May the Love of Christ Dwell Deeply
Photo by Matea Gregg on Unsplash
When I taught confirmation classes at our church, I looked upon a room of eager (or not-so-eager) middle schoolers with their parents and said, “I care a lot less about whether you become a member of this church than that you become a follower of Jesus Christ.”
Don’t get me wrong—I love our local church, and I love being Methodist. When my high school sweetheart and I started dating, there was a rumor in our school that I would only date him if he became a Methodist. (His family had recently started attending our church.) It wasn’t true, but it was surely convenient! My father models a life of service to the church, and alongside him I served as a delegate to the General Conference in 2004. When I came home on our weekend break to attend my junior prom, my then-boyfriend didn’t bat an eye (but had no idea what he was getting himself into). I continued to serve as a delegate to General Conference in future quadrennia: three weeks before our wedding; with our 11-month-old (so I could nurse her during breaks); as I waved goodbye to my family of four when I flew to Portland; and in 2019, when I was pregnant with our third daughter.
Through those experiences, I developed friendships with beautiful people from across our denomination. We laughed during boring sessions, shared pictures of family during breaks, and survived the grueling ten days of General Conference together. The days around the table with pastors and laypeople increased my love for the people of the West Ohio Annual Conference.
Nevertheless, there was never a time when I loved General Conference. It was an honor to be elected, but it is hard and heart-wrenching work. The greatest thing God formed in my heart during those years was the ability to love people regardless of the way they voted. I received the same in return from so many people in our midst. It was also during those times that I saw the worst of the church: the back-room politics, the manipulation, and hatred towards others. It was there where I knew others believed the worst about me, and the only time I’ve been called “stupid” in a committee meeting. I know that the pain of General Conference was much worse for others; those meetings put the fractures of our church on display every four years.
When the Global Methodist Church was launched, UMInsight reported that “May 1 passed with little fanfare.” This was certainly not true for me, though I had expected May 1 to be a day of little consequence... I drank my coffee, got my daughters ready, slid (late) into a pew, and then I wept. I didn’t expect to be so moved by this date, but I was. I loved the United Methodist Church, and I was heartbroken. While there wasn’t a curtain that split or a protest that formed in the middle of our church service, my heart split in two. What we had worked so hard to figure out—what we had tried to hold together for so long—was finally coming apart. The fractures of the general church finally made their way to our local congregation. The general church experiences I had served were a way for me to keep the main thing in focus: the role of the local church in making disciples of Jesus Christ. I didn’t love our denomination because of the general church workings, but because of the expression of the local church that nurtured me as a child with these words:
With God’s help, we will so order our lives after the example of Christ, that you, surrounded by steadfast love, may be established in the faith and confirmed and strengthened in the way that leads to life eternal.
That is what my church body has done for me. Her people have nurtured, cared for, and forgiven me. She continues to strengthen me in the way that leads to life eternal. And the church has prepared means of grace for me to experience and know the love of God more deeply. She has not been my salvation; but she has pointed me to the way of salvation, directing my heart to stay in the love of God. My primary commitment and covenant is not to the church, but to our Lord Jesus Christ. When I was assigned to the Local Church legislative group at General Conference, it meant that I needed to read the accompanying paragraphs from our Book of Discipline. I remember pausing and saying, “Hey, Dad! Have you read this? It is such good stuff!” I could read these paragraphs with gratitude because they described what the local church has been for me. I have been blessed with an abundance of relationships that have nurtured me, and I have been given the privilege to walk by others in their journeys of following Jesus. Now, as my children grow up in this same congregation, I get to witness the joy of seeing the church nurturing them as well. What a privilege it is to be part of God’s holy church.
At the same time, that’s what makes it all so heart-breaking. That’s why I wept on May 1. My local church will vote on disaffiliation next month, and we will not all agree. We don’t know what way the vote will go, but those who have walked together will move in different directions, regardless of the outcome of that vote. I know how I will vote, but I won’t do so with joy. I will do so with great sadness over knowing how painful it will be for that fracture to finally be complete. What is my greatest desire for the people of our local church? It’s not that we would stay United Methodist or go Global Methodist, but that we would be altogether Christians, with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.
I’m reminded of Paul’s single-hearted commitment for people to abide in the love of Jesus. I sometimes wish he had shared “Top Ten Ways to Plant a Church” or “How to Get Over the Acts 15 Conflict,” but he didn’t. He offers very little strategy for the people of the Way. Instead, he offers a desire for people to know Jesus deeply. Whatever happens over these next months, here is my heart’s prayer for the people I love so dearly, the people who have shaped and formed me, with whom I have walked together through life:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21 NIV).
Today, in the weight of all that is happening, I want you to know—I care a lot less about where you hold your church membership than about the love of Christ dwelling deeply in you. May you have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and may your church always nurture you to love him more.
Kathy Rohrs is a layperson in the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. She lives in Marysville, Ohio.