In his comeback article on United Methodist Reporter, Rev. Dr. Andrew Thompson argues that Wesleyanism is losing out to the Reformed tradition in messaging depth and breadth online and especially on social media.
Recently there has been a lot of talk in social media about the “visibility” of the Wesleyan message in the larger culture.
Methodists can generally expect to be heard by other Methodists. But are they being heard “out there” in the wider world? Is their message reaching the unchurched, especially? And do Methodists even know what their distinctive message is?
In making this claim of the lack of presence, he makes the following comparison:
If you look at those Wesleyan leaders in the United Methodist Church with the greatest visibility in the larger culture, you find names like these: Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of Church of the Resurrection; Leonard Sweet, a popular writer on church & culture and self-described “futurist”; and Tim Stevens, the executive pastor of Granger Community Church.
Twitter is a good measure of the kind of visibility I’m talking about, because you can chart a person’s followers: Adam Hamilton (@revadamhamilton) has about 9,750 followers, Leonard Sweet (@lensweet) has 26,500 followers, and Tim Stevens (@timastevens) has around 38,700 followers.
This all sounds pretty impressive. Until you start looking at their Reformed counterparts.
I’ll offer two examples. Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, can boast of over 350,000 followers on Twitter. John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis has well over 450,000 followers.
In other words, the mouthpieces of our respective traditions are not even in a contest: the Neo-Reformed voice is far louder than the Wesleyan voice. And this is a problem for Thompson.
I agree because I find Neo-Reformed theology to be a distant eighth on my list of “life-giving theologies.” However, I’m not sure that Methodism is even structured to compete on the social media platform in the same way as the Neo-Reformed tradition.
My question is “Does Wesleyanism needs to play the popularity game at all?” Do we need to raise up a celebrity voice to compete on the social media marketplace?
The UMC resists Celebrity Culture at All Levels
If you look at it, the United Methodist Church resists celebrity culture in all levels of the connection.
- Local church – through our itinerant ministry system, clergy are moved around a lot. There’s the usual “yea we got a new pastor who can preach!” then a few years later “awww, they moved the only pastor who could preach!” and then it repeats again. Local churches do not create cults of personality around the pastors and instead are forced to make relationships with one another. While we do have 20-30 year pastors of church plants and high profile churches, they are the exception rather than the norm in United Methodism.
- Districts – again because of our itinerant ministry system, even the big-time churches get new pastors and they usually come from out-of-district. So when one pastor becomes an up-and-coming person, then they are moved beyond the district and have to start over with their contacts and connections.
- Annual Conference – Typically only elected leaders get face time at Annual Conference (especially in recent years as it has been cut down to bare minimum number of days due to budget constraints). Since chairs and leaders rotate every four years (eight years max, perhaps), then those leaders of those positions don’t have perpetual time in the sun. And with new Bishops arriving who have different tastes in leadership, those people rotate as well.
- Jurisdictions – because of the wide variety in our regions of the church, curriculum and authors don’t have the same appeal across the Connection. I’ve served in three jurisdictions, and Cokesbury had different authors they were promoting, the churches had read different curriculum…the only consistency was the children’s curriculum, if that!
- General Church Entities – Because General Secretaries have term limits, presiding Bishops over boards shift, and General Conference cuts/shifts/reallocates Board powers and duties, they do change a lot. I know there’s a lot of focus on Jim Winkler as the head of Church and Society due to the Traditionalists’ villifying of the man, but that’s a strong exception to the rule brought on by the Traditionalists themselves.
- General Conference – through our elected delegates (even the ones elected for 4+ terms), there’s enough change and demographic shifts that I can’t think of really celebrity delegates. I’ve been to three GCs now and because of the microphone situation, limited debate, and the presiding bishop’s discretion in choosing who to recognize, floor debate doesn’t become celebrity-driven. And we saw that even when Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter stood up to support a motion, it failed. So much for celebrity delegates!
We do have United Methodists who get into the news. Bishop Minerva Carcano with immigration reform. Bishop Thomas Bickerton with Imagine No Malaria. Hamilton, Slaughter, Willimon, and other Methodists without an unpublished thought. That’s fine but given the structural ways how the United Methodists resists celebrity culture and cults of personality around pastors, that’s likely the biggest it’s going to get.
