregation where five women worked incessantly to remove me from ministry. Bold to place their fabrications and misrepresentations into writing, these women informed the bishop they would “not allow me a success.” Contrary to the affirmation of the majority of the 200-member congregation, these women drafted a letter in response to the cabinet’s inquiry whether my being the first woman of color to serve the congregation might have any bearing on their opinion. About 30 persons signed the letter – most who no longer attended the church or had even lived in the state during the entire span of my life. Their response: “How dare you call us racist!” A member of the cabinet informed me that had I not had a reputation born of a decade of service in that conference, my ministry indeed would have ended on the strength of their accusations.

Wesleyan Accent: What experience do you most wish someone different than yourself could experience for themselves in order to better understand the reality of your life?

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais: To walk into a store and have a white sales associate follow you around, point you in the direction of the clearance rack and ask you what are you looking to steal. To be the only black person having lunch with a group of white colleagues and having your order taken last and your food brought out last. To go on your third interview for a public relations position and be told “you are so impressive, you would do well in this role but you don’t look the part because these jobs are usually reserved for blonde-haired girls.” To step into an elevator and watch as a white woman clutches her purse because she believes you might be a pick-pocketer. To be told in a work setting that it’s highly unusual to be black and to be this smart.

Wesleyan Accent: How does it feel to be the only person of color in a predominantly Caucasian conference room, congregation, school, or meeting?

Rev. Edgar Bazan: A good friend mine that was an associate pastor many years in a predominantly white church shared with me one occasion: while in the church office a member of the church came in to visit and greeted everyone else except him. Without addressing him in any way, this individual said to the secretary, “when did we get a new custodian?” My good friend was Hispanic and this individual was white. I have had similar experiences in which I needed to do more in order to prove my position or credentials because I am Hispanic.

Wesleyan Accent: What gestures, actions or attitudes from others have you found to be most meaningful and healing?

Rev. Yvette Blair-Lavallais: I have colleagues in the North Texas Conference, Central Conference and Texas Conference who are intentional when it comes to creating environments of diversity. They are very much aware of the imbalance of black and brown representation in the pulpit and in leadership roles within the Conferences, inviting us to be participants in programs and to serve in other areas that have historically been unopen to us.

Beyond the church setting, I have white friends and colleagues whom I interact with regularly and catch up with over coffee. Some of these friends are the same ones who have responded right away in my seasons of joy and sorrow. Their presence, willingness to listen, their empathetic ear and rise to action are all helpful and meaningful.

Closing reflections:

“I wish I had known back then what I know now.”

“The victories of the Civil Rights Movement seemed to make possible a bridge across the gap such that persons might comprehend that human capacity for intelligence, morality, and character were not divinely meted out during creation to certain continents of the globe. The gap in history seems to be again widening. The brief period of promise somewhere between my 5^th and 12^th birthdays closed around history repeating itself as I experience what my parents tried to protect me from.

I’m old enough that my first experience of racism is not nearly as defining as my current experiences. Then, I was taught to expect what I am experiencing. But I had role models who were respected, if only by our community. Today, with instant access to every random opinion or public accusation, the volume of the disrespect is as visual as the bodies hanging from trees when my parents were young. It will be more difficult to call forth a beloved community with 21^st century claims for recovering the America of the 1950s, especially if black and brown bodies experience that recovery with 19^th century violence.

The caution to “mind the gap” on London’s Underground is not to fall into it. It serves as a reminder of the gap’s presence and a summons to avoid it. Those who claim their identity by race, gender, nation, political party, economic or marital status are reminded to be aware of the gap created by these associations. Avoid excluding others as they exclude you. Instead, be mindful of the little things still sought to be achieved by each generation: human dignity, respect, and recognition that the world for which Christ died includes the descendants of persons not born in Europe. Those who claim to be followers of Jesus are summoned to practice the community someone dared ask God to create.”

