An introduction to the Methodist Way of Life
Service Sheet (pdf)
This service is led by Rev David Goodall, the Missional Communities Enabler of the Yorkshire West District. He says, it is a joy and a great privilege to have this service with you and to begin this series on A Methodist Way of Life. My work across the Yorkshire West District is to help and encourage Circuits and local churches to discover the joy of a Methodist Way of Life and to think about how they can use it and embed it in their lives together.
This is the first of 13 online services which will help you as a Circuit in Bradford North to reflect on a Methodist Way of Life; in this first service I will introduce you to a Methodist Way of Life, and then each of the next 12 services, one each month for a year, will introduce you to one of the commitments in the Methodist Way of Life and will help you think about how you might live it out in your daily discipleship. Along with this service sheet and video, and each of the sheets/videos you will receive over the next 12 months, there is also a handout, a sheet with some resources on it and some questions that you can reflect on in a small group, or with the members of your household, or with some friends from church.
Prayer of Approach
Let us be still as we prepare our hearts and our minds to worship God together. Let us pray.
Loving and holy God, gracious God, open our hearts and minds to you as we worship you now. Speak to us through your Holy Spirit in song, prayer and Scripture, that we may to draw closer to you in our daily lives following Jesus. In his name we pray, Amen.
Song:
Bless the Lord, O my soul (10,000 reasons) – Matt Redman
Prayers of adoration and confession
Blessèd are you, Lord our God; you are the one who created us in your own image, making us and the world to be as beautiful as you are.
Blessèd are you, Lord our God, for you sent your son Jesus Christ to be our Lord and Saviour, coming among us to show us the way to live, the way of your kingdom; and even when we didn’t follow, giving his life on the cross to die for us and rise to new life so that we might experience and share your love in all its fullness.
Blessèd are you, Holy Spirit of God, here amongst us, guiding us and leading us as your people.
Blessèd are you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God three in one, yet one in three, Amen.
God, for those moments when we haven’t acknowledged your goodness, those moments when we have lived our lives rather than your life, we come to ask for your forgiveness. [Silence]
We hear your words of grace that our sins are forgiven and our hearts sing, “Blessèd are you, O Lord our God. Amen.
Reflection
The question I am asked most often is, “What is a Methodist Way of Life and where has it come from?” And perhaps then, “Why should we bother with it?” – and that’s the question I’ll answer a little later on when I reflect on our Bible readings.
At its simplest, A Methodist Way of Life is 12 commitments cased around the Our Calling statements of the Methodist Church that help us to see what it is to live out our lives as Christian disciples.
To dig a little deeper, a Methodist Way of Life came out of a number of years ago as the Methodist Church was thinking about its future. The Methodist Conference, our governing body, chose in 2018 to reaffirm its commitment to Our Calling, a statement of the purpose of the Methodist Church which was adopted in 2000.
In reaffirming its commitment to Our Calling, the Methodist Church was aware that it could do all the strategic thinking and planning it needed, but at the same time it needed to invite members of the Methodist Church to be faithful in their discipleship, and maybe even to be renewed and refreshed in that.
Roger Walton had penned a Methodist Way of Life during his time as Chair here in the District, and the Conference chose to develop Roger’s work in order to give us these 12 commitments to help us live out our discipleship together. The strategic thinking would bring about the structural change the Church needed, and a Methodist Way of Life would bring about the cultural change in its membership to help it grow with God and therefore to be better disciples and better missionaries in the world. Roger said in his book Finding the Way:
A Methodist Way of Life sets out what it means to be Methodist. It puts into words how we try to live our lives in response to God’s love made known to us in Jesus. A Methodist Way of Life is both new and old. It is new, in that in that it was first discussed by the Methodist Conference in 2018 and was shared with all Methodists in 2020. But it is based on what Methodists agreed was their calling in the year 2000 and what, in turn, was built on what Methodists have always done since the days of John Wesley as they tried to follow Jesus and live out the Christian faith. It is a way of living.
When I was asked to write what a Methodist Way of Life was, I said this:
The Methodist Way of Life is a way in which Christians can live out their faith in Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Methodist Way of Life they will deepen their discipleship and play their part in bringing God’s love to the world. It is rooted in the Methodist tradition but draws on a move of the Spirit which is drawing Christians into community with each other in new ways.
If you are someone who prefers pictures to words, Roger says that a Methodist Way of Life is a reminder, a compass and a mirror so that we may participate in God’s transformation of the world. It is a reminder in that it reminds us what it is to live as a Christian disciple in the Methodist tradition. It is a compass in that it points us in the direction we are hoping to go and maybe should be going with God, and it is a mirror in that it holds up before us where we are at and maybe where we need to change and develop.
For me at the heart of it, A Methodist Way of Life is an invitation to Christian discipleship, or maybe more than an invitation to Christian discipleship, an invitation to shape our discipleship in a particular way. It is a gift, it is not something to make us feel guilty about what we’re not doing. It is a balanced way to live our discipleship. The six commitments under Worship and Learning and Caring help us to breathe in God’s love. The six commitments under Service and Evangelism help us to breathe that love out into God’s world.
