Introduction

We should begin by saying what this course is about. And it may be best to do this in part by means of saying what this course is not about;

            1. This course is not about learning the basics and the fundamentals of the Christian faith, if there is anyone following this course who has never been to church or knows little of the Christian faith, this may not be the course for you - that said, hopefully the essence of the Christian faith will be present in all that we talk about. And also, if you entered this course with no knowledge of Christianity, and attended each of the four sessions, hopefully you would be able to give a reasonable description of what a Christian is, and what Church is by the end of the course

            2. This is not a course about how Methodism is better than the other denominations. We will confront some of the flaws in Methodism, and there will also be many good things about other denominations that we will not cover here. We won't cover those things partly because there wouldn't be enough time to look at all the denominations in proper detail; partly because there are other people who would be better at talking about the nuances of those denominations. But more importantly, because this is a course about what Methodism brings to the ecumenical table. And this may be a new way of thinking for many people.

            3. This is not a course that is advocating denominationalism, nor is it saying we are done with denominations. There are those people who see their particular church tradition as the be all and end all of Christian experience and are therefore far too entrenched to think about genuinely working together with other denominations. There are also those who see the denominations that we live with today as nothing more than an unfortunate hangover from a history of divisions, that we should simply forget about and move on. The thinking is that surely if we are all following the same God, we should all be part of the same church. After all, what do any of these details matter, as long as we all love God and love our neighbour?

            In many ways this course sits more comfortably with the second way of thinking than the first. We should instinctively be more for working together than working separately, but neither viewpoint fully confronts the reality of where we are. There were reasons for the divides in the denominations and though some of those reasons have been resolved over time, others still remain. Some differences are trivial or simply about personal preference, others are significant and important. Some differences are ancient history and others are current and raw. When negotiating the world of ecumenical relations, it is all the more important to have a good understanding of the essence of our differences. Not so that we can remain separate but so that we know what is at stake; so we know when to treat each other with gentle grace and when to be firm, when to say our differences are of no significance and when it is time for us to learn from the wisdom of our fellow Christians. If we are truly to work in unity then we need to be honest about our differences and if we are to learn from each other then we need to know ourselves. If we don't know what we have as Methodists then we will be unable to share it with our neighbours of other denominations.

            So who is this course for? It is for those seeking membership, for those already in membership, for those deliberately avoiding membership and for those thoroughly confused by Methodism in general. Most of all it is for those seeking to be serious and relevant disciples of Jesus Christ in the 21st century and who happen to be seeking it through the Methodist Church.

            This course is very much rooted in a statement made by John Wesley back in 1786. He said ‘I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist, but I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.’[1] This statement is a vitally important one because it shows that John Wesley himself understood the complexity of the ecumenical landscape. Denominations are necessary because they carry particular religious identities, they allow us to experiment with what it is to be Church; what it is to be God's people; to explore the nature of the Kingdom that is coming, but denominationalism can never be our ultimate goal. John Wesley's statement is also important because it is brought painfully into focus by the continued decline of the Methodist Church over recent years.

            In March 2014, Rev David Flavell posted an article on the internet called 'Year Zero'[2], which shows statistically how, without change, the membership of the Methodist Church will hit zero in the year 2033, that's just 19 years away.

30 year decline in Methodism

                This is the graph of membership statistics that David included in his article which shows the fall in figures from 1984 to 2013. And whilst this is a major issue for Methodists, let us not imagine that this is a Methodist only issue.

Respondents attending church at least monthly, 1983-2008 (%)[3]

            This graph, from the organisation British Religion in Numbers shows a drop in monthly attendance figures across all denominations from 20.9% in 1983 to 14.9% in 2008. On the basis of that graph, year zero for the Church as a whole in England and Wales is 2068.

            Here are two graphs showing the change in Methodist Church membership since the end of 18th Century.

Members of Methodism from 1791 - 2011[4]

            The first shows the membership from 1791 to 2011 in ten year gaps. It shows our numerical peak in the 1940s-50s, and whilst it shows that we are in a fairly desperate down trend, there are still significantly more of us than when Wesley died in 1791. However if we plot our membership as a percentage of the ever increasing population we get a very different picture.

