Wesleyanism and Rethinking Church

Jeff Slater over at life|emergent asked the question, "Why be United Methodist?" I started to respond there, but then realized that I hadn't posted anything of substance here in a while. :-)

I don't have a UMC identity as much as I have a Wesleyan identity. They are not one and the same. The disconnect is, that the UMC has lost much of the subtle, yet vital, nuances of the Wesleyan heritage.

• We have lost Wesley's understanding of prevenient grace (it lets the totally depraved see their deprivation--that's all).
• We've used the word grace to whitewash every dead tomb of sin--grace is not permissiveness, but the means by which God continually calls all sinners to the Gospel Feast where lives can be transformed. It seems to me that the way we use the word 'grace' diminishes the our ability to speak honestly about the impact of sin in our lives and in the world, thus neutering the power of the Gospel and the affect of Christ's attonement of that sin.
• We have completely abandoned the idea that true happiness only comes from living holy lives through intentional obedience and devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ.
• It is rare (in my experience) that one hears a sermon on the rational and experiential assurance of one's salvation from a UM pulpit--which is a shame against John Wesley's lifelong theological endeavors.
• The idea that we can be perfected in Christian love in this life is surrounded with modernistic explanations that diminish the miraculous synergistic power of the Holy Spirit working within the repentant sinner. Of course, that's better than laughing or the subtle wink and nod that I've witnessed on occasion.
• And of course, most of this went by the wayside when class membership ceased to be a requirement of membership. Accountability was the chief tool of Methodism, and that's why it grew so rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries.
  

We no longer have the practical theology of Susanna Wesley which she passed on to her son. Instead, the UMC has traded it in for a largely superfluous theology of slogans, catchphrases, taglines, and buzzwords.

A few months back Gracepoint UMC in Wichita, Kansas left the connection largely because their evangelistic (and truly Wesleyan) fervor proved to be incompatible with the polity and Episcopal leadership of the the Kansas West Conference. GPUMC clearly did not have a United Methodist identity. However, I'm curious if the newly renamed Gracepoint Community Church had a Wesleyan identity, and if so, does it intend on keeping it.

I had an interesting conversation with an Elder after a break-out session at the North Texas Annual Conference regarding our church structure. As far as connectionalism goes, I wonder what would happen if we started thinking and acting as if the Annual Conference itself was a mega church with hundreds of satellite campuses. Or perhaps we could treat the AC as the one church of a region and individual churches as United Societies organized into classes and bands. It'd look something like this:

• Everyone who wishes to join the church would become members of the Annual Conference and Elders and Deacons in full connection would be members of either the Regional or General Conference.
• The membership requirements and vows to join an Annual Conference would be the same as that of the local church, now.
• Each local church would be a Society Congregation, where the membership vows would be the General Rules of the United Societies.
• Membership in a Society Congregation would be more fluid depending on the level of commitment of the member of the Annual Conference Church. Just like Wesley regularly kicked folks out of societies, Society Congregations could do the same. Likewise, just like in the early days of Methodism, the ejected member would immediately be invited back into community with the Society Congregation with a grace that tolerates not sin, but earnestly calls for repentance and striving for holiness.
• Each church would be made of classes--of which attendance would be expected--and bands--which attendance would be encouraged. Here, the real work of the church would be done, as class and band members would provoke one another in love to conform their minds to Christ's mind and walked as he walked.
  

Ya wanna rethink church? How 'bout we redo church.

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