A while back, Rev. Wes Magruder wrote about “Our Adam Hamilton Obsession” where he also warned against a celebrity fixation in the context of the church:
[It’s possible] that we are idolizing the wrong kind of ministry. Where did we get the idea that a mega-church is necessarily doing anything at all right? Where did we fall into the trap of thinking that bigger is better? Why in the world have we succumbed to the secular criteria of relevance and efficiency?
Look at it this way: why does everybody know who Adam Hamilton is, but hardly anybody knows Lorenza Andrade Smith? See what I did there? Do you know who she is? She is an ordained UM pastor to homeless people in San Antonio. She lives on the street herself. I have no idea what her “numbers” would be, and up to this point, she hasn’t written any books. She doesn’t do any podcasts, and she has never organized any leaders’ conferences.
But she is someone to be admired. Her ministry is perhaps the most Christ-like in the entire denomination, because she is actually doing what Christ did. Why don’t we lift up her ministry for emulation? Why isn’t her work the gold standard in the UMC? Why don’t young pastors feel badly when they realize that they aren’t going to be on the streets like Lorenza, but instead will be speaking comfortably to thousands of people every week?
There are pastors like her at work within our denomination, with and without clergy credentials, who deserve to be emulated, precisely because they eschew popularity, fawning crowds, grateful applause, and offering plates full of fat checks (and I’m not suggesting that Adam Hamilton desires these things). These unknown, unappreciated, and unnoticed ministers, in fact, are actually in the process of saving the soul of the United Methodist Church.
It seems to me that at our DNA is a rejection of celebrity culture, an embrace of itinerant ministry that is adaptive to many contexts without a universal figurehead.
Collaborative Space not a Celebrity Face
Our present and future hope of United Methodism is in collaborative efforts not celebrity faces that face down the Reformed movement. We don’t have to become like the Empire to defeat the Empire, but we can do grassroots resistance in ways that highlight the strengths of United Methodism.
I like the work done by MinistryMatters and Asbury Seedbed not because they represent progressive Methodism (they don’t…and MM’s leadership is openly hostile towards progressives), but because they are collaborative and connectional. The expressed hope of the #AndCanItBe movement that Thompson mentions can be similar as the others, although with the current leaders I have zero hope of progressives being included either.
But at least it would be a connectional collaborative effort rather than an embrace of celebrity culture. And that’s at least a Methodist step in the right direction.
Perhaps our one hope is Rethink Church, which over the past year has transformed from a nice slogan to a clearinghouse of lots of creative work. It isn’t ideological–I see articles from progressives and traditionalists on it–and is way more easy to read than the above two.
But will we ever match the celebrity power of the Reformed? No. But maybe we don’t have to in order to change the world from the ground-up.
Thoughts?
We can be more intentional particularly within the progressive circles. I don’t need to be a celebrity but I desperately need to be part of a community that doesn’t get caught up in wonkish polity discourse but generates fresh, coherent, and accessible popular theology. I’m hoping that the restructuring of Rethink Church will create some space for this. What I want to know is how the campus Wesley Foundations and the progressive Methodist blogosphere can have synergy and fellowship between us. The Calvinists have tons of conferences where they get young adults fired up to go out and Driscollify the universe. Maybe we do too and I just don’t know about them. We do need to figure out how to leverage our connections to create synergy. The irony as you note is that the presence of a connectional structure is what throws a wet blanket over the possibility of viral energy. There are so many disaffected evangelical thirty something’s out there right now who were raised by the culture wars, are completely disgusted by them, and would love to hear about a different gospel. (At least that’s my story of how I came to Methodism.) How do we speak to the Rachel Held Evans and Donald Miller crowd? They are such a natural fit for progressive evangelical Wesleyan theology. But they can’t hear us so they just bitch about the Gospel Coalition.
The celebrity church culture, whether in the UMC or beyond, is dangerous. Celebrity preachers often cause great harm (larger than the church they lead) if they fall. There’s sometimes a sense of hubris and issues of ego that come along with it. Itinerancy works to mitigate these challenges, but only if it’s adhered to.
