How Do We Cultivate Awareness?

I’ve been watching this phenomenon and participating in it myself for years, since I was a college student.  It’s the infamous “quiet time,” our evangelical colloquialism for a much-needed and advocated-for spiritual discipline.  It once was called “personal devotion” or “devotions” – that regular daily time of reading a Bible passage or verse and using some sort of devotional aid, with a little prayer thrown into the mix.

I’m astounded at the some of the crud people can buy at Christian bookstores to help them with their “quiet time.”  A few months ago on one of my browsing trips, I ran across what must be the “Christian” analogy to the “One Minute Manager” for one’s “quiet time.”  Such nonsense.  And we buy this stuff.

It’s Monday and I’m feeling a little curmudgeonly, but my mood notwithstanding, the “quiet time” needs a serious overhaul.  It’s probably some part developmental phase for college students, but the “quiet time” is promoted by pastors and campus ministers and, because we want to be good followers of Jesus, we make a game effort to include “quiet time” in our daily schedules.  My sense is that most of us fail – if not miserably – fairly consistently.  It’s time for a re-think of what “quiet time” actually aims to accomplish.

It is certainly not a mere task that I can check off my list when done for the day.  Confession: I spent many, many years treating the “quiet time” in just this way. We all know this: the point of the “quiet time” is not simply to do what good Christians do, but to spend concentrated time communing with the Triune God.

Because God is merciful and faithful and loves his children, even the truncated “quiet time” can and does have some beneficial impact.  Obviously, I don’t want anyone to quit doing their “quiet time” even if it does mean hurriedly grabbing a few minutes to go along with the cup of coffee (or Coke or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper or lattespressicino – thank you Dave Barry!) they regularly grab.  But, as is the case with much of Christian discipleship, there is much, much more blessing to be had and much more formation to undergo on the way to maturity.

Certainly, one of the major blessings of the “quiet time” is actual awareness of the actual presence of God.  We actually listen to and talk with the living God.  This practice is of the nature of a personal relationship, just like we teach all the time.  A personal relationship requires cultivating.  Our “quiet time” offers us the chance to cultivate our awareness of the actual presence of the living God.  To use Dallas Willard’s term from The Divine Conspiracy, that presence is an “engulfing” presence.  Followers of Jesus are engulfed by the Kingdom Presence.

To cultivate awareness of God’s presence takes a willing heart, time and focused persistence.  There is something mysterious about the human will on this point that calls for reflection.  Wherever that train of thought might lead, friends, we must slow down and listen.  If we want our lives to count for God’s glory; if we want to produce fruit that lasts, we must slow down and cultivate awareness of God’s presence.

If you’re a too-busy college student, but you took time to read this blog and you want to deepen your relationship with Christ, I’m begging you, slow down.  Find the time to listen, to reflect with practiced self-awareness, knowing that you’re doing so in God’s active presence.  That’s part of prayer, too.  May our “quiet time” produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness in us all.

The Troubling Use of “Information”

For some time I’ve noticed a perplexing quality of college student word use.  Here are a couple of examples:

“I have to miss class tomorrow and I was wondering if I could get the information that you’re going to cover.”

“I want the professor just to give me the information without his/her opinion so that I can make up my own mind.”

I hear some version of these remarks fairly frequently and they alarm me.  In the second one, I can see the student’s concern for not being force-fed ideology and I’ll give that one to him.  It’s a legitimate concern, but in a broader sense reflective of a fundamental misunderstanding of what should happen in a college (it was a political science) class.  Secondly, referring to course content as “information” sounds utterly lifeless and sterile, having no more than instrumental value, available only to be manipulated for some pragmatic aim.

(Disclaimer: I believe in the importance of facts and information.  I am not a rank subjectivist.  In fact, I hold an “externalist” view of truth – that it is really “out there” and available.  With that qualification, back to my point.)

How did we get here?  Well, clearly, the “information age” of personal computers and the worldwide web has helped dramatically.  I love the technology, but if we don’t pay attention to the paradigmatic control these computer metaphors are working on us, I can hardly imagine how impoverished, even perverse, our lives will become.

