2015 UM History Series #7: “The Early Methodist Societies”

            After his Aldersgate experience Wesley began to preach in a whole new way.  His teaching centered on salvation by faith, an assurance of salvation by spiritual experience within the heart, and sanctification, or holiness, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Wesley believed that one could know that one is saved by having a spiritual experience and that one could lead a sinless life by the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is no surprise then, as we will see later in this series, that both the Charismatic/Pentecostal Movement and the Holiness Movement would come largely out of the Methodist Movement.

            Since Wesley did not have a church of his own, he began preaching these new beliefs as a guest preacher in various Church of England Churches.  As you can imagine, these new beliefs did not set well with proper Church of England folks.  Therefore, Wesley found himself excluded from pulpit after pulpit.

            A major shift in Wesley’s ministry came at the encouragement of a former companion at the Oxford Holy Club, the evangelist George Whitefield.  Whitefield encouraged Wesley to preach outdoors, in public, rather than in the church.  For the very proper, rule-following Wesley this was going to be a major change.  He wrote in his journal, “I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.”

            On Monday, April 2^nd 1739 in Bristol, England, John Wesley wrote in his journal, “At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.” 

Over the next 50 years John Wesley would ride over 250,000 miles on horseback throughout the British Isles and preach over 40,000 sermons mostly in town squares, open fields, borrowed houses and halls, and later in Methodist meeting houses.

However, John’s message was still not always well received.  Many times Wesley, or his preachers, were pelted with stones and dirt and chased by angry mobs.

In addition to being a great preacher, Wesley was also a great organizer.  When people responded to his preaching, Wesley would organize them into societies and classes.  We will talk more about Methodist organization in England in our next article.  

              

Pastor Brian.                  

2015 UM History Series #6: “From Oxford to Georgia to Aldersgate”

            John Wesley entered Oxford University in 1720.  He completed his master's degree in 1727 and was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1728.  After a brief period of assisting in his father's parish John returned to Oxford in 1729 as a Fellow (a kind of tutor or junior faculty member.)

            Meanwhile, John's younger brother Charles had arrived at Oxford in 1726 and by 1727 had begun to meet with other serious Christian students for intensive Bible study, prayer, support, and accountability.  They would also soon begin collecting money and items for the poor in town and visiting the sick and those in prison. 

            Other students referred to this group as the "Holy Club," "Bible Moths," or "Methodists," due to their methodical practice of Christianity.  Of course the name Methodists would stick. 

            When John returned to Oxford in 1729 he took over leadership of the group.  By 1733 there were 27 “Methodists.”  The group continued to meet even after John and Charles left for Georgia in 1735.

            On October 14^th, 1735 John and Charles set sail for the Georgia Colony becoming the first of the great Reformers to set foot on American soil.  John was to be the priest to the church in Savannah and a missionary to the Native Americans.  Charles was a chaplain to the fort and colony at Fort Frederica.

            Neither found success in their ministries in America.  Their American parishioners found them to be too strict for their tastes.  Charles returned to England on July 26, 1736. 

            John's American experience was more eventful.  John began courting a woman named Sophie Hopkey, the niece of a colonial official.  However, the socially awkward John courted too slowly and Sophie married another man.  A short time later, John refused to serve Communion to Sophie on a technicality.  Sophie's husband and uncle charged John with defamation of her character.  John fled Georgia a wanted man on December 22, 1737 and returned to England as failure in his own eyes.

            During the years at Oxford and his time in America John was a very strict religious man but had not yet had a spiritual awakening or an experience of conversion.  Up until this point in his life John based his religion on, in his words, "Not being as bad as other people."

            Among the Wesley's shipmates on the voyage to America were a group of Moravian Christians from Germany.  Their faith and peace during a storm at sea impressed John and he began to ask them question.  John discovered that the Moravians had a personal faith in Jesus Christ and an assurance of salvation that were entirely foreign to him and for which he deeply longed.

            When he landed back in England John was at the lowest point in his life; he wrote in his journal, "I went to America, to convert the Indians; but oh! who shall convert me?"  It was in this state that John was ripe for the spiritual experience that would change his life forever.  I include below the most famous passage of John Wesley’s journal.  From May 24, 1738 as John describes his experience at a Moravian meeting in London.

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 he 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, 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.

Pastor Brian                   

2015 UM History Series #5: “The English Civil War and the Birth of John Wesley”

            In the last article I described the English Reformation and the tension in England between Protestants and Catholics and between Conformist and Dissenter and Puritan Protestants.  This tension would boil over in what would come to be known as the English Civil War.