Members of Methodism as % of Population of England

            In this graph we see that, relative to the whole population our peak was way back in the 1840's and we now have around half the cultural influence we had when Wesley died. Why is this relevant as an introduction to a course on Methodism? Because whatever we do, the face of Christianity has changed and will continue to change significantly in the near future, it will change either with us or without us. These numbers are relevant because how we go about being Church is important and over the next 50 years we could all but disappear if we fail to pay attention to how God is calling us to be Church. And we begin this by looking at what is good and worth keeping in our current way of being Church.

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[1] Rupert E. Davies, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 9, The Methodist Societies: History, Nature and Design (Abingdon Press, 1989) 547

[2] David Flavell, Year Zero http://davideflavell.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/year-zero/ Posted on March 25, 2014

[3] http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#AffiliationAttendance

[4] Both of these graphs are based on stats provided by David Flavell http://www.flavell.vispa.com/methodist%20membership.xls

Session 1 - The Structures of Methodism

            As of 2012 there were 4,886 Methodist Church Communities in the British Methodist Church, 397 Circuits, 31 Districts but we are all part of one Connexion.[1] That is the structure that we will be exploring in this session.

            There is a book called the Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church. This book will be explained in a little more depth later in the course, but for now it will be sufficient to know that it will generally be referred to as 'CPD', and it basically contains the rules of Methodism. The preface to CPD volume 1 contains this handy little statement about the structure of Methodism;

            "Each local church is a member of a larger body, subject to a common discipline and pattern of government, sharing in a wider life. The authority of Conference, legally given by Act of Parliament, has its theological basis in this understanding of the church as a ‘connexion’ of local churches, circuits and districts, expressing their fellowship in the Body of Christ by their constitutional ties."[2]

            It carries on to say; "The fact that most aspects of constitutional practice and discipline can be amended, and that such amendments occur so frequently is also significant. Changes reflect not only the need for administrative adjustment, but the conviction that the church must not stand still, but must move forward as the Spirit leads, and is always in need of reform." The ability to change is written into our constitution, and that is something to bear in mind as we carry on. So let's look at the parts of the Methodist structure beginning with the connexion;

Connexion & Conference

            Connexional thinking is one of the key features of Methodism. We are not isolated congregations just doing our own thing, nor are we subject to some overarching hierarchy of leaders that tell us what to do, rather we attempt govern ourselves collectively and share our ideas and experiences, our hopes and fears, our troubles and our lessons learnt with the whole connexion so that we might do better at being Church together.

                The Methodist Church website has this to say on the subject;

            "Methodists belong to local churches or ecumenical partnerships, but also feel part of a larger connected community, the Connexion.

            This sense of being connected makes a difference to how the Methodist Church as a whole is structured. At its heart is an understanding of the Christian community as the 'body of Christ '. Just as a human body contains different limbs and organs that depend on each other, so we should be close and caring enough to feel each other's pain and delight. We should put the good of the whole body before our own individual needs.

            The promise of mutual support is a strength of Methodism. If you become a member of the Methodist Church, a pastoral visitor is responsible for visiting you and offering spiritual support, encouragement and challenge.

            In the Methodist Church decisions are made as openly as possible, giving opportunities for all to contribute. It is important for all views to be heard and taken seriously, especially where Christians disagree."[3]  

            The Connexion web page on the Methodist Church website includes this quote from John Wesley 'Do not allow yourself one thought of separating from your brothers and sisters, whether their opinions agree with yours or not.'[4]

            But this collective governance needs a mechanism by which to work. A primary part of that mechanism is Conference, the annual meeting which makes decisions about how we do things and what things ought to change. The conference is made up of 306 people two of whom are the President and Vice President who change each year. There are representatives from various committees that sort stuff out for us, some world church representatives, and the chair persons from each of the districts. The rest is made up of lay and clergy representatives sent from the District Synods. This collection of 306 people changes significantly each year, and that is an important part of what makes Methodism different.

