In a recent blog post, The Purpose of Purpose I talked about the bottom line of commitment, so I would not argue whether purpose gives us commitment, or commitment gives us purpose. Just for focus, I’ll use the word commitment.
One of my favorite writers is David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. His first book which got my attention was The Road of Character. I’ve been reading, and am equally impressed with his more recent book, The Second Mountain. He became a “public” Christian in mid-life and tells the story in this book.
One chapter in the book is titled The Committed Life. Though commitments are made in a spirit of giving, he says, they produce many benefits. He names and discusses four benefits
……. Our commitments give us our identity
……. Our commitments give is a sense of purpose
……. Our commitments allow us to move to a higher level of freedom
……. Our commitments build our moral character
I hope just mentioning these will cause you to find the book and read it. I want to focus on the first alone. Our commitments give us our identity. This is especially important in my ponderings because of the situation in which we are in the nation and in the Church (denomination) in which I have served as a minister for over sixty years. Our nation’s two political parties are “at war,” and you can almost feel the hatred in their rhetoric and relationships. My denomination is experiencing division and a new expression of our church has already been established. David Brooks is right: Our commitments give us our identity. “They are how we introduce ourselves to strangers. They are the subjects that make our eyes shine in conversation. They are what give our lives constancy and coherence.”
Our denomination is dividing because our leadership, repeatedly, has broken our covenant of identity. We have agreed and claimed our identity…formally written it down in our Book of Discipline. Critical commitments which define the essence of our identity have been disregarded and violated, even by our bishops. That ongoing breaking of covenant has inspired some to believe that we need another expression of our corporate identity. The beginning of that is The Global Methodist Church, which I happily claim as a part of my identity.