What Methodists Believe About Worship

“Christian worship is where we declare that the risen Christ has overcome every power that would separate us and every evil that would destroy us. In worship we declare Jesus Christ over all.”

“As worship concludes we are sent forth into the world in the confidence of the risen Christ. The church gathered for worship becomes the church scattered for witness and service. To take the story we just heard in church of God’s love out into the world. We come in to prepare to be sent out.”

 “Our presence in Christian community and in corporate worship really matters. It matters to us because it is one of the essential practices by which we are formed into the likeness of Christ. It matters to others because our presence may be the gift that God uses to strengthen, encourage, challenge and bless our brothers and sisters in Christ. It matters to the world because it prepares us to become agents of God’s persistent love as we participate in God’s transformation of the world!

The Importance of Participating in Worship and Small Group

Today’s post is still from my teaching The Path to Discipleship, a Methodist study.

Being a follower of Jesus means being in community with other followers of Jesus. We can be religious or spiritual without the presence of other people in our lives, but we cannot be growing disciples of Jesus without the encouragement, guidance, wisdom and accountability of other disciples.

A Methodist missionary once said, “Everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone else who belongs to Christ.” Jesus demonstrated community by calling 12 ordinary men together to become His disciples. And He promised that wherever two or three were gathered in His name, He would be there.

When we focus on God in worship and in small groups, we find that God is already there, ready to fill us with grace and love.

The book of Acts talks about the early church and gives us a good example to follow. The early Christians met together, devoted themselves to the Apostle’s teachings, they fellowshipped with each other, shared, prayed…and the church grew.

One of things we promised when joining the church was our “presence” – in both corporate worship and small group. We gather to experience God, praise God, know God and grow together as disciples of Jesus Christ so that we become a part of God’s transformation of the world.

When we are saved we are given brothers and sisters in Christ. We become a part of the body of Christ. Remember the greatest commandment is Love God AND love others.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: ¹⁰ If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. ¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? ¹² Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

The first Methodists both believed and practiced this principle. The Wesleys began the small group! Charles Wesley wrote, “All praise to our redeeming Lord, who joins us by His grace, and bids us, each to each restored, together seek His face.”

When John Wesley was preaching to thousands he noted that those who were active in small groups grew in their faith and those who were not quickly fell away. Growth to maturity as a disciple of Jesus Christ happens best when each individual disciple is connected to others in the community of a small group.

The Methodist’s View of the Bible

We should study the Bible to know how to do Christ’s work in the world. Our knowledge of God’s Word is not useful unless it strengthens our faith and leads us to do good.

John Wesley called himself a man of one book. We need to spend time reading it and meditating on it, trusting the Holy Spirit to bring it to life for us. Wesley wrote, “I want to know one thing; the way to Heaven. God Himself has condescended to teach me the way… He has written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book.”

Wesley was well read of other books, but Scripture was his priority. In his complete English Dictionary Wesley defined a Methodist as “one that lives according to the method laid down in the Bible.” He believed we can never be growing disciples of Jesus Christ without disciplined study of and reflection on the written Word.

What the Bible was meant to do is answered in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

When we study the Bible we should be looking for who God is and what He’s saying to us every time.

Prayer is talking to God. Reading His Word is Him talking to us. God longs to be known. And the Bible is one of the means by which God is revealed to us.

Discipleship

I’m teaching a seven (or quite possibly eight) week study on The Path to Discipleship, based on our Methodist tradition. Over the next few posts I’ll be sharing different thoughts from it.

Discipleship is about learning to walk with Christ. We stumble. We fall like toddlers learning to walk. But we pick ourselves up and go on. Like parents and grandparents surrounding the children who are quick to pick them up, we are surrounded by a church family who picks us up, holds our hands and keeps walking with us. We keep growing. We keep moving into a more God centered life. We keep becoming more like Jesus.

What is a disciple’s path?

Luke 10:25-28 ²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Discipleship begins with love! Love of God and love of each other. We will act on this love. And it will transform us into an image of Christ. When we are followers it’s not just head belief, we have to do something. Act out our love for God and for others. And it’s growing, we don’t stay the same.

The discipleship pathway is the way we grow as followers of Christ. Christ is not just subscribing to and claiming a set of beliefs, rituals or spiritual discipline. It is a way of life.

The grace of God loves us enough to meet us where we are, but loves us too much to leave us there.