United in the important things

By Jessica Brodie

I’ll never forget the time one of my readers called me out on a picture of my family wearing shorts while working on a Salkehatchie home.

In addition to my work at the Advocate, I have a “Shining the Light” ministry that includes a weekly faith blog, and while many of my readers are American, many of them span the globe. In the picture, my daughter, stepdaughter and I stood smiling, covered in dirt and holding up tools—but our legs were bare, and this was the issue with which my reader took exception. In his eyes and cultural context, it was immodest and improper for godly women to show their legs, he wrote with kind fervor. While to me as an American, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a modestly dressed female wearing shorts while doing the work of the Lord, to him, it was a proclamation of improper values and disrespect.

So now, out of respect to him and my other international readers, I don’t share pictures of myself and my family members wearing shorts anymore. I don’t “have” to do this, and it certainly doesn’t change my mind about wearing shorts during 100-degree Salkehatchie weeks, but it seems like the kind and respectful thing at least not to share pictures about this.

To me, this example gets to the heart of why the regionalization amendment is important. On Page 1, we share an article about how at this year’s Annual Conference, South Carolina will have the opportunity to vote on regionalization and three other amendments to The United Methodist Church constitution. Essentially, regionalization allows each region of the UMC worldwide to make decisions that will best support outreach and ministry efforts in their specific setting, whether that’s Africa, Europe, the Philippines or the United States. Regionalization basically acknowledges that the people who comprise God’s church are different, and different people have different understandings of what it looks like to follow God.

Living faithfully while following the Lord can look like a lot of different things depending on your culture and your context. And it’s important to respect that other people see things and do things quite differently.

The reality is that on this side of heaven, I’m not sure all Christians will ever agree on everything about Christianity. I hope we can all agree that Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior, who died for our sins and is our path to salvation, and as part of following him, we are supposed to repent from our old ways and strive to live as a new creation. Beyond that, following Jesus can look quite different from one person to another. Only Jesus is the judge of whether we’re living right by him or not.

Our church isn’t perfect, and our differences often cause division. But I think regionalization is a good way that we, as God’s people, can remain together as the UMC, united in the important things while agreeing to respect other cultures’ different contexts.

“Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval.”—Romans 14:1-4 (NLT)