We must be careful not to take pride in “our” church, or “our” pastor, but remember that the glory is God’s, by the work of the Spirit. Indeed, we should aim to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, as Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith and others we’ll never hear about do. Although I’ll admit it’s difficult to seek out those who help others, as they are rarely visible enough to be noticed… by people.
Jeremy —
Thank you for this engagement with my column. It is thorough and well-considered. I have two thoughts to offer, one of them directly related to your analysis and the other perhaps a bit more tangential (but hopefully relevant to the ongoing conversations about Methodist voices in social media):
1) I think your post makes a turn somewhat away from what I was trying to talk about when you write the following: “My question is ‘Does Wesleyanism needs to play the popularity game at all?’ Do we need to raise up a celebrity voice to compete on the social media marketplace?” Words do matter, and the use of “popularity” and “celebrity” is your own interpretation rather than my intention. I tend to think of a celebrity as one who is famous for the sake of being famous, along with whatever glitz and money and ego indulgence such a status might convey. The aim toward which I am pointing is something else, I think. It is for the purposes of evangelism, education, spiritual formation, etc. Those are all goals oriented toward other persons rather than toward the person delivering the message. And yet, it does help for the communicator to have visibility so the message gets heard at all in a wider arena.
This is, at any rate, what I was trying to suggest. The idea of a “celebrity Methodist” is distasteful to me, exactly because of the connotations of the word. And I would also offer that you are a good example of someone whose visibility has slowly but steadily risen over the past few years. Having 2200+ Twitter followers for a local church pastor is nothing to sniff at. You have views and, by the frequency with which you are putting them out there in the wider culture, I have to believe that you want to be heard (and to have influence) in places beyond your local church.
2) I’ve been following your writing more closely lately than I have in some time, and I have to admit that you sometimes present sides of the theological spectrum in breathtakingly black-and-white fashion. Take this comment as an example: “The expressed hope of the #AndCanItBe movement that Thompson mentions can be similar as the others, although with the current leaders I have zero hope of progressives being included either.” I’m not even sure what you mean by this statement. It may have to do with your own understanding of what constitutes a “progressive,” but you’d have to elaborate on that for me to really understand it. I would only offer that it seems like an ironically illiberal stance for someone who waves the banner of progressive Methodism to pigeonhole people and views into such narrowly defined categories. For the record, my only understanding of the #AndCanItBe conversation to date is that it is a Twitter hashtag — something anyone with a Twitter account is able to use regardless of their theological self-understanding.
To piggyback on Andrew’s comments —
Speak more to the idea of “although with the current leaders I have zero hope of progressives being included either.” I would add the comment about Ministry Matters as well. What does it mean to be “openly hostile” to progressive Methodists? Furthermore, is it not also an indictment against progressive Methodists to no be in collaboration with others? I’m with Andrew here, you’re defining “progressive” and “not” in really simple, black-an-white terms.
How can it be an indictment when we aren’t invited to the party? Are there theological progressives that contribute on a regular basis to Ministry Matters or Asbury Seedbed? And if so, is that an indictment on progressives or on the sites?
Do people always have to make sure they run down the checklist of IDs in order to start a party? Can it not grow organically before it’s deemed exclusive or anti-___ (fill in the blank)?
I’ve written for Ministry Matters here: http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/3053/longest-night, here: http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/3189/disciples-in-an-election-season, and here: http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/3007/the-young-adult-problem-why-you-cant-solve-it.
But then while I’m more progressive, I refuse to label myself as a progressive because I find those labels and camps mostly unhelpful.
I’ve found the site’s publishers to be very open to any new material. The kicker could be that it’s very practical ministry oriented and it’s not a site to debate progressive/conservative stances and issues. Maybe that explains the apparent lack of progressive voices?
Several of Seedbed’s recurring writers would likely identify more with “progressive” Christianity. I doubt they’d like the label though. They were sought out. Seedbed seeks to be broadly Wesleyan and is rather open for any submission that is both original and intentionally Wesleyan. I’d invite you to read more, you may be surprised by what you find! 🙂
Good info. Thanks John 🙂
Andrew, thanks for your comments and your engagement.
1. I certainly agree that other-focused goals are preferable to self-focused goals. We agree there. However, there’s no reason why a collaborative effort couldn’t be lifted up rather than an individual. I’m convinced that Driscoll/Piper crowd posts inflammatory stuff to keep people reading and commenting. I’d rather not see us be lifting up an individual who would have the same temptation.
