Revival Without Pastors

Those who know me know that I am a big fan of the movement of Methodism.  I have come to believe that the decline and issues facing the United Methodist Church currently are rooted in forgetting or de-centering a core Methodist identity.  Elsewhere I have written about a catholic spirit being central to Methodism, which is clearly missing nowadays, but also central to the spirit of the movement are spiritual growth accountability through class groups, the consistent use and practice of the means of grace/spiritual disciplines, the three general rules (Do no harm, Do good, Attend to the ordinances of God), and evangelism.  Theologically speaking, free grace and Christian perfection/sanctifying grace were central.  All of these were aimed at reviving Christianity and Christians generally.  You can be holy as promised by Jesus; you can know and be God's love; you can be filled with the Holy Spirit; you can spread God's love.  The revival worked: people were slain in the Spirit, the movement grew.  It is my passionate belief that the same revival can happen again, that the people called Methodist and our special purpose to spread scriptural holiness across every land and across denominations can again live and thrive.  It is also my belief that, aside from the obviously spiritual practices and concentrations necessary, we can return to reviving with one simple practical solution: increase lay responsibility, potentially and probably without pastors.

First I want to call to mind Randy Maddox's apt description of John Wesley's theological and practical system: responsible grace.  Maddox rightly and well centers all of Wesley's theological program, which drove the Methodist movement, into those two simple words.  We humans are responsible for responding to God's free, infinite, powerful, and loving grace.  God's grace will save us, but without our responding, God will not save us, and it is by grace itself that we are even able to respond.  And by 'save,' Wesley means that not only will God's grace justify/forgive us for a life in heaven but also, and possibly primarily, God's grace will transform us into the people we are created to be, full of God's love and spirit here and now.  The essential point, though, is that each person must take up the responsibility of responding to and with grace.   Each and every one of God's children is called into relationship with God; each and every one of God's children is called into discipleship with Jesus.  God's grace is not merely free, and therefore cheap, but also places responsibility upon us.

The beginning of the Methodist movement clearly exhibits how that responsible grace frames a person's and community's life.  To join a Methodist society (partly because Methodists were not at first their own denomination, people did not join a Methodist church, per se, but a society), a person had to agree to abide by the three general rules, listed above.  Each general rule had its own specific guiding principles and actions, including drunkenness and uncharitable conversation under the first rule; feeding the hungry and visiting the sick and imprisoned under the second rule; prayer and fasting under the third rule.  Then, a person was expected to be held accountable to that spiritual striving, to "continue to evidence their desire of salvation," by attending a class meeting at least once a week--if not also attending a band meeting, or group confession, once a week--to answer the question, "How is it with your soul?" and how the person is doing regarding the three rules.  By no means were these class meetings intended to be enforcement of rules.  Rather, the class meetings were intended to prayerfully support each person in attaining to the promises of Christ.  Indeed, each person could become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, we can partake of the divine nature, we can have the mind that was in Christ, as God's Word tells us.  This is not a perfection that rules out mistakes, but Christian perfection: having the same love of God and neighbor that Jesus had and has.  Methodists believed that those promises of Christ were and are attainable through grace, and so responsibly joined together to mutually strive. 

All of the above functioned without clergy present.  A society didn't need a clergy person to respond to God's grace.  One of the actions listed under "do good" is to exhort to any we encounter, so even evangelism and teaching occurred without a pastor.  Local preachers from each church were licensed, sometimes up to a dozen, so that preaching would still be powerful without the pastor present.  The pastor, clergy, was only seen once a month, or less frequently, to address any major issues the society may have and to administer the sacraments.  When the pastor was around, he would certainly preach, often to the non-Methodists, but such preaching was already frequently happening.  Without the ordained pastor playing a major role in the church, each person took up the responsibility of living into and spreading the good news, of ordering the life of the church, creating and performing and leading the church's ministries, and supporting one another through prayer, visitation, and accountability. 

With each person taking up responsibility of living into a revived faith, taking the assurances and promises of Jesus seriously, the revival movement of Methodism grew at a startling rate even while it challenged society's status quo, attacking the evil of slavery and laying up treasure on earth, both explicitly listed in the general rules. 

It must be said that the greatest role ordained pastors played in the growth of the movement was in evangelism.  Spreading the good news was done by every Methodist, surely, but pastors were instrumental.  Methodists were at the heart of the original evangelical movement--spreading the good news of Christ Jesus.  For Methodists and all the original evangelicals, that meant addressing temporal, societal reforms that might benefit people in hearing the good news.  Pastors were pivotal in leading the charge against slavery, forming schools for the poor and women and African-Americans, and advocating for equality.  Pastors were also mainly crucial in spreading a revived form of Christianity, called Methodism.  Methodist societies cropped up because pastors preached in new lands.  We could say that pastors at the beginning of the movement were forming what we now call 'new church starts.'  Stories abound of Methodist pastors entering a community full of dead or non-Christians and forming Methodist societies and classes.  There are also plenty of stories of Methodist pastors having to re-evangelize Methodist societies as they were falling back into their old status quo, of wanting peace and security while laying up treasure on earth and owning slaves. 

There can be no doubt that ordained pastors were critical in the growth of Methodism, but foundational to pastors' role was the ability and expectation to be itinerant, to move around.  If pastors were not itinerant, they could not form new societies.  More than that, if pastors were not itinerant, they could not have the same authority in re-evangelizing and reviving already formed societies.  Any pastor can tell you that when their church needs to hear some hard words, it's best to bring in a consultant, someone from outside.  An outsider is better positioned to tell a church that they need to shape up and reform.  Itinerating Methodist pastors had a circuit, so you'd likely see the same clergy a few times within a year, but you couldn't rely on that pastor being present for long.  Additionally, pastors' circuits were often changed after a couple of years.  Essentially, then, Methodist pastors remained outsiders, and so could more easily maintain an authority of accountability to the reviving of responsible grace.

