c. 1996 Religion News Service
CLEVELAND _ The Rev. Dennis O. Rinehart feels trapped.
As pastor of Otterbein United Methodist Church in Warren, Ohio, he watched his operating costs jump 250 percent when he traded rented school space for a church building.
Now, instead of writing the school one check that covered heat, light, parking, security and maintenance, Rinehart has a $1,600 loan payment to meet on his building before he buys the other services.
“Our congregation has grown to the point where we desperately need more staff,” Rinehart explained during the recent annual meeting of the Eastern Ohio Conference of United Methodists at Lakeside. “We most need some youth work done.
“Instead, we’re spending our money on the bank loan. Sure, we no longer have to set up or take down folding chairs. But whose needs are we really answering?”
Rinehart is in a classic box, says the Rev. John R. Schol, national director of urban ministries for the United Methodists. And the institutional church is helping keep him there.
“The system, the local church, the annual conference does not provide the support, encouragement and models we need to take appropriate risks,” Schol told 300 avid listeners crammed into a cinderblock basement room at Lakeside. “What we often do is support the box, rather than get outside the box. …
“Without a vision, we only get a piece of what God is calling us out to do and be,” he said. “And then we wonder why people don’t get excited about the church.”
Schol, blue eyes flashing, stood before the faithful core of the local United Methodist church and pronounced it staid.
“What happens to our clergy and our church is we teach them certain things _ how to be middle-class, staid, reserved, theologically correct and proper,” Schol said. “We forget how to have fun, let go and let the Spirit happen. Part of Holy Boldness is calling people back to what they knew as a child.”
Holy Boldness is a concept sweeping United Methodism. It is an attempt to renew United Methodism by renewing its urban ministry.
“We really believe that there is a tremendous need for a more assertive approach by United Methodists in the city,” said the Rev. Julius C. Trimble, Cleveland’s new superintendent. “You won’t hear the same excuses from us anymore.”
About one-third of United Methodist churches are urban, Schol said. Eleven percent of its congregations are African-American. Perhaps 20 percent of the 852 United Methodist churches in the eastern Ohio district are in the central city.
Holy Boldness is rooted in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in which “Peter and John had the nerve, the holy, bold attitude, to heal on the Sabbath,” said the Rev. Danny C. Bryant, pastor of South Arlington United Methodist Church in Akron. “Holy Boldness is a call to be a companion of Jesus, not to concentrate on following the rules, but on doing what is right.”
This idea has translated into building 24 townhouses, rehabilitating seven abandoned houses and putting up a 50-unit senior citizen home in the heart of Philadelphia. It has meant sponsoring a Haitian landscaping business in Miami and a house-raising and youth-saving project in Upper Sand Mountain, Ala.
“Holy Boldness puts a name on how people have wanted to do ministry and known in their guts they should do ministry and collects people in a network to support each other,” said the Rev. Kenneth P. Ehrman, pastor of Westlake (Ohio) United Methodist Church. His congregation has begun the process to declare itself a holy and bold church.
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The movement itself sprang from a meeting in Birmingham, Ala., where 650 church people converged in 1995 determined to transform United Methodism’s urban mission.
“We had a life-changing experience,” Schol said simply. “A district superintendent resigned and went off to be an urban pastor. I’ve had people say to me, `I don’t know what happened in Birmingham, but my pastor is a changed person. He doesn’t preach the same. He doesn’t act the same.’
“This is not something you can control, maintain or manage. It happens because of the Spirit.”
The Birmingham experience led to 2,000 folk across the country participating in small-group meetings _ a Methodist trademark _ to try to grab hold of what Holy Boldness meant. That led to its approval by the General Conference in April.
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Holy Boldness has caught the attention of Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, who leads the Roman Catholic diocese across eight counties here. Many elements of Holy Boldness parallel Pilla’s Church in the City initiative.
“What’s exciting is Catholics and Methodists are singing out of the same hymnal and the harmony is really beautiful,” said Thomas J. Allio, director of social action for the Cleveland Catholic diocese. “The idea is to look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that are relevant to our times. I think these documents (Holy Boldness and Church in the City) provide the kind of moral compass people are hungry for in these times.”
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They both call for new forms of church partnerships, creating safe havens, catalyzing lay leaders, pushing for better housing and jobs and digging into church-based community organizing.
Allio, who met May 15 with about 50 United Methodists on these commonalities, said Pilla was “very interested in pursuing this.”
The 1,700 delegates to the eastern Ohio conference, which represents almost 200,000 local United Methodists, voted enthusiastically for the concept.
“We are now holy and bold,” pronounced Bishop Edwin C. Boulton. The conference hopes 100 congregations here will declare themselves the same by the year 2,000.
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