            In 1603 Queen Elizabeth I was succeeded by her cousin James I (The King James of the King James Version of the Bible which was first printed in 1611) who was later succeeded by his son Charles I in 1625.  Both James and Charles attempted to increase royal power and decreased the role of Parliament.  Both also suppressed the Puritans and encouraged more Catholic-like theology and practice in the Church of England.  Remember, it was in 1620, during the reign of King James I, that a group of Puritans fled England on the Mayflower.

            Needless to say many people, especially Puritans and members of Parliament, and especially Puritan members of Parliament were unhappy with James and Charles.  In 1642 the English Civil War broke out between the forces of King Charles and the Parliamentary forces under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.  In 1649 Charles was executed and his son Charles II was eventually exiled to France.

            From 1649 until the restoration of Charles II in 1660 is known as the Commonwealth Period in which England was ruled by Parliament under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.  During this time Puritanism held sway in the Church of England, dissenters (except for Catholics) were tolerated, and Catholicism and Catholic-style practices were virtually illegal.

            In 1660 Charles II was restored to the throne.  The Church of England returned to more Catholic-style worship, Puritans and Dissenters were once again, along with Roman Catholics, oppressed.

            It was not until 1688 that Dissenters, but not Roman Catholics, were officially allowed to own buildings and hold worship under the Act of Toleration.

            I said all that to set the background for the story of a Church of England priest named Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna, both of whom came from dissenting backgrounds, and two of their 19 children, John and Charles, who became the founders of the Methodist movement.

            John Wesley (June 28, 1703 – March 2, 1791) and his brother Charles (December 18, 1707 – March 29, 1788) were both born in Epworth, England where their father served as priest in the Church of England.

            John and Charles were given a very strict religious and academic education by their mother, who was a talented theologian and Bible teacher in her own right.  Susanna held a Bible study in her home by inviting others to join in family devotions; a woman leading a group like this beyond her own family would have been a scandal at the time.

            On February 9, 1709, when John was six years old, the Epworth rectory (parsonage) burned down.  Some believe that the fire may have been started by Samuel’s own parishioners because they did not like his preaching!  The rest of the family fled the house but John was rescued unharmed from an upstairs window moments before the roof collapsed.  Susanna said that John was a “brand plucked from the burning.” (Zechariah 3:2)  John’s mother knew that he was destined to do great things for God.

            John and Charles would go on to study for ordination at Oxford University.  It was here that, along with some others, they would start a study, fellowship, and service group called the Holy Club that would become the beginnings of the Methodist movement.  That is where we will pick up our story next time.

2015 UM History Series #4: “The English Reformation”

            In the last article we talked about the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Switzerland.  Around the same time another reformation was starting to take place in England which was very different than the one on the Continent and which has much greater direct bearing on us as Methodists and as Americans.

            It all started because King Henry VIII wanted a divorce from his wife, a Spanish princess, named Catherine of Aragon.  Henry wanted a divorce because Catherine had not provided Henry a male heir, only a daughter named Mary.

            In order to get a divorce Henry would need permission from the Pope; the Pope would not give it.  To make a long story short, Henry had Parliament pass the Act of Supremacy in 1534 which declared the King of England to be the “Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England,” and that the Pope had no political or religious authority in England.  This left the way open for Henry to marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn, who, by the way, also had only a daughter, Elizabeth.  Henry would eventually have Anne executed for treason so that he could marry Jane Seymour who would finally give him a son, Edward.

            One, however, must not think that the English Reformation was merely political.  Many people in England had begun to have the same misgivings about the Roman Catholic Church as had the Reformers in Europe.  Those people, most notably, Thomas Cranmer, who would become Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest bishop in the Church of England, would take this opportunity to try to make some true spiritual and biblical reforms in worship and theology.

            Actual reforms under Henry were very modest.  Worship and theology remained virtually identical.  Priests and bishops were required to pledge loyalty to the King rather than to the Pope.  Those who refused were imprisoned, banished, or executed.  Also, Henry had catholic monasteries disbanded and their land sold to raise money for the crown.

            The son of Henry VIII, Edward VI, became king in 1547 at the age of nine.  Young Edward ruled through his uncle who served as Lord Protector.  During Edward’s reign major changes were made to remove all vestiges of Catholicism from English theology and worship.  Edward, however, was a sickly boy who died in 1553 at 15 years old.

