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I love being a United Methodist!  While, I get angry, disillusioned and sometimes disappointed with the “mother ship,” I am free to do so because I think that I have a healthy respect and trust in all that it means to be a United Methodist. Interestingly enough, this has been especially true this year…the year that I will retire from active ministry.

I am one who was born and raised in the Methodist Church.  I was baptized as an infant at Munholland Memorial United Methodist Church.  When I was eight or nine, we moved to Harahan within a mile of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.  When the doors of the church were open, we, my sister and brother, and especially, I was there.  When I speak about my call to ministry, I talk about St. Paul’s as having been the place where I was established in the faith and Munholland as the place where I was nurtured in the faith.  At the age of 12, following one of those high, Holy moments at Camp Istrouma, God placed the call to ministry on my heart.  Also, at the age of 12, I became a part of the Administrative Board of St. Paul’s UMC, as the first youth representative to the Board, ever.  While it took me more than 14 years to formulate and answer that “call to become a minister,” I mark that time as the beginning of my journey “onward to Christian perfection.”  One other thing is certain, every since that moment when I was elected to the Administrative Board of that church, it seems that I have been going to church meetings.  I love the church and I love the work of the church. 

Although I had a curiosity about other Christian denominations, even other world religions such as Judaism and Islam, I never strayed from the denomination.

Some almost ten years after my election to the Board of St. Paul’s, I returned home from college to find my beloved St. Paul’s UMC broken.  The congregation had become victim to a pastor whose “self interests” were placed above the interests of the congregation….way above the interests of the congregation…   Clearly, his behavior, which I will only term as “scandalous,” caused a broken-ness in the church.  It was not a schism… it was a broken-ness and a loss of innocence for, not only me, but, the whole generation of young people in the church. By this time, my brother and many of his friends had left the church…they had written the church off… we were an idealistic generation, raised to believe in the good of everything but, born to question the institution and power… Many of my friends had left, as well.  Not me. I stayed.  I stayed committed to help the church rise above the scandal.  I stayed to help fix the church.  I stayed to help preserve the institution.  I stayed to help create for those younger than myself, the same kind of church that I believed in…but, soon, I, too, fell away. 

Staying away from church was not an option to me.  So, I moved, very painstakingly, moved my membership back to Munholland Memorial UMC, the place of my baptism.  Munholland was a large church.  There were many other young people there.  Soon, I realized that I had spent almost ten years working to make church happen for others but, I was empty… poured out and disappointed.

I had become John Wesley.

For those of you who may not know the story of John Wesley’s journey to becoming the Father of Methodism, it is a great and interesting story.

John was the fifteenth child born to Samuel and Susannah Wesley.  Samuel was an Anglican Priest and at the time of John’s birth was appointed as the Rector of the church at Epworth. It is believed that Susannah was principally responsible for teaching religion and morals faithfully to all of her children. At the age of five, John was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind and he regarded himself as providentially set apart, as a “brand plucked from the burning” quoting Zechariah 3:2.

Wesley attended Oxford, proved to be a fine scholar, and was soon ordained into the Anglican ministry. At Oxford, he joined a society, founded by his brother Charles, whose members took vows to lead holy lives, take Communion once a week, pray daily, and visit prisons regularly. In addition, they spent three hours every afternoon studying the Bible and other devotional material.

From this “holy club,” as fellow students mockingly called it, Wesley and the others became to be teased and called, “Bible Moths” and “Methodists” (as they were known for their “methodical study of scripture”).  While some found these terms to be derisive, sarcastic and mocking, John Wesley took their sarcasm as a “badge of honor.” 

In 1735, at the age of 32 years old, the Wesley brothers left England to voyage to America, and, in particular, the colony of Georgia at Savannah, as the priest for a newly formed Anglican parish.  Wesley’s time in America was beset with failure…partly because Wesley tried to enforce the disciplines of the “holy club” on his church and the congregation rebelled. Wesley experienced a second failure in the mission, a personal failure in a broken romantic relationship with a woman whom he had courted in Savannah who had married another man.  A bitter Wesley returned to England.

It was on the voyage back to England that the Wesley’s first met a group of Moravians. In them, the Moravians, Wesley experienced a certain spirituality…a pietism… that was new to him.  At one point in the voyage a storm came up and broke the mast off the ship. While everyone on the ship panicked, the Moravians calmly sang hymns and prayed. This experience led Wesley to believe that the Moravians possessed an inner strength that he lacked.  The deeply personal religion that the Moravian pietists practiced heavily influenced Wesley’s theology of Methodism.

