Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism, 3: Introducing the Method

After the Wesley brothers’ first group was given the insulting name of “methodist,” they allowed it to stick, since they saw the benefit of having a method in place for people who wanted to grow in their love for God and others. They recognized that groups throughout Christian history had lived by such methods, even if they used different terms for them. 

One such alternative term for “method” was “rule,” which rather than meaning (as we might understand it today) a standard which shouldn’t be broken, meant a lifestyle framework to which a group would mutually agree. It was as if to say, “If this is the kind of people we want to become, we recognize that we need to live together this way. Therefore, this is our rule.” Think of it less like the rules in a school handbook given by the principal to students whether they like them or not, and more like the way a successful athletic team agrees to arrange their lives in pursuit of their goal.

So, John Wesley described the method of the early Methodists as three General Rules:

1. Do no harm.

2. Do good.

3. Practice the means of grace. 

Before briefly describing the meaning of these, I’ll add an asterisk which was so implicit in the lives of the early Methodists that it didn’t need to be included as one of the General Rules, but we need it to be stated clearly now:

* Regularly answer, “How is it with your soul?” to others living this method.

That’s it. We will unpack each of these briefly in the following post, but for now it’s important to understand that the early Methodists knew this method, because they understood that they were signing on to live by it together. They didn’t have the danger of considering themselves Methodists because it was a name on a building they entered on Sundays, nor because it was their heritage. The only relevant issue was whether or not they were in a group committed to living this way together.

This is part of the series, “Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism”

• Previous post: Methodism and Us

• Next post: Unpacking the Method

Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism, 2: Methodism and Us

I have a fantasy of being on a road trip and driving past a church in any of the Wesleyan traditions which has a sign in front that reads something like, “By God’s grace, we have a method. Come live it to love God and others fully.”

Can you imagine what kind of difference it might make if every person in a local church could name that method? What if all of us could? Or, to say it from the other direction, why can’t we? If we can’t name what the method of Wesley’s methodists was, doesn’t it mean that their method has ceased to be ours, and we are therefore neither very Methodist nor very Wesleyan, despite whatever other parts of their tradition we have tried to hold on to? 

By the end of the following post, I will summarize for you what their method was. It’s the kind of thing that I can write on a whiteboard in less than one minute when I am with a group. When I have done so, it has become predictable that some folks in the group will say something like, “I have been a Methodist my entire life, and I have never heard this before.”

Folks are often surprised for me to say that any such method ever existed. I have had more than one devoted, long-time Methodist say to me something like, “All these years, I thought the method part of our name had to do with the order of worship printed in the bulletin.” Thankfully, our tradition offers us more substantive guidance than indicating when it’s time for the ushers to take the offering.

When John and Charles Wesley began getting together with a group of friends to discuss the state of their own souls–and were made fun of with the derogatory term “methodist” for doing so–I’m quite certain they did not expect that almost three hundred years later, there would be millions of people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean still using the label they were given by others who disagreed with their methodical approach to spirituality. Surpassing that surprise would be their shock at how small a percentage of those using the name would be able to define any method to go with it.

Let’s do our part to change that right now (with the next post, “Introducing the Method”).

• This is part of the series, “Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism”

• Previous post: Methodism and Me

• Next post: Introducing the Method

Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism, 1: Methodism and Me

I have been a Methodist since before I was born. My great-grandparents started a Methodist church in their home in the late 19th century in Texas. About fifty years later, my grandparents donated land so that a Methodist church could be planted for a community of oilfield workers. When I was a boy, my parents helped to start a new United Methodist church in our community. I was raised in United Methodist churches, have served on staff in some of them, and continue to call this tradition my home.

However, I have not always loved my home as much as I do now. There was a time when I was tired of my home and thought it didn’t have much of the life I wanted. Disillusionment was quickly weakening my youthful desire to give my life to Christian ministry when, by God’s grace, I stumbled into what sometimes gets called the “spiritual formation movement.” I was listening to teachers from a wide variety of backgrounds (names of Baptists, Quakers, and Roman Catholics quickly come to mind) who were pointing me toward an understanding of a way of life that could be shaped around God’s grace. Although I couldn’t yet recognize why, I felt very at home in the ways they were teaching about God’s grace, spiritual practices that could open us to it, and how it is helpful to get together in groups with others who are seeking to live this way.

When I was in graduate school studying Methodist history and theology, I discovered why the spiritual formation movement felt so much like home, as I could see it as a direct echo of the early Methodist movement of the 18th century. I discovered––to my own surprise––that my home tradition offered reliable, substantive, and practical guidance (i.e. a method) on how we can arrange our lives around God’s grace in a way that increases our ability to love God and others. 

One of the tasks I now enjoy most is to describe the method of the early methodists to folks who may already have deep roots in the Wesleyan tradition–whether in a group that still uses the Methodist name or elsewhere. While Grace That Grows explores this method in fuller detail for all Christians, this brief guide is a summary of what I have discovered as the meaning in my own Methodism.

