Letter To My Methodist Pastor "Why Don't We Teach What Christ Taught"

I used to attend a Methodist Church. I was an adult Bible Study teacher. Whenever I taught I focused on spiritual growth and practical implementation of the teachings of Jesus.  The people seemed to really like it although it sometimes made them uncomfortable, because it caused them to look at themselves in ways that they hadn't in the past.

We had a change of head pastors and in one of his first services the new Rev said that he planned to invite everyone to submit to him their ideas for what would be the "perfect church". I waited for over a year and then finally sent him the following letter. The letter was followed by an invitation from the Rev to discuss at his office which I will also summarize after the letter.

Letter:

Dear Rev ...

“What is your vision of the perfect church?” You asked us to consider this question on your first Sunday at First Methodist and it was a good question, actually a great question at this time of generally declining church membership and attendance.  But maybe an even better question would be, “What is Christ’s vision of the perfect church?”

A couple of years ago, I met with our youth minister. In the course of the conversation, I was struck with how familiar he was with the churches of the community and surrounding area. I asked him if he knew of any churches which had as their primary focus, the teaching and practicing of what Christ taught. He paused for a brief moment and then said, “No, I actually don’t”. My response was, “Wow, that’s kind of incredible and very sad isn’t it? To be honest, if he would have named such a church in a reasonable distance, and it did in fact teach what Christ taught, I would have jumped ship and gone there.

I believe Christ’s vision is that one day soon some church in some major denomination will look at his “Great Charter”, with a fresh perspective and hear and apply with all their hearts, minds, and strength Christ’s words, at the tail end of the charter which so far seem to have been overlooked, “….teaching them everything that I have taught you.” And, as you know very well Rev, this wasn’t the only directive from Jesus to hear and put into practice everything he taught, like, “If you love me follow my commandments”, or “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and don’t do what I say?”.

I believe that if even one church took these words to heart even if not perfectly, but to the very best of their ability and with all the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit behind them, that church would quickly grow, hearts would be transformed, the fruit of the sinful nature would be swiftly replaced with the fruit of the Spirit. People would see that they were becoming less burdened, more at peace and experiencing more joy than ever before. The word would spread. Then, naturally other churches would follow seeing the success and the positive changes and the obvious theological soundness of simply actually following the one we claim to be following.


The Meeting:
So shortly after receiving the letter, the Rev invited me over to discuss in greater depth.

I simply reiterated that it is a fact that church attendance is on a serious decline. The church is in crisis. If it was a business, the data trends would provide strong evidence that without intervention it was going out of business. Then I restated that perhaps the obvious solution was to go back to basics -- go back to Jesus' charter to '...teach them everything that I have taught you.' His response was, "Well, I'd like to think, we're already doing that." To me that answer was a joke. But I suppose the Rev really looked at it that way. But to me it was like saying "We're already feeding the poor", when you tell them how good the food is and then let them have the crumbs left on the table after it is cleared.

I didn't try to argue with him. I could see that it would be futile. It also dawned on me that there was virtually no chance that there would ever be any kind of substantive change: "What you see is what you get". Six months later I left the church.

From Tom's Blog