            This meeting, which is made up primarily from people sent by the Districts, makes decisions on questions and suggestions put to it mainly from the District Synods. This is how Methodism remains united as one Church but constantly in a state of reform. It is not a perfect system, there are times when it seems to some people that we have moved too quickly on a particular issues, there are times when it seems to some that we are moving too slowly and there are times when some feel that the wrong decisions have been made.

            But this system has kept us at the forefront of social justice and ethical issues; it has helped ensure that the voices of local church members could be heard at the national level since the beginning of the Methodist movement in the 18th century. It has helped us to move relatively quickly with minimal divisions on several key issues over the years; on subjects like racial justice, women's rights, ordination of women, the environment and human sexuality. These issues are for the most part brought to the conference from the District so let's look briefly at the Districts now;

District & Synod

             The District serves the Local Churches and Circuits and the Conference by acting as a kind of bridge between the local and the national concerns. Its primary purpose is to advance the mission of the Methodist Church in a region by providing opportunities for Circuits to work together and support each other, offering them resources of finance, personnel, expertise and training opportunities which may not be available locally.

            One of the particular ways in which we see the importance of the District is in the Synod which happens twice a year with the addition of a Ministerial Synod.  The two normal (representative) Synod meetings are made up primarily of the ministers from the District and lay representatives from each circuit. The synod elects the representatives that will go to conference and chooses the bulk of the questions that go to conference.

Circuit

            In the early days of Methodism preachers would travel from town to town, to preach the Gospel in the street or to preach to the Methodist societies that were springing up all around the country. Local class leaders, who were not ordained clergy, would have pastoral care of the societies and lay people would be trained to be local preachers. The Clergy were appointed to travel around these towns in a 'circuit' and they were appointed each year by the conference to a particular circuit. Now on the surface many things have changed since those early days, but the same basic mechanisms underpin the circuit system. There are a number of things to point out about this system;

            Circuits are primarily about furthering the mission of God, and offering support to the local societies or churches.

            Ministers are appointed by conference to circuits not to individual churches; that was true then and is still true now. 

            The pastoral responsibility, the responsibility for the spiritual welfare of the members is shared by both lay people and clergy.

            Local lay preachers have been a vital part of the circuit system since these early days and are still just as important today. Methodism neither restricts preaching to ordained clergy, nor does it simply allow anyone to preach without training and assessment. This is a really important.

            There is no circuit without the local churches and there is no local church without the circuit.

Congregation

            There are many variations in what Methodist worship looks like around the country. There are an increasing number of congregations that are experimenting with new forms of worship and fresh expressions of Church, but underneath all of these is the same Methodist engine; of pastoral care through lay and ordained people, of church councils who make decisions about the running of the Church and stewards who, with the minister look after the leadership of the church. In the next session we will cover in greater detail a number of the key features and roles within the Local Church, but let us dwell just for a moment with the flavour of Methodism

            Many people will recognise the regular pattern of Sunday worship in a lot of Methodist churches with hymns and prayers, with readings and sermons. Often the hymns are accompanied by an organ and occasionally with a choir; though in many churches nowadays the organ and choir have been replaced by a band with guitars and drums. What we now think of as a traditional Methodist congregation looks fairly similar to many denominations on the surface, but the origins were somewhat different.

            We grew out of small home groups that were dedicated to discipleship, to mutual accountability and holiness, to sharing the gospel and reforming the church in this country. We grew from groups that had been inspired by street preachers to see that being a Christian was not something that happens simply by behaving within the acceptable norms of society, it was not about the outward image of respectability but rather the seeking inner holiness that transforms your whole being.

            There is an increasing call in these changing times for us to return to some of those early principles. Not to simply go back to the past, to copy and paste the activities of the early Methodist Church on to the present day landscape. Rather to take the intentions of those early days and reinterpret them for our current situation. Martyn Atkins, the General Secretary of the Methodist Church, has framed this desire in his aspirational description of the Methodist Church as a "discipleship movement shaped for mission.[5] We will explore later in the course what that phrase means in a little more depth, but it the idea of the Methodist Church as a whole as a movement brings us neatly back from the local church to the big picture.  