This is part of the series, “Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism.”

Coming Next: Methodism and Us

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Blog Series: Put Some Meaning in Your Methodism

When I was working on finishing Grace That Grows a couple of years ago, I knew that I wanted to add another piece. That book is largely my attempt to explain the core of Methodism, but I intentionally wrote it in a way that it is not only for Methodists, but is just as applicable to Christians of any tradition. I’m glad that I wrote it that way, but since I did, the part of its message that probably needs some reinforcement is something like:

“Hey Methodists, this is the core of our tradition!
(and you may have been a lifelong Methodist but never even heard of it!)”

So to accomplish that reinforcement, I decided to put together a brief ebook to help make the big ideas of Grace That Grows clearly applicable in any groups which trace their roots through the Wesleys. I think it was a good idea, and like many things I’ve thought were good ideas, I started it and never finished it.

But since our current circumstances seem more conducive than any others in my lifetime to anyone whose ever had a thought about the meaning and purpose of Methodism to try to tell (or shout to) others about it, I thought I’d repurpose the content of the incomplete ebook and try to unpack some of what I said in the post from earlier this week: “In Contrast to What You May Have Heard.”

I hope that this series will go something like this:

1. Methodism and Me

2. Methodism and Us

3. Introducing the Method

4. Unpacking the Method

5. From Methodism’s Beginnings to Where We Are Now

6. Adapting the Method as a Lifestyle

7. Accepting Grace (Our Beliefs)

8. Practicing Grace (Our Habits)

9. Giving Grace (Our Mission)

In Contrast to What You May Have Heard (An Open Letter to My Church)

In contrast to what you may have heard, Methodism is not in crisis. On the contrary, from my point of view, Methodism—both in our local congregation and beyond—is as strong as I have seen it in my lifetime, perhaps even on the verge of thriving beyond what any of us have seen in our lifetimes.

I do not say this out of ignorance of the continually growing divide which has been evident in the United Methodist Church for as long as I can remember, which was on national display in our recent specially called General Conference. Nor do I say it with a lack of empathy for those who have been hurt and/or worn out by that divide. Rather, I say it as one who feels at home in my long-standing seat on the fringes within denominational United Methodism and who has learned to lean into Methodism from sources both within and outside of our denomination.*

My claim is not that United Methodism as a denomination is thriving. In some communities that is true, and in others it certainly is not. Rather, Methodism is happening and thriving wherever (whether within churches that trace their roots through the Wesleys or in many other places) the following aspects of early Methodism continue to provide a practical framework for people’s lives:

• a theology which emphasizes God’s grace as being given in abundance to each and every person, as the only thing which gives us hope of being able to freely and genuinely love God and others.

• practical guidelines for a lifestyle of cooperation with God’s grace (a.k.a. a Rule of Life). In Methodism’s case, these are called the General Rules: 1) Do no harm, 2) Do good, and 3) Practice the means of grace** (particularly prayer, scripture, communion, and fasting)

• a high level of commitment to meeting regularly with others who are seeking to live this way in order to help one another be attentive to the ways God’s grace is working in our lives and how we are cooperating with it (the curriculum in these groups is our lives rather than an informational study)

Christians of any denomination who self-identify as traditionalists, progressives, or anything else can live by this method, and Methodism will continue to thrive. Those who attend the same local congregation of the United Methodist Church as I do can live by this method, stir the work of God’s grace in one another, and Methodism will thrive among us. In recent years, I have seen more people than ever before in my lifetime living as Methodists in this way––many of whom are not United Methodists, and some of whom are. In the recent life of our local congregation, I have seen more people living as Methodists in this way. Our community, our denomination, our world, and––certainly––my own soul need this kind of Methodism to continue to grow and spread among us. May we continue to invite one another further into this method so that God’s grace can run more fully among and through us.

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* There is an important dynamic here, which has been in place since our beginnings: Methodism and the life of any denomination (whether or not that denomination has the word “Methodist” in its name) are related to each other, but are not the same thing. In Wesley’s day, the primary denomination in relation to Methodism was the Church of England, and in regard to my local congregation today, it is the United Methodist Church.

This is illustrated by the irony that it is largely from folks in other denominations that I have come to love, practice, and communicate Methodism as described above. Dallas Willard (ordained as a Southern Baptist) was the first to plant in me a deep love for John Wesley’s theology, particularly in regard to the centrality of God’s grace, and the Renovaré groups inspired by Willard’s teachings are good examples of the thriving of Methodism. Ruth Haley Barton has never been part of a Wesleyan denomination, but I believe the thriving her Transforming Communities is a good example of the thriving of Methodism. James Bryan Smith is an ordained United Methodist pastor who teaches at a Quaker university. I do not see his name and voice included in the current United Methodist denominational issues, but he is among the most influential and effective teachers of Methodism as outlined above.

**Wesley’s original third rule was “attend upon all the ordinances of God.” By saying “use the means of grace” instead, I think I’m staying true to both his language and his intent.