Tell the Bishops: Give Laypeople Equality on 'Way Forward'

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United Methodists Give Their Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, and Witness

A United Methodist Insight Editorial

With the announcement of the number of laity nominees for the Commission on a Way Forward, the Council of Bishops has sent a clear message to The United Methodist Church:

Laypeople matter only for window dressing when it comes to deciding the future of the worldwide denomination.

Few actions by United Methodist leaders in recent months have been as sharp a slap in the face to the people in the pew as the bishops’ nominee list. Out of nearly 30 potential members, less than a third of them are laity. What the bishops have done, in effect, is to create a third order of ministry – bishops – a class that for decades the Council of Bishops has protested didn’t apply to United Methodist episcopal leaders. Although bishops’ membership in the church shifts to the Council once they are elected and consecrated, bishops who leave office for whatever reason return to the same status in their annual conference as other ordained clergy.

Now, however, the Council of Bishops has made it clear that, like the Episcopal Church, bishops are to be considered a third order of ordained ministry along with elders and deacons. The nominating list makes it clear that bishops now think of themselves as a class of United Methodists that deserves a say in the church’s future equal to that those who do the work and pay the bills.

Besides setting up the Council of Bishops as a third class, the Way Forward nominations send a second obvious message that the general ministry of the church – laypeople – are second-class citizens of the worldwide denomination. Ordinary church members are known in religious parlance as the “general ministry.” They are the pool of God’s servants from which come those who go on to the “set apart” or ordained ministry of elders and deacons.

What’s more, laypeople are those Christians who are most often encountered outside the church as the followers of Christ. They are the people who offer kind words and actions in a hurting and violent world. They help others in times of personal crisis or public disaster. They form the great river of ceaseless prayer that runs under the surface of everyday life, sustaining the temporal and spiritual world with their praise and supplications. Even the Sunday morning worship service, or liturgy, is known as “the work of the people.”

Even though highly educated clergy and academics may balk at the prospect, laypeople are entirely competent theologians through years of Bible study, prayer and daily practice. Every day laypeople explain the nature and workings of God to those around them, which defines theology. Laypeople witness daily to the reality of God, to God’s eternal love, and to God’s grace that forgives our errors and sustains us in the direst situations. The lived theology of the laity draws people toward Jesus Christ in the first place.

Now the Council of Bishops, through its nominees for the Commission on a Way Forward, has demonstrated that none of these realities matter when it comes to deciding the future of the church. It doesn’t matter, say the bishops, that it’s the laity who are required to sustain the church with their “prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness” (United Methodist Hymnal). It doesn’t matter, say the bishops, that it’s the laity on whom falls the bulk of both domestic and international mission work. It doesn’t matter that it’s the laity who are constantly exhorted to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” When it comes to wrestling with the problems facing the global denomination, and to developing the ways and means to address those problems, the laity are as nothing, according to the bishops’ actions.

Fortunately, there’s still time to rectify the bishops’ mistake. In addition to signing an online petition, United Methodists can convey their opinions on the Way Forward nominations to their bishops. Now is the time for the people of Jesus Christ to stand up and claim the “keys of the kingdom” Jesus gave them to “bind and loose” (Matthew 16.19) those things that will cure The United Methodist Church and fit it for the work of God in a new age.