Structure recap

 Meetings Diagram

 

a.      From a meetings structure viewpoint

b.      Church Council bound together by the Circuit meeting, Circuit meetings bound together by synod and synod bound together by conference

c.       Organic/fractal pattern of growth (Like a plant... 'I am the vine you are the branches')

d.      There is no top level or bottom level

e.      Begins with church and moves to conference - but could be done in the other direction

Connexional Diagram

 

a.      From a Connexional view point

b.      The parts do not occupy any separate spaces from the whole - each level is made up entirely of it parts.

c.       It is an organic/fractal pattern of growth (like cell divisions or the breaking of bread; 'remain in me as I remain in you', 'we are all part of the one body')

d.      There is no top level or bottom level

e.      Begins with Connexion and moves to church - but could be done in the other direction

 

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[1] Based on data from http://www.methodist.org.uk/mission/statistics-for-mission

[2] The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church, Volume 1 (Werrington: MPH, 2005) iii

[3] http://www.methodist.org.uk/who-we-are/structure/the-connexion

[4] http://www.methodist.org.uk/who-we-are/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/the-connexion

[5] Martyn Atkins, Contemporary Methodism: A discipleship movement shaped for mission (A summary of the General Secretary’s Report to the Methodist Conference, 2011) http://www.methodist.org.uk/downloads/intra-contemporary-methodism-280611.pdf

Session 2 - Some roles & other vital features of Methodism

            In session 1, we looked at the structures of Methodism, the churches, circuits and districts that all come together to make the Methodist Connexion, and how, whenever we can, we try to make the structure level rather than a vertical hierarchy. In this session we will be looking at some of the roles that people take on in the Methodist Church and how leadership functions in this kind of structure.

The roles;

·         Ministers

·         Local Preachers

·         Stewards

·         Pastoral Visitors

Features

·         Membership

·         Communion

Ministers

            Methodist ministers come in two flavours, presbyter and deacon. In the Methodist Church Presbyters and Deacons have equal standing as ministers, but they exercise their ministries in slightly different ways. With a presbyter the primary focus is on the  Church and with a Deacon the primary focus is on the community, although there is obviously much scope for crossover between those two areas. Nevertheless, this difference in focus can lead to significantly different kinds of ministries. Presbyters are called to a ministry of;

            Word - as in preaching and Biblical teaching;

            Sacrament, The Presbyter is the primary person responsible for Holy Communion and Baptism but we'll come back to that a bit later because sacraments are not just about the Presbyter.

            Pastoral Responsibility - note that it says responsibility; we'll come back to that both in comparison to the Diaconal role and with some lay or non ministerial roles.

            By comparison, Deacons are called to a ministry of

            Service,

            Witness,

            Pastoral care, - note the distinction here that Deacons are not normally expected to have pastoral oversight within the church but pastoral care is very much part of their ministry.

            Outreach

            Worship. There is an important distinction here between worship and preaching. Deacons are not required to be preachers, and do not normally have dispensation to preside over Holy Communion. Service witness outreach and worship are obviously part of the Presbyter's work but are more of a primary emphasis for Deacons.

            Whilst there seems to be a rather loosely defined difference between the two roles on paper, the difference of emphasis can be enormously significant in practice. Notably in this time of decline, the emphasis that Presbyters have towards maintaining the structures of the Church as they exist today means that Deacons are essential for ensuring that the eyes of the Church are not always focussed inwards and back towards the past but also outwards and towards the future. It should also be noted that the Methodist Diaconate is a religious order.

            Having looked briefly at these differences, let's now have a quick look at some of the more general things about ministers in the Methodist Church;

            In the Deed of Union which is included in early pages of Volume 2 of CPD it says that "Christ’s ministers in the church are stewards in the household of God and shepherds of his flock. Some are called and ordained to this occupation as presbyters or deacons."[1] This statement emphasises that everyone in the church is at least to some extent a minister. The ordained ministry is not different because those ministers are special people, they are different because their calling has been tested, their knowledge and understanding has been stretched and deepened through training and experience, and because they have entered into a relationship with the Methodist Church whereby they have agreed to come under its discipline and to give themselves to the work of God's Church.

