This post has been adapted from one that appeared at Next Step Evangelism in 2012. Andy’s insights continue to be particularly relevant for the United Methodist Church in these days.
I am continually struck by how we in the Methodist tradition strive to invoke the Holy Spirit upon the life of the church and upon those who are to order and lead it. Particularly in our Celebration of Ministry Services that close our Annual Conference sessions, we confess how dependent we are upon the Spirit to share in the mission of the whole church. We are to order our lives not simply toward God but toward one another, and our guiding vision takes a particular shape during a particular time regardless of the challenges. These are grace-filled moments, to be sure, but also reminders of the true end to which Christ calls each of us.
In a letter to John Smith on June 25, 1746, John Wesley, in reflecting on the Methodist movement, wrote, “What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God? And to build them in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable as it answers these ends; and if it answers them not it is worth nothing.”
Wesley’s quote captures the deeply missional thrust of the people called Methodists: a church’s pattern of organization and authority – or polity – must be oriented toward the church’s mission of saving souls or making disciples. How we order our lives must somehow support that basic mission. As Wesley would say elsewhere: if we can’t find ways to organize the church toward these ends, then we might as well let the devil win!
As United Methodists we have spent a great deal of energy over the years trying to align our organization more purposefully with our mission. As historian Russell Richey of Emory University has stated, Methodists have always tried to develop appropriate structures that would sustain and nourish their mission depending on the era. What have remained constant over time are those elements that have been distinctive to Methodists from early on: conference, episcopacy, itinerant ministry, and forms of accountability. While these aspects do not provide a full account of Methodist polity, the loss of any of them would diminish something unique to the Methodist way of sharing in God’s mission.
To be sure, it’s a tall order to keep these four elements together, especially during a time of historic transition. It would be easy, for example, to fall into the trap of wanting to do away with one of these principles at the expense of another. It would also be tempting to see the role of the Holy Spirit as only working in our individual lives or congregations as against the structures of the wider church as an institution. And yet, as our history indicates, our polity has persisted through time not just because we have the right structures but because we are actively seeking to respond to what the Spirit is doing.
Such characteristics, of course, are not unique to United Methodists. Other Pan-Methodists and Wesleyan Holiness churches have also struggled with matters of discipline and order – African Methodist Episcopal and Free Methodists come to mind. They are reminders that questions of mission and polity go hand-in-hand in the Wesleyan tradition.
When I celebrate in worship at Annual Conference, and pray for those who are being commissioned and ordained, I am consistently moved at how Methodism seeks to order its life as a mission-driven community of faith. Again and again, we invoke God’s Spirit as we send out those who will serve among us, sharing in ministries of mutual accountability, and renewing our covenant to be faithful to the example of Christ. It is a hope-filled moment, to say the least.
However, as we think about the future of the United Methodist Church, we may also want to ask ourselves why these four elements in our polity have persisted throughout our history. We may want to ask what these may mean in light of our present challenges. As the current church climate reveals, we have much work to do.