Saturday, January 20, 2007

UMC should clean house

Rev. Mark Schaefer, in his sermon-containing blog, daydreams about the United Methodist Church swooping down on American University, dissolving the board of trustees and just starting over.

His sermon, "Grapes and Vineyards", starts out with that musing. But the musing points out the denomination-owned aspect to many Methodist properties.

... Something to think about ... but it assumes that the denomination administrative structure has the "cure". It sometime seems that the administrative structure makes secular decisions when spiritual ones are needed.

We seem to have an undue emphasis on protecting the "job security" and "pay" of clergy. The UMC denomination leadership sometimes appears concerned more about district, conference, and denomination politics than members themselves. Maybe if we were all concerned more about the spiritual health and needs of congregations and their surrounding communities, we'd be growing in numbers as we grew in faith and saved souls.

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