            Henry and Catherine’s daughter then became Queen Mary I after her supporters executed Lady Jane Grey, Mary’s cousin, whom Edward had named as successor and who was Queen for only nine days.  Mary returned England to Catholicism.  She is known as “Bloody Mary” because during her reign 283 Protestants were burned at the stake for heresy.

            When Mary died childless in 1558, her half-sister, daughter of Henry and Anne, was crowned Queen Elizabeth I.  Elizabeth led England back into Protestantism, however, in a manner that was less Protestant than her brother Edward, and yet also less Catholic than her father Henry, in theology and worship.  This became known as the via media, or middle road, which remains an important concept within the Church of England and the Anglican tradition throughout the world, including the Anglican and Episcopal churches in this country.

            However, all were not happy with the Elizabethan Settlement, as it was called.  Catholics continued to be suppressed as did “Separatists,” who thought that the Church of England had not gone far enough in its reforms and began to worship on their own.  Meanwhile, within the Church of England two groups began to form: the “Conformists” or “high church” group preferred a more Catholic feeling worship, while the “Puritans” or “low church” group rejected the more Catholic style.

            After Elizabeth this tension between the Puritans and the Conformists, among other things, would lead to English Civil War and the migration of some of the Puritans to New England.  The English Civil War, and the religious climate in England which followed it, would set the stage for the birth of John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist movement.  We will pick up with those stories next time.

2015 UM History Series – #3: The Reformation

Last time we saw that the Roman Catholic Church had become rich, powerful, and corrupt in Medieval Europe.  Perhaps the greatest corruption of the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was the sale of indulgences.

According to Roman Catholic doctrine people may be saved and not go to hell when they die, but they still may not be quite good enough to go heaven, so they end up in an in between place called purgatory.  People could get their dead relatives out of purgatory by praying, doing good deeds, or by donating money in exchange for a piece of paper called an indulgence. Lest you think that I am missing a nuance here, a seller of indulgences in Germany named Johann Tetzel sang the jingle, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs.”

This upset a German monk and Bible scholar named Martin Luther.  Luther became convinced from the Bible, which he believed was the only basis for belief rather than human made tradition, (Sola Scriptura) that we are saved by God’s grace alone (Sola Gratia) through faith alone. (Sola Fide)  In other words, purgatory and indulgences are not in the Bible but were made up by the church; we go to heaven not by giving money, or by anything else we do, but by God’s grace when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.

On October 31^st 1517 Luther nailed his “95 Theses” (a list of 95 grievances against the Roman Catholic Church) to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany seeking to open the debate on these issues and reform the church.  It is important to remember that Luther, and the other reformers, for the most part, were not seeking to start a new church but simply to reform the church.

This was not to be, however.  In 1520 the Pope excommunicated Martin Luther and a new church family, which we now know as Lutherans was born.

In 1519 Ulrich Zwingli, a Catholic priest who had come to similar conclusions as Luther, began a reformation in Switzerland.  Many churches in Switzerland became independent from Rome just as the Lutherans in Germany had.  Leadership of the Swiss reformation was later taken over by John Calvin.  What then came to be known as the Calvinist or Reformed Church spread particularly to Holland and later Scotland and is the origin of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches of today.

While Lutherans and Calvinist sought to replace the Catholic Church as the official church in the countries in which they lived, there was another, totally different, way of being Christian emerging in these areas; these people were known as Anabaptists.  Anabaptists, which means re-baptizers, rejected infant baptism in favor of believer’s  baptism and also reject the intermixing of church and state.  Anabaptists are usually pacifists, and some live in intentional communities and practice a plain and simple lifestyle and manner of dress.  Modern Anabaptists include the Amish, the Hutterites, the Mennonites, and many Brethren groups.

There was also a Reformation in England and we will pick that up next time.  

2015 UM History Series - #1: The Early Church

            Of course the history of the church, the universal church, Christianity, begins with Jesus and the Apostles, and even before that through the nation of Israel back to creation.  But we will begin our study with the period right after the Apostles and the completion of the New Testament, right around the year 100AD, or about 70 years after Jesus' death and resurrection.

            The story of the early church is one of persecution.  During the first 200 years the church was under almost constant persecution.  In the Roman Empire people were required to worship the emperor as a god.  One could believe, or not believe, whatever one wished, but emperor worship, at least perfunctorily, was not optional, except for the Jews, the empire gave them a special exemption. 