My point, really, is that a single account with broad broad influence just isn’t part of our history or current structure. Instead, a network of small-to-medium influence folks lifting each other up would be preferable and more connectional (and is in some ways our current reality) rather than a single figurehead to compete with the Neo-Reformed folks.
2. I’ve been watching the #andcanitbe movement from the beginning because it was formed on twitter. As another originator of a twitter movement #dreamumc, I’m interested in what they become. I know it hasn’t evolved yet into a space for collaboration or proclamation. But from the originators and now strongest supporters (which include Kevin Watson, Matt Judkins, Matt O’Reilly, and John Leek), three of the four of them don’t have any online track record of strong relations with progressive folks (the outlier being John Leek). I say that with personal relationships with two of them and with years of reading their work online–I’m happy to be proven wrong. However, O’Reilly in particular has said that progressives do not have an authentic Wesleyan voice. And if you read their Branch discussion starting with this section, O’Reilly calling folks “so-called progressive Wesleyans” really doesn’t sound hopeful for their inclusion, does it?
Thus from my perspective, the most re-blogged and re-congratulated and retweeted voices in #andcanitbe don’t seem to believe theologically progressive Wesleyans exist and will not be including them. You can call it pigeonholing or an illiberal stance, but the sentiment is based on…what was it this whole conversation was about…oh yes, the evidence by their own online communications. But, charitably, I’m willing to accept that perhaps we just don’t agree on what the term “progressive” means, even though everyone in this conversation is well-versed in theology.
And now #andcanitbe knows that I lurk on their discussion boards. Oh well…;-)
We’re happy to have you “lurk” or participate!
I haven’t seen much from self described “progressives” to give an atta boy to.
Other than your post, everything else I’ve seen has been from one user who appears to be doing a form of trolling by using the hashtag, but completely ignoring the purpose.
(The purpose, as I understand it, is to help provide greater attention and platform to theologically Wesleyan voices. #andcanitbe!)
I’m thankful you see my engagement as broad. I do hope to show a true (Wesley’s) Catholic Spirit there! 😉
It may be that you can’t get past your own feelings toward certain stakeholders. That might be your loss, but I do know it would be ours. Wesleyan theology does bring life, as you allude to in the post, and I’d hope to have you as a colleague and partner in widening its influence within and outside our tradition!
I just went through your link to the “branch.” Is it possible to read that as questioning the term “progressive” alone and not that there could be a more liberal Wesleyan? I don’t know either way, but I see that as possible.
I don’t seek to be a “conservative” or “progressive” anything and, note the comment directly below the one you link to, I don’t believe the others involved do either. Further “political tribalism,” to borrow Guy’s phrase, is not what we seek.
We seek to elevate Christianity according to the Wesleys.
Why is it so scandalous that we disagree on what it looks like to be authentically Wesleyan? As far as I can tell, you don’t think I get it right (correct me if I’m wrong). And as you’ve point out a number of times, I don’t think you get it right. So, we’re even on that one. This is nothing new. It’s been going on long before either of us brought our voices into these denominational debate.
And why is it so offensive to have a website that promotes a particular take on what it means to be Wesleyan and that defines some things as out of bounds? I don’t expect that RMN or MFSA would be all that welcoming or appreciative of my perspective on their websites. This does not offend or bother me in the least. Why is exclusion only intolerant and closed-minded when its the traditionalists?
I’ll add that the comment I made on Branch and to which you link was early on in #andcanitbe and was intended to seek clarity on the nature of the discussion. I was wondering whether my estimation of the conversation was accurate at that time? And a few other followed up to voice their agreement with my perception. But it was not a polemical post. Like you, I find it necessary to write those sometimes. But that comment was not one. Whether or not I think the term progressive is used in helpful ways is a different issue.
I’ll add that I agree with you in opposing a celebrity culture in the UMC. That is something we should guard firmly against.
