All of the World and None of God
I’m sitting in my hotel room in Wildwood having just witnessed one of the most disgusting displays of hedonism I have ever seen, and it wasn’t on the boardwalk. It was in the convention center, and it was the Service of Ordination for the Greater New Jersey United Methodist Church.
We meet here in Wildwood, as we have every year since I was appointed to my two churches in Salem County, for our Annual Conference. We used to meet from Wednesday to Saturday. I liked those years. It felt like we accomplished a lot. Wednesday was a time of gathering, of our Clergy Executive Session. Wednesday night was our Ordination Service for new Commissioned and Ordained Elders and Deacons (though Deacons was a fairly new thing at the time). Thursday and Friday we’d worship and we’d vote on matters pertaining to the church in New Jersey. Saturday we’d clean up any remaining matters and go home with a feeling of getting things done, the work of God for the people of God.
In 2015, the Obergefell decision was handed down, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. That same year I penned an appeal to our Bishop and to the clergy and laity at the Annual Conference who were voting on legislation that would effectively disobey the current Book of Discipline (2012) and allow our clergy not only to perform same-sex weddings but would also invite openly LGBTQ+ members to submit themselves to candidacy for ordination as Elders. I wrote a heartfelt appeal that called on us as a Conference to stand on scripture and the doctrine of the church, to submit to the current language in the discipline.
The vote was close - so close that it had to be counted by hand. In the end, by the slimmest of margins, all four legislative pieces were passed, and we left the convention center in silence. It was the first time I had felt betrayed by the church. It would not be the last.
Through Covid we met online in Zoom sessions. Worship online is horrible. We are not gathering as the body of Christ. We are apart and isolated. We can sing praises to God but it feels hollow without the body of Christ gathered. When we finally began to meet again in 2022, it was a breath of fresh air (no pun intended). And honestly, I felt hope again, that we were gathered as the body of Christ and doing the work of God.
But that was the year that the Global Methodist Church opened its doors to defecting congregations. Our Conference made it prohibitively difficult for congregations to leave, and only the largest and most financially secure were able to do so. In 2023 we voted on the disaffiliation of seven churches. Seven. This in a time when whole Annual Conferences were leaving in droves. Half of Texas. A quarter of Alabama. In all, 7,000 out of 30,000 churches left. And in New Jersey, it was seven.
This was not a victory, though it looked like one. It was an act of oppression.
Tonight we ordained ten new elders (two of whom had their orders transferred from Puerto Rico) and one new deacon. And the whole time I couldn’t help but feel like the service was a celebration of us. Not the worship of God Almighty, but a praise service to humanity, all of humanity. Draw the circle wide, we sang. You are a child of God; no matter what the world says about you, YOU are a child of God.
Our Bishop delivered a message based on 1 Peter 2:10. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
And he focused in with laser-like precision on that first phrase, but he said it like this: “Once you were no people.” He told a story about how he once wore a Buggs Bunny costume in Kindergarten and his teachers couldn’t recognize him, and they didn’t remember that they had a John Schol in their class. He said, have you ever felt that way? Like you were no people.
I mean, that’s not what the text is saying, John. It’s saying that once we were not a people, that we were all different and apart, but then the Holy Spirit drew us together in the body of Christ and we became the people of God.
And no, John, not everyone is a child of God. In fact, I just spent a month and a half preaching through 1 John. Chapter 3 and verses 9 and 10 says:
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
And John 1:12-13 says:
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
So we are not all children of God. But through Christ we can become children of God.
And that brings me to his other point. He said that the world gets these three things in the wrong order. First we become like them. Then we believe like them. Finally, we belong with them. But the Bishop said that is the wrong order, that first we make people belong with us, then they will believe what we believe, and then they will become like us.
It’s a terrible message. The gospel of Christ is that first we humble ourselves, repent and believe in him, and then we are saved from slavery to sin and death. And no sin is too great to be covered by the blood of Christ. Yes, we can all come as we are. But God doesn't leave us the same way. That’s the good news.
All throughout the proceedings it was just once celebration of US after another.
And one last thing that really bothered me.
Today is the Day of Pentecost, the day when Christians all around the world celebrate the birth of the church and the giving of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-21). There was not one mention of Pentecost today. Not. One. Oh, we clergy all wore white robes with red stoles (I have a red cincture; as a licensed local pastor I am not allowed to wear the stole of the Elder). And the Bishop told a story about a woman named Abigail who wore a red coat and was kicked out of another denomination’s church, and who found a home in the local Methodist Church instead. And later her granddaughter became the first woman to teach theology at a major Seminary (Georgia Harkness in 1939).
Not a mention of the Holy Spirit, in a denomination that was once condemned for its enthusiasm (infusion of the Spirit).
This is day one of a three day conference. I’ll continue to post my thoughts as we go along. I pray to God that He will be glorified in all things. I fear I may make a spectacle of myself.
S.D.G.
