The Jerry Maguire Manifesto

A few years ago the world was filled with cries of 'Show me the money.' The film, Jerry Maguire had hit big time. And although Cuba Gooding, Jr and Tom Cruise were fun to watch, the key to the movie was Jerry Maguire's manifesto. He began the film by writing a paper that changed his life and his profession. He called all sports agents to look at their world in a different way.

I have no illusions that this 'manifesto' will change the church in any significant way. I do know, however, that it is destined to change the way that I do ministry. So here is my manifesto for working in the church in the 21st Century.

• The church needs to be about ministry, not administration. In my denomination, the United Methodist Church, we are very good at administration. In fact, we are so good at it that we sometimes ignore ministry altogether. Currently we are considering yet another large-scale administrative re-organization in north Indiana. This will be the third time in the last five years. When we re-organize we feel as though we are doing something. This somehow salves our consciences as we realize that ministry is suffering or non-existent. When we change our administrative practices it becomes easier to overlook our ministry failures.
• The church needs to be about church health and church growth. We seem to be in either one camp or the other. We advocate for church growth with programs, events and services. We advocate for church health with spiritual growth initiatives. And somehow we lose sight of the fact that we should be about both health and growth.
• The church needs to be about community, rather than tradition. Overall I am a pretty traditional person. I love the history of the church in general, and my denomination in particular. I love hymns and traditional worship styles. I love worshiping in ancient cathedrals and country-side chapels. But more important than tradition, is the community of faith. As followers of Jesus we must be advocated for community. We must support and build one another. That may mean that some of our traditions must die. But if it is for the glory of God, so be it.
• The church needs to be about relationships, rather than organizations. How interesting it is to consider that we often neglect those around us because they do not fit into our organization. Jesus did not start a church, a club or any other kind of organization. Jesus built relationships with men and women that he loved. I believe that he still desires to build relationships. It is incumbent on us to make that happen.
• The church needs to be about worship, rather than programming or performance. I have nothing against Christian entertainment. I love Christian music, books and videos. However, in the church we need to be sure that we are insisting on worship, not performance. Let's engage God, the Creator of the universe, with our hearts, not our sense of good taste.
• The church needs to be Christian, rather than liberal, conservative, progressive or evangelical. Labels in the church serve only to divide. In recent years that division has grown to proportions that cannot fairly be measured. All of these titles, labels. serve only as political identifiers. It is very hard to find Christians who believe that the church should be political, and yet almost all of us choose one or more political labels. If you identify yourself as an evangelical aren't you really giving testimony to all that you are against? If you are a liberal aren't you against the back-woods fundamentalists? It is time that we got over our differences and prayed together. Let's be Christians, after all.
• The church needs to look outside for answers to its problems. My denomination has a terribly myopic problem. We believe that any problem we have can be solved by us. This is very sad. We fail to see the work of God in the lives and organizations of other churches and Christian ministries. We cling to the belief that we can figure it out ourselves. And all the while we sink into oblivion. There are answers to our problems. We just need to get rid of our egos so that we can figure out what we should do.