“What is behind our words, what is deep in our hearts, that which makes us assume that just because an individual is of a certain race means that he or she can only aspire to limited options for personal development is in fact what is at the core of our race challenges. And this has to do with our lack of love for ourselves. If we could love ourselves with compassion and have self-awareness of our needs and suffering, we would be able to relate to others and treat them in the way we would like to be treated. But this is a rare sight. We are prevalently narcissistic in so many ways, that we don’t have a heart to go a mile in someone’s else’s shoes, let alone a second mile. Because I am the minority, I have learned to relate to those that are usually marginalized. So, when I am in meeting where I am minority, for example, I am more sensitive to welcome and include those that are not noticed by the predominant group. I have suffered exclusion, and I don’t want anyone to be relegated to such experiences.”

Church Growth: Fruitful Or Cancer?

Today’s post is a compelling piece written anonymously by a successful pastor.

The Ideology of a Cancer Cell

I rarely have those moments I would unquestioningly call, “divine.” I’ve never been one to see the fingerprints of God on everything around me. So when something happens in my life that just seems divinely orchestrated, I have to latch on to it.

The other day I was sitting in Chik-Fil-A, eating my #1 with no pickles, sipping my Coke Zero, and reading my new Eugene Peterson book, The Pastor. As I read, sometimes challenged, sometimes encouraged, sometimes disagreeing, and sometimes annoyed with Peterson, I looked over and saw a young lady at the table next to me. She had a baseball cap on with a small, round pin clipped to the side. I’m sure I looked rather stalker-ish trying to read the small print from 7 feet away, but the effort was worth the risk. Her pin read, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.”

The pin had no logo. Just the words. I have no idea exactly what it was protesting. But because I’m a pastor, it didn’t take long for me to think of the church and how I, and many of my fellow pastors, see church growth as an end in itself.

After reading the pin and being prompted to thought by its vivid verbiage, I then looked down at my book once again. Where I’d left off before staring at the other patron’s head, Peterson had just written a letter to one of his friends who was leaving his church to pursue the greener pastures of a bigger church. Peterson wondered, in his letter, if the guy hadn’t just been enamored with the idea of a big church and had not been sufficiently enamored with simply being a pastor. So when my eyes went back to the page, this is where Eugene picked up – and I think you can see from this why I think I was having a divine moment:

“He accepted the call to the big church, and then another, and then another. I would get occasional reports on him from friends. All the reports seemed to document that size was turning out to be a false transcendence in his life. Meanwhile, the momentum of what was being termed church growth was gathering. All of us in the Company agreed it was misnamed. It was more like church cancer – growth that was a deadly illness, the explosion of runaway cells that attack the health and equilibrium of the body.”

If I can have a moment of critical reflection before anything else – I honestly do find Peterson’s comments here a bit condescending and extreme. I’m sure he knows his friend and probably something of his friend’s motivation, but not everyone who goes to a bigger church does so for self-centered glory. I do not believe either big church or small churches are the solution to the American church’s major problems. If you’ve ever spent much time in a small church, you know not to sentimentalize them any more than people who have seen the sausage made in big churches can consider them all bunnies and sunshine. Both are filled with finite, sinful human beings. Neither should be held up as the ideal – after all, Acts 2 records a church of 2,000 on the day of Pentecost, and some of Paul’s letters were probably written to small churches meeting in houses. Both are acceptable New Testament models. Both have strengths and weaknesses. I think Peterson is too hard on big churches in The Pastor. I think he’s too easy on small churches.

But he’s probably not entirely wrong about the church growth movement that drives big churches. I can probably point to other people I’ve known, other ministers and pastors, but I think it’s mostly appropriate to talk about myself. There is something grand and exhilarating about growing a church. It’s in some ways validating to the pastor, his/her preaching skills, and general likeability. There’s a kind of energy (often confused with the Holy Spirit, I think) in a room full of worshipers that is contagious and addicting. For these reasons, it can be really easy for me to focus on and find my satisfaction, not in changed lives, but in simple numbers. Church growth. Attendance. Butts in seats.

I know I can’t be the only one who struggles with the temptation to find my satisfaction and identity in church attendance because we have entire conferences pastors pay lots of money to attend simply designed to tell us how to make our churches get bigger.