            That section in CPD goes on to say "Presbyters have a principal and directing part in these great duties but they hold no priesthood differing in kind from that which is common to all the Lord’s people and they have no exclusive title to the preaching of the gospel or the care of souls. These ministries are shared with them by others to whom also the Spirit divides his gifts severally as he wills."

            This is what we call "the priesthood of all believers and consequently we believe that no priesthood exists which belongs exclusively to a particular order or class of persons but in the exercise of its corporate life and worship, special qualifications for particular duties are required and so the principle of representative selection is recognised."

            It might seem an odd thing to include here, but it is also useful to think about why ministers are paid a stipend not a wage. Stipends are in no way unique to the Methodist Church, but there are some variations on how the principle is applied, but here we will explore the Methodist viewpoint. With normal employment there is an employer and a contract, a defined number of hours and employees are paid on the basis of those hours; there is usually a line manager who sets out the parameters of the work, and if the work is done well there may be some opportunities for promotion, and therefore a higher pay grade.

            By contrast, the payment of a stipend is to allow a minister to live and has no other connection with their work. If you become a minister, you are a minister every hour of every day regardless of whether you are preaching, praying, sleeping or having a bath. There are no specific hours of ministerial work; neither is there, as such, a boss who tells you what to do. Methodist Ministers are responsible to the Methodist Church as a whole and the Methodist Church has a responsibility to the Ministers. Crucially that means that whilst a minister hopefully always wants to do what is best for their community, they are not making decisions primarily on how to become more popular as a minister. They aren't seeking promotion and greater pay on the basis of having a big and wealthy congregation.

            Jesus said “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."[2] And perhaps the most important part of that is the last bit, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also. A large and popular church is not necessarily a holy place full of committed disciples. There will always be that flawed part of our humanity which seeks the glory for ourselves, but at our best, the treasure of Methodist ministry is in discipleship and in the building of God's Kingdom, not our own.

            One last thing to point out about ministers is that just as Deacons and Presbyters are of equal standing, so all Methodist ministers are just ministers. While we have superintendants looking after the circuits and District chairs looking after the districts, they have no higher or secondary ordination, they don't become a different kind of minister there are no Bishops, they are still just ministers.

Local preachers

            As was mentioned in the previous session, local preachers are a vital part of the Methodist Church. Like the Presbyters and Deacons, local preachers essentially make a life-long commitment to preaching in the Methodist Church, that is, as long as they remain members of the Methodist Church. When local preachers are accredited there is a circuit service and at that service they make several promises that go beyond making themselves available to preach and continuing their learning. The final promise they make in that service is to 'seek to fashion their lives according to the way of Christ and in all things seek to promote not their own glory, but the glory of the Lord.' This is illustrative of how, throughout the Methodist Church there is an emphasis on discipleship. Most of the roles we take on are not simply about getting a set of tasks done, they are about how we go about 'being' in the body of Christ. That is to say we don't just do work for the body of the church we are called to be the body, to dwell within it in anticipation of our dwelling in the Kingdom of God.

            Local preachers are trained in the circuit and preach within the circuit but it's important to note that all Methodist local preachers are trained through nationally agreed courses and if they move to a different part of the country they are still local preachers in that new place.

            There are also Worship leaders who perhaps ought to be to the local preachers, what Deacons are to Presbyters - We have worked hard to remove any sense of inequality between Presbyters and Deacons over the last few years and we are doing pretty well with that, but we have a long way to go before we are in the same situation with worship leaders.

Stewards

                There are essentially two sides to the role of the stewards. On the one side it is the role of the stewards to implement decisions made by the Church council, and to make sure we are prepared for the meetings, activities and services of worship we have planned to do. In short, when the Methodist Church decides to do something it is our stewards who are responsible for making sure it happens, that is not to say that they have to do all of the work themselves, or indeed any of it if they are really good at delegating.

            On the other side, they act as partners with the Minister in the leadership of the local church. Now leadership is one of those wonderful words, which has a lot of interpretations as we have already explored at the beginning of this session. There are many styles of leadership, but perhaps the important distinction that should be made here is that the implementing of decisions made by the church council is primarily a matter of management, but being a steward is also about leadership.