Oh and by the way, the title of this blog post is from a text message I sent to a pastor friend of mine at home. I texted him, "There is all of the world and none of God in this place. Every song a celebration of the great god of YOU."
We meet here in Wildwood, as we have every year since I was appointed to my two churches in Salem County, for our Annual Conference. We used to meet from Wednesday to Saturday. I liked those years. It felt like we accomplished a lot. Wednesday was a time of gathering, of our Clergy Executive Session. Wednesday night was our Ordination Service for new Commissioned and Ordained Elders and Deacons (though Deacons was a fairly new thing at the time). Thursday and Friday we’d worship and we’d vote on matters pertaining to the church in New Jersey. Saturday we’d clean up any remaining matters and go home with a feeling of getting things done, the work of God for the people of God.
In 2015, the Obergefell decision was handed down, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. That same year I penned an appeal to our Bishop and to the clergy and laity at the Annual Conference who were voting on legislation that would effectively disobey the current Book of Discipline (2012) and allow our clergy not only to perform same-sex weddings but would also invite openly LGBTQ+ members to submit themselves to candidacy for ordination as Elders. I wrote a heartfelt appeal that called on us as a Conference to stand on scripture and the doctrine of the church, to submit to the current language in the discipline.
The vote was close - so close that it had to be counted by hand. In the end, by the slimmest of margins, all four legislative pieces were passed, and we left the convention center in silence. It was the first time I had felt betrayed by the church. It would not be the last.
Through Covid we met online in Zoom sessions. Worship online is horrible. We are not gathering as the body of Christ. We are apart and isolated. We can sing praises to God but it feels hollow without the body of Christ gathered. When we finally began to meet again in 2022, it was a breath of fresh air (no pun intended). And honestly, I felt hope again, that we were gathered as the body of Christ and doing the work of God.
But that was the year that the Global Methodist Church opened its doors to defecting congregations. Our Conference made it prohibitively difficult for congregations to leave, and only the largest and most financially secure were able to do so. In 2023 we voted on the disaffiliation of seven churches. Seven. This in a time when whole Annual Conferences were leaving in droves. Half of Texas. A quarter of Alabama. In all, 7,000 out of 30,000 churches left. And in New Jersey, it was seven.
This was not a victory, though it looked like one. It was an act of oppression.
Tonight we ordained ten new elders (two of whom had their orders transferred from Puerto Rico) and one new deacon. And the whole time I couldn’t help but feel like the service was a celebration of us. Not the worship of God Almighty, but a praise service to humanity, all of humanity. Draw the circle wide, we sang. You are a child of God; no matter what the world says about you, YOU are a child of God.
Our Bishop delivered a message based on 1 Peter 2:10. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
And he focused in with laser-like precision on that first phrase, but he said it like this: “Once you were no people.” He told a story about how he once wore a Buggs Bunny costume in Kindergarten and his teachers couldn’t recognize him, and they didn’t remember that they had a John Schol in their class. He said, have you ever felt that way? Like you were no people.
I mean, that’s not what the text is saying, John. It’s saying that once we were not a people, that we were all different and apart, but then the Holy Spirit drew us together in the body of Christ and we became the people of God.
And no, John, not everyone is a child of God. In fact, I just spent a month and a half preaching through 1 John. Chapter 3 and verses 9 and 10 says:
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
And John 1:12-13 says:
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
So we are not all children of God. But through Christ we can become children of God.
And that brings me to his other point. He said that the world gets these three things in the wrong order. First we become like them. Then we believe like them. Finally, we belong with them. But the Bishop said that is the wrong order, that first we make people belong with us, then they will believe what we believe, and then they will become like us.
It’s a terrible message. The gospel of Christ is that first we humble ourselves, repent and believe in him, and then we are saved from slavery to sin and death. And no sin is too great to be covered by the blood of Christ. Yes, we can all come as we are. But God doesn't leave us the same way. That’s the good news.
All throughout the proceedings it was just once celebration of US after another.
And one last thing that really bothered me.
Today is the Day of Pentecost, the day when Christians all around the world celebrate the birth of the church and the giving of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-21). There was not one mention of Pentecost today. Not. One. Oh, we clergy all wore white robes with red stoles (I have a red cincture; as a licensed local pastor I am not allowed to wear the stole of the Elder). And the Bishop told a story about a woman named Abigail who wore a red coat and was kicked out of another denomination’s church, and who found a home in the local Methodist Church instead. And later her granddaughter became the first woman to teach theology at a major Seminary (Georgia Harkness in 1939).
Not a mention of the Holy Spirit, in a denomination that was once condemned for its enthusiasm (infusion of the Spirit).
This is day one of a three day conference. I’ll continue to post my thoughts as we go along. I pray to God that He will be glorified in all things. I fear I may make a spectacle of myself.
S.D.G.
Oh and by the way, the title of this blog post is from a text message I sent to a pastor friend of mine at home. I texted him, "There is all of the world and none of God in this place. Every song a celebration of the great god of YOU."