A Modest Proposal

As I look at our churches – aging, white, mono-cultural and polarized around societal issues, I have to ask the question; “Where is the will?  We, as a denomination, have cherry-picked from the Bible about our mission: We say that our mission is to “Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  As a conference we say it is to “Be love to our neighbors.”   Our primary emphasis in doing this is b y creating new churches or rehabilitating new ones.  There is nothing wrong with these mission statements, except that e don’t know what they mean, either in their terms; disciples, transformation, world, love and neighbor, even Christian and Church.  Plus, they are not everything that the scripture says about what the mission of the church is.

For example:  Heal the sick.  We’ve gotten that down to clergy and congregational team visits, praying and occasional sparsely populated healing services.  The Methodists used to build hospitals.  What if the United Methodist Church was to provide free health insurance and health care the cost of access to would be a tithe?  The cost of tithing might make financial sense under those circumstances.

Teach God’s Word.  Pass the biblical story, Hebrew and New Testaments to the younger generations.  The Methodists used to build schools.  Rather than lament about the state and cost of education in the United States, provide free education at United Methodist nursery, primary, secondary and higher education, access to which would be the cost of membership; the tithe.

Feed the hungry.  Rather than provide food cupboards and soup kitchens, teach people how to feed themselves, forming self-sustaining business such as food coops and restaurants that double as job training sites. 

Provide for the elderly. Build senior housing with in independent, supportive living and skilled nursing components in association with higher educational programs and senior day program sites, the costs of which would be the tithe.

People might want to belong to a Church like this and understand where their tithe is going to.  It might encourage other denominations to do so as well.  Attending our schools, having their health provided for, having supports as they age and having access to food and job training by being members, they might want to learn more about Christianity and United Methodism they might want to participate in living out this Methodist Way of being an living an transforming the world.  Other denominations might go the same way lest they lose members and potential converts to us.   Public health, education, social welfare and other agencies might have to renew themselves or maybe could down size reducing taxes. in the process as the Church steps up to minister to the needs of the world. 

Building churches, whether they be in traditionally shaped buildings, cafes or homes isn’t going to spread the way of life called Christian, which is after all making the best possible human beings and societies.  It is going to be by incarnating God’s Word, the Word of God, Mind that was in Christ Jesus being made flesh in us, manifesting on account of not what we merely believe but by how we really live.  There might be cost to this beyond the tithe, but the cost of all this things can at least be greatly reduced.

This is what I believe our next General Conference and our annual conferences should be dealing with.