In light of your argument, it would be a productive to have a conversation about the itinerant system. How long have high profile UM clergy like Adam Hamilton, Mike Slaughter, Kirbyjon Caldwell been at their appointments? What is the average time non-high profile UM clergy serve at appointments? I suspect we’ll find a stark difference, which indicates that we have a semi-itinerant system. If our DNA is the itinerant system, then shouldn’t all clergy be part of that system?
I suspect that our “DNA” is more about grace than itinerancy, but that’s a thought I need to work on a bit more for a later conversation.
Good point Lisa, I was thinking the same thing. I can’t wait to see who the bishop decide should be appointed to the Church of the Resurrection. In all fairness Adam Hamilton has been there long enough and he needs to be moved.
What Methodism needs to do, at this point, is hammer home the message that “we are the normal Christians next door. We are not Westboro, we are not impersonal mega churches. We (as a church) are also not the radical voices you see on TV. We are the guy you play pool with, the coworker who helped you jump-start your car and the teacher who took time with your child after school when she was depressed.” Seriously, a national ad campaign. Let the faith, everyday works, and our humanity be the “celebrity”.
I really believe that people struggle in their search for a church home because most of them do not WANT to accidentally join a church that is going to bomb Planned Parenthood, call people “fags” or shout out people’s sins on street corners.
We need individual persons to measure our own faith by. When we have an amorphous group of people with whom to work, it is impossible to really even know what is possible. It’s all just words and ideas. We need for our faith to be incarnated not just by Christ as some unreachable goal, but, as a body of persons who at least used to speak of Christian perfection with a straight face, we need persons who are willing to actually be held up as models to emulate. Like Paul, who often said “imitate me.” Without these figures, those who portray Christian living as unrealistic or unhealthy have more weight. We need persons whom we can point to and watch as they walk with Christ in the contemporary world. I admire those who fill those roles. And without models of successful ministry, mediocre ministries are allowed to sit in their own muck without dialogue. We should not worship the figures, but we do need figures to use in our own growth.
From the historical perspective, Methodism did employ itinerancy on a much more frequent level, and nobody, not even bishops, were excused from it. What resulted was a form of meritocracy in which those individuals who truly did have the gifts for ministry were shown to bear fruit among different contexts. Those who didn’t were more quickly and efficiently weeded out. Many rose to the top as reliable sources of gospel truth and inspiration, and their names were known far and wide. On the highest levels, Wesley and Asbury both itinerated relentlessly, and both were internationally reknown. Those who accused them of “celebrity” often turned out to be the egocentric schismatics later on. I’m not saying this is necessarily where you are, but I am warning you of what it sounds like after reading a few history books.
Is Adam Hamilton the next John Wesley? I don’t think so. But I don’t think it’s helpful to caricature him, his ministry, and others like him, as some kind of sellout celebrity thing when people genuinely need models of faith to strive toward. I know I certainly need them.
I agree with you, Jeffrey, that we need role models. They were what propelled me into ministry (along with the Spirit, of course). And you’re right that we need more Wesleyan roles even more than in the past. I think that what Jeremy is saying, though, is that the neo-con pastor celebrities are in a different class than Hamilton, Willimon, Carcano, and others. He posits that we don’t need more pastor celebrities, even if they are Wesleyan. We need more folks on the ground doing the work of shepherding the people and bringing about God’s peaceable reign. In a world reeling from hurt inflicted by a corrupt church hierarchy (I’m especially thinking of the RCC child sexual abuse scandals), what we need are pastors that live out their faith quietly but with conviction and integrity. I think that’s why he threw in the bit about Lorzena Andrade Smith. I would like to see more Methodists of notoriety leading in that way.
This is actually one of the reasons I prefer Methodism. The whole Methodist system is structured to make celebrity hard to attain, Hamilton and Slaughter notwithstanding. The work is elevated above personalities and local non-clergy members have to take the long-term lead in their own faith experience and in local church programs.
And that’s how it should be.
I agree, Matt. One thing I love most about Methodism is that it is an antidote to the cult of personality. It’s not about us, it’s about the work we do together. Even Hamilton, though I have sometimes disagreed with his church politics, has done such good work that I respect the heck out of him.
John and Charles Wesley weren’t celebrities? I still hear them quoted in all flavors of methodism like they just barely missed the cut-off to make the canon.
The Apostle Paul said, “follow me as I follow Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). I don’t see why the hesitation.