            Like all appointed roles of the Methodist Church, stewards are appointed yearly, even if they are the same stewards from last year. This is also true of the stationing of ministers, although a minister is a minister for life, they are appointed by Conference to a particular circuit each year, and although most appointments are initially for five years - each of those appointments need to be confirmed by Conference every year.

Pastoral visitors & class leaders

                Every Methodist Church is meant to have a Pastoral Committee, because every member of the Methodist Church is meant have someone, other than the minister who can offer them pastoral care, encouragement in their spiritual life, and to help keep the minister as well as the pastoral committee up to date with any concerns or prayer needs. Every member should have this, but in most churches those non members who are connected in any significant way with the life of the church are also appointed a pastoral visitor. This system means that we are not looking to ministers to solve all the problems, and it helps to build a community where we look to each other as the Church rather than coming as clients to receive from a service provider.

            Most Methodist Churches these days have pastoral visitors rather than class leaders, but there are still a few class leaders around. They are essentially the same except that class leaders also meet in a group or a class with the people under their pastoral care. There has been some encouragement in recent years to start using the class system again, because although the pastoral visiting system has proved excellent in providing care, particularly but by no means exclusively to the elderly, it has not always proved to be the best mode for encouraging discipleship. In the final session we may have some time to look at a group within the Methodist Church called Inspire who are working on this idea.

Membership

            Why do we need membership particularly in one denomination? Why can't we just call ourselves Christians and not have to define ourselves as a member of one denomination or another? Surely in this day and age it is too prescriptive, too exclusive, tying people down to one option. Well, at one level membership is simply about saying I want to be part of this, I want to make a commitment to this community, I want to stand up and be counted as one of God's people and I like the way that Methodists go about being Church. But there is something about Membership that runs far deeper in Methodism.

            When you enter into the Methodist church there is no definitive statement of faith that you have to sign, that covers all the details and nuances of what it is to be a Christian in the Methodist Church. And there is a very good reason for that. We don't have one, because whilst there are many things that most Methodists agree on, there is also room for discussion and disagreement. There are certain things that we must agree to in the confirmation service, but much of the rest is up for grabs. We are not encouraged as Methodists to unplug our brains as we enter, and replace them with a pre set list of religious statements, but rather to embark on a life long journey of learning about God, through exploration of the Bible through the traditions of our own and of other denominations.

            We are encouraged to encounter the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit and we are encouraged to reason for ourselves how to respond to what we have learned. Therefore membership becomes all the more important in this environment because we need to set limits to who can say and do things in a leadership capacity, within a church with such a diverse expression of what it is to be Church. If you want to be a minister, if you want to be a steward, if you want to be a local preacher then you need to be prepared to accept the discipline of the Methodist church.

            The relatively flat structure and the amount of lay leadership, along with the freedom of worship and the encouragement to learn for yourself what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, comes with a cost in terms of how we maintain integrity as a church. Teachers and parents alike will be familiar with that constant need to balance the prescriptive 'because I say so' kind of teaching with the 'go and find out for yourself kind'. 'Because I say so' is easier, especially to start with, but it's not the best way of training children to understand what they are learning and to take it to heart - not just copying like parrots. The same is true of church and the way we learn about God.

            Membership is a way of saying to each other, we agree that we are in this together; we are free to explore and to consider many responses to the scriptures, to question the status quo and to suggest new ways of moving forward. What we don't do is to go off into our small corner and try to build a separate part of the Methodist church that only thinks the way we do. Sometimes people come up with ideas that are not consistent with the Christian faith as seen through the eyes of the Methodist Connexion, sometimes people want to speak about God, but are not prepared to put in the effort of learning that is required. Sometimes people want to take a congregation in a direction that perhaps it should not be going. We collectively hold the responsibility of discipline as through the roles and structures of the Methodist Church.

            But even if you have no interest in any kind of leadership, or have no intention of moving the congregation in any direction either good or bad, membership is a useful way of saying 'my faith in God is not just about me, it is about how we function together as the body of Christ.'  This is reflected in the way that whilst a person's membership is held in the local church, so that we know who it is we are caring for in this place, each member is a member of the whole Methodist Connexion - not the local church.