Discouraged…Disappointed…Defeated… Wesley found himself in England, going through the routines of faith.  He had enjoined himself to a “society,” something similar to what we today would call a small group.  On May 24, 1738, shortly after his return from his failed mission in America, he wrote in his journal: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while the leader 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 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.” 

This experience became a spark in Wesley’s call that ignited his Spirit in a boldness that he had not experienced before.  Wesley’s journey became a journey of preaching on street corners, open fields, wherever, whenever the call was on his heart.  Having been spurned by the Anglican church that he loved, Wesley took on “the world as his parish.” 

And, he preached that Christians could enjoy entire sanctification in this life: loving God and their neighbors… living in a place of humility with “meekness and lowliness of heart”… abstaining from all appearance of evil, and doing all for the glory of God.

It was never Wesley’s intention to be the “founder” of a new denomination.  It was, ultimately, his organizational structure that created a “new way to be the Church.”  In essence, the church became Wesley.

Wesley’s organized those who followed him in something he called “societies.” When these societies became too large for members to care for one another, Wesley organized “classes,” each with 11 members and a leader. Classes met weekly to pray, read the Bible, discuss their spiritual lives, and to collect money for charity. Men and women met separately, but anyone could become a class leader.

The moral and spiritual fervor of the meetings is expressed in one of Wesley’s most famous adages: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

The movement grew rapidly, as did its critics, who called Wesley and his followers “methodists,” a label they wore proudly. It got worse than name calling at times: methodists were frequently met with violence as paid ruffians broke up meetings and threatened Wesley’s life.

Wesley, in fact, never slowed down, and during his ministry he traveled over 4,000 miles annually, preaching some 40,000 sermons in his lifetime.

Soon, Wesley saw the need to employ lay preachers to help handle the preaching duties.  The Church of England would not ordain these, but, Wesley, sent them out to preach.   They were, however, not allowed to serve Communion. 

Wesley then organized his followers into a “connection,” and a number of societies into a “circuit” under the leadership of a “superintendent.” Periodic meetings of Methodist clergy and lay preachers eventually evolved into the “annual conference,” where those who were to serve each circuit were appointed, usually for three-year terms.

Soon, Wesley found himself in the position of independently ordaining two lay preachers to America.  This became the beginning of the Methodist Church and its complete removal from any authority under the Church of England.  Even though, Wesley remained an Anglican priest until his death, as an indication of his organizational genius, we know exactly how many followers Wesley had when he died: 294 preachers, 71,668 British members, 19 missionaries (5 in mission stations), and 43,265 American members with 198 preachers. Today Methodists number about 30 million worldwide.

It has been said that, “One reason United Methodists are able to accomplish great things is the church’s emphasis on “connectionalism.” It is common to hear United Methodist leaders speak of the denomination as “the connection.” This concept is what was begun by Wesley from the very first of his organizing of the “classes” and “societies” and it has been central to Methodism from its beginning.

The United Methodist Church, which began as a movement and a loose network of local societies with a mission, has grown into one of the most carefully organized and largest denominations in the world. The United Methodist structure and organization began as a means of accomplishing the mission of “spreading Scriptural Holiness over the land.” John Wesley recognized the need for an organized system of communication and accountability and developed what he called the “connection,” which this interlocking system of classes, societies, and annual conferences. (UM Member’s Handbook, p 24)

No local church is the total body of Christ. Therefore, local United Methodist churches are bound together by a common mission and common governance that accomplish reaching out into the world. United Methodist churches and organizations join in mission with each other and with other denominations.

In 1980, in the midst of my own personal crisis of faith…in the hurt of the brokenness of my church… in the disappointment of that clergy person whose behavior is still scandalous and reprehensible to me to this day… in the sheer exhaustion of trying to hold everything together for everyone else…in the recognition of my own spiritual drought and wilderness…

And, because of the connection, I was able to walk into another United Methodist congregation and feel instantly at home…it was a place where I understood the practices and the language…it was a place where I would receive nurture, instruction and clarity of my calling…and, that connection instilled in me a desire to trust the bigger connection… 

I guess I could have been like those in my group whose disappointment could only lead to “rejection” of the institution…

I guess that I could have been like some of my friends who moved on to different faiths…

I guess that I could have been like my brothers and some of his friends, who upon discovery the “imperfections” of the church, left the church to never darken the doorsteps of a church again…

Or, I guess I could be like those who have faithfully and intentionally and sacrificially have honored the fundamental principles of Methodism and connectionalism and dedicate my life to making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…

I guess we all know what I chose…

As I see and hear of churches, some of which are very beloved to me, in the process of disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church, I am more convinced than ever of the goodness of the United Methodist Church. Do we have problems certainly but we are also better together than we are apart.

May it also be true for you.