To me, it almost seems like there is a cult of celebrity in methodist churches surrounding the church itself. There’s so much talk about systems. Who should care about the polity? What matters is that people come to Jesus and lives are saved.
John Wesley ran into the limitations of the polity of the Anglican church. Remember that he was chastised for not having a parish and that was when he responded, “The world is my parish.”
Perhaps I’m seeing it wrong, but when systems trump people, people suffer.
Paul
I am so intrigued with your arguements/discussions. As a person in the pew, who has been a “good Methodist” for more than a few decades, I have come up with this list of “All I Want” that is the product of 4 years of intensive learning about the current status of The UMC and an evaluation of my own personal journey with her:
All I want is to go to church and learn there is a bigger and better story than mine going on.
And then I want to learn how to fold myself into that story.
Redemption begins with knowledge:
Who is this God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit?
What has He done?
What is He currently doing?
Who am I in relation to Him?
How do I become a Christian?
How do I remain (and thrive/grow as) a Christian?
So, in other words, as ya’ll are having these high flown discussions, there are people down here in the trenches that would love to incorporate God and Jesus into their lives, and don’t have a clue! The one thing I know and admire about Wesley was his focus was on the individual and their salvation and making Christianity “doable” for the average person–start doing that and you will have all the celebrity status you want! Help the average person sitting in the pew truly understand “what this is about” who can then go out into the world to live it and talk it and the churches will be full to overflowing! I finally got tired of sitting in church and being told “Tell people what Jesus did for you” and being clueless. I have had to learn it on my own! There’s a new book out ‘Key Beliefs of The United Methodist Church” by Abraham and Watson. Check out the introduction–Amazon will let you peek that far–they have nailed the bottom line issue of where things have gone awry! What do I know–I’m just the person in the pew that jumped through all the hoops of “doing church” until I landed in the ditch and then decided it was time to finally understand why I was doing what I was doing–it is absolutely amazing–for the first time I learned of the existence of a triune God of holy love who is definitely way more verb than noun and through Jesus and the Holy Spirit has reached down to embrace me and help me live the life I was created to live–and that is what I have learned in just the last month–since last June I have been to chruch twice–Christmas and Easter. Until it becomes about the salvation of the person in the pew, all this discussion is moot point.
Jeremy,
While I certainly appreciate the shout-out to Ministry Matters, I’m wondering why you think our leadership is “openly hostile towards progressives?” I’m probably the most conservative/evangelical person on our team but as a group, we’re all over the map here. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of playing it down the middle. How have we been hostile towards anyone?
Did you read The Wesley Report back in the day? The internet has a long memory and it’s hard for me to forget where people came from.
Of course I read it, I wrote it! 🙂 But I don’t remember being hostile toward anyone. In fact, my blog had a reputation for being tough but fair. I even did interviews with people who disagreed with me on various issues. Criticism of someone’s ideas does not equal hostility. You’ve offered some sharp commentary yourself over the years—at least a couple of times toward me. But I never thought you were being hostile.
I’ll add my voice to Shane’s here. Jeremy, you and I have a public record of strong disagreement. However, I’ve not taken it to be hostile disagreement. I’ve tried hard to interact with the issues themselves and to do so in a serious and firm, though not uncharitable, manner. Strong disagreement over the way another person uses a term (e.g. Wesleyan) is not the same thing as hostility. I’ve not taken your sometimes intense critiques as hostile, and I hope you won’t take mine that way. As you have indicated, everyone in the discussion has a background in academic theology. As I’m sure you know, in the writing of serious theology, critical disagreement with the views of another is considered a compliment, for it demonstrates the weightiness of the alternative view.
The idea of itinerancy is very interesting, especially when viewed in light of Adam Hamilton and the Church of the Resurrection. As a Kansas City local who lives within five minutes of COR, I’ve spoken to many people who are members of the church. I myself have attended several times. There is a common theme among members when you talk to them, and it’s always all about Pastor Hamilton. When asking about the community, I have yet to hear someone say anything other than, “Pastor Adam is amazing,” or some other comment about his preaching or the church he has built. The first observation has never been what God is doing in their lives or in the community. It is always about how great Adam is. It seems like celebrity has been created and people are fascinated by it.