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"Know your disease, know your cure..."

By: Sermon Resources on 9/7/2010
Topics: Special Materials

In the 1700s, the first insurance company formed in America was the Presbyterian

Ministers Fund. It was initially created to provide benefits to surviving spouses and

children of clergy. Ministers Life was formed shortly thereafter for the same purpose.

From the 1700s to the 1960s, these two companies enjoyed a unique advantage in the

insurance business: Clergy lived longer and experienced fewer health claims than other

individuals or any other group of insureds in the United States. Therefore these

companies were able to offer to individuals and judicatories (Conferences) exceptionally

low rates and significantly higher dividends on life-insurance policies. Since the 1960s,

that trend has been reversed.

 

Clergy now have one of the worst—some actuaries say the worst—health history

of any identifiable group in the insurance business. As a result, Presbyterian Ministers

Fund and Ministers Life no longer exist.

 

The Reverend John Wesley was fond of saying, regarding the human

predicament, “Know your disease, know your cure.” So what is the disease clergy are

facing now and what is the cure for clergy? We affirm with Mr. Wesley that there is a

cure for our current situation.

 

Every one of us knows how important it is that we correctly diagnose the real

situation in order to apply the correct solutions. So it is with us clergy now.

We have taught in the Doctor of Ministry programs at three seminaries over the

past eighteen years. In all that time, we have identified only one candidate who, in our

opinion, clearly did not have a legitimate calling to ordained ministry. Without exception,

every other minister unarguably demonstrated a faithful call to ministry. These people,

whom we came to know intimately, truly felt called. They loved Jesus Christ and

sincerely wanted to be led by His Spirit and serve the Kingdom of God. In a number of

cases, they had made tremendous sacrifices to pursue their calling and were willing to

suffer whatever the cost to serve Christ and His Church.

 

However, in spite of all the faithfulness we have witnessed, clergy report having

many difficulties in ministry today. Almost all clergy have come to realize that ordained

ministry must be done differently—in some major ways—than we have conducted it the

past 40 to 50 years. Change is necessary not just because we are now in the 21st century;

change in the ministry was necessary decades ago, when we first began to experience a

declining and aging membership. However, many of the changes that were made then

were the wrong changes and brought worse results.

 

Returning to a Former Way of Ministry that Produces Spiritual, Emotional, and

Physical Health

 

For clergy, returning to a former way of ministry would produce a dramatic

improvement in our spiritual, emotional and physical health. That is a desire every one of

us has, and it will happen for the following reasons:

1. Clergy focusing on their salvation and calling as the top priority brings peace

of heart and mind.

Whatever happens to the Church in the United Sates, or whatever course The United

Methodist Church takes, we the clergy must not be deterred from nor distracted by nonpriority

issues. Then we will be able say that we have been found faithful to our salvation

and calling. On the day we stand before Jesus the Christ, we will be able to say we have

tried our utmost to serve Him and His Kingdom and have endured to the end. We never

gave up; we finished the race of life well.

 

2. Holiness of heart and life will improve spiritual health.

Spiritual health is a gift of grace. It is incumbent upon us to participate with God in

that gift by using our graces, gifts and expertise to do those things that we are gifted and

equipped to do. When we are performing ministry that we are gifted to do and that we

enjoy, we will feel worthwhile and be successful—and we will be happier and healthier.

We grew up in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Even as adults in the early ’60s, we

experienced the clergy dictum that “the morning is given to God.” The morning was

spent in prayer, study and sermon preparation.

 

The motivation was that the clergy desired what Wesley wanted out of all his

preachers, whether ordained or lay: “holiness of heart and life.” In fact, Mr. Wesley

continually associated holiness with happiness. With holiness or perfect love abiding in

our hearts and minds and souls, we become the spiritual leaders we are called to be. The

laity can see, feel, experience and know if that manifestation of “holiness of heart and

life” is abiding in us. That is the primary desire and hope of laity for their clergy. It is

also the beginning of leadership.

 

3. Empowering laypeople for front line ministry will relieve the leadership

strain on clergy.

There is an expectation out there that is killing us clergy. It comes from senior

leadership, and it comes from the laity. The interpretation of the expectation—“Take thou

the authority”—is that if a church is to grow, it is the clergy’s responsibility. We

constantly hear the refrain “It is all about leadership.” Whether by innuendo or verbal

declaration, this is the expectation of many members of our senior leadership.

That expectation has been grafted into the minds of our laypeople. They say, “Let’s

wait until our new preacher comes and see what he/she wants to do. Let’s see what they

can do.” This is an impossible expectation! And it is a formula for failure. The rising

trend in too many of our churches—that we “hire and fire our preachers”—is not

Methodist.

