Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503240076
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's a good mouthful. Sounds very '90s, too. Consensus is the buzzword for all kinds of quality enhancement programs that stress the empowerment of workers, group decision-making and decentralization of management authority.
As might have been predicted, it's now come to the church.
A division of the United Methodist Church's Board of Discipleship, which publishes the inspirational booklet "The Upper Room," has adopted the approach and is promoting it in a network of 200 churches.
The idea is that "an issue is discussed, shaped and reshaped until there is agreement that God's will is incorporated in it," according to United Methodist News Service.
Addressing "the God question" is a "new approach ... to make decisions about ministry," according to the news service.
Actually, a couple of paragraphs later, the writer acknowledges that seeking God's will - or spiritual discernment - is as old as the Bible, cited in at least 54 passages of the Old and New Testaments, according to the Rev. Danny Morris, director of developing ministries for Upper Room.
So, it is an old approach.
Among the techniques Morris describes as beneficial for perceiving God's will: reading Scripture, meditating silently, praying and listening "to each other and to the voice of God."
I'm afraid the simple fact that the United Methodist Church feels compelled to teach those techniques afresh says something about the spiritual condition of the denomination.
In thousands and thousands of churches, no decisions are ever made without consulting Scripture, cloaking meetings in prayer and listening for the voice of God. Some of those are even United Methodist congregations.
The need for the lessons in "spiritual discernment" leaves one to wonder, though, if that is not the exception rather than the rule in United Methodist congregations.
United Methodism, like many of its so-called mainline or old-line sisters - among them Episcopalians and Presbyterians - are fighting an uphill battle to stop membership losses and become relevant to 1990s Americans.
Stressing a spiritually charged approach to decision making in the local - and national - church is one way to do that.
Openly spiritual deliberation - calling on God and referring to Holy Scripture for guidance - is one of the factors that apparently is drawing new members to theologically conservative churches while their more liberal counterparts experience no growth or actual losses.
There is no reason, of course, that a theologically liberal congregation wouldn't want to invoke the name and word of God - unless its liberalism has extended to the point of denying the authority of the Bible or the existence of the Creator.
Some would say that is just what has happened in many old-line congregations, though my experience doesn't support that. There are, certainly, some supposedly Christian congregations in which it does seem that God and Jesus Christ play a relatively small role. Most of them aren't doing very well.
There probably are far more where the spiritual core of their faith has not been rejected, only neglected. That seems to be what Morris and his Methodist colleagues are striving to reinvigorate.
Hazards abound, however. Is consensus always a reliable indicator of a "right" decision? Can God be silent on an issue? What if there are opposing discernments? What is truth?
There are some historical issues that are difficult to imagine having been resolved by consensus. The Reformation may have achieved some level of consensus, but it left Christianity split so decisively that no one ever expects it to be rejoined. Dietrich Bonhoeffer might never have spoken out about the injustice and evil of Nazi rule if he had waited for consensus against it in his native Germany. John Wesley would never have acted on his conversion experience and founded a following of "methodical" Christians if he had sought consensus before reacting to an individual encounter with God.
Despite those nagging questions and concerns, it seems mighty healthy for a Christian church to say "maybe it's time to ask God."
by CNB