Okay, I was at First UMC Marshall this afternoon for the dedication of the church's new family life center. Bishop Schnase preached, and it was truly festive...balloons, beautiful building, banners and a bulletin cover. As I looked at the banners (in the picture...I'm still working on this phone camera thing) I saw they read, left to right Believe, Belong, Become. The front of the bulletin, a lovely bulletin cover it was, I might say said instead: Belong, Beleive, Become...hmmm. Which is it? Many of us reading generational stuff know that younger generations seem often to "belong themselves into believeing," as the seminary graduate is quoted as saying in Robert Webber's "The Younger Evangelicals." There was a time, at least in the more creedal churches, when one had to profess a specific code of beliefs before he or she could belong to that congregation. Now, we know, many people find their faith through some kind of relationship with persons who are already believers. I think Wesley knew this as he continued to work with the small groups that he organized, made up of new believers. I just still wonder about how this relates to so many of our churches who are having a hard time knowing how to relate to younger generations. How much do these church members inadvertantly teach that the younger adults who do show up or who are on the periphery of that church's ministry, must become as they are, believe as they do before they will be accepted and "let in" to leadership and other roles? Others have thought these thoughts before I have, but I believe we've got to come to terms with this.
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As a United Methodist, coming to terms with the order seems a scriptural thing to me, although my pastor adheres to belong-believe-become. Clearly, however, one becomes a member of the spiritual Body of Christ, the Church, by baptism. (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 2:19-22). In 1 Corinthians 12:13 we find that "by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body [i.e., the Church] —whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." In the liturgy leading to baptism the minister asks if we believe in Jesus, a condition to administration of the sacrament.
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