The other culprit is hiding in fifth or sixth grade classrooms, where students are indoctrinated with the fact/opinion distinction.  Certainly, there is a difference between facts and opinions and I applaud the intention, but I’m worried about the misleading implications.  A “fact” is evidently something beyond need of interpretation because it is “neutral.”  We trust facts.  ”Opinions,” by contrast, are squishy and subjective and, most damming, idiosyncratic.  How many times have you heard, “That’s just your opinion,” as if the mere fact (yes, I meant that word) makes the whole thing dismissible?

It’s a short step from “fact” to “information,” Same feeling, same attitude, same problem.  First, it seems to assume that people are neutral information processors, a self-evidently absurd notion when one pauses to think about it (but who’s pausing?).  Likewise with facts.  Facts have to be applied and application requires interpretation.  We have to figure out what the facts mean. They tell us nothing in and of themselves.  Do students understand how important this step – from facts to meaning – is?

In this context, campus ministers have a crucial role to play.  The world needs wise, well-formed disciples of Jesus.  Wisdom requires thoughtfulness, the habit of taking into consideration a range of opinions, weighing evidence judiciously; most of all, it means applying truth lovingly, with the heart of Jesus.  In other words, to think well requires a well-formed character, which involves far more than “getting information.”  ”Just getting the information” simply won’t cut it.

Campus ministers: we’re supposed to be about developing well-formed followers of Jesus.  We may not assign grades, but we’re still educators in the best sense of that word.  Precisely because we are not giving exams and assigning grades, we have the luxury of helping students learn, untrammeled by the pressures of academic demands.  Let us not squander this sacred opportunity.

A Harsh Assessment of Young Adults

I just finished a book by an author not so enamored with the effects of technology on the “net generation.”  Entitled, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, (Penguin, 2008), it mounts massive data from various surveys and organizations to argue that, for all their tech savviness, most young people use the internet for entertainment and social networking and not for (the author’s main concern) “expanding knowledge.”  Hence, the claims made for the educational benefit of the internet are badly exaggerated, even dishonest.

Mark Bauerlein, the author, is not “anti-young.”  He acknowledges regularly throughout the book how curmudgeonly he sounds, but his point is not to run down young people.  It is, rather, to sound the alarm about the myth-making by educators about the educational benefits of various forms of computer and internet-based entertainment.  Worse, he’s concerned about the way some of these educators are talking about plain, old fashioned paper-based books, as if we don’t need them any more.

Perhaps the most damming chapter is “The Betrayal of t he Mentors.”   Here he uses the term “Twixters” to refer basically to the same age period that Jeffrey Arnett calls “emerging adulthood.”  Bauerlein mentions an article from Time magazine (24 January 2005) that describes this demographic category: “22 to 30 years old, have a college degree or substantial college coursework; come from middle-class families and reside in cities and large urban centers.”

There’s the demographic.  Now the problem.  Bauerlein continues: “What makes Twixters different from other people with the same demographics from the past is the lifestyle they pursue after college. [ ] Instead of seeking out jobs or graduate studies…they pass through a series of service jobs as waiters, clerks, nannies and assistants.  Instead of moving into a place of their own…they move back home with their parents or into a house or large apartment with several Twixter peers.  Instead of forming a long-term relationship to marriage, they engage in serial dating. [ ] They have achieved little but feel good about themselves,” (170).

And the betrayal of the mentors?  Here we turn to Bauerlein’s deep concern: teachers who jump on the bandwagon of disdain with their own toward books and more traditional forms of learning.  Bauerlein again: “In casting Twixter lifestyle as genuine exploration and struggle, neither the author nor the researchers nor the Twixters themselves whisper a single word about intellectual labor.  Not one of the Twixters or youth observers mentions an idea that stirs them, a book that influenced them, a class that inspired them, or a mentor who guides them,” (172).

I still don’t know what I think about this book, but I’m inclined to share Bauerlein’s concern.  As he says, there is no question that this generation is bright and full of talent.  But they seem more achievement-driven than thoughtful and they’re (generally) impatient with intellectual struggle.  And the thoughtful ones turn too easily to dismissive sarcasm for ideas that don’t seem immediately to match their beliefs.

The internet isn’t going away.  We need to learn how to use it educationally, with good means of assessing learning without buying the hype of vendors.  At the same time, I’m solicitous for the leisure of slow, thoughtful reflection, for young people.  How else will they become wise?

Two-tiered Witness?

Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians has been holding me for weeks.  I’ve blogged already about Paul’s vulnerable, transparent witness: “You are our letters of commendation,” he says to the Corinthians (chapter 3).  Paul has no structural, organizational props for his ministry, just the effective witness of a life lived before others that he can point to it and say, “See here?  This [my life] is visible proof of God’s transforming work.”  I like it.  Or do I?

Then I read chapter 6: “We have commended [there's that word again] ourselves in every way…” and then a long list of sufferings: “through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,beatings, imprisonments,” and on and on.  Now, I’m not liking it.

Which prompted this thought: is there a qualitative difference between the witness of “regular” Christians and people called to full-time ministry and then, by extension, even more so for people in apostolic-like ministries of the sort that Paul had?  My question is too long, so let me try again.  Is there one set of witness/lifestyle expectations for regular Christians and another set for people in full-time ministry?

The standard Protestant answer is no.  We like to tout the priesthood of all believers, which I believe myself.  But then I start thinking about how a middle-class American guy with a wife and kids and job and other such commitments reads and hears Paul’s testimony.  What is God’s Word for that guy when he reads 2 Corinthians 6?  By the way, we evangelicals love 2 Cor. 6:2, “…now is the acceptable time [for salvation].”  It really preaches well in evangelistic settings.  But immediately following is this “commendation.”  Paul is challenging the Corinthians: “Look at my life.”  So, “now is the day of salvation” is connected to “look at my life.”

Maybe that is it.  Maybe the key is, “Look at my life.”  I live within a particular set of circumstances.  Am I a transparent Christian there, in that context?  Paul’s calling was his and mine is mine.  Different time, different circumstances, different callings.  Of course, it is true.  But then I start to worry a little that I am too-easily letting myself off the hook.  I’m not an apostle, after all.  I’m just a regular Christian.  God doesn’t expect that sort of witness from me.  Or you.

What did we just do to our reading of the Bible?  On the one hand, we should read carefully and not just woodenly lift “life principles” out of the text in some mechanistic way.  On the other hand, I’m concerned about how the trajectory of this sort of “interpretation” always seems to soften the call.

I think, in practical ways, we do have a two-tiered witness among even Protestant Christians.  We love reading about the Jim Elliotts and the Amy Carmichaels.  We are inspired by their passion for the Kingdom of God and their sacrificial commitments.  But…we wouldn’t do it ourselves.  So, when we read Paul talking about his sufferings, do we blunt God’s Word  to us by putting Paul in a different category?  He’s an apostle and we’re just regular Christians, after all.

Is there a de facto two-tiered witness among all Christians?  Is it OK that there is such, if there is?

New Job, New Challenges

Among the requisite qualities for my new job as SMU Chaplain, I find these three: (1) passionate commitment to Christ, (2) strong United Methodist identity and (3) openness to people of other faiths.  The third point is particularly important because of the number of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other students.  I am eagerly looking forward to getting acquainted with them, but I am also aware of the tension in the aforementioned job requirements.

One might reasonably ask, “How can you be passionately committed to Christ and be open to other faith expressions?”  Part of the way one would answer that question depends on how one defines “open.”

Some religious beliefs have universal implications, meaning that if I believe ‘A,’ then by believing ‘A’ I cannot coherently believe ‘B.’  I think the belief in God as Trinity and the Incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus of Nazareth fit this logic, which prevents me from believing certain other beliefs about God and Jesus.

Drawing these conclusions, how, then, do I “be open” to other faith expressions?  When we lived in the Chicago area during graduate school days, our next door neighbors to one side were Chinese Buddhists and our neighbors on the other were Jewish.  They were our friends.  Period.  Did we talk about Jesus?  Yes.  Did we manipulate conversations and twist and turn them in order to “witness”  about Jesus?  Absolutely not.  You don’t treat friends that way.

Part of faithful Christian witness is the appropriate use of power inherent in relationshps.  We are both powerful and vulnerable in real relationshps.  We can uplift or harm others and they can do the same.  In addition to my beliefs about Jesus, I have other beliefs (that come from Jesus), about how to treat people.

In the sermon, “On Living Without God,” Mr. Wesley has the following to say (Warning: it’s a long quote in 18th century idiom):  ”Let it now be observed that I…have no authority from the word of God ‘to judge those that are without [i.e. outside Christianity];’ nor do I conceive that any man living has a right to sentence all the heathen and Mahometan world to damnation.  It is far better to leave them to Him that made them, and who is ‘the Father of the spirits of all flesh;’ who is the God of the Heathens as well as the Christians, and who hateth nothing that He hath made.”