From the website;

The Service of Confirmation and Reception into Membership includes two questions asked as an Affirmation of Faith: 'Do you turn away from evil and all that denies God?' and 'Do you turn to God, trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and in the Holy Spirit as Helper and Guide?' The answer to both questions is 'By the grace of God I do.'[3]

            Everyone present is then asked to affirm their belief and trust in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, as members of the universal Church which has expressed its faith in the one God through such as the Apostles' Creed over the centuries.

            After confirmation and the reception, the newly-confirmed are asked to make three promises: 'Will you commit yourself to the Christian life of worship and service, and be open to the renewing power of God?', 'Will you seek the strength of God's Spirit as you accept the cost of following Jesus Christ in your daily life?' and 'Will you witness, by word and deed, to the good news of God in Christ, and so bring glory to God?'. The response to each of these is 'With God's help I will.'

From the membership card or ticket;

As a member of the Methodist Church I am called to:

·         worship within the local church, including regular sharing in Holy Communion, and through personal prayer

·         learning and caring, through Bible study and meeting for fellowship, so that I may grow in faith and support others in their discipleship

·         service, by being a good neighbour in the community, challenging injustice and using my resources to support the Church in its mission in the world

·         evangelism, through working out my faith in daily life and sharing Christ with others.

Communion & Communion Stewards

                Communion is one of those tricky subjects that even in this age of renewed ecumenical relations, is still a cause of division and pain. There are disagreements across the whole of the Christian Church about the nature, content and meaning of communion. Disagreements range from whether or not each act of communion connects across all space and time with the moment of crucifixion, to what kind of cups to use. Some of the disagreements are amicable and just a matter of choice, others are felt deeply and painfully by significant numbers of people. There are a wide range of theologies and feelings towards communion even within the Methodist Church but there are some key points to our collective Methodist theology. It is an area that we could spend several hours talking about, but perhaps here we might pick up on just a few points that are significant in terms of how Methodist theology affects how we think about communion.

            We have already mentioned the priesthood of all believers. It is interesting that the Methodist Church doesn't let everyone preside over or lead communion, even though the 'priesthood of all believers' idea might suggest that we ought to. Normally it is the minister who presides over communion, but if there are not enough ministers to offer sufficient communion services in a circuit then Conference can give permission for specific people to lead communion. This happens quite often and includes many probationer ministers. The permission to preside over communion is not given because ministers are special people with special powers, there are other denominations that hold the belief that ministers are 'priests' and only they have the right to call the Holy Spirit into the elements of the bread and wine. 

            In the Methodist Church the limited permission to preside over communion is about keeping church order. It links with the issue of membership and also with the ideas of training and discernment for ministers. Communion is a big deal for many people and there are serious issues to consider. When you receive communion it is unlikely that you are thinking about all the theological, ecclesiological, political and historical issues that connect with communion; you will have your own reason for receiving. Though it is good to be challenged and it's good to explore other people's viewpoints, it's probably best that you are not distracted by all those questions as you receive the elements. However, it is useful to know that the person offering the elements to you and presiding over this act of worship has at least done some reflection on these issues and is not approaching this sacrament lightly.

            One of the really subtle but powerful symbols of Methodist Communion services is the role of the communion steward. In a way they are in management, they have a set of tasks to do to physically help the minister, to ensure the bread and wine are prepared and to help with the distribution of the bread and wine. But they are also in a role of leadership, and it is the kind of role that is both the easiest and the hardest to perform because it is simply about being, being present, being representative. The communion Steward is representative of the lay involvement in communion, the priesthood of all believers, the minister and the communion steward stand side by side as the bread and wine are shared.

                There are many roles within the Methodist Church that we haven't covered in this session, but the ones we have covered will hopefully give you a sense of how things work.

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[1] The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church, Volume 2 (London: Methodist Publishing, 2013) 213

[2] Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV)

[3] http://www.methodist.org.uk/who-we-are/membership