 

Another expectation that developed in the late 1960s revolved around a

reinterpretation of the nature and purpose of the Church. Suddenly and unexpectedly we

began hearing that the role of the Church was to meet people’s “needs.” That expectation

has been a driving force in the Church in America since then. It is also a bottomless pit.

Noticeably Jesus did not come to meet people’s needs.

 

Most laypeople in Methodism love their clergy. Admittedly, some do not, but these

are the minority. Admittedly, sometimes that minority gains control of a congregation,

but that is a separate issue.

 

In the ministry situation to which we wish to return, the lay leaders will themselves—

with few exceptions—resolve the problem with destructive members. The new life begins

when clergy learn to be “leaders among equals.” The new relationship arrives when lay

leaders enter into full and front line ministry. When lay leaders are thrust into the

responsibility of full ministry and experience the complexity of it, they realize—as clergy

do—their desperate spiritual need, their need for partnership and cooperation in ministry,

and their need for training.

 

Suddenly and genuinely, there is an elevated and real appreciation for clergy and for

the graces, gifts and expertise that the clergy bring to their ministry. At that moment,

everything changes.

 

When we prepare and train lay leaders to become spiritual leaders and to do full

ministry, both clergy and laity experience the righteousness, peace and joy that we are all

called to experience. We clergy will have a more loving and genuine relationship with

our laypeople, especially lay leaders.

 

4. With these changes, there will arise the best opportunity for growth—growth

that is permanent.

Historically, one of the supreme strengths of Methodism was that we kept what we

won. A steady stream of people flowed in the front door, and only a small dribble

escaped through the back door or were dismissed from membership.

It is the ministry of lay leaders that will not only bring people to faith in Jesus Christ

but will keep what we have – the members, the strong faith, the growing, the action. Not

only is this the best formula, it is the only formula for bearing fruit, and fruit that lasts.

 

5. Our spouse will be happier.

Our spouse will be happier because we are happier. We will be more fulfilled, enjoy

what we are doing, experience significantly fewer conflicts in ministry, resolve those

conflicts differently, and spend more quality time with our spouse. In many situations,

our spouse will be more inclined to participate with us in ministry. All of that improves

our health and lifeline.

 

6. Our children and grandchildren will have a greater likelihood of becoming

committed Christians.

The dropout rate and the rate of casual participation of the children and grandchildren

of clergy, whether our own children or the children of friends in ordained ministry,

worries all of us. What children see, feel, and experience when they look at us will

become the model for how they love and serve Christ.

 

7. Clergy and laity will deeply enjoy being in ministry together.

There are a multitude of books that describe Conferences during the first two hundred

years of Methodism. The clergy and laity shared a dedicated and genuine love and

affection for each other. Conferences, especially Annual Conference, were the highlight

of the year. It was anticipated with enthusiasm and joy because it would be a week of

spiritual blessings, renewed friendships, and advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Reclaiming our Methodist heritage would restore that depth of love and affection and

comradeship among the clergy. It would be the end of competition, suspicion, and

improper back-stabbing and gossip.

 

8. We will make decisions on the issues that are most likely to bring these results

rather than focusing on secondary issues.

The fundamental organizational system of historic Methodism does not need to

change. The Church’s order of Bishops, Traveling Elders, Deacons, apportionments,

Conferences, etc., do not need to change. People today are so frustrated with the Church

that they want to radically alter the system. But the Methodist/United Methodist system is

still a great vehicle. It is not the primary problem.

 

What does need to change? Our attitudes, behaviors and results.

We fear that if we do not make changes on the a priori issues, we will by default

make changes that are deleterious to our future. We need to return to and strengthen the

already-functioning decisions outlined in our book Restoring Methodism. If we do that, it

will fundamentally change the issues that drive other issues.

 

9. The decisions we make will be—must be—faithful, both biblically and

historically.

As you can see by the people who are recommending Restoring Methodism, found in

the opening pages of the book under “What Leaders Are Saying,” the ten decisions

expounded upon are faithful to the biblical witness and to historical Methodism.

Having shared these thoughts, let us be soberly cognizant that we clergy still have

profound influence in our United Methodist Church. To a large extent, it will be us who

make the decisions about where United Methodism will be in ten, fifteen, and twenty

years. We are making those decisions today. Let’s make the right decisions.

 

Sidebars:

1. “[Ministers] are supposed to go before the flock, (as in the manner of the eastern

shepherds to this day,) and to guide them in all ways of truth and holiness….”

John Wesley

2. “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the

laying on of my hands… who [God] has called us with a holy calling…”

II Timothy 1:6,9a

3. “My design was, not only to direct them [Methodist ministers] how to press after

perfection, to exercise their every grace and improve every talent they had received….”

John Wesley

4. “If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus

Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully

followed.”