My translation: It’s God’s job to judge, not mine (thank God!).  God made all people, so we can leave the sorting out of people’s eternal destinies to God.  Since God made all people, God loves all people. Furthermore, Jesus commands us to love our neighbors.  Hopefullly, I embody the love of Jesus for all to see.  When I am given the opportunity to talk about my faith in Christ, I will do so with clarity, passion and gentleness.

In other words, I am not a pluralist.  I’m not interested in “blending” or matching doctrines from diverse religions for the sake of peace.  This approach demeans the integrity of all religions.  As a passionately committed believer in the Triune God, then, I am eager to undertake my responsibility to welcome people of other faiths, to make sure they have all appropriate means to exercise that faith as they see fit and to learn from them as God continues to work, however mysteriously,  in us all.

There is much more to say on this matter, I know.  I’ll keep thinking about how I should say it.

God’s Wrath: An Argument by Analogy

Not far from where I live is a nationwide (I think) drive-in, no appointment necessary, oil-change business.  I regularly drive and jog by this place and have even succumbed to having my vehicle serviced there, on desperate occasions.  

Every day, employees stand out in front, holding a sign that proclaims oil changes for $19.99 and beckoning people to stop for service.  It’s the classic bait-and-switch. The parameters under which one can actually get an oil change for that price are so narrow as to be virtually impossible.  But, hey, they got you in the door.

Worse, once they’ve captured you, they try to sell you stuff you don’t need. I’ve always serviced my own vehicles, but, as I said, occasionally, I’m desperate and too busy to do it myself.  One time I was in this store getting the “$19.99″ service job that actually cost me $35 and change and, during the ordeal, the service manager came into the waiting room to tell me that I needed new windshield wipers.  I couldn’t believe it.  He did not bat an eye when I informed him that those wipers were brand new because I had changed them myself two weeks earlier.  He had moxy, I’ll give him that.  As you might imagine, I have not frequented this place of business in a long, long time. 

When I jog or drive by this place and see the poor employees standing out in the heat or the cold, I feel genuinely sorry for them.  They need the job.  I feel for them, but I still withhold my business.

Which makes me think of God’s wrath.  Maybe there is an analogy here, even though, admittedly, my little scenario is trivial.  It points to an important truth.  A merciful/just God eventually withholds benefit in the face of persistent injustice in order to bring about change.  It’s not a passive inactivity.  It is an active withtholding of blessing; God’s wrath revealed against all unrighteousness…     

I think this point important for two reasons.  First, I work with students who often exhibit the attitude that their actions (or lack thereof) deserve no untoward consequence.  It’s easy to dismiss their assumption that they’ll get a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th chance on the basis of the immaturity of adolescence, but the truth is, humanity suffers from this disease, especially American humanity.  Within the church the sappiest of notions of divine love prevails, a view in which God’s love always trumps God’s wrath.  

Partly, I admit, we think this way because some Christian leaders have overworked and distorted the impact of God’s wrath.  I for one don’t want to go around consigning people to the outer darkness.  That said, our shallowness on this point is truly shocking.  Maybe our society is caught in the arrested development of perpetual adolescence.

Secondly,  this analogy bespeaks the real emotions of God who loves the world and suffers its waywardness.  As I mentioned, I genuinely feel for the guys who work in that oil-change shop.  I wish them well.  But I don’t take my business there.  Does God genuinely feel the world’s pain while at the same time withholding blessing because of our sin?    

If so, those of us who are Christian leaders ought to help people grapple a little more seriously with their own sinfulness.  Instead of noticing the sin in “the other” we ought to consider our ways in light of God’s nature.  This is theology at its most practical: helping people think about God so that they can walk in faith and obedience.

From One Heart to Another

In 2 Corinthians, Paul is put in the position of defending his ministry.  ”Are we beginning to commend ourselves?” he asks the Corinthians.  ”You are our letters [of commendation],” he reminds them.  Paul’s “defense” of the authenticity of his work is the strong, open, vulnerable witness he has lived amont these people.  ”We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves…” (4:2)  

The open statement of the truth is delivered by means of a transparent witness, by the work of Christ in the hearts of the ministers.  Paul says that the light of God has “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,” (4:6)  This treasure is carried about in jars of clay, so that the glory may redound to God and not to the vessel (4:7).  

