Sky McCracken

Search This Blog

Vacation Bible School - Night Four

July 25, 2009

Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Google+
Email
Other Apps

Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Google+
Email
Other Apps

Comments

Inventing/Re-Inventing/ReRe-Inventing Orthodoxy: It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

My beloved United Methodist Church finds itself at a "place" that many other Christian movements, denominations, etc., have found itself at sometime or another (or even before): where shall we draw the line? To be sure, Methodists are no strangers to this; we've split, come together, and merged before.

So has Christianity. Many, many times. As shown below, splitting off to form another church/communion/denomination/movement is nothing new. It seems like every time there was an ecumenical council, the church split. And split. And split. And then there was the Big Split of 1054. And then another REALLY Big Split of 1517 (Protestant Reformation). And then in 1532 (beginnings of the Anglican Communion). And so on. And so forth.

The church that I presently serve is an awesome, awesome church. It made the decision years ago to remain downtown rather than move to the suburbs, because we believe there is much to be done here. Our church also has much history to it: we were the h…

New Staff Roles - Being Church In a Rapidly-Changing World

Beloved Jackson First UMC folks:

The Lord be with you.

I am sure the staffing changes at the church are filtering down to Sunday school classes, coffee shops, golf foursomes, and other groups across the church. With that, I am sure that there are questions about who will be doing what, why is this happening, and what does this mean? Here are some (beginning) answers:

1. Who will be doing what? It's a great question. The quick answer is: we're working on it! Our next few staff meetings, along with working with the staff-parish relations committee, are to address this questions. One of the things that we're sure of as we've worked and prayed for months about this: the Spirit is nudging us to move from being a staff-driven church to a Christ-driven church.

2. Why is this happening? We are encountering the same realities that many Christian churches are: a diminishing congregation, a more secular country, and a culture that is less friendly to the institutional church. Sunda…

A Pastor By Any Other Name

Earlier today, I entered a status update on Facebook: "[Attending] Paducah District Part-Time Local Pastor's Breakfast — at Massac United Methodist Church." And I ask the forgiveness of all for such an update.

A friend of mine sent me a message, "Doesn't it bother you to participate in an institutional caste system, which segregates people into laity, clergy, part-time local pastors, probationers ... yada, yada, yada?.. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Jesus washed his disciples feet and said the last shall be first."

He's absolutely correct. How horrible of me to call some of the most faithful pastors in the world, "part-time, local pastors." I apologize.

The United Methodist Church has one of the strangest theologies (or lack of theology) where ordination and clergy are concerned. We have various levels/classifications of clergy that confuse everyone and confound any kind of theology of ordination. We have elders who are orda…

Powered by Blogger