I Timothy 4:6

Our Future Lies In Our Past

By: Sermon Resources on 9/7/2010
Topics: Special Materials

By Dr. James B. Scott

A philosophical seed planted in the 1930s emerged in full bloom in the 1960s, and still today this seed sprouts new growth. The twisting vines of this philosophy go like this: The world is changing, therefore the church needs to change—everything must change; relevancy is mandatory; we need innovation at every level of the church—innovate or die; we need to identify with the people and with the world; identify what people want and change to meet those needs: the old scriptural language is obsolete and cannot be understood, therefore it needs to be reinterpreted for a new generation—a new gospel for a new day. Somehow, it sounded good in the 1960s.
We were taught this philosophy, and we bought into the new ideal. Back in the sixties, many of us clergy were still wearing our clerical collars—so we stopped wearing clerical collars. But we kept our black suits and white shirts crisp and clean, and our shoes were always shined (as the early Methodists required). After a while, we stopped wearing our ties and then our jackets. Soon it did not matter whether or not our shoes were shined.
What happened was that we went out into the world, and we became like the world. Instead of us changing the world, the world changed us. We have become like the world. And we cannot understand why we have experienced half a century of decline. As I consider the growth of that seed, I cannot help but think, Were we not supposed to live the kind of life that the world would see and then want to become like us, rather than us becoming like the world? I have now watched this philosophical ideal promulgated over the course of 48 years of ministry, and my question is, How are we doing?
Even in the early sixties, many of our leaders and people who mentored me, such as Dr. Albert Outler, Dr. Howard Grimes, Dr. Walter Underwood (later a Bishop), and Dr. Bob Goodrich (later a Bishop), were expressing great lamentation at the new direction of The Methodist Church in America. From 1968 to 2006, membership dropped from approximately 10.8 million to 7.9 million. In 1940, the average age was thirty-something, today it is sixty-something. All of the critical indicators of health have dropped: membership, worship attendance, percentage of giving, children, youth, and young adult attendance.
Looking ahead, the picture is not better. Dr. Lovett Weems of Wesley Theological Seminary courageously and consistently speaks and writes of his concern about where we are going and what the future holds for us: the deaths of large numbers of older members and the loss of their energy, passion, and sacrifice, as well as their significant financial commitments. In the next fifteen to eighteen years, almost all of the Greatest Generation and most of the Builder Generation will have gone home to our Lord. With those losses, we might well be looking at The United Methodist Church with about 3.2 to 3.5 million members. In addition to this numerical loss, we do not yet know what impact the loss of these two generations of committed Christians will have on our future or on the future of the Church in America.
The philosophical ideal of the 1960s has not served us well. In fact, it has failed us these past forty years, and it will not serve us well in the future. Yet, astonishingly, after nearly forty years of failure, we are still attempting to hold on to it. The direction The Methodist Church undertook then affects us now in our spiritual journeys and our spiritual health
I love Methodism. Methodism extends back for generations on both sides of my family, directly to the Rev. John Wesley on the Scott side. This challenge, to myself and to others, comes out of the pain of seeing my beloved Methodism in serious decline, at least here in North America, and our resulting loss of effectiveness in contributing to the Kingdom of God. We are still performing wonderful ministries. However, every time we lose 100,000 members, our contribution is diminished.
All the articles and books I have written are founded on the belief that there are better answers to our current crisis than the answers we are getting. The right answers are found still lingering in what might be called our DNA but are absolutely found in our past. A significant number of us believe that our future is found in our past. I would like to speak briefly to that hope and promise.
Journey with me back into the life and times of the Rev. John Wesley. Here is just a small glimpse of the extensive changes that occurred in England during the nearly ninety years of Wesley’s life (1703–1791): England had just emerged from the Cromwellian war, witnessed the beheading of Charles I, and seen the restoration of Parliamentary rule; the divine right of kings had been challenged, and the power struggle between the king and Parliament was in full force; the conflict of the Highlander Stuarts of Scotland with James the Old Pretender and James the Young Pretender resulted in the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Then during Wesley’s time, there was the war with France; the Industrial Revolution was taking place, which meant the mass migration of people from the country to the cities. Great Britain had become, due in large part to its great naval power, the dominant power in the political and military world, expressing itself in world expansion. Explosive advancements were being made in all the sciences, which prepared the way for Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Radical reformers such as William Wilberforce, a dear friend of the Wesleys, were challenging the slave trade and other human abuses, eventually leading to the abolishment of the slave trade in the British Empire. Ah yes, and in the 1770s there was the Colonial Rebellion in the Americas. Most clergy were caught up in the new Age of Reason and the belief that man through his own reason could build a great new world without war or disease. Man had replaced God as the center of the universe. The clergy for the most part became more concerned about their entitlements and positions of power than the souls of lost people. Recreation such as the theater and hunting were of primary importance to most church leaders, both clergy and laity. The Anglican Church in England was in serious decline.