If we only breathe in, we have a problem, don’t we? We need to both breathe in and breathe out, and it’s the same in our walk with Jesus. We need to breathe in more of God’s love, we need to grow deep with God, but we also need to breathe that love out and let others receive it and invite others to share with us in discovering more of God.
I think one of the challenges of a Methodist Way of Life is that people look at the 12 commitments and think “I’ve got to do them all now!” It’s not like that at all. We don’t have to do them all tomorrow; we need to find a rhythm that’s right for us. The commitments might help us see one area where maybe we’ve not yet developed or grown, or another area where maybe we’re doing too much, and we need to step back to do other parts of our discipleship.
On the back of the commitment card there are also some questions that help us reflect where we are in our journey as Christians. These questions are meant to be used with others. The Christian life is not one that we live on our own, but one that we live in community with other Christians. One of the things that we’ll talk about over these next 12 months is how you might find a small group of people whom you can share these questions with and reflect on your faith journey together. I hope this year that as we journey through the 12 months and through the 12 commitments, you will discover more of the gift of the Methodist Way of Life, and that you’ll want to use it to shape your discipleship, and that maybe with one or two others you’ll share in those questions together, to be encouraged and grow in your faith. Don’t worry about working it all out now; this is just a short introduction and over different weeks of the year ahead, and different videos, and questions you can talk about in small groups, you’ll discover more of the joys of a Methodist Way of Life.
Reading:
Song:
How great the chasm that lay between us
Reading:
That passage is read each year when new Methodist minister are ordained. It’s been part of ordination services for a long time and has those wonderful words “Whom shall I send?” It’s a powerful passage to hear read and preached on at ordinations. If we’re not careful we only read passages like that at ordinations or commissioning services, and we start to think that vocation only applies to certain people – maybe just the ordained, or preachers, teachers, doctors. In fact vocation is an important question for every Christian. Everyone baptised into the family of God has a vocation; if we choose to follow Jesus and to be part of Jesus’s Church then there is a vocation for us all.
For me, a choice to live out our Christian discipleship by a rhythm of life, and in particular today thinking about a Methodist Way of Life, is in itself a vocation. Elaine Heath in her book Longing for Spring which she wrote with Scott Kisker, says that to live out our Christian discipleship by a rhythm of life is one good way to live out Christian discipleship, but it’s not the only way; and my hope through these videos over the next few months is that you will see the vocation of a Methodist Way of Life, the call to respond to God saying “Whom shall I send? – Here I am” to be a call to live a life by these 12 commitments that we’ve spoken of.
Why you might ask, why would we see living our Christian life by these 12 commitments as a vocation? Well, the other thing that’s going on in this passage in Isaiah is the proclamation of the holiness of God. We see the seraphs with their wings flying and hiding their eyes because of the beauty of God that surrounds them, proclaiming those words “Holy, holy, holy.” Isaiah recognises that he doesn’t share that holiness of God. Isaiah sees those many ways in which he’s ridden with sin and feels nothing compared to the great beauty and majesty and holiness of God. But then God’s holiness and Isaiah’s sense of weakness come together. The seraph takes the coal from the altar and touches it on Isaiah’s lips – in that moment of Isaiah being set free from his brokenness, his guilt and sin, Isaiah comes to share in the holiness of God. It is a beautiful moment and it’s from that moment when the holiness of God is shared with Isaiah and he comes to share in it, that he is set free to be called and to be sent to speak for God.
For me, a Methodist Way of Life is rooted in this coming together of God’s holiness to us, of us being part of God’s holiness together. The Deed of Union is a foundational document of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, written in 1932 when the strands of Methodism came together, and within it there is a statement of our doctrine, and it says that the Methodist Church was raised up to spread scriptural holiness through the land. What you and I are called to as a Methodist people is to share the holiness we find in Scripture with each other and with the world; to grow in that holiness and invite others to do the same. John Wesley was recorded as saying along with his brother Charles in one of their first hymn books that there is no holiness but social holiness. We might today jump to thinking that social holiness is the same thing as social justice, but in the Wesleys’ day it was to do with living out faith with others, socially, not just to have social fun together but to share the journey of faith with others. So holiness, scriptural and social holiness, are at our heart as Methodists and this passage from Isaiah reminds us that that holiness flows from God. Of course in Jesus Christ, in his death and resurrection, that holiness becomes available for all. Jesus invites us through the forgiveness that he offers us, to share life with God, and when we share life with God we’re told in Scripture that we also share righteousness and holiness with God. In some ways holiness is a challenging concept and I really recommend Calvin Samuel’s book More Distinct. In it, Calvin says:
We cannot become holy unless God shares God’s holiness with us. And yet we never become holy, apart from seeking it, working at it, and pursuing the Holy One.