Today, the United Methodist Church has retained much of the original language of having local licensed preachers, lay servants, and the like, but much has changed.  We live in a church that has drawn its ancestry from a later date than the thriving, reviving days of our beginning.  Our family tree now dates back to when Methodists compromised themselves, allowing slaveholding, seeking treasure on earth, seeking peace and security, seeking establishment.  Once we were established, we wanted our own pastors for our own church, and we wanted them to stay for longer than a year or two.  It was then we began to see class meeting attendance, licenses for local preachers, and overall responsibility of lay persons all drop.  No longer were individual Christians responsible for the functioning of the church, its ministries and evangelism, and indeed no longer were individual Christians responsible for their own living into the good news.  The pastor became mostly responsible.  Once the pastor becomes responsible for the functioning of the church, its ministries and evangelism, the person in the pews need then only profess faith.  The general rules, spiritual disciplines, pastoral ministry, preaching and exhorting, evangelizing, and being held accountable and supported in any of that now all fits under the category of 'bonus.'  This is our ancestry.

Unfortunately, the necessary consequence of placing responsibility for responding to grace on the pastor is that revival becomes replaced by survival.  We become more concerned that our church grows and builds fancy buildings.  Whether parents are bringing their kids to Sunday School is the main concern.  When in trouble a church asks how it can avoid closing.  Revival, on the other hand, concerns itself with people's hearts in and out of the church, and whether the love of God is blossoming.  The danger of having a pastor should be clear.

How do we reverse our ancestral trend and return to the business of reviving?  First, we need to re-discover our purpose and core identity as Methodists.  We have been called up by God to spread and live into scriptural holiness, the promises of Christ.  That should be our primary goal.  Then, in the process, a practical solution should make itself obvious: to re-orient our pastors' relationship to the church, and our relationship to our pastors.  We should not lay claim to or rely on our pastors.

Let me say clearly that we should not rearrange pastoral appointments just for the sake of doing so and thereby hope that growth will follow.  No.  Rearranging and re-orienting our pastors' relationship to the church and our relationship to our pastors is meant to again place responsibility for responding to God's grace on each and every disciple of Christ.  With or without a pastor we should be capable of striving together and living into the promises of Jesus and running our church fellowship.  We should be, and are, capable because God's grace is available to all and God has given us the means and model by which we can mutually fulfill the call of discipleship.  It is therefore good and right for any church, regardless of denominational affiliation, to put their relationship to the pastor in proper perspective.  Revival occurs when a church does not lay claim to or rely on a clergy person.  At the very least the doors to revival can swing wide when each individual in the church takes up their responsibility.

For the sake of revival, I am therefore convinced that the UMC should change how it appoints pastors so that our churches can stop laying claim to and relying on its pastors.  We should do so before such a change may become practically necessary.  In all things we should be driven by reviving the spirits of our brothers and sisters.  However, my proposal would also save churches money that can then, hopefully, be used in revitalizing ministry.

I propose that ordained or provisionally ordained pastors be again appointed to circuits of eight to ten churches, with a parsonage in a central location if possible.  The cost of the pastor and parsonage would then be split eight to ten ways.  Any church within the circuit that previously owned a parsonage that is not chosen as the central parsonage could then sell the house and invest in radical, long-term ministry. 

Every week, the pastor would focus on one of the churches, to address issues, attend meetings, and preach and lead worship and administer the sacraments.  Ideally, the pastor would use the same sermon, as long as it applies, throughout each pass of the circuit so that, during the week, the pastor can also be engaged in the wider community.  I would then encourage a couple of weeks be taken after each pass of the circuit to address other duties: planning and writing the next sermon, forming new pockets of Methodism within the bounds of the circuit (same as engaging in the wider community of the churches, but a week concentrating on doing so), and any other administrative or district/conference duties. 

For my idea to work, each church would not only need to take up what are now considered pastoral responsibilities, like worship, visitation, and leadership, but also would need to raise up a local preacher or two or three.  These local preachers would ideally come from the congregation itself.  If not, the local preacher could move to or close to the congregation in order to be part of the church society.  The church could pay the local preacher/s a small dividend, equivalent perhaps to a 1/4 time pastor.  That way, on the whole churches are still paying far less for their preacher and pastor than they do now for a pastor, and our local preachers would fit the original model that maintains church-wide and individual responsibility and revitalization. 

Of course, ideally class (and band) meetings would naturally arise again, as well.  Since there would no longer be a pastor able to visit and check in with folks on spiritual and physical needs, members of the church would have to do that work.  It is not reasonable to put all of that burden on one or two leaders, so it would be best to have class meetings where everyone in the group can check in how folks within the group are doing spiritually and what guidance they may need, and the class leaders would visit anyone within the group in the hospital.  These class meetings could then be the seed of new ministry or evangelism projects.

From personal experience, I can say that something like this model is already what most revitalizes a church.  The ministries and work of a church that bear the most fruit and engender the most passion, the visits that carry the most meaning, are those brainstormed, led, and performed by lay members with little to no involvement from the current pastor.  Whether my proposal ever latches on anywhere or not, it is therefore my hope and prayer that Methodists and Methodist churches realize the need to re-orient our pastors' relationship to the church, and our relationship to our pastors.  Personal and collective revival can be on the horizon if we again find some useful model and means of being similar to the one I propose.