The Gospel goes from one heart to another.  The transparent witness of one Christ-follower lights up the knowledge of God in another person.  Grace “extends to more and more people…” (4:15)  

I’m struck by the lack of standard supports for ministerial authority in Paul’s situation.  I just re-read John Wesley’s sermon entitled, “The Ministerial Office,” which serves as an apologia for Methodism and an exhortation for Methodists to keep to their station.  He upholds lay preaching, for example, but he criticizes Methodist preachers for trying to administer the sacraments.  The purpose of lay preaching was evangelism, which does not need the standard support of ordination.  The purpose of Methodism was spiritual renewal – for the light and love of Jesus Christ to shine in the hearts of Methodists so that others could see the glory of God.  

I find here an irreducible core to Christian ministry.  Ultimately, ministry is not training or skill, though both are crucially important.  Ministry is heart to heart, whether lay or ordained.  In some fundamental sense, ministry is nothing more than witness.  And “witness” means that something is happening to me, to my heart, which becomes visible in my actions.

I don’t know about you, but as United Methodist annual conferences meet and tally the votes on the Constitutional amendments, these thoughts keep me oriented.  I am not pitting “heart” against external, organizational matters, as if the organization does not matter.  It does.  And people in favor of and against the structual changes care deeply about mission.  

But the ground of confidence in Methodism or any other church or movement ultimately is not in the structures.  It is not in the various kinds of standard supports we build to enhance the organization’s effectiveness.  The ground of our confidence lies in the glory of God shining in our faces; the grace of Christ extending to more and more people; the treasure of the Gospel embodied in these earthen vessels.  

I take comfort in these thoughts.  When I had to vote at annual conference last week, I struggled with the pros and cons of opinions about the amendments.  I voted my conscience.  At the end of the day, however, no matter how the structure changes or remains the same,  the Gospel still goes from one heart to another.   I need always to remember this one thing.

Where the Action Is?

Occasionally I hear someone mention what has become a commonplace about ministry: let’s find where the Holy Spirit is at work and work there as well.  It reminds me of a song from the sixties, or perhaps the seventies, a song about going where the action is.  

I enthusiastically agree with this sentiment.  It has affinities with Lesslie Newbigin’s writings on the missio Dei and is a good reminder that we in ministry follow the lead of the Master, rather than a corporate (or other) marketing plan.  I’m not criticizing marketing plans either, just trying to get at what I think is a crucial and quite controversial idea.

For s0me time, I’ve been reading a sermon of John Wesley as part of my morning prayers and reflection.  Today I read “On God’s Vineyard.”  If you want a good summary of what Wesley thinks about Methodist doctrine, read the first section.  As we prepare for our annual conference business, particularly the constitutional amendments, I wish we all would read it.  But annual conference is not my business this morning.

One part of the sermon caught my eye and put me on a certain flight of fancy that I have been having for awhile.  Wesley writes,  ”Many sinners were thoroughly convinced of sin, and many truly converted to God.  Their assistants increased [i.e. the assistants to the Wesley brothers], both in number, and in the success of their labours.  Some of them learned: some unlearned.  Many of them were young...” (emphasis added).  Young preachers.  Young leaders of the movement.

Conventional wisdom says that being the senior pastor is where the real action is.  If you’re not the pastor, but a staff member, say a youth director, then you’re a little bit out of the real action.  It is not uncommon that youth directors with strong pastoral gifts are encouraged to “grow out of” youth ministry into something closer to the real action.  It may be changing, but it used to be fairly common that people who are not very good at being pastors were appointed to campus ministries.  

But what if the real, apostolic, missional action is among the young?  What if we flipped conventional wisdom on its head?    

Those of us who work with young people have been watching a trend.  Most young people who feel called to ministry do not want to pastor already-established congregations.  They want to start their own churches or go into some other kind of ministry instead of the local congregation.  

We’re talking in United Methodism all the time about starting new churches.  What if the youth group in one’s own congregation was seen as the new church start?  I’m not playing semantic games.  What if the youth director were part of a new apostolic generation?  

I’m not necessarily saying that people my age and up are not “where the action is.”  But it is a sad truth that many congregations are controlled by people who treat the church as if it were their own religious club.  The label “United Methodist” may be on the sign or above the door, but little of the lifeblood of Methodism flows through its veins.  

