I spent most of this week in New Orleans attending the Louisiana Annual Conference.  Each day as the conference convened, the focal point of our gathering was the image of four doors centrally and colorfully displayed.   The theme of the conference was And Can It Be? from the great Wesleyan hymn of the same name.    The focus was on open doors.  However, each day as I sat down for the sessions, I found myself looking at the doors…none of which were opened, not even cracked.  We were talking about open doors, open minds and open hearts, but we were looking each day at closed doors.  As you might imagine, a bit of cognitive dissonance began to set in and I struggled all week with the apparent contradiction between the message and the metaphor – our doors are open and to prove it we display…closed doors???   Each church was also invited to purchase a poster displaying many of the doors of churches in Louisiana for $100.00 to raise funds to support the starting of new faith communities throughout Louisiana.  New places for new faces.   The poster is nicely done. The doors are beautiful.  But again, they are all closed.  The poster clearly states that our doors are open, and we show this with…once again…closed doors.   On Wednesday we voted on a constitutional amendment that read as follows:

The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ. The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth and that we are in ministry to all. All persons shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, and upon baptism be admitted as baptized members. All persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ, shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection. In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body.

We voted against this amendment to our constitution that would have stated unequivocally that our doors are indeed open.  My guess is that it our actions were motivated by fear, xenophobia and a resistance to change. Or maybe, our metaphors simply triumphed over our message. 

I must confess that I was initially disappointed that the doors to University Church were not included on the poster.  After this vote, frankly, I am glad we were not included, for if our doors were displayed on the poster, I would have insisted on them being opened.  At University Church, we want our metaphors and our message to be the same – consistent and credible.