Every generation has seen radical change. Every generation thinks it is the first to experience radical change. I suppose we focus only on ourselves because we are the ones experiencing the change. We fail to broaden our horizons and understand that every generation for many hundreds of years has experienced radical change.
Here is a crucial question, one that portends to an essential revelation for us: How did the Rev. John Wesley respond to the monumental turmoil and change he saw in his lifetime?
First, let’s look at what he did not do. He did not express the philosophy that since England and the world were undergoing radical change, everything in the Church must also change. Providentially and wisely, Mr. Wesley saw that the theology of the Anglican Church did not need to change. The Gospel that had been "once delivered” and formed the theology of the Anglican Church did not need to be changed. The Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, the Homilies of the Anglican Church did not need to be changed or reinterpreted. They only needed to be believed and taught.
Second, Wesley saw that the episcopal structure of the Anglican Church did not need to be changed. The Rev. John Wesley understood implicitly that the problem resided in the hearts of people. Change the hearts of the people, and the Church would be changed. It was in changing the hearts, minds, souls, and therefore the behaviors of people that restoration, reformation, and new spiritual life would come to the Anglican Church. How many times have we heard Mr. Wesley say that Christianity is a religion of the heart? The early Methodists made Methodism great because Jesus Christ was great in their hearts. This was the beginning of Methodism. The great evangelical revival had begun, notably in part because some of God’s people had prepared their hearts, minds, and lives to be used by God. It was the beginning of the reformation of the Anglican Church. For example both of William Wilberforce’s sons became Anglican priests with one becoming Bishop of the prestigious position Bishopric of London and bringing radical reform, as had his father before him.
In spite of the great worldwide change enacted by Mr. Wesley and the early Methodists, we do not worship John Wesley. We only give him the respect, honor, and position of one of the prominent saints of Christian history. Historians and theologians from all three streams of Christianity, Roman, Orthodox, and Protestant affirm the Reverend John Wesley and the Wesleyan/Methodist movement as representing the core of what is the essence of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. We only look to Mr. Wesley because he takes us with lightning speed back to the essential teachings (doctrine) and practices (disciplines) of Christianity. Our future lies in our past.
Our past teaches us that we should not be chasing after every new fad or voice that comes along. That chasing has not served us well.
Our past teaches us that we do not need to change our theology or our discipline. Between the years 1730 and 1930, there was unbelievable change in the world. However, the Gospel “once delivered” to the saints of the first century and the eighteenth century is still the Gospel of the twenty-first century. For example, one of the theological foundations of The United Methodist Church is the Articles of Religion. The Articles of Religion of the United Methodist Church are found in the The Book of Discipline (formerly called The Doctrine and Discipline for over 200 years). Methodist writers like A. A. Jimeson, S. Comfort, Henry Wheeler, and C. Lovell provide heartwarming biblical and theological insight into our Articles of Religion along with powerful commentary. These and other authors teach us how our Articles of Religion contain the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and why they are essential to our spiritual lives. Our Articles of Religion are simply doors to a house full of treasures. Our future lies in our past.
Our past teaches us that there are biblical and time-tested principles of practice that produce faithful disciples of Jesus Christ and provide for the transmission of the gospel to succeeding generations. For example, between the years 1730 and 1930, the Class-Meeting was the “heart of Methodism.” For 200 years, the Class-Meeting crossed continents, oceans, cultures, and multiple generations of individual families. With slight variations and minimal adjustments for cultural differences, the Class-Meeting steadily remained the "heart of Methodism” and was one of the nonnegotiable dynamics responsible for the incredible success of Methodism. With a few more variations, it could again become that engine. Our future lies in our past.
