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.
Our Book of Discipline says this in paragraph 125, "At the
heart of Christian ministry is Jesus Christ's ministry of outreaching love.
Christian ministry is the expression of the mind and mission of Christ by a
community of Christians that demonstrates a common life of gratitude and
devotion, witness and service, celebration and discipleship. All Christians are
called through their baptism to this ministry of servanthood in the world to
the glory of God for human fulfillment." Ours is a heritage of helping all
people see they are ministers and missionaries; servants inside the church and
witnesses outside. We are convinced of and convicted by Peter's admonition to
the church when he wrote in I Peter 2:5-10, "...you
also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy
priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ...But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
belonging to God..." The Apostle Paul gets specific in Romans 12:1 when he
writes, "Therefore, I urge you brothers,
in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and
pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." And while this
concept of believers as priests is certainly multi-dimensional, at the very
least it implies that we all have service to perform as we live in God's
Kingdom here on earth. Our specific duties will be vastly different, but we all
have a ministry to perform unto the Lord in
view of God's mercy shown unto us through Christ's ultimate sacrifice.
As Methodists we also resist any notion of faith or
ecclesiology that would create a "professional guild of experts" which limits
and isolates the work of the gospel into the hands of a select few. Guided by
our Book of Discipline we read in paragraphs 128 & 129, "The people of
God...must convince the world of the reality of the gospel or leave it
unconvinced. There can be no evasion or delegation of this responsibility; the
church is either faithful as a witnessing and serving community or it loses its
vitality and its impact on an unbelieving world. The ministry of all Christians
is complementary. No ministry is subservient to another. All United Methodists
are summoned and sent by Christ to live and work together in mutual
interdependence and to be guided by the Spirit into the truth that frees and
love that reconciles."
If we all claimed our identity as Wesleyan Methodists, with
the Bible in one hand and true passion to see the world come to know Christ in
the other, then I daresay that in the end we would be found faithful to our one baptism and individual callings so
that our Lord might say on that day, "Well
done good and faithful servant!" And always, if we are truly and fully
Wesleyan, we will approach our work and ministry with a profound and abiding
sense of the need to never stop praying, "God keep us faithful."
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