In Part 8 of our series on What Methodists Believe we will discuss just how Methodists, in the Wesleyan tradition, view the Church. Let it be said
right at the start that Methodists reject any idea of "independent Christianity."
We seek instead to be called into Christian community that unites us with the
great cloud of witnesses in the Church
of Heaven, and forms us
into a Great-Commission connection in the Church on earth.
In this final installation of the series "What Do Methodists
Believe?" I hope to address briefly and more specifically the way in which we
live our faith together as Methodists. This concluding characteristic of
Wesleyan theology and practice is that whatever we do as Wesleyans in the life
and practice of the church we do with the
whole people of God. In fact early Methodism had more lay leaders than
clergy leaders, and many of these leaders were women.