I recall hearing a sermon in 1961 by Dr. Albert Outler, who was passionately attempting to lift up our Methodist heritage, urging us to reclaim some of its lost treasure and to stand firm on doctrine and discipline. His Scripture text was Hebrews 13:17: “Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account.” I do not remember much of the first part of the sermon, but the latter part is indelibly seared into my being. Dr. Outler emphasized that the clergy and laity who were in leadership at that moment were even that day making decisions that would determine the future of The Methodist Church. Perhaps it would be one or even two decades before the results of those decisions would be manifested, but those decisions were going to come to fruition. The final piercing thrust from Dr. Outler came when he said that we would be held accountable for how we conducted our ministry and our faithfulness in our leadership to preach, teach, and uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Jesus Christ, and particularly The Methodist Church in which we had been called to serve.
Likewise, the Rev. John Wesley spoke about the responsibilities of ministers in terms of pastoral care, protection, living and teaching truth and holiness, and helping souls become formed in the image of Jesus Christ: “They are supposed to ‘watch over your souls, as those that shall give account.’ ‘As those that shall give account!’ How unspeakably solemn and awful are those words! May God write them upon the heart of every guide of souls” (see James B. Scott and Molly Davis Scott, Restoring Methodism, p. 74). You and I, both clergy and lay leaders, are making decisions today about the future of The United Methodist Church. Those decisions are directly and profoundly affecting, and will affect, the souls of those under our care, those who should be under our care, and those who could be under our care. In 15 to 20 years, future leaders will experience and know the results of our decisions.
Along with my colleague in life, the Rev. Dr. Molly Davis Scott, all of our articles, books, and seminars are in essence urging us to more vigorously lift up and strengthen the doctrine and discipline that for over 200 years made Methodism one of the greatest movements in the history of the Christian Church. I am not asking you to listen to my voice. I am asking you to do what I heard and saw Dr. Outler and many others trying to do. I am asking you to listen to the voices of the early Methodists, those voices that were part of the explosive years of Methodism. I bring nothing new; I bring only the voices of the past. The voices I want you to hear are the voices of the saints of history, particularly those in our Methodist history. I urge you to listen to the voices of John and Charles Wesley, Susanna Wesley, John Fletcher, Mary Bosanquett, Adam Clarke, Hester Ann Rogers, Joseph Benson, William Carvosso, Father Reeves, and countless other men and women of our magnificent past. These are the voices, the cloud of witnesses that I urge you to hear and follow. Our future is found in our past.
One of the most encouraging aspects of this is that as we have traveled extensively across the denomination these past few years, Molly and I have found incredible energy and passion for Methodism via The United Methodist Church to regain its full vitality. We have been personally energized and have found hope in both clergy and laity—perhaps most especially in the laity, whose desire and heart is to be faithful to the doctrine and discipline of the past and transform our biblical, historical practices into models that reach the eternal needs of people today. I say especially the laity because our future is more heavily weighted on the side of the laity than on us clergy. A wealth of God’s resources are sitting in our pews weekly. Remember, as Methodist historians have continually emphasized, it was the laity, sometimes led more often supported by the clergy, who were a primary force in the evangelical revival that produced Methodism.
What has all this to do with my spiritual health and life—and yours? The answer is extremely simple: The reality is that my spiritual health and life substantially depend upon the church I attend. The more faithfully my church approaches the doctrine and discipline of early Methodism, the more I have opportunity to experience and therefore express the genuine character of Christianity, both by word and deed. Our hearts and minds find peace and hope when they rest in the heart of Jesus Christ. It is that faith, love, community, and joy in serving that the Church provides.
Mr. Wesley believed that Methodism in its purest ideal was Christianity in its purest ideal. I, too, believe that with all my heart, mind, and soul. It is a high ideal that must forever be kept in front of us. It is the ideal of a loving, compassionate Creator who desires to be united with His creation, with you and me. It is the ideal of being formed in the image of Jesus Christ. It is the ideal of being blessed, taught, and led by the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit. It is the ideal of being overcome with love, joy, and gratefulness so compelling that our hearts are broken for the world and its people. It is the ideal of us joyfully sacrificing everything to heal the hearts, minds, souls, bodies, and lives of neighbors across this tiny planet. It is the ideal of becoming one with the perfect love of God, of being crucified with Jesus Christ that we might rise with Him on the last day, of being sanctified by the Spirit to live righteously, joyfully, and courageously seeking compassion and justice. It is the ideal that with faith we believe God’s promise to be true, even the one that says, “Be holy for I am holy,” a holiness we can experience in this life. It is the ideal that gives us the vision of seeing a home reserved for us in that kingdom where love, compassion, and wholeness will never end. It is the ideal where we know that for eternity, father and son, mother and daughter, brother and sister, old friends and new, will know and live forever with each other in perfect love.

