Category Archives: Ted Campbell

I was formed as a young person in a code of respect for the US Flag. We were taught to raise the flag at our school every morning and lower it every afternoon with respect. Our school principal, Mr. Trahan, suggested Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among ushers in recent years: Looking at congregants as if to ask, “Do you want me to pass the collection plate to you?” Perhaps I should say I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among church-goers: signaling ushers that they don’t want the collection plate passed to them. But in the end its going to come down to the ushers to stand firm in the teeth of this devious trend. Read the rest of this entry »

The current debate about Christian values in the U. S. Constitution is seldom clear about whether “Christian values” means something distinctively Christian or something more vaguely “Christian” that is shared broadly with other religious and ethical systems.

To be clearer, then, when we speak of distinctively Christian values, I would think we would mean the following. Traditional Christian communities proclaim the distinctive “good news” or gospel message “that Christ died for our sins Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I wonder about the origins of things. Like pews. Was that a good idea? I’m imagining it like this.

Satan calls all his chief demon engineers together and says like ok dudes can you come up with some thing that will cause Christians to hate church for centuries to come? So they think about it for about about four hundred years and then the most perverted demon of them all says OK I have it. We nail hard wooden seats to the floor Read the rest of this entry »

How did we end up with sex? I know the basic “Male and female created he them” thing, but it had to be more complicated than that, and I have been imagining it along the following lines.

God puts out an RFP, a request for proposals, about how to deal with the matter of human reproduction. Several eons go by and Read the rest of this entry »

Mary Jacobs’ blog at UM Portal has a story about my YouTube Video. Thanks, Mary! The direct link to the YouTube Video is here. Click away, Wesleyans!

That’s the mission statement adopted by the General Conference yesterday (Tuesday 29 April 2008). The Council of Bishops has advocated this change for quite some time, and the addition of “for the transformation of the world” serves to make clear our commitment to “transformation of the world” as an end of Christian discipleship.

Adam Hamilton pointed out in the discussion of this statement that a mission statement needs to be brief, and this statement continues to have the virtue of brevity, though doubled in length from six words to twelve now. Several commentators pointed out that a mission statement cannot say everything, and the text following the mission statement makes clear many of the meanings associated with it.

Still, it’s important to get it right and I have a few concerns about the new wording, which I pose as questions.

Is “the transformation of the world” the only end of “making disciples of Jesus Christ”? What about God’s reign or kingdom, even beyond the confines of this present world?

Is the meaning of “transformation of the world” clear, even within the brief span of a mission statement? By itself it could be purely secular, and could have either negative or positive meaning: plenty of people have transformed the world, in hideous ways. I know we mean good here, and we mean good to God’s glory, but it’s not stated in the mission statement. My fear is that the revised version can be read as saying that our theological task is really just a way at getting at something else, not necessarily related to God. Hmmmm…

Are we really declaring that the mission of “the Church,” that is, the one, holy catholic and apostolic church, is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” or when we say “the Church,” do we mean “The United Methodist Church”? I hope it’s the latter, since it would be enormously pretentious for our General Conference to declare the mission of all Christian communities. Something tells me that if we’re going to make declarations on behalf of other churches, we ought to at least consult with them in doing so.

I preferred Bishop Huie’s way of stating the mission of our church in her episcopal address on Wednesday evening: “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world to the glory of God.” I know. Adds five more words. But they’re important and would clear up all of the problems that I (at least) have identified about this.

In 1971 I served as a team member for a Lay Witness Mission at a tiny suburban, predominantly Anglo United Methodist congregation in Southwest Houston, Southmont United Methodist Church. The Southmont building is the small structure to the right in this photo. The congregation was praying for renewal and it came, although it took a little while. The name changed to Windsor Village along the way, and the congregation eventually reached out to the predominantly African American constituency in its area. When the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell was appointed to the congregation in 1982, its membership was 25. It’s membership is now in excess of 12,000 and it is the largest United Methodist congregation in the United States. Be encouraged, sisters and brothers.

[My own photo, taken on Palm Sunday, March 16, 2008]

“Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing” (I Thessalonians 5:11). It’s Holy Scripture. Do it.

/ted