Dear Reader, Kindred Spirit, Fellow Dreamer, you who dare to imagine what could be in the United Methodist Church,
I hope this letter finds you well, here at the beginning of Lent. It’s a season for introspection and confession, for self-awareness and repentance. It’s a season for growing in holiness, setting priorities, and returning our hearts to what matters most.
It’s the perfect season in which to begin this conversation. It’s a conversation that’s happening in United Methodist circles around the country, even the world. Where are we going? What will become of us? Some of the logistical questions that we bat around speculate on the financial health of our institution. How many churches will we have to close? How many denominational jobs will be eliminated? How long can we afford such a large and sprawling system? Some of the questions we mull over are more tactical. Will itinerancy survive in this rapidly changing world? Should it? How do we reach younger generations? How do we become more diverse? And at the heart of all of these questions are the deep theological ones. What makes someone United Methodist, anyway? What makes our way of doing church unique and impactful? Who are we, and who will we become?
I am not a cradle United Methodist, nor is my United Methodist pastor husband. We chose this tradition for ourselves while in seminary at Duke Divinity School. It was a gut-wrenching, soul-searching journey to leave the traditions of our childhood and embrace this one, to devote our lives to serving within it.
Believe it or not, dear reader, it wasn’t the status of the institution’s financial health that got us in the end. (Did I hear you gasp at that revelation?) It wasn’t the tactical questions or even The Book of Discipline that drew us into these Wesleyan waters.1 Nope.
It was the theology that enchanted our imaginations and captured our loyalty. It was the theology of grace, of social and personal holiness, of connectionalism, the open Communion table, and the age-old Wesleyan conviction to see the world as our parish. This is why I am a United Methodist. This is what keeps me here.
Surprising? Hardly. Surely, dear reader, you have a similar story. Whether you are a cradle United Methodist or a theological mutt, none of us are here and remain here because of the institution in itself. We’re here because our imaginations are so moved by the theology of this institution that we are ever hopeful our understandings of God and grace and ecclesiology will do what it has done from the beginning of the Wesleyan movement nearly 300 years ago: continue to reform, challenge, renew, and perfect the institution we call Church. That’s what this Methodist movement has been doing from the beginning, reforming the Church from the front lines, from the inside out, challenging it to be more alive in the Spirit, more true to its convictions, more eager to love as Christ loved, more open to God’s grace and guidance.
But the only way this institution can carry on its heartbeat of reformation is for those of us within it to dream. The only way we will continue this legacy of reformation is to imagine our way into the future. To appreciate and challenge and examine our ecclesial practices in light of our theology. To have the discipline required to live the theology we believe today, and to find the courage necessary to live the theology that will be revealed to us tomorrow by the Spirit of Christ at work within us and around us.
Months ago, when Jared and I were discussing the possibility of this Substack, we were sharing our hopes for what we’d want this publication to be.
“I want to imagine our future into existence,” I told him, and the phrase stuck.
This Substack is a place where two young-ish (do the late 30s count as young these days?) United Methodist ordained Elders seek to imagine our ecclesial future into existence. Jared and I have 25 years of combined experience serving United Methodist Churches in different parts of the country. We’ve preached and led and buried and married and baptized and counseled with United Methodist hearts, living out this theology that keeps us going.
Please note, dear reader, that we are not delegates to General Conference, nor are we District Superintendents, seminary professors, or anyone with direct authority to change the Book of Discipline, your Annual Conference’s practices, or how your apportionments are spent. We’re simply dreamers like you, making our theology come alive on the front lines of our institution’s reach, longing to carve out a space on the internet where we can imagine into existence the kind of Church we’ll love to serve for decades more.
So, dear reader, what you’ll find here at “And Can It Be?” are essays - mostly written as letters back and forth between Jared and me - naming our dreams for this Church we lead, this Church we long to see thrive. We will share these letters on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month, delivered straight into the inbox of those who subscribe.
Our hope and prayer is that you will dream alongside us. We hope that wherever you are serving, whether as a pastor or a layperson, you will be inspired to reclaim the heart of reformation at our Wesleyan roots and let your lived theology imagine into existence the Church you long to pass on to the generations to come.
With hope until next time,
Laura
But I do often recommend The Book of Discipline for reading material to those having trouble falling asleep at night.