When pastors lament the waning of the American church, what we are often really lamenting is a declining attendance. Our complex metrics and statistics tell us all kinds of things about church attendance trajectories and predictions, but few of us have thought through adequate and objective ways to evaluate whether or not our congregants are taking up their crosses. Some churches even hire pastors based on whether they think the pastor can make the church grow numerically. Pastors like me can even get caught up in it, thinking we’ve “arrived” because the numbers are the primary indicators of our talents. Then we secretly compare the size of our church with that of our colleagues – the fallout of which is, ehem, a bit of steeple envy.

At some point in wrestling with my own gauges of success, I wonder, to what end are we growing? Why exactly am I excited that my church or my service is growing at a high rate? Am I obsessed with growth simply for growth’s sake? How big is big enough for me? Am I just building bigger and bigger barns to store more and more people but caring only in a lip-service way for the development of their souls, bodies, minds, and societies in the image of Christ? And is there ever a time when church growth might be contrary to the kingdom of Christ? If so, how would we know?

Again, don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a problem with big churches in themselves. I work in a big church. Given the right structures for relationships, personalization, humanization, and discipleship, big churches can be really healthy manifestations of the gospel. They can be salt and light. They can most certainly witness to the gospel in their towns and around the world. So, no, big churches are not the problem. And to that end, I’ve also been in churches of 30 people that were obsessed with the attendance they didn’t have. But at the same time, whether the church is large or small, pastors can still have that greedy, cancerous voice in our head that wants us to value church numerical growth over church spiritual growth. That cancer whispers in our ears of the glory that could be ours if the sanctuary had 3,000 people instead of 300, or 300 instead of 30. At every level these sirens cry out for the pastor’s attention, and I fear for myself and many of my colleagues that we will find ourselves shipwrecked there if we are not careful.

When we take an honest look at the Bible, church growth as an end in itself does not seem to be something Jesus seems manifestly concerned with. Jesus had several opportunities to grow his numbers, but instead he sent the crowds away. He had no problem letting people walk away who could not give up their possessions (something almost no church growth experts would recommend, I expect). He had no problem angering the Pharisees, even though he knew that if he got them on his side he would gain the average-Joe population with them.

Of course, no pastor – myself included – has the guts to say, “I don’t care about making disciples; I only care about making my church bigger.” We don’t want to think of ourselves as having the “ideology of a cancer cell.” Every one of us is, in theory, willing to let people walk away. Every one of us is, in theory, willing to suffer the loss of audience for the sake of the gospel.

But how often does this really happen in practice?

Be honest. Don’t just attribute the decline in attendance to “the gospel” when it could have been your bad preaching or the cliques in your church. Be honest. How many times have any of us actually lost people because of the call to take up a cross and deny self?

This is what makes me wonder about my motivation. This is why I wonder if we have somehow missed the point. Look, if you want to gain a crowd, serve some coffee and have a giant pizza party. You don’t need Jesus for that. Some Papa Johns should do the trick. But if your objective in ministry is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, church growth may be a natural corollary to that mission, but it is not an end in itself. And therefore we pastors – the royal “we” by which I mean “I” – need to be much more in tune with our motivations, measuring methods, and the things we celebrate with our staff and congregation.

Since we pastors struggle to grapple with this question in a self-reflexive kind of way, I’d like to just pose a few questions to help us see whether or not we desire growth for the sake of growth or if our growth is really kingdom oriented.

When you evaluate the success of the Sunday morning service (or any ministry of your church) is your first question, “How many people attended?”
Do you find yourself envious of pastors with bigger churches? Or judgmental toward pastors of smaller churches?
Have you ever said something you thought might lose you a percentage of your congregation, but you knew you needed to say it to be faithful to the gospel? Or did you shy away from it for fear of slipping attendance or making people upset?
When you consider the measureable goals you have for your church this year, how many of them are attendance based or financial? How many of them concretely gauge whether or not true discipleship and life change is happening in your congregation?
Do you spend as much time and energy thinking about how to get people into deep relationships with each other and Jesus as you do how to get them in the door week after week?
Is your self-esteem as a pastor in any way connected to how many people attended church last Sunday? If there had been fewer people, would you have felt like a failure? If there had been more people, would you have felt like more of a success?
When you think about the future of your church, do you primarily dream in terms of more attendees, more services, more programs, and more visitors, or do you think in terms of more relationships, more disciples, and deeper connection to Christ?
Comparatively, what do you spend most of your time doing? Praying for your Sunday morning services or planning how to get people to come/return?
If a neutral party were to anonymously ask your staff, “Does your pastor care more about church growth in attendance or church growth in connection to Jesus” what would your staff say? Why would they say it?
When you celebrate your staff, do you celebrate their numerical victories in regards to attendance at their events, or do you celebrate the concrete discipleship and relationships they built and fostered?
Have you ever been willing to send someone to another church because you think they would fit in better there? – in other words, do you think kingdom growth is more important than your local church’s growth?
Deep down in your heart, when you’re honest with God about your motivations, do you have a sinful desire to grow the church big for the sake of growing the church big (and all the reputation and frills that come along with that), or do you want to see God’s kingdom grow, even if that means shrinking attendance at your church?

