Coalition Gathering hears about being a welcoming
churchErwin McManus urges Christians to be guided
more by "wisdom" than by "reason"
by Doug King, Witherspoon WebWeaver
Portland, OR - October 6, 2003
[10-7-03]
Gathering VIII of the Presbyterian Coalition opened on
Monday, Oct. 7, in the sanctuary of Sunset Presbyterian Church in
Portland, Oregon. Your WebWeaver arrived late (not for the first time),
but in time to join in the evening worship. The call to worship was
performed by a lively children's choir - kids who obviously enjoyed what
they were doing, and did it well.
After a time of praise songs, Erwin McManus delivered
the sermon for
the evening. The pastor of Mosaic, a growing and diverse congregation that
sees the whole of Los Angeles as its parish (and is seriously reaching out
to impact the social structures of the whole urban area, he said), he is
best known, perhaps, as the author of An Unstoppable Force: daring to
become the church God had in mind. That title is also the theme of
the whole event - an interesting image for the church in a world that has
more than enough "force" these days.
His talk, running for nearly an hour and a half, showed
him to be a terrific performer, a creative phrasemaker, and a man with a
passion for "bringing people to Jesus," and motivating his whole
congregation to do the same. And above all, he's a stand-up comic, who has
mastered his material well. He poked fun at Presbyterians, at his own
congregation, which is related to the Southern Baptist Convention although
it was one of the first groups to abandon the denominational name. And at
himself, described his history as that of a "full-blooded pagan."
He began by asserting that "we need a movement of
dreamers and visionaries," like the early church that is pictured in
Luke's account of Pentecost.
As he told of motivating people in his church to witness
to their neighbors about the Gospel, he noted an unexpected side effect:
Their neighbors are all moving out, he said, because "as we lead them to
Christ, their values change, and their lives improve, and they're able to
move to better places."
Many of us are committed to creating a more welcoming
church. In his own way, so is McManus. He insists that members of the
congregation make visitors feel really welcome. That led him to do away
with "the Welcome" in the congregation - that time when people in the
congregation would be invited to greet each other. He soon realized that
indeed the members of the congregation did greet each other, but they were
so eager to do that that they would walk right past visitors - "not even
see them" - to be with friends they knew and loved so deeply. So "the
Welcome" had to go, people had to be driven out of their comfort zones,
and slowly they have moved from "welcoming" as a "rule," part of
the formal structure of worship, to welcoming as a value, a part
of the ethos, the shared values and lifestyles of the congregation.
Woven through all of this challenging stuff was a strong
thread of anti-intellectualism. He lamented that "we have entrusted the
church to theologians rather than revolutionaries," so that now people of
the Reformed tradition are "more expressive of John Stuart Mill [and the
Enlightenment in general] than of John Calvin" and the Reformation. "We
need to stop believing so much in reason, he argues, and more in "wisdom."
(Your reporter assumes he wasn't talking about Sophia here.)
Some very subjective reflections:
This guy is clearly not one of the Presbyterian crowd.
He is not obsessed with sex, as far as I could tell. He is passionately
committed to welcoming people into the family of faith as he understands
it, and in motivating others to move out of the safety of their "church
life" into the world. Not a bad idea, seems to me.
That stands in sharp contrast to the concerns a lot of
people bring to this gathering. Not all of them, I'm sure, and perhaps not
all the planners of the event; but those concerns are here - being talked
about over breakfast this morning, and clearly on the agenda for the rest
of today. Some of the workshops this afternoon will look at topics like
"Correcting Wrongdoing: Ways to Discipline Defiance," "Faithful
Stewardship: Deciding Whether to Give Per Capita & Mission Money to the
PCUSA," and of course "Negotiated Separation: A Conversation."
My own sense is that McManus represented clearly one
style of evangelical Christianity that many in this gathering want very
much to exhibit in their own churches - and many are already doing that.
That stands in sharp contrast to the concerns of many others, who are more
concerned with building walls and enforcing laws, in excluding rather than
welcoming.
But we'll see how all that plays out today.
One other thing: A Witherspooner might be a bit nervous
about venturing into this gathering. Such anxiety is unfounded, as far as
I can see. People are welcoming, helpful, and many of them seem to be
looking seriously for ways to stay together in the Presbyterian family.
We'll see how it looks by this time tomorrow.