A significant factor in the growth of Methodism historically has to do with the calling and nurture of the young.  Young people took ownership and leadership.   John Wesley understood this critical point.   Those of us who are no longer young would do well to pay attention.

The Double-Edged Nature of Denominational Control

So, here is how things stand in United Methodist world:

1.  People are still weighing in on the video wars between Bishop Scott Jones and Maxie Dunnam, et. al., on the “worldwide nature of the church” amendments.  Good News’ “Perspective” has provided the relevant links, including the Reconciling Ministries Network’s contribution.  Despite Jones’ plain assertion that homosexuality is not an issue that would be left to regional conferences, a significant number of commenters on these various sites are suspicious that it will.  

2.  The United Methodist Judicial Council has ruled recently (UM New Service, April 27) that clergy may not perform same gender marriages even in States where such marriages are now legal.   There was one dissenting voice on the Council.  The decision overturned a ruling from the California-Pacific Conference and Bishop Mary Ann Sweson, who argued that clergy have “pastoral and prophetic authority” in such matters.    

We are fighting for control of an organization, albeit an important and beloved one.  Americans are good at fighting for control.    

At the local level, long-time church members are paradoxically dependent on the pastor for some things and determined to control the pastor and the rest of the church in others.  Worship is still the biggest bone of contention, but there are others.  The people who give the money think they ought to get to call the shots.

At the general church level, well, we know what the control issues are.  

Control per se is not at all a bad thing.  I often tell people in ministry that there is a direct link between responsibility and authority.  If one is responsible for some program or task, then one needs proportional authority to make sure things are done well.  There’s almost nothing worse in ministry than being responsible for something that you don’t (and can’t) control.  

We fight for control because we feel strongly about and seek to uphold certain values.  Control is secondary, perhaps, to those values, but when the future of the organization is involved, people who love the organization will fight for control.  This is what is happening in United Methodism and there’s nothing new here, only the issues are different from earlier times.  

Whereas I understand that people who are invested in and committed to the organization are advocating for legitimate concerns in our control struggles, I’m worried about how often we wind up looking a lot more like the world than the Kingdom of God.  We need some collective self-awareness: while we are fighting about how to organize the UM Church, non-Christians are watching and, I think, surely wondering, “Why in the world would I want to join something like that?” 

Even if we are kind to one another in our denominational arguing, we are still fighting about control.  And people notice.  We are dealing with far more than “upholding biblical values” or “making sure that ‘all’ really means ‘all.’”  The struggle for control tempts us to reduce complex matters to quick, easy summaries (yes, “sound bites”).  Christians should never make decisions this way – about anything.

A Follow-Up to Duct Tape

I’m still trying to untangle my tangled thoughts about United Methodism, denominational controversies, and real Christian witness.  ”Real Christian” was a term John Wesley used fairly often, as noted by Ken Collins in his biography of Wesley by that name.  I want to be a real Christian.

As well, I want to be a loyal United Methodist Christian.  I’m a committed Wesleyan.  I think doctrine matters.  I think life flows from shared vision and that vision is shaped by sound doctrine.  There’s a mysterious interchange at work in these ideas, motives and practices.  I don’t want to be a something else other than United Methodist.

I also don’t want to confuse witnessing for Jesus and the Kingdom with getting the right structure in place.  I’m thus torn.  I know Maxie Dunnam’s witness, as well as Eddie Fox’s.  I’ve heard them preach.  I’ve read their books.  They are men of God.  I trust their perspectives.  

What I don’t think I share with them is a commitment to keeping a certain set of structures in place, structures that supposedly act as proper boundaries for the church’s witness.  I think ideological boundaries have been breached already, even though the structural boundaries are in place.  So, how do I witness to Christ in a denomination that is badly divided?    

These thoughts prompt me to ponder how to be a real Christian without any institutional power.  Can I, by my transparent witness, embody and speak the truth as it is in Jesus without recourse to denominational levers?  Can we?  

I know that we need structures.  Every group has to be organized.  I just don’t want to confuse upholding certain structures with faithful witness.  Structures support faithful witness, to be sure, but I’m afraid that too many people will somehow feel as if we’ve been faithful to Jesus by making sure we vote the right way on constutional amendments.