The United Methodist Church is a "connectional" church, which means that all United Methodist Churches are "connected" and in essence operate together globally. With apologies to David Letterman, here is a "Top 10 List" of reasons answering the question, "What's so great about being a United Methodist?"
Number 10:
We are a church that encourages strong preaching. The people come expecting to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed powerfully.
Number 9:
We are a church that encourages a strong, warmhearted personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ is at the heart of everything we do.
Number 8:
We are a worldwide church. You find a United Methodist church, mission, school, hospital, or clinic in many villages, hamlets, towns, and cities around the world.
Number 7:
We are an open, inclusive church. Our members come from every culture and every socioeconomic group, and all are embraced. Nationally, we have more Asian American and Native American than any other denomination. We are second in numbers of Hispanic American members. We have more African American members than several other denominations combined. In addition, we have been at the forefront in encouraging women to give strong leadership in the church, and therefore we have more women clergy than any other denomination.
Number 6:
We are a giving church. Persons who join The United Methodist Church promise to serve God and support the church with their prayers, their presence, their gifts, and their service; and that pledge of loyalty enables us to give generously to benevolences and mission efforts.
Number 5:
We are a church with a family spirit. That family spirit enable us to be there for each other in our joys and sorrows from the cradle to the grave.
Number 4:
We are a church that owns and operates many colleges, hospitals, children's homes, and homes for the elderly. We also operate the oldest church owned publishing house in the world.
Number 3:
We are a church that reaches out with deep compassion to help hurting people. Our UM Committee on Relief is quickly on the scene all over the world to provide aid, love, and care to victims of natural disasters, ethnic violence, and warfare. We feed more than a million children every day.
Number 2:
We are a church with a great social creed that has been an inspiration to all in Christendom.
And the Number 1 reason is...
We continue Christ's ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and caring.
That's what's great about being a United Methodist!
Thanks to the ecumenical movement we no longer emphasize our differences with other denominations. Instead, we try to understand and celebrate those things we share and hold in common. Nevertheless, we have to admit that there are differences among churches. Here are three things we desire in a church:
1. We want a church that touches our heart and stretches our mind.
We want a church that brings together the head and the heart, and we find that in this denomination. There are some churches that emphasize the heart to the neglect of the head, while others emphasize the head to the neglect of the heart. We are a church of the warm heart. We believe that God moves in the personal experiences of people, and that's why we are always inviting people to accept Christ as Savior and Lord. We believe that God is powerfully at work right here and right now through His amazing grace, touching lives, inspiring people, causing our hearts (like John Wesley's, the founder of Methodism) to be "strangely warmed." But we are also pleased that we have a faith of the head. That's why we spend so much time on spiritual formation. We believe that a call to discipleship is a call to learn. We believe that theology is not only loving God with our hearts, but also loving God with our minds.
2. We want a church that accepts us as we are and yet challenges us to be better.
It's easy to become discouraged. We face many pressures, stresses, deadlines, burdens, problems, and disappointments. Life can be complicated and demanding. The truth is that we all need encouragement. We need someone to say "I love you, I believe in you, and I accept you." The good news of our Christian faith is that our Lord is a God of acceptance and encouragement. When the world threatens to rip our hearts out, God is there to encourage us, to put the heart back into us, to relight the spark, to give us new life. That's what we want our church to say to people—that you are accepted here, and you are loved here, and we want you to help us be the instrument of God's love to other people.
3. We want a church that gathers to worship and scatters to serve.
We see this so powerfully expressed in the transfiguration story in the gospels. There we find three different approaches to religion. Jesus took his closest followers up on a mountain; there some strange and wonderful spiritual experiences happened that words could never describe. Simon Peter was so impressed by it all that in effect he said to Jesus, "Let's stay here in the glow of this forever." Meanwhile, the other disciples where down in the valley trying to heal an epileptic boy, but they couldn't do it. They had no power because they hadn't been up on the mountain. You see, on the one hand we have the pietists who say, "Let's go up on the spiritual mountain top and stay there and not concern ourselves with the problems of the valley." On the other hand, you have the social activists who are down in the valley trying to heal, but they have no power because they haven't been to the mountain to worship. But Jesus put them together. He went up on the mountain to worship, and then, empowered by that experience, he came down into the valley to serve, to help, and to heal. That's the kind of church we want—a church that gathers us together in the spirit of Christ to worship, and then, empowered by that inspiration, we depart to be the church in the world.