Pertinent Scripture and Methodist Quotations Regarding the Wesleyan Class-Meeting

By: Sermon Resources on 9/7/2010
Topics: Special Materials

Compiled by James B. Scott and Molly Davis Scott

Scripture
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking
of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:42 (NKJV)
 
Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has
made you overseers, to shepherd the chosen of God, which He purchased with His own
blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you,
not sparing the flock. Acts 20:28-29 (NKJV)
 
Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion
but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted
to you, but being examples to the flock, and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will
receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 1 Peter 5:2-4 (NKJV)
 
Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as
those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would
be unprofitable for you. Hebrew 13:17 (NKJV)
 
The Heart of Methodism
The Reverend W. L. Watkinson, in the course of a speech delivered in the Great Queen
Street Wesleyan Chapel, London, on Wednesday evening, July 17, 1907, declared that
the Class-Meeting is the primal organ of the Church, and while the physiologist would
tell them that in the course of generations an organ might be eliminated, he had never
read yet that there had been an instant where a creature had survived after the heart had
been taken away.
Murray, Gilbert. The Methodist Class-Meeting. London: Robert Culley. Year not
printed, likely 1910. Pp. 124-125.
 
Wisdom and Prophecy from the Reverend John Wesley
I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease too exist either in
Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the
form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they
hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.
Wesley, John. The Works of John Wesley. 3rd ed. Vol.13. “Thoughts upon
Methodism.” Grand Rapids: Baker Books. 1998. P. 258.
 
Better forty members should be lost than our discipline lost. There are no Methodists
that will bear no restraints.
Telford. John, ed. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley. Vol.VII. Letter to John
Valton. January 18, 1872. London: Epworth Press. 1931. P. 101.
 
Unity and holiness are the two things I want among the Methodists.
Telford. John, ed. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley. Vol.V. Letter to John
Fletcher. February 28, 1766. London: Epworth Press. 1931. P. 4.
 
They (ministers) are supposed to “watch over your souls, as those that shall give
account!” “As those that shall give account!” How unspeakably solemn and awful are
those words! May God write them upon the heart of every guide of souls.
Wesley, John. Jackson ed. Vol. VII. Sermon: “On Obedience to Pastors.” P. 110.
 
By Methodists I mean a people who profess to pursue (in whatever measure they have
attained) holiness of heart and life, inward and outward conformity to all things to the
revealed will of God.
Outler, Albert C., ed. The Works of John Wesley. Bicentennial ed. Vol. 9.”Advice
to the People Called Methodists.” 1745. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1982. Pp. 123-124.
 
This doctrine (entire sanctification) is the grand depositum which God has lodged with
the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly he appears to
have raised us up.
Telford. John, ed. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley. Vol.VIII. Letter to Robert
Carr Brackenbury. September 15, 1790. London: Epworth Press. 1931. P. 238.
 
At the same time we are convinced that we are not sufficient of ourselves to help
ourselves; that without the Spirit of God we can do nothing but add sin to sin; that it is he
alone “who worketh in us” by his almighty power, either “to will or to do” that which is
good---it being as impossible for us even to think a good thought without the supernatural
assistance of his Spirit as to create ourselves, or to renew our whole souls in
righteousness and true holiness.
Outler, Albert C., ed. The Works of John Wesley. Bicentennial ed. Vol. 1.”The
Circumcision of the Heart” 1733. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1984. P. 404.
 
Early in his ministry John Wesley wrestled with how many souls a single person could
serve well. In a letter to his father, he commented on pastoring and the quality of pastoral
oversight: “I see not how any man living can take care of a hundred. At least I could not;
I know too well quid valeant humeri [‘how much I can bear’].” Later Wesley settled on
the ideal ratio of one pastor for every thirty persons.
Scott, James B., and Molly Davis Scott. Restoring Methodism: 10 Decisions for
United Methodist Churches in America. Dallas: Provident Publishing. 2006. P. 104.
 
You know that the great end of religion is to renew our hearts in the image of God, to
repair that total loss of righteousness and true holiness which was sustained by the sin of
our first parent.
 Outler, Albert C., ed. The Works of John Wesley. Bicentennial ed. Vol. 2.
“Original Sin” Circumcision of the Heart” 1759. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1984. P.
185.
 
The weight of all religion, we apprehend, rests on holiness of heart and life.
Outler, Albert C., ed. The Works of John Wesley. Bicentennial ed. Vol. 11. “A
Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” Part III, 1745. Nashville: Abingdon
Press. 1984. P. 320.
 
Remembering Who We Were and What We Did: Truth and wisdom from our
Methodist past
 
As Dr. Tillett concedes that Wesley, Fletcher, Watson, and others of the earlier
Methodists, believed and taught that sanctification is subsequent to regeneration, and is a
different and an “instantaneous work,” we need not quote from the teachings on this
subject.
Brooks, John R. Scriptural Sanctification: An Attempted Solution of the Holiness
Problem. Nashville: The Publishing House of the Methodist E.C. 1903. P. 155.
We next give the latest deliverance of the sixteen bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, in their Address to the General Conference of 1898. Among other things they
say:
“As a Church we have taught from the beginning that believers have power to
become sons of God, be made partakers of the divine nature. We have insisted on the
glorious privilege and duty of all mankind becoming saints, of immediately being made
perfect in love, and of gradually ripening into Christian maturity in all faculties. This
doctrine was never more definitely stated, clearly perceived, nor consistently lived by
greater numbers than now.”
Brooks, John R. Scriptural Sanctification: An Attempted Solution of the Holiness
Problem. Nashville: The Publishing House of the Methodist E.C. 1903. P. 159.
We first give a paragraph from the Pastoral Address of the Centennial Conference of
American Methodism, held in Baltimore, December, 1884, and composed of delegates
from eight branches of the Methodist family. It was prepared by a committee composed
of Bishop Merrill and Governor Stanard, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop
Wilson and General Vance of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and Bishop
Campbell, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and adopted by a “unanimous
vote” of the Conference.
 
