Nothing brings home how different early Methodism was from contemporary United Methodism than reading John Wesley’s sermons. As we continue looking at “Salvation by Faith,” try to imagine hearing this in the bishop’s address at your annual conference. The previous paragraph, you may remember, was making the point that we do not deserve anything from God. Every good thing that we have is from God and not ours. This creates a problem for sinners. How can we pay for our sins if we don’t have anything good that we can say is ours? 2. Wherewithal then shall a sinful man atone for any the least ..read more

As threatened, this post begins an extended serious reading and commenting on John Wesley’s first standard sermon “Salvation by Faith.” As we will see, this sermon speaks to what Wesley deemed to be the animating doctrine of the Methodist movement – “inward, present salvation” by faith. The sermon and the doctrine arise out of a reading of Ephesians 2:8, which the King James of Wesley’s day renders: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” In another place, I have suggested that if you were to reduce all Methodism to three verses, Ephesians ..read more

In 1745, John Wesley wrote a letter to a friend about the relationship between the Methodists and the clergy of the Church of England. In the letter, he began by describing the core doctrine of Methodist preaching that gave rise to the Methodism movement. “About seven years since, we began preaching inward, present salvation, as attainable by faith alone. For preaching this doctrine, we were forbidden to preach in the churches. We then preached in private houses as occasion offered: And when the houses would not contain the people, in the open air. For this, many of the Clergy preached or prin ..read more

As I understand it, the ordination standards for the United Methodist Church now include the following paragraph: 2. For the sake of the mission of Jesus Christ in the world and the most effective witness to the Christian gospel, and in consideration of the influence of an ordained minister on the lives of other persons both within and outside the Church, the Church expects those who seek ordination to make a complete dedication of themselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life. To this end, they agree to exercise responsible self-control by personal habits conducive to bodily health ..read more

One of the most challenging things I find in preaching is that you are always preaching to a mixed body. No matter how small the congregation, the people who are hearing your sermon are at different places in their relationship with Jesus Christ. In his sermon “Scriptural Christianity,” Wesley writes about the ways that we should vary how we speak to people depending on where they are spiritually. To the careless, to those who lay unconcerned in darkness and in the shadow of death, they thundered, “Awake thou that sleepest; arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” But to those ..read more

As an exercise, I tried this morning to set down three verses that I believe are especially important to Methodism. I set a limit of three to force me to try to focus on what I thought were the most important. None of these are unique to Methodism, but I do think these three together at least capture something of the core of what animated Methodism as a movement and helped make it powerful. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14) For it is by grace you have been saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8) He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for ..read more

Two of the writers who have had a lot of influence on my understanding of the pastoral vocation are Wendell Berry and Eugene Peterson. Berry does not write much about the church or the work of the pastor, but I find many things he writes about farming and poetry have a lot of resonance for the ways that I think about the work of the pastor. I don’t know if Berry and Peterson were aware of each other’s work, but I hear a lot of overlap in their attentiveness to the local and the particular and their rejection of consumerism and efficiency as the highest goal in the life of an organization. In h ..read more

Some words for my Wesleyan evangelical* friends remaining in the United Methodist Church. With General Conference 2024 completed, the question for many of us is “What now?” The narrative of our progressive and centrist colleagues is and will continue to be joyous and triumphant. Evil has been defeated. Now the church can move forward in unity. The general conference steeped in liberation and progressive theology and practice will be hailed as a new birth for the denomination. Our brothers and sisters feel they have achieved a great victory, and they are very happy. Those of us who feel more lo ..read more

At General Conference on April 25, the Connectional Table made a report on the state of the church. During that report, the presenters said we could find more information online about some of the things they discussed. I was interested to learn what more information I could find, especially about reports from various parts of the world speaking to what people valued in the UMC and what they wanted to see for the future of the UMC. So I went digging. One of the coolest things in the 2023 State of the Church report is the year in photos from UM News. There are a lot of really striking and compel ..read more

When John Wesley looked back at his journey to true Christian faith, he could spot some stages that he passed through. There was the period in his young life where he indulged in rather than fought against his sins. I suspect even in this stage Wesley appeared more serious-minded and sober than most young people who are in rebellion against their upbringing, but Wesley certainly was consistent in saying he had his season in which he “willingly served sin.” That era ended when he was a student at Oxford and came across writings and teachers convincing him that the only way to peace and happines ..read more