|
What we believe ...
John Wesley
John Wesley believed that God provides us with three kinds of grace:
- Prevenient Grace
- Accepting Grace
- Sustaining Grace
|
|
Prevenient Grace is with us from birth, preparing us for new life in Christ. "Prevenient" means "comes before." Wesley did not believe that humanity was totally "depraved" but rather God places a little spark of divine grace within us which enables us to recognize and accept God's justifying grace. Preparing grace is "free in all for all," as Wesley used to say. |
|
Justifying Grace is also referred to as being "born again." When we experience God's justifying grace, we come into that new life in Christ. Wesley believed that people have freedom of choice. We are free to accept or reject God's justifying grace. |
|
Sustaining Grace, Wesley believed that, after we have accepted God's grace, we are to move on in God's sustaining grace toward perfection. Wesley believed the people could "fall from grace" or "backslide." We cannot just sit on our laurels, so to speak, and claim God's salvation and then do nothing. We are to participate in the what Wesley called "the means of grace"and to continue to grow in Christian life.
|
|
John Wesley (28 June 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Anglican minister, who along with his brother Charles founded the Methodist movement in England. They took to open-air preaching and formed societies of Christians throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; small groups that developed intensive, personal accountability, discipleship and religious instruction among members.
John Wesley and the early Methodists were particularly concerned about inviting people to experience God’s grace and to grow in their knowledge and love of God through disciplined Christian living. They placed primary emphasis on Christian living, on putting faith and love into action. This emphasis on what Wesley referred to as "practical divinity" has continued to be a hallmark of United Methodism today.
Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna Annesley. His father was a graduate of the University of Oxford and a Church of England rector. Susanna bore Samuel Wesley nineteen children. In 1696 Wesley's father was appointed the rector of Epworth. At the age of five, Wesley was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind and he regarded himself as providentially set apart, as a "brand plucked from the burning".
On 14 October 1735, Wesley and his brother Charles sailed for Savannah, Georgia in the American colonies at the request of James Oglethorpe. The newly–granted colony was the last of the American colonies to be established. Oglethorpe wanted Wesley to be the minister of the newly formed Savannah parish. Wesley saw Oglethorpe's offer as an opportunity to spread Christianity to the Native Americans in the colony. Wesley's mission, however, was unsuccessful and he and his brother Charles were constantly beset by troubles in the colonies.
Wesley returned to England depressed and beaten. It was at this point that he turned to the Moravians. Wesley had encountered the Moravians three years earlier on his voyage to Georgia. At one point in the voyage a storm came up and broke the mast off the ship. While the English panicked, the Moravians calmly sang hymns and prayed. This experience led Wesley to believe that the Moravians possessed an inner strength which he lacked. His Aldersgate experience of 24 May 1738, at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, in which he heard a reading of Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and penned the now famous lines "I felt my heart strangely warmed", revolutionised the character and method of his ministry.
At the invitation of his friend George Whitfield, Wesley began preaching in open-air services. He recognised the open-air services were successful in reaching men and women who wouldn't enter most churches. From then on he took the opportunities to preach wherever an assembly could be gotten together, more than once using his father's tombstone at Epworth as a pulpit. Wesley continued for fifty years — entering churches when he was invited, and taking his stand in the fields, in halls, cottages, and chapels, when the churches would not receive him.
Wesley traveled constantly, generally on horseback, preaching two or three times a day. Stephen Tomkins writes that he "rode 250,000 miles, gave away 30,000 pounds and preached more than 40,000 sermons.
|
|
|
Basic Beliefs |
God
- We believe in one God, who created the world and all that is in it.
- We believe that God is sovereign; that is, God is the ruler of the universe.
- We believe that God is loving. We can experience God’s love and grace
|
Jesus
- We believe that Jesus was human. He lived as a man and died when he was crucified.
- We believe that Jesus is divine. He is the Son of God.
- We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that the risen Christ lives today. (Christ and messiah mean the same thing—God’s anointed.)
- We believe that Jesus is our Savior. In Christ we receive abundant life and forgiveness of sins.
- We believe that Jesus is our Lord and that we are called to pattern our lives after his.
|
Holy Spirit
- We believe that the Holy Spirit is God with us.
- We believe that the Holy Spirit comforts us when we are in need and convicts us when we stray from God.
- We believe that the Holy Spirit awakens us to God’s will and empowers us to live obediently.
|
People
- We believe that God created human beings in God’s image.
- We believe that humans can choose to accept or reject a relationship with God.
- We believe that all humans need to be in relationship with God in order to be fully human.
|
Church
- We believe that the church is the body of Christ, an extension of Christ’s life and ministry in the world today.
- We believe that the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
- We believe that the church is “the communion of saints,” a community made up of all past, present, and future disciples of Christ.
- We believe that the church is called to worship God and to support those who participate in its life as they grow in faith.
|
Bible
- We believe that the Bible is God’s Word.
- We believe that the Bible is the primary authority for our faith and practice.
- We believe that Christians need to know and study the Old Testament and the New Testament
|
|
Beliefs