“We remind you brethren, that the mission of Methodism is to promote holiness.
Holiness is the fullness of life, the crown of the soul, the joy and strength of the Church.
It is not a sentiment nor an emotion, but a principle inwrought in the heart, the
culmination of God’s work in us, followed by a consecrated life. In all the borders of
Methodism the doctrine is preached, and the experience of sanctification is urged. We
beseech you, brethren, stand by your standards on this subject. Our founders rightly
interpreted the mind of the Spirit, and gave us the truth as it is in Jesus. Let us not turn
from them to follow strange lights, but rather let us believe their testimony, follow their
example, and seek purity of heart by faith in he cleansing blood, and then, in the steady
line of consecrated living, ‘go on to perfection.’”
Brooks, John R. Scriptural Sanctification: An Attempted Solution of the Holiness
Problem. Nashville: The Publishing House of the Methodist E.C. 1903. P. 157.
 
Among all the other issues, the loss of the Class Meetings is one of the greatest
losses in Methodism. In the early 1960s Dr. Outler expounded vociferously about the loss
of the Class Meetings, including the emasculation of the Class Leaders and the serious, if
not near-fatal, effect this was having on the then Methodist Church. He said, “The Class
Meeting was more than another experiment in ‘Christian togetherness.’ It was, in fact, a
schola animarium—a ‘school for growing souls.’ It was also an agency in the permanent
Christian revolution on behalf of God’s kingdom, God’s righteousness—here on earth as
in heaven.
Scott, James B. and Molly Davis Scott, Restoring Methodism, Dallas: Provident
Publishing, 2006, P.90.
 