A Methodist Way of Life begins with the words: “The calling of the Methodist Church is to respond to the Gospel of God’s love in Christ and to live out its discipleship in worship and mission.” It is in our response to God’s love that God shares his holiness with us and you and I become holy. Through the 12 commitments we can do the other side of what Calvin says in his book – seek God’s holiness by living those commitments together.
Having some rhythm that helps us to seek and live God’s holiness is nothing new. Our passage from Acts 2 reminds us of what was going on in the early Church. This passage is recorded just after the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. The Church is growing and they want to know how to live as a new Church. They ask Peter what to do. He invites them to be baptised, and then in Acts 2:42 we hear about those first rhythms the early Church adopted. They committed themselves to teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, to prayers. We read in verse 46 that this commitment to this rhythm together led them to have glad and thankful hearts, generous hearts. Through all of this more were added to their numbers as people saw their vibrancy, their breathing in of God’s love and their breathing out and sharing that with others.
A Methodist Way of Life is our version today of what the early Church had in Acts 2. Through the 12 commitments we can grow in our holiness, we can spread Scriptural holiness to others by talking to others of Jesus, and we do all of that in a healthy rhythm, not trying to do it all tomorrow or wondering if we should try to do it all every week even; but through the year finding that rhythm, breathing in God’s love through Worship, Learning and Caring, and breathing it out to others in Service and Evangelism.
So today I want to encourage you to see a Methodist Way of Life as part of your vocation as a Christian disciple, as a way of holding in balance all that God asks of you, to find space to care for yourself as well as caring for others, to find space to let God speak to you in prayer and Scripture, but also to talk of God’s love to others whom you meet. I believe if we see a Methodist Way of Life as part of our vocation, then we will grow in that holiness which God shares with us, which Isaiah experienced in that space when the coal touched his lips and he was set free.
A Methodist Way of Life is a gift, it is not a guilt. It is a plant trellis from which we grow together. I hope over the months ahead that you will see that. And while I want to be honest and admit that at times the commitments can feel scary and that they may invite us to change or to work differently, they also help us to find a rhythm, to bring a joy to our lives as fellow disciples. They help us find that better rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.
So I offer you a gift. I offer you an invitation . I offer you a question. Do you see a Methodist Way of Life as part of your vocation – how might it help you to live out your vocation as someone baptised into the body of Christ and who might you share that journey with, so it’s not a solitary journey but one shared with others in joy and fruitfulness?
May you be blessed as you discover more of God’s holiness and live it out together. Amen.
Prayers of intercession
Loving God, who calls us to breathe in and breathe out, help us to pray now for one another, for your world, and help us to pray for ourselves.
We pray, loving God, for the world which you created, beautiful in so many ways yet damaged by the carelessness of ourselves and others. Help us to address the reality of the climate change emergency as we care for your creation. Help us to be better at recycling and thinking about the resources that we need to use.
We pray, loving God, for the places in your world where there is war and conflict, famine and drought. We ask, Lord, for you to bring peace and harmony, and provision for all.
We pray for your Church, loving God, that it may be a shining beacon of your son Jesus Christ in the world.
We pray, loving God, that all of us may respond to our vocation, a vocation to live out our discipleship with you through a Methodist Way of Life, and within that vocation to particular areas of ministry or service.
We pray for those watching this service and participating in it, that they may accept the invitation to live their faith in this way; and we pray, loving God, for those we know in need and for any needs that we have ourselves – Lord, pour out your Spirit of healing and hope, of comfort and generosity into each of our hearts and into those we know who need your healing and help this day.
We offer all our prayers to you, those spoken and those deep in our hearts, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Saviour, Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Song:
I will offer up my life in Spirit and truth
Blessing
The blessing of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you and all whom you love, this day and always, Amen.
QUESTIONS
Resources to support A Methodist Way of Life:
On this website: https://www.methodist.org.uk/mwol you’ll find many resources to support A Methodist Way of Life including:
- Commitment Cards in a number of different languages
- A Brief Guide to A Methodist Way of Life
- Finding the Way by Rev. Roger Walton
- Worship Resources and Videos
Many of these resources can be ordered from Methodist Publishing free of charge: https://www.methodistpublishing.org.uk/features/methodist-way-of-life
Questions for Reflection:
- Where do you find rhythm in your life at the moment?
- If you had to describe holiness in a sentence or two what would you say?
- How do you respond to the idea that we both share the holiness of God yet need to continue to seek it?
- Have a look at the commitments in A Methodist Way of Life. Choose one which you feel comfortable with and one which particularly challenges you. Share your responses with the group.
- The commitments come alive for us when we discover the discipleship practices which enable us to live them out. For example, using the Morning Prayer liturgy from the Northumbria Community is a practice which brings the commitment ‘We will pray daily’ alive, recycling brings alive the commitment ‘We will care for creation and all God’s gifts’. Share some of the discipleship practices you are undertaking at the moment which bring the commitments alive for you.
- Who do you share with about your faith? Who challenges you about your faith? What ways have you found that help you to grow in your faith?
- Who could you meet with in a Methodist Way of Life Reflection group to help you grow together in your faith?
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