This particular group has about 25 people in it, spanning in age from 17 to 70 and in experience from biblical novices to people who have studied for the ministry. In the first two weeks we covered introductory material and then the all-important “What Does It Mean To Be A Christian?”
Which set us up well for last night’s subject, “What Does It Mean To Be A United Methodist?”
This is always my favorite session to lead. The Methodist distinctives of prevenient grace on the one hand and free will on the other intersect with my own story of not only coming to faith but then maturing in it. So people in Next Step learn about the major tenets of our denomination while also getting an insight into some of my own upbringing and idiosyncracies.
And the gathering last night was notable for this reason: no one (that’s zero out of 25) had any prior “Methodist” experience, so names like “John Wesley” and concepts like “sanctifying grace” were altogether new. I was given a tabula rosa on which to begin forging Methodist identities in the lives of new members at Good Shepherd.
In other words, I could have told them that we believe in predestination, pre-millenial dispensationalism, and perseverance of the saints, and they wouldn’t have known any better.
But I didn’t.
Here are a few of the highlights, continual reminders of why I love the historic theology that undergirds the United Methodist Church.
* When we talked about prevenient grace — the idea that God is working on you before you are looking for him — internal lights went on all around the room. People looked in the rear view mirror of their lives and saw with much greater clarity how God was at work in their lives even when they were oblivious to his presence. People recalled events as painful as the death of a spouse or as joyful as the birth of child as evidence of God’s intrusion into their lives. We realized together that prevenient grace is really intervening grace: God is an expert interventionist.
* I saw the relief in the group when, after explaining the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination, I let them know that Methodism lands at the opposite end of the spectrum with our firm belief in free will. (The first church I attended as a teenager was so strongly Calvinist that — in spite of the love of the people and the intellect of the pastor — it propelled me on a “free will” search which ultimately led me to Wesley and the people called Methodist.) The group resonated with the “free will logic” of I Timothy 2:3-4: This is good and pleases God our Savior who wants ALL MEN to be saved & come to a knowledge of the truth. If God truly desires ALL to come faith, why would he have predetermined that many would not?
* Our material teaches people that the early Methodist in Great Britain and the US were known for:
Dynamic Worship (the Shouting Methodists)
Small Groups
Helping People In Need
Inviting People To Faith
The Ministry Of The People, Not The Clergy
As they compared early Methodism with Good Shepherd Methodism, they decided that — in spite of occasional complaints from my clergy UMC colleagues that “you’re not Methodist enough!” — our church does its best to mimic those early, enthusiastic revivalists of the movement.
* When I opened it up for questions, I was stunned by what wasn’t asked: 1) what’s the deal with itineracy? and 2) where do you all stand on homosexuality? Silence on both, though I brought up the former. So whether it’s our outmoded system of deploying pastors OR the controversy threatening to tear our national connection in two (or three or four), people are blissfully unaware. While appreciative of our Methodist roots, they are more dialed in to our congregation’s mission: inviting all people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ.
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I had an acquiaintance who is the pastor of a nondenom church that split from a UMC megachurch here in Indiana offer this as part of the reason he left: “They’re just playing at being Methodist.” That particular megachurch also baptizes by immersion only, refuses to uphold the BOD by baptizing infants, and generally just looks like a generic evangelical Baptist church. They also don’t use the traditional cross-and-flame and even go so far as to not include the words “United Methodist” on their sign.
So my question is, what differentiates such a church from any other Baptist church? In that particular megachurch’s case, they even refuse to partner with other UM congregations in the district.
What makes GSUMC Methodist? I am not saying that GSUMC is not Methodist, but prevenient grace, free moral agency and assurance are not concepts exclusive to Methodism. They’re also found in Free Will Baptist churches, for example. Revivalism isn’t exclusive to Methodism either.
Is it the fact that the church has the words United Methodist Church in its name? Is it that the church is at least nominally a part of an annual conference of the United Methodist Church?
What constitutes the core of United Methodist identity? Is it the doctrines found in the Book of Discipline? If it’s only parts of those doctrines, which ones and why only those?
There’s a difference between “distinctive” and being “exclusive.” I wouldn’t any beliefs that were “exclusively” Methodist . . . if we were the only ones to hold that, that would suggest moving towards a cult.
Free will distinguishes us from the Calvinists.
Assurance distinguishes us from the once saved always saved thinking of the Baptists.
Holiness distinguishes us from certain revivalists (and, by the way, aligns us with other believer baptizers like the Nazarenes and Wesleyans).
Actually, the Church of the Nazarene (Art. XII of their Articles of Faith) and the Free Methodists (A/124 of their doctrinal statements) are both paidobaptist denominations (unlike the Wesleyans, who picked that up in the Wesleyan Methodists’ merger with the Pilgrim Holiness and Reformed Baptist churches). My former UM acquiaintance who is now nondenom/interdenom is a Free Methodist pastor’s son, incidentally.
I would argue that free grace empowering free agency distinguishes us from the Calvinists. The UMC is also distinguished from the Baptists by having a sacramental theology, accepting baptism by pouring or sprinkling as well as immersion/submersion, and practicing infant baptism. We are distinguished from Calvinists by the emphasis on assurance (knowing on a spiritual level that we are right with God), since some forms of Calvinism say that it is not possible to truly know whether you are elect until you die. Assurance also distinguishes us from Baptists’ belief in Once Saved Always Saved. Our pragmatism when it comes to worship styles and revivalism distinguish us from the Episcopalians. We are distinguished from most Protestants by our emphasis on holy living, including Christian perfection and our similarities to Catholic/Eastern Orthodox spiritual discipline. But so many of these emphases tie in together that I have a hard time accepting that you can jettison any emphasis without disrupting the support for the others.
I will also add that I agree with you about the difference between “distinctive” and “exclusive,” and, as I said on Twitter, that I agree with you, Kevin Watson and others who say that Methodism is distinct because of distinctive emphases–but I think our distinction is in the sum total of our emphases, including sacramental theology, infant baptism, holy living, justification by faith alone, baptism by sprinkling, pouring or immersion, etc. We start to look very different from other Methodist congregations when we drop elements of our emphases with which we disagree. My question is, at what point do we lose any sort of group cohesion to the United Methodist Church?
When Bert and I took the class (7 years ago!) you were out of town for that portion of the class. Ron Dozier filled in, and did just fine, but I kind of feel like we missed out. I would’ve enjoyed learning more about your journey.
Selah