The Wilderness Way #37

We wrestled for a long time with what to do. The church I was honored to pastor was hemmed in on 2.5 acres. Rapid growth, missional outreach, conversion, mercy and justice ministries were all being hampered by lack of space. We tried to buy adjacent land. We worked with the city to pay for nearby parking. All these efforts were to no avail. Finally, at the end of our ideas, we prayed. A major piece of land about 1 mile away opened up for purchase at a bankruptcy price. I can still vividly recall the members of our first (charter!) Sunday school class reporting to the congregation as a whole (through one of the people who set up chairs for the first worship service Asbury United Methodist Church in Corpus Christi ever had), “this is an answer to prayer.” The Holy Spirit was working in our life as a church. The courage of the class and church was evident in their willingness to listen to the Spirit’s guidance over their preferences.

I have argued in recent Wilderness Ways that a critical aspect to living in the wilderness of our time for Christians is to recover what might be called a robust and unapologetically orthodox (which is not all the same as what might be called politically conservative or fundamentalist) theology. Theologically, we have been living an Exodus 14:3 existence. “Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, ‘They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has closed in on them.’”[1] The wilderness has closed in on us. Our religious expression has thinned to the point that many are asking, “Why bother?” A robust and refreshed orthodoxy is a gift of the Holy Spirit we must grab hold of. I have further argued that two central elements of this conviction are the need for a high Christology and deeply active sense of the presence of God.

A sense of the active presence of God is one way of talking about a rediscovery of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. For those on the Wilderness Way,a starting place might well be Exodus 14. As the wilderness closed in on the people fleeing before Pharaoh’s army God opened a way through the sea! Another image is the one offered on Pentecost day to the infant Christian movement. “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”[2] Thus the third crucial element of a Wilderness Way theology is to recover a doctrine and practice of the Holy Spirit.

The Wesleyan branch of the Church Universal was at least in part birthed by John Wesley’s sense of the heart “strangely warmed” at Aldersgate. There is much to say about the Holy Spirit but whatever is to be said must start with a willingness to carefully, prayerfully, listen to and for the Spirit’s guidance. This is a fearful activity - even on good days - because the Spirit leads us in lands unknown. God has plans of his own. A major theological test of the Wilderness Way will be a recovery of the Spirit’s guidance in our lives and in the life of the church.

In The Mystic Way of Evangelism Dr. Elaine Heath records a conversation about prayer. “Prayer is like a journey through the wilderness,” Kim began. “You watch, you listen, you climb, you get tired and rest, sometimes you don’t know which way to go, sometimes it’s dark and foggy, and sometimes all you can do is weep at the beauty you find.”[3] Our Wilderness Way must be Spirit-led and guided by prayers as necessary as breathing itself.

Recently I was in a meeting with leaders of the Council of Bishops, the General Secretaries of the various United Methodist general church commissions and agencies, the Presidents (Chairs of the agency or commission’s board) of those agencies (some of whom are bishops), the four Focus Areas lead bishops (I hold the position for “New People in New Places and the Transformation of Existing Congregations – commonly referred to as Path1), and leadership from the Connectional Table. The purpose of the meeting was to examine potential reduction/realignment of general church agencies; coordinate budgeting and finances; examine the impact of the global nature of the church related to our current and possible future structures. One of the exercises we went through was an attempt to identify the various forces pressuring the church to change. We engaged in thoughtful reflection. Some common culprits were mentioned – the economy, the decline in membership, the change in church culture, the generational differences …the list went on. Someone brought up the Holy Spirit. We weren’t sure what to do with that insight.

On thinking back, it occurs to me that the Holy Spirit might be (in part) behind our current fiscal crisis. (Stay with me for a moment, I am not blaming the lack of giving on the Holy Spirit. Greed as an attendant form of sin is still around!) I think the Spirit is using the economy and decline of the conventional mainline Christianity in America as a way to move us simultaneously to greater depths and new heights. The Holy Spirit is prodding us to become a faithful and fruitful post-Christendom church.

The descent of the Spirit at Pentecost came as a mighty blast or a tempest (NRSV = “violent wind”) never as a zephyr (a light gentle breeze). Just as the Bible says the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness[4] so too I think the Spirit is blowing among us demanding deep change. The alternative is slow death. The Spirit is about life! A vibrant orthodoxy will involve the theological recovery of a strong doctrine of the Holy Spirit. As we face a scary futureandtremendous flux, perhaps the best thing we can do is to rediscover the strength, protection, guidance and courage of the Holy Spirit active in our lives and in our churches.

[1] Exodus 14:3

[2] Acts 2:1-4

[3] Elaine A. Heath, The Mystic Way of Evangelism: A Contemplative Vision for Christian Outreach, p. 150

[4] Luke 4:1

By: Bishop Mike Lowry On 5/28/2010