United Methodist Church - Refocus

Over the last several years, the United Methodist Church denomination has migrated to being operated much like a business, spending extensive time and resources on political and social activism and on legislative influencing. Visit the UMC web site sometime, and you will likely be greeted with announcements of prayer for climate change agreements, explanations of how worship can be held in conjunction with football games, and opportunities for support of countries struggling with AIDS. These are all fine pursuits, especially support to AIDS orphans, but the denomination needs to be outwardly more concerned with keeping souls out of hell than trying to support international agreements that even if inacted would not do anything to slow a few degrees of global warming. We need to protect against the ultimate heat, rather than a little scientifically insignificant geological warmth.

Nowhere in the immediate first few pages of the UMC web will you find even a simple statement that Jesus Christ was sent to earth by God to save us all from eternal separation from God's love, and that all we must do now is believe that Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior to gain eternal life for our soul. We must get back to telling the Good News - first and constantly - and inspiring people with messages of hope, peace, and joy. If we will do this first, the resources will flood in and we will truly be able to honor the Great Commission, while caring for orphans and widows, reaching out to the whole world with the message of Christ, and finding healing for those sufferring in so many ways. And, we need to get out of wasting time and effort on geopolitical issues that are earthly in their origin and result. God didn't put more carbon in the world than what it can handle, so let's move on to more important things, like salvation.

Come on all you Bishops and Directors and Leaders - get on point and stay there! The issue is only somewhat that we are working on the wrong things, but more that we aren't working on the most important things FIRST. That's my opinion, anyway.