I ask you all these questions because these are the questions I must ask myself. I love preaching to a full room. I love it when people respond to my preaching and my ministry. I love looking at the spreadsheet every Monday morning and seeing how much our congregation has grown in the last two years. A certain amount of my identity is wrapped up in that growth. It’s tempting to keep chasing it.

And I know it’s tempting for you, too. But are you willing to acknowledge that this exists in your heart? And what are you willing to do to shift gears, change what you value, and see church growth (or non-growth) in light of God’s kingdom values? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have the ideology of a cancer cell. I want to have healthy growth, which may or may not look like the image we’ve been sold at conferences, by consultation groups, or even by our peers.

Two Boats, One Gospel: Black History Month and the Church’s Witness by Esau McCaulley

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.’– from the Acts of the Apostles

I have learned three histories in my lifetime. In school, they focused on the exploits of the descendants of the Mayflower. Theirs is a story of triumph over every obstacle that hindered an inevitable rise to greatness. It glories in America’s interventions at turning points in world history. My ancestors are relegated to the background, only invited forward to speak on the equality that should exist on the other side of our suffering. But that suffering itself must be forgotten. This is a past that gets omitted from the retelling. If some want to hold to their most cherished narratives, it stands as a sign to be contradicted.

I learned the full story of the survivors of the middle passage on my own. Twenty-eight days were insufficient to cover it. That tale had its own esteem, but it initially produced anger. Resentment is understandable when you discover that the neighborhoods and schools that still press hard against the dreams of the children who reside there – places that you too had to survive – did not arise by happenstance or the laziness of your ancestors. They were legislated. I can’t unread W.E.B. Dubois. The poets and novels of the Harlem Renaissance reshaped my imagination and I live in the aftermath. But what shall I do now? Do I use my history as a weapon of mass destruction and locate evil in the flesh of those caused us pain?

That is not the path that I choose to take. A third story and deeper story has intervened. Before there was an “America,” before the slave ships arrived on the shores of West Africa, we were–all of us– profoundly loved by the one who gave his life in order to welcome us to his father’s home. In the midst of my anger, Jesus has come and spoken words of peace. I now see that our destinies (black, white, Asian, Hispanic) are united, caught up in the one story of God’s people. America’s story is only important as a witness to the gospel’s power to bring beauty out of pain and estrangement. We are penultimate.

To speak plainly, no history will make me hate my brother because God nailed his sins next to mine on the cross. This is not to say that the sins of the slave master and the slave are equal. On that score, the descendants of the Mayflower carry the greater burden. Hard truths need to be owned or we will forever look askance at one another hindered by mutual distrust. It may be that the last tear that Jesus wipes away will be our shared weeping over what we have done to one another on the basis of the color of our skin. I grant the final reconciliation of the nations is eschatological (Rev 7:9-12), but I would not mind a foretaste.

I have reason to hope because God has already paid the price for our reconciliation in the blood of his Son. There were two boats, but there is one gospel. The church of all nations is the hope of the world. Can the descendants of the Mayflower and the middle passage inhabit one church and, in so doing, function as witness to a world that seems intent on tearing itself apart? Can the church be a symbol of reconciliation when for so much of our history we have failed in that task? Yes we can! Why do I believe this? Check the tombs in and around Jerusalem for the bones of a certain Nazarene. You will not find them; he is risen. Now tell me once more, what is impossible for our God?