            At first Christians were simply seen as just another sect within Judaism, so Christians, originally, fell under that exemption.  However, as Jews continued to reject Christianity and as Christian and Jews continued to distance themselves from one another, especially after a great Jewish revolt which ended with destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, Christianity lost this exemption. 

            After that Christianity became an illegal religion with no legal protection.  In a world in which everyone was required to proclaim, "Caesar is Lord," including in a religious sense, Christian refused, proclaiming instead, "Jesus is Lord," and many times this cost them their lives.  Christians were hunted down, tortured, and killed by being drowned, crucified, burned alive, and eaten by wild animals often as a form of public entertainment.  However, the more the church was persecuted, the more it grew; as an old saying goes, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church."  Despite persecution, or maybe because of it, the church continued to grow, both numerically and geographically. 

During this time the church also worked out, often in conflict, many of the points of doctrine we know today, most importantly the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, both divine and human; so the church often found itself defending against the Romans on the outside and heretics, those who hold and teach false beliefs, on the inside.           

All that changed when Constantine, a convert to Christianity, became Emperor.  In 313AD Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which made Christianity a legal religion, ending official persecution, although nonofficial persecution continued.

            In 325AD Constantine called together all of the bishops of the church for the Council of Nicaea to finally officially hammer out all of the doctrinal debates and formalize the official doctrine of the church.  Out of the Council of Nicaea came the Nicaea Creed which we still sometimes use in worship today as a summary of the Christian faith.

            Eventually Christianity would become the official religion of the Roman Empire and would come to be known as the Roman Catholic Church headed by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. (Note: The word "catholic" [small c] means universal.  All Christians, including Roman Catholics and United Methodists, are part of the "catholic" or universal Church.)  But this was not necessarily a good thing because it led to many people becoming Christians in name only and the church often became entangled in the power politics of the empire.

Even as Christianity was rising within the empire, the empire itself was declining.  In 476AD the Roman Empire officially fell.  It would be up to the church to hold Europe together during the dark ages which followed.  The meant that the church would gain more power, and become more corrupt. 

2014 UM Polity Series – Local Church

          We are going to finish our series on United Methodist Polity with a look at the local church.

You will remember that the United Methodist Church is governed by a series of conferences: General, Jurisdiction/Central, Annual, and District.  The conference at the local level is called a Charge Conference, or sometimes a Church Conference.  (You will also remember that a charge is made up of one or more churches to which as a pastor may be appointed.)  The Charge Conference is made up of all of the churches in a charge and often joint conferences are held with a group of charges in order to be better stewards of time.  Charge conferences are presided over by the District Superintendent or an elder in full connection approved by the DS. 

Regular charge conferences meet annually to set the pastor’s salary, elect officers, set the annual budget, and receive reports about the ministries of the church.  Most of the groundwork for these things is done well beforehand which can make charge conferences seem redundant, however, it is also a time to worship together with the DS and people from the other churches in the group and to share the stories of our ministries.  Special charge conferences can also be called if needed and sometimes one church within a charge will have a conference by itself to care for an individual issue of that church.

General oversight of the ministry of the whole local church is carried out by the Church Council (or Administrative Council or Board.)  The council is made up of the officers of the church, the chairpersons of the various committees, and leaders of the various ministry groups within the church.

Local churches vary greatly in the types of ministries they have and the way in which they are organized, however, there is a basic structure which I will outline below.  Beyond the basic structure churches can have many other committees, groups, and ministries, however, all of them report to the Council and the Charge Conference.

The Basic Structure

·         Church Council – Discussed above.  All committees, ministries, and groups report to the Council and ultimately to Charge Conference.
·         Board of Trustees – Care for the property and legal concerns of the local church.  They are the “legal” board of directors.
·         Finance Committee – Cares for the financial matters of the church.
·         Staff/Pastor Parish Relations Committee (S/PPRC) – Provides support and accountability to the pastor, consults with the DS on pastoral appointments, and handles the personnel matters of the church.
·         Committee on Nominations and Leadership Development – Chaired by the pastor, nominates persons for offices and committees to be elected by charge conference.

One thing that you should have noticed throughout this series is that the United Methodist Church is a big, complex, active, and I would say, beautiful church that requires the participation of many people, especially lay people like you, at every level.  It is my hope in this series that you have come to understand and appreciate how the United Methodist Church is organized to accomplish our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation the world.  It is also my hope that you, all of you, would get involved in service and leadership in the local church and beyond.  I would be more than happy to talk to any of you about that.

Our series for 2015 will be on United Methodist history, see you then…