First thoughts from a pilgrim returned home

Wesley Chapel, London. umc.org

Last Thursday, as one of the pilgrims on the Wesley Pilgrimage, I had the privilege of hearing the Rev. Dr. Phil Meadows (Senior Research Fellow, Nazarene Theological College) speak at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire. For about three hours he shared with us his passionately held views about discipleship.

He started off with a discussion question – “What is the grand stumbling block that keeps people from hearing the gospel?”

It really didn’t take long for all of us to come up with a similar answer – “The lives of the Christians.”

What follows are some personal reflections, partly on Phil’s lecture, but also other lectures, lessons, and experience.

Most missional movements throughout history have been about plugging back into the connecting love of God through love of neighbor. This is what we find when we study our Methodist heritage. When Charles and John Wesley were preaching all over England, the people who worshiped at the Methodist Chapel in London called The Foundry were also busy…

• Educating boys and girls
• Engaging in prison ministry at Newgate 
• Offering micro-finance loans to help people get out of debt or as venture capital (who knew?)
• Providing health services to those who couldn’t afford doctor or pharmacy services. 
• Teaching reading
• Feeding the hungry (and the pastors were instructed to eat with the “guests.”)
• … (no doubt there was more)

The Christian Church is called to mission and spirituality – with good reason. We need both of these for ourselves. And the ones we would serve need for us to have them both. But we get lost. Instead of working to maintain a balance with a healthy dose of each, we come to lean one way or the other, toward mission or spirituality.

But… Mission without Spirituality is Powerless. 

And, Spirituality without Mission is Pointless.

Think about it. We can get so involved in mission (and I have) that we “don’t have time” for spirituality. We’re so busy doing great things that we don’t nurture what led us to want to be in mission in the first place – our connection with God, and God’s caring for us.

Mission without spirituality is a recipe for burn-out. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? There’s so much that needs to change, yet we stall out. We lose our motivation. We quit.

And, while the flip side of this is a little outside my personal experience, spirituality without mission is equally devastating. We get so into our own personal “me & Jesus” bubble that we pretty well tune out the needs around us. I’ve seen this more among conservative Christians, but it can happen anywhere.

Spirituality without mission has no purpose. (Truly. Absolutely.) While mission without spirituality leads to burn-out, spirituality without mission leads to rust-out.

Do you see yourself in this at all? Do you see your church?

We need to practice a both/and here. Contrary to what we might prefer, and contrary to what some churches – or their churchy people – might tell you, this is not optional.

In order to be faithful disciples, in order to be the people God creates us to be, we need to keep connecting with God, and receiving spiritually food. And, having received this fine sustenance, we need to be actively engaged in mission.