The Anointed Wesley Brothers

By: Sermon Resources on 9/7/2010
 Note to Bishop’s Week Readers, 2010:
This paper is a revision of “Why John Wesley?” from Restoring Methodism, pp. xi-xiv. It is front matter in our coming book The Sacrament of Jesus. Jim Scott, Molly Davis Scott
John and Charles Wesley changed the world. How did it happen?
It all started in Suzanna Wesley’s nursery. Suzanna was married to Samuel Wesley, an Anglican priest, and became the mother of John and Charles. She was a devoted Christian and a disciplined mother who raised the surviving eleven of her nineteen children in the Christian faith. She awoke the boys and their siblings at four o’clock every morning to begin their studies, which consisted of Greek, Latin, the method of the Bible, and several other subjects. Suzanna said that her principle task was the salvation of her children’s souls. No one could have ever anticipated what lay ahead for John and Charles. It was a faith-beginning that would change England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Americas, and the world.
Charles, the older brother, enrolled at Oxford to become an Anglican priest. John followed later. It was Charles who in 1729 started a small group, which John joined, seeking “holiness of heart and life.” The group took the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on a highly regular basis and were thus called sacramentarians. The group believed Hebrews 12:14, that “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” The students at Oxford called it the Holy Club. Holiness, sanctification, perfect love: this was to be the defining doctrine of the movement. Wesley was determined to return to that “primitive church” that had given power and life to the first-century Christians. The quest was on.
Though the Reverend John Wesley is credited with being the founder of the Methodist movement, due credit needs to be given to the Reverend Charles Wesley. Charles was a gifted preacher who worked side by side with his brother. Charles also wrote, often with John’s assistance, almost eight thousand hymns, many of which are still sung today by congregations and denominations around the world. Their well-known hymns include “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” and “For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” The Wesleys, together with their band of lay preachers and class leaders, not only altered the Anglican Church in England but also worked for the abolition of slavery, prevented a repeat of the French Revolution in England, established educational systems for children, and reformed and changed child-labor laws. In addition, the Wesleys and the early Methodists started the first pharmacy in England and built orphanages, hospitals, and schools. They were instrumental in putting orthodox evangelical Anglican theology into practice, combining a personal relationship and love for Jesus Christ with social justice.
The Wesleys began not only Methodism but an evangelical movement that spawned many other movements and denominations. In America alone, there are more than thirty-five Wesleyan denominations, including The United Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and The Salvation Army. The World Methodist Council represents approximately 50 million people. The Methodists and their Wesleyan brothers and sisters in the United States have built hundreds of universities, hospitals, orphanages, schools, and multiple seminaries. They have fought for the issues of justice and freedom, and they personally give billions of dollars each year for the relief of the poor and those in need. There are many millions of people in heaven today who would not be there except for Methodism and those with Wesleyan roots who have followed in the footsteps of John and Charles Wesley and the people called Methodists.
How did John Wesley and his lay preachers and class leaders influence so many people to such profound good and commitment to God? How did they change the world they lived in?
Fifteen years into his ministry, John Wesley wrote that he did not have a full feeling of assurance of the salvation that he preached to others. After searching for another three years, several elements came together to lead him into this assurance, which he kept and preached the rest of his long life. This most poignant moment, called his Aldersgate experience, came in a gentle, unusual way. On May 24, 1738, at the age of thirty-five, Wesley happened into a small chapel at Aldersgate Street, London, where someone was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley later said, “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”1
The Anglican Church—and England, America, and the world—would be changed forever.
After his Aldersgate experience, Wesley began preaching repentance, faith, and holiness with new intensity and conviction. Wesley’s Anglican theology had not changed; what had changed was his desire to make doctrine and life congruent. Almost immediately Wesley was banned from preaching in Anglican churches throughout Britain, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. Why? First, because of his preaching in the open fields and his use of extemporaneous prayers. But far and away the most controversial reason was his commitment to the use of lay preachers, who attracted crowds but angered the established Church, particularly the clergy.
During his lifetime, Wesley traveled over 250,000 miles on horseback, was attacked incessantly by mobs, and suffered every kind of humiliation. At times he preached to crowds as large as twenty thousand. Through his tracts and writings, he earned what today would be millions of dollars, yet throughout his entire life, he lived on the same amount of money he had subsisted on in college, giving the rest away. 
Wesley’s last words before dying were, “The best of all, God is with us.” Then he sat up and sang some lines from Isaac Watts’s hymn:
I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath:
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers,
My days of praise shall ne’er be passed.2
And one of the greatest saints of history was gone to his reward.
John Wesley can continue to change our lives for the better.
It is not that Wesley himself changes us; it is that he continually points away from himself to the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; to basic Christianity; to the early Church. Wesley is not the answer, but he takes us to the answers. Those answers—eternal truths—have not changed for centuries and will never change.
The Wesleyan doctrine (what we believe and teach) and discipline (rules and forms of ministry) create the vehicle to take us, individually and corporately, to the life and power that is promised in the faith. They provide the way for us to acquire righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, to advance the Kingdom of God, and to secure all that we truly need and desire in this life and the life to come.3
Finally, we offer two important thoughts. One is that Mr. Wesley should be viewed not only in light of his greatness but also of his limitations. He is not to be worshiped, but he is to be respected for who he was, what he believed and taught, and especially how he lived his life in Christ. Secondly, what he did for his world—and what he can do for us today—is take us back to the faith and the fire of the primitive Church. The Methodist movement was one of the purest representations of the faith and heart of the primitive Church. That judgment has been voiced by many historians outside Methodist circles. Father Louis Bouyer, one of the most esteemed historian and theologians in the twentieth-century Roman Catholic Church, wrote:
Wesley was perfectly well aware that what he wanted corresponded with the highest aspirations of the Catholics—and Catholics not only of the ancient Church but of the Church of his time. Anxious to provide his disciples with solid spiritual reading, he thus became, within Protestantism, one of the great popularizers of his beloved Imitation, as well as Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Frances de Sales, and Fenelon…no one did so much to rebuild bridges on a spiritual plane between Catholicism (old and new) and a renewed Protestantism.
All this, then, marked a return to Catholic doctrine in its deepest and most traditional form, but powerfully revived by the most positive Protestant intuitions and expressed in a simple popular language with great vigor and communicative conviction. From this point of view and without exaggeration Wesley can be viewed as a reformer of the Reformation itself who should be put on the same plane as its greatest initiators. If he lacked Luther’s intellectual power and original religious genius, he proved himself an incomparably more efficient apostle and pastor than anyone else when it came to producing a real spiritual revival in his disciples. We can say that never, since the beginning of the Christian mission in England, had there been such an efficient movement of religious and moral revival.4
1 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley,. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Journal. May 24, 1938. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), p. 103.
2 Isaac Watts, “I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath,” The Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1966), p. 9, altered by John Wesley.
3 To know the Wesleys better, we suggest reading the following resources: 
John Wesley’s Standard Sermons and Journals
The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley by Ernest Rattenbury Christian Perfectionism in American Methodism by John Peters John Wesley by Albert Outler The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology by R. H. Flew The Path to Perfection by W. E. Sangster Wesley for Armchair Theologians by William J. Abraham Wesley and Sanctification by Harold Lindstrom
Wesley himself was deeply moved by the following three figures, and we recommend their works as well:
William Law, Treatise on Christian Perfection and A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy
Life
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
Jeremy Taylor, Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying
4 Louis Bouyer, A History of Christian Spirituality, New York: Seabury Press, 1969,Volume 3, pages 192–93.

 

Our Reflective Question

By: Sermon Resources on 8/26/2010
Topics: Special Materials

by Chuck Rettig
presented at the Oklahoma Conference Orders Meeting on August 26, 2010