Witness?

 Eleventh Wednesday after Pentecost

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses...

                                                                                                   --Acts 1:8

In 2008 the United Methodist General Conference added a new phrase to the vows of church membership. In the United Methodist Hymnal (1989) the last vow is, "Will you be loyal to the United Methodist Church, and uphold it by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, and your service? (UMH, p. 48). The new additional phrase is "and your witness." (United Methodist Book of Discipline, 2008, p. 157. New members now say "I will" to the vow with the new phrase included.

After the worship service in which I told the congregation that I was serving at the time about the new phrase, a long time and very fine church member spoke to me about it. She registered her strong objection and said to the effect that we should not go browbeating people with the gospel. I was taken a little off guard by her statement and the way she said it. I wouldn't use the word "vehemently," but it was pretty close to that. I had no immediate retort.

Let me say now that this post will not be a guilt trip. I accept the understanding that one of you expressed in a comment a couple of weeks ago that witness can take many forms, that our witness of how we live our lives is often a far better witness than whatever we might say, that we witness through our actions, that we witness through living out God's love for the world. I fully believe that form of witness completely fulfills the new phrase in the church vow. 

I know. You're afraid a "but" is going to begin a new sentence here. 

No, instead, I'm going to make some observations. It has longed seem to me that Methodists, particularly in the South, have implicitly thought that "witnessing" was something Baptists did. Their witness brought people to an elemental, and really not very good, understanding of the faith and did lead them to Christ. After they spent a few years in a Baptist church and came to realize that Baptist fundamentalism had a lot of things wrong with it, they would become Methodists. It was almost like they were promoted from the Baptist church to the Methodist church. Check it out. In any Methodist Church I have been involved with, there are many, many former Baptists. 

For some Methodists there seems to be a further promotion.  They become Episcopalians. Check it out. Just about any Episcopal Church in the South will be loaded with former Methodists. 

Here's another observation. Virtually all Protestant denominations are in decline in membership. The Southern Baptists were growing during the early decades of our declining. Now even the Southern Baptists are in decline. We United Methodists have been in decline since 1968. At that time we had 11.1 million members. Our membership is now under 7 million. Episcopalians and Presbyterians have declined even more than we have. Non-denominational conservative evangelical churches have had the most growth during this period. Liked the Baptists, they tend to put a lot of emphasis on verbal witnessing, but generally of a softer sort. They invite people to church. They also have non-traditional worship, lots of pop Christian music, not much liturgy, and a soft and simple form of the gospel. At worst, they preach the "prosperity gospel."

One more observation. Our denomination has been seriously ripped apart by the battle over human sexuality. Fortunately, America as a whole has changed tremendously on LGBT rights, and we Methodists appear to be on the verge of finally resolving this issue at our next General Conference. 

One more observation. Most Methodists don't even like the word "witness."

So here is just a thought, a fairly mild thought. Perhaps God does not call all of us, maybe not even that many of us, to witness in a verbal way to the unchurched or non-Christians. The New Testament shows us a lot of Apostolic witnessing, but there were thousands of early Christian converts who just led normal lives, changed by faith in Christ, living out a witness, but not a verbal one. 

Perhaps, however, some of us may be called to verbal witness to our faith with others who do not have a Christian faith. Some of us who are so called and do have or may receive a spiritual gift for sharing our faith, may not know how how to share it in effective ways. I know that in the past quite a few United Methodists have come use the term "faith sharing." I like that term. I have heard that there have been small groups on faith sharing. 

Enough for now. Some of you reading this may feel that I'm overbearing on this matter, while others may feel that I'm being far too timid. Maybe all